Trails of Hats'n Hospitalitea

The Winter hasn’t been all that long this year in fact we didn’t get a lot of snow.  I’ve spent most of my Winter catching up on things I needed to get done.  I think it started with needing to loose weight and feeling that sitting at the computer for extended hours was interfering with that.  I was right, after I got away from the computer I had more time to concentrate, loose weight, get some planning done, help finish our office, make jewellery for the gift shop and on and on.

In the Fall I finally got at painting one of the B&B rooms upstairs. I have only wanted to re-due these rooms since we bought the house and how else do you eat an elephant but one bite at a time.  Only thing is I was having a hard time taking that first bite. 

Then just a little over a month ago I hung the last picture frame and put a few touches back to the other room opposite the hall.  I’ve since changed the curtains and bedspreads.

We finally got an offer on our big old farm house in Greenvale. I’m sad to see it go as there are so many memories in that old house. On the other hand we have been in the poor house keeping two properties going and one of them empty, it will be nice not to pinch pennies so hard.  I have a lot of pictures if the memories start to fade.

I have had to sell all the furniture in the house as we don’t have room for it. That has been a challenge in itself, making a listing, posting, answering email, haggling, and then letting go a piece of your past…moving on.

We built an office over the Winter and now I have a space with two doors that both lock from the inside and I can go and get some work done when I need to and just have some quiet time.  In this office space we left one wall open and painted it the same colour as the walls, yup purple and put shelf up on the open wall and this is where we keep the many  jars of sorted sea glass collection we have.  As well we have all the tea for the tea room here, with a shelf that I can weight and measure out the tea for sales. I love my new little space it gives me a little more room to work. 

I wanted to sort some of my pictures and share them with friends so I created a new page on Facebook called PEI though a lens and added pictures here of places around the Island like the butterfly emporium that Bruce has over in New Glasgow  to some of my favourite pictures of barns and bales, lighthouses and outhouses.  I made a dashboard picture of mums favourite old Brownie camera.

That old house I talked about that we love so much also caused a bit of stress so every now and then we managed to get to the beach even this past winter and do a little beachcombing to just settle our nerves and listen to the rocking of the ocean while we walked and talked. In fact we enjoy this so much we felt others would also so we waited for Canadian Tire to put their longitude and latitude navigational devices, holly crap that is why they call them GPS…anyway they went on sale and we got 2 and spent the better part of  two weeks mapping and hunting locations to send people on an adventure combing our beautiful beaches. The adventure will cost $40 dollars and include a signature map with hints and tricks to find treasures of sea glass as well the GPS that will take you to different locations around the Island. 

We took a trip back to Ottawa to visit family and friends and had a great time. We haven’t been on a road trip in a year and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed being on the road. I was able to spend time with my Dad, scrapbook with my sister-in-law, bead with my cousin and take in a few lessons in crochet with Mrs. C. I had a wonderful time and made lots of memories while I was there.

My Dad

We still found time to beachcomb for sea glass this past Winter.

Even though it was muddy

I’m always in my element when by the ocean

We found lots of glass

Found two marbles

Who would have thought you’d find a cut Ruby

Wow! I’m amazed at the colour of sea glass on PEI

Then we found fire glass

Ok, enough with the sea glass….sorry I got off in a tangent.  We were spoiled with about a week of high temperatures and so was the garden and it started to bloom with tulips and daffodils coming up everywhere. The ice left the pond and that was another little clean up. These days I’m bagging sea glass earrings for the gift shop and trying to organize. “Organize,” more like I move a pile from one spot to another and I’m no further ahead. I’m just not feeling up to this coming season, don’t get me wrong I’m excited about it but with little or no energy to be excited.

I had better get my breakfast and do a little or it will be that time again when the lights go out and you rest for the next day. 

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bye ~ cindy