Michele’s Musings

I can’t believe I haven’t posted here since June 1st!  Between soccer, school field trips, volunteer commitments, work, planning our summer vacation…..  I think this weekend I can finally catch my breath!

Rowan had a great soccer season, had lots of fun, especially in goal.  Only problem is he now has exercise induced asthma.  He has had eczema since infancy so asthma is something we have been watching for in him because they are closely related.  This year he was having a hard time running, having to catch his breath, then coughing after games all evening.  Got him into the dr and he’s now taking Singulair, it seems to help.  His last couple games he had an easier time and there was no coughing.  Master Rowan is now a grade 3er!

Keely now needs to see a physiotherapist for her arm, she was doing really well with mobility, but recently as she makes a fist, her pinkie knuckle becomes indented and she gets a pain in her wrist….. I need to call and make an appointment for that!  She got her hair cut last night, it looks really cute, kind of cut like mine with layers but no bangs.  And she is now a grade 5er!

Arran is happy to be done exams.  He got a Merit award for having over a 75% average with his core subjects…. how he managed that with a 58 in LA I don’t know… I guess the 80’s in religion and gym helped?  lol Anyway he’s onto HS in the fall, grade 10!  Oh my!

I went out Wed night to Jubulations dinner theatre with co-workers and saw Grey’s House of Anatomy, it was really good!  Didn’t get home till 11 though, was very tired the next day!  Today and Monday are going to be stupid busy at work!  Word to the wise, if you don’t HAVE to go to the bank, don’t!  The line ups will be killer!  I have also been taking over the treasurer duties for the community league, wish me luck.

This weekend we have sad plans… we are bringing the cats to the shelter.  They have been fighting for about 9 months and no longer getting along.  It has become too stressful around the house, with hissing and spitting and fur flying…. We kept hoping it would improve, but it hasn’t.  We are surrendering both because I don’t have the wisdom of Solomon.  Give up one and one child is resentful…  They both seem to have accepted the inevitable, but I’m sure there will be some tears come Saturday. 

The rest of the weekend, I’m hoping the good weather will find James out in the yard sawing me some toe kicks and trim for the kitchen!  Otherwise cleaning and laundry.   James has Monday off work, while I get Tues off, so any family plans for Canada Day are shot.  We probably won’t go to the fireworks in Fort Sask as usual because we have to get up early for work on Wed!  We also need to finalize our vacation plans, get the itinerary set and hotels booked!

I have finished reading Voyager, so 1/2 way through the Outlander series, although the last 3 books are longer……  I have taken a break and am reading a Kresley Cole book called No Rest For the Wicked.  When I’m done I’ll probably try to tackle Drums of Autumn.

I hope everyone has a great Canada Day!

Another weekend over, but we got a lot done.  Friday night and Saturday morning we made the kids purge their bedrooms, got rid of a lot of stuff!  But this needs to be done ASAP because our condo has a big bin parked here for a few weeks and we think now would be a good time to rip out all the flooring upstairs and install the laminate!  Hopefully we can start next weekend, the big decision is whether to start in our room or the boys….. I think the boys but whatever….  Scratch that…. Rowan’s in a soccer tournament next weekend…. ok well maybe the next weekend?  I guess we’ll play it by ear.

Saturday night we watched The Waterhorse on PPV, it was quite enjoyable!  Very nice movie to watch with the family.  Then after it was over I went to bed and read Outlander, just continued the historical Scottishness!  I finished Outlander in bed this morning.  I am torn whether to start Dragonfly in Amber or get into the Kresley Cole books I bought…..  I think both!  lol 

Yesterday and today I did some work on the yard, I got the grass cut and trimmed, we went to Costco and a local garden centre and bought some hanging baskets and plants for the containers, cleaned up the raised bed, hacked back the climbing thing that grows there…. no idea WHAT it is.  Installed our solar lights, looking forward to what they look like after dark… if they are charged enough.  Here are some pictures!

Oh and the lilac bush is blooming again this year…… smells lovely…. but holy wasp magnet!

 On another note…. Master Rowan woke up this morning excited that it was now June, because that meant he wasn’t grounded anymore….. hmmmm *I* know it’s actually only been 3 weeks, but *he* thinks it’s been a month, and James says “he’s been really good…. let him go outside”  softy!  So he is no longer grounded but with the stipulation that he is NOT to play with that other boy again, because whenever he does he gets in big trouble, hopefully their house sells soon and they move!  Don’t need him tempted to play with said boy all summer vacation.  Rowan did get to do something interesting today, he had a bicycle safety course put on by the city at our local community hall.  He said he had a lot of fun, I asked what he learned, he said “not to stop your bike with your shoes”…oky doke then.

First of all thanks for the compliments on the photos! We are still deciding which ones we want lol

So the weather forecast is not looking good….. we are forecast to get into the -30 to -40’s C with windchill over the next few days. It is supposed to hit us tomorrow so I stopped at the grocery store for a few things tonight so I won’t have to go out in it! Keely wants to go Webkins shopping tomorrow but I kyboshed the idea, told her maybe NEXT weekend *shiver*

We got this Saturday off soccer because of a tournament using the fields so James slept in till 11 lol Then we went to a flooring place in Sherwood Park to order new lino for our bathrooms. My former supervisor works at a flooring store now and let us know they were have a 50% off sale on some of their lino, which doesn’t happen often! We aren’t planning on doing the bathroom’s before the summer, but we couldn’t pass up the sale. We ordered lino for both bathrooms for $250 total! cha ching! It’s a stone look in neutral colours.

