Michele’s Musings

We have just finished week 4 with at least 2 more to go *sigh*.  This weekend was all about the drywall finishing.  We got all the mudding and taping done Friday night/Saturday.  Today was spent sanding, what a dirty, filthy, messy job, UGH!  I had to wash my hair twice in shower.  We still have a bit to do, but we should be done Monday night, just have to wait for this last bit to dry so we can sand it.  Here are a couple pictures

I  have some pictures in a new album on Facebook, so you can check out the rest at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23511&l=bdcfd&id=573976479

Or at least Hell Three Days!  Pension and other gov’t cheques came in Wed., which meant line ups out the door all day for three days straight at the bank!  I’m a teller, have I mentioned that before?  It was insane yesterday because as an added bonus it was a Friday (payday) and end of the month!  I had two screaming matches break out, one Wed. and one Fri. because of line jumping.  Both wanted my wicket (lucky me) when I hadn’t even called anyone over yet!  Word to the wise, don’t even think of line jumping at the bank when the line ups are out the door…. it won’t be pretty!  Yup, never a boring day at the bank…..

This weekend is going to be all about drywall finishing, mudding and taping and sanding oh my…..  We are not going to be done for Thanksgiving, luckily we have an invitation to a friends house   I will take more pictures at the end of the weekend!

Here is our work from this weekend. We have almost finished the drywall!

I uploaded some photos to Facebook. You can check them out at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15340&l=3e2db&id=573976479

Thursday was a very good day

It was also a busy week!  A good friend had surgery so I was playschool mom on Tuesday morning before work for her, then we had her girls for a sleepover last night.  She is home from the hospital now and doing great! 

James and I are moving along well with the kitchen today!  We had to replace a stud in one of the kitchen walls because we discovered it was very bowed and would have caused a problem when we put cabinets in!  This afternoon we have insulated the outside wall put the vapour barrier up, and finished off laying plywood on the hallway floor.  We are now ready to drywall!  James is off to Rona to buy some.  Busy day!

So we are doing a kitchen reno…… the only thing holding us up is the electrical. We WANT to do things legally. We WANT to follow the rules. Really we DO! But man it would be so much SIMPLER to ignore all the rules like most everyone else we know does 

Dh knows electrical and is comfortable doing the work so we were going to get a homeowner’s permit. He got 4 different electrician’s input about what he should do and how to do it. One of them was even specifically a residential electrician (he was VERY helpful). All of them said to do blah blah blah, get your permit and inspection and you are good to go. So dh goes about trying to get it today. He called whomever he called…. and yes, he can do it through fax so he doesn’t have to take any time off work to go in person. AWESOME! He faxes the application and credit card info off…. then gets a phone call…. she cannot issue us a permit because we live in a CONDO! Apparently if your home is attached to others (I don’t think duplexes count?) you cannot get a homeowner’s permit for electrical, you can only have the work done by a MASTER electrician and they have to pull the permit  None of our electrician’s knew this! So dh calls up his buddy who does work at his office who he thought was a master, nope, he doesn’t need to be for the work he does, his partner was one, but he died…. moving on….. dh calls another friend of ours who is an electrician to ask him if he is by any chance a master….. nope…. does he have one in his back pocket???? dh asks… as a matter of fact he does! So dh calls this guy named Guy up and tells him our dilema, he didn’t know the deal about the condo’s either but even though he is really busy, he is willing to stop by on Monday night THANK GAWD! Dh is SOOOO fustrated poor guy. He is trying to make me happy as we are on week 2 with no kichen with at least 2 more weeks in ahead of us IF the electrical gets done soon!

So fingers crossed, everyone send me happy thoughts that we’ll get through this soon with our marriage intact!

