Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Well, the flu took down almost everyone in the house over the weekend as you know and so far only Meghan and I have escaped. Steve had to take time off work which is incredibly unusual for him. Kate is feeling well enough to go back to school today which is good because her Christmas concert is tonight. Meghan's concert was on Monday.

The good news is that we have the other van up and running at last so I now have wheels! Yay! In 10 days our other insurance expires so I've got to arrange for a new windshield for the white van and get it inspected with new insurance.

Oh one note about vehicle insurance...it turns out that our rates are different in NS than in BC. We were originally paying in BC about $950 per year for PLPD which is basic insurance for business use. Here the same insurance is costing us $323 per year. Our business liability insurance is the same, we paid about 5 times the amount in BC that we have to pay here. I'm not sure why the difference. Maybe less claims and accidents here but we're pleased to save the money either way.

It's now 10 days to Christmas. And the big question (besides 'what am I getting') is will we have a white Christmas? So the good folks over at the Weather Network did some figuring and have analyzed historical weather data to determine the chances of having a white Christmas for different cities in Canada. Here's the list...

CityAverage chance* of a White Christmas
Yellowknife100 %
Whitehorse100 %
Iqaluit100 %
Kenora100 %
Goose Bay100 %
Quebec City95 %
Winnipeg95 %
Saskatoon89 %
Thunder Bay89 %
Regina89 %
Edmonton79 %
Ottawa79 %
Charlottetown63 %
Fredericton58 %
Montreal68 %
Moncton63 %
London63 %
St. John's63 %
Sarnia32 %
Sydney47 %
Saint John41 %
Kelowna42 %
Halifax47 %
Calgary47 %
Toronto37 %
Vancouver21 %
Victoria16 %

So far it's been above normal here in Nova Scotia as far as temperatures go. Although we saw that 17 inches of snow several weeks ago we haven't had a single flake since and it's only just starting to push into below freezing temps. We lit the furnace for an hour or two each of the last couple of days and this evening I'll likely build a small fire for the evening too. With the sun out during the day it warms up the house a little so that I don't worry about heating until supper time.

Ok well I'm getting the kids off to school so that I can go out shopping for a gift for Steve and some butter for making cookies today. I'm going to stick to just a few kinds that keep well...chocolate crinkles, Scottish shortbread, gingerbread men, and we'll see about sugar cookies. I've got to get things packed up and mailed to the Grandkids today if possible too.

Have a good day!

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