Midnight Doghouse Run

 Ever see someone walking down a snowy street with a doghouse in hand? 

Well that was my gang last Sunday. We were alerted by a post on Buy Nothing Hintonburg that there was a dog house available on the corner of Gladstone and Irving and 20 minutes later we were out the door going to pick it up.

Buy Nothing is an interesting phenomena. People are literally giving away almost everything on this site: TVs, plants, pots and pan, even half eaten boxes of cereal. And guess what? There are takers for everything! Well... almost everything. Glosette Girl tried to give away some teaching books earlier this year and there were no takers :( 

Oh well. Guess open boxes of Cheerios are more interesting.

Anyways, if you haven't done so yet, check out whether there is a "Buy Nothing" group in your area. There probably is and you will be surprised at what you can find.

As for me, well I am now a proud owner of a doghouse, which takes pride of place in my backyard. By the way, I don't have a dog.

Margot is hoping to rehabilitate the doghouse for our cat, Panda

Étoile du Squat

Ah the simple joys of childhood...

This week, Margot was recognized by Télé Quebec as the Étoile du Squat. Squat is a french supervised social media website that does a surprisingly good job at keeping Margot on top of current affairs in a kid-friendly way. It's like a french CBC website for kids. On the site children post comments about hot topics and also have the ability to comment on each other's posts. 

The Internet loves Margot

Well Squat has apparently been paying attention to Margot's posts because she received the award for her polite tone, her positive comments and her kind words towards others. 

Margot was literally BEAMING when she found out she had received the award. To top things off, after Squat announced she was the Étoile du Squat she received 289 comments or posts congratulating her. Of course she had to respond to them all personally!

The only downside is that has to check every morning for new Squat comments!

What a great day to be a squatteuse!

Hintonburg lineups

 Ottawa is known for a lot of things:

• There are more than 14 museums in Ottawa, and apparently the Canadian History Museum is the most visited museum in Canada.
• A skilled and competent civil service (20% of all adults in the Federal civil service alone)
  
• We take great pride in civic responsibility (we are above the national average when it comes to voting woohoo!)
• We have an educated population (four universities plus colleges)
• The Rideau Canal is the largest skating rink in world
• It's the seventh coldest capital in the world...*
  

Hmmm not exactly the most riveting list is it? It probably explains why people often claim it's a boring city even though, as I've said before, I would argue that's unfair.

And true to form, even a worldwide pandemic can't stop Ottawan's from our organized and officious selves! I snapped this photo of people standing in line to buy Suzy Q donuts on Sunday when it was a (crazy) 20 degrees Celsius outside. Now don't get me wrong, Suzy Q isn't half bad but standing around for 20 minutes at 2 pm...for donuts?

Still, it's great to support local. And who am I to judge what people stand outside for? I've seen lineups around the block for ice cream (in October) and grocery stores at 8 am when they open (waiting 30 minutes after opening avoids the lines).  Compared to the passion in that country down south of us... maybe standing around in lines isn't such a bad quirk!

*Ulaan-Baatar (Mongolia), Astana (Kazakhastan), Moscow, Helsinki, Reykjavik and Tallin (Estonia) apparently beat us.