It’s all over the news…

It started off as a small slight, it offended a small group of lactivists (that would be a lactation activist for anyone wondering) who were quite confused as to why anyone would be offended by the image of a mother and child breastfeeding.  Karen Speed, who I know as JQ from www.linkingparents.com showed us the email she got from Facebook after her temporary ban was made permanent.  We were agast.  Breastfeeding photos are “other obsene content” that would not be allowed?  Are they mad?  

Then a new Facebook group was started by Kelli Roman in San Diego CA Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!(Official petition to Facebook) and as good lactivists we all jumped on the bandwagon and joined the group, us lactivists band together you know …. then earlier this week a newspaper in of all places, Sydney Australia picked up the story.  Now it is al over the news, CPO’s own dani arnold was interviewed by an Ontario newsstation (hey dani is it on You Tube yet???) the Facebook petition group has soared in numbers and the lactivists are heartened that many others think Facebook is crazy to consider bfing photos obsene, especially when so many other sexually explicit photos remain on the site. 

What’s FUNNY to me is…. the photos don’t get removed from Facebook unless someone complains about them.  These bfing photos were in private albums and on breastfeeding support group albums.  They were not thrown up in public places to get attention.  Someone with nothing better to do (maybe a vendetta???) went around reporting bfing photos from these groups and private albums to cause trouble and look where it’s gone?  Facebook looks rediculous and Karen is getting attention from all over the world for her BLISS Breastfeeding website/

WTG Lactivist’s!

I’m 37 today!  I certainly don’t FEEL 37, where did the years go?????  Today is of course the anniversary of 9/11, which always kinda puts a damper on everyone’s mood, but I try not to let it get to me, it’s my day to and I’m going to enjoy it!

I got birthday wishes from dh, one of my kids and most of my friends, and my mom called on the weekend since she lives in another time zone and we work opposite shifts, it’s hard to speak to each other midweek.  Last year I had a really sucky birthday, dh did NOTHING to acknowledge it and I was NOT impressed!  I am hoping *fingers crossed* to get an electrical permit for my birthday this year, how exciting would THAT be?????  If he manages to get downtown to get that I will be happy!  We cannot move forward with the reno until we have it and I am starting to go stir crazy with no kitchen!

I have to go renew my license this morning, nothing like leaving it till the last minute LOL  I also have to get a new picture taken, so I actually put make up on this morning!  They are black and white pictures but I don’t want the bags under my eyes that dh has in his picture!

As far as the reno goes, we discovered the “mold” in the insulation was really just dirt, thank gawd!  But we took it down anyway and bought new stuff.  So the walls are empty awaiting the new wiring etc, which is why we are waiting on a permit.  We have also got most of the new underlay down on the kitchen floor, just a couple more sheets to go.  As soon as the electrical passes inspection we can go gang busters on the drywall and cabinets so wich me luck!

I have been reading a series of books by Sherrilyn Kenyon, the Dark Hunter series, really enjoying them!  I just finished book 6 last night “Night Play” and have put the next two on hold at the library

Oh my a kitchen reno is not all that fun to live through!  Sorry I haven’t updated lately, got caught up in all the mess at home and getting the kids off to school. 

So we are currently living without a kitchen….

I have updated my Facebook Album - Starting the Reno

We have our major appliances in the livingroom, as well as our kitchen table, so I’m kinda cooking in the livingroom, although I can’t use the stove, only the microwave and bbq on the deck lol  We are still doing demo, taking down drywall….  James went to take a piece down from the exterior wall last night that was damaged while taking the cupboards down, and found mold in the insulation *surprise suprise*  so he decided to go ahead and rip all the drywall off that wall and found it pretty much all over.  The original vapour barrier wasn’t taped, only doubled over, which was code back then…. so we need to replace all the insulation, vapour barrier (tuck taped properly) and drywall now *sigh*  Ah well two full walls will be easier to do than patching right?  We have also arranged for 310-DUMP to come on Monday to remove all the reno garbage from our yard so that will be nice! 

Oh an I have a cold  so every five minutes I’m running for Kleenex!

Off to the hardware store….