After the flooring store we hit Ikea because my friend Stacey wanted to borrow our van to transport a big mirror she wanted to buy that won’t fit in her car, the three of us wandered Ikea for a couple hours picking up this and that, but no mirror cause they were out of stock lol When we dropped her off at home we picked up her two girls for an impromtu sleepover at our house, the kids are all thrilled

Tomorrow James is going to finally build the last cabinet for the kitchen and install it. It will be nice to put away the plastic dishes in a big drawer, I ordered a bunch more Tupperware at my friends party last weekend….. I need to organize the new kitchen ya know Speaking of the kitchen… We went to Home Outfitters Thurs night to use the GC my mom sent us at Christmas. We wanted new dishes because we have too many that are chipped and cracked, but we are really picky about the shape of the bowls and mugs, they didn’t have a whole lot to choose from, I was expecting more open stock…. We found a few that we liked, but to get as many settings as we wanted it would be about $200-300…. Then just as we gave up we came across a HUGE box with a 12 piece place setting with a few extra pieces for $80! It is white, so will go with anything, and the bowls and mugs are the right shape. We picked up a few more things to clean out the GC, including a dark wood scratch repair thing because I’ve already damaged the new bookshelves in the livingroom! We have discovered 2 of the bowls are cracked so I’m hoping they will exchange them…… if not we still have 10 bowls! And in the spirit of recycling our old dishes already have a new home, Stacey has the same ones so we are giving them to her so she can complete her sets that are missing pieces that got cracked and chipped lol

Happy New Year everyone!  We had a very fun New Year’s Eve, we had our friends Stacey and Sheldon and their girls over for the night, stayed up till 4 am playing cards!  Stacey collects wooden board games that she buys at the Butterdome Craft Sale in Edmonton every Christmas so she brought two with her.  We played Rummoli until midnight, I had never played it before but it was fun.  Then we switched to Sequence, the guys were all psyched to beat us (we play girls against guys) but after Stacey and I won 7 games in a row James said “I don’t want to play this anymore”  LOL  So we switched back to Rummoli and played until I was too exhausted to continue.  The kids played games, played online with Webkins and watched movies all night.

In the morning the guys made brunch and we hung out all day, playing more games, then I made a big turkey dinner.  YUMMY!  Then I had leftovers for a turkey pot pie……

turkey sandwiches and a yummy turkey soup that Stacey whipped up for us on Friday.  That’s what I missed from having Christmas dinner at my SIL’s, leftovers!

On the renovation front, James and I went to Ikea the weekend before NY’s to buy another cabinet for the kitchen, as well as the trim we were short on.  We have decided to forego the desk area and put in the extra drawers!  Now that we have decided that, I am looking forward to it.  I need more drawers to put away tea towels and Tupperware!   While we were there…… we bought a new bedroom!  Frame, mattresses, night stands, bedding and curtains.  We also picked up an area rug and some Markor pieces for the livingroom, a new TV stand, bookshelves, side tables and coffee table.  We brought some home with us, but the majoity we had delivered, it arrived yesterday so we spent the day building our bed, hanging curtains etc.  Once we get the room straightened out we’ll deside on a dresser.  It was SO comfy to sleep on last night!  And high off the ground!  Our last bed was only knee high, this one is at my hip!  James says we need a bench for the foot of the bed so he can sit to put on his socks in the morning lol  We will work on building the rest of the livingroom pieces in the evenings this week, so far we have the TV stand, one side table and the coffee table built. It’s a nice big square one that we can play board games on with the kids, which was our main criteria.  We found the coffee table and decided to do the rest of the livingroom to match!

We had a productive weekend, Rowan played his first soccer game of the year Saturday morning, James and I got our portrait’s taken Saturday afternoon by Tammy of Smiley Eyes Photography it was a lot of fun.  James and I haven’t had a portrait of US taken since we got married almost 17 year ago!  I’ll post the link to the proofs webpage when it’s ready.  Keely has decided she doesn’t want to play soccer anymore, so we pulled her out of it.  She is smaller than all the other kids and hasn’t played in a couple years, so she was finding it frustrating to keep up, so it stopped bing fun for her.  I will probably sign her up for swimming lessons for something else to do. 

Kids are back to school today!  Ye haw!  They were suffering from too much togetherness, they are excited about seeing their friends again.  And James and I are back to the usual work week…..  No more holiday’s.  He went back Jan 2nd, but was taking one of the kids to work with him each day last week.  My work will start new extended hours in a few weeks so I will eventually have to work a late Thurs/Fri and Saturday *sigh*  I’m told it will only be every 7th week….. that I can live with I guess.

Busy busy reading….. I finished 3 of the 4 books I got for Christmas already!  Bones to Ashes by Kathy Riechs, really enjoyed it   Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts, first in a new trilogy, it’s about demons  now I have to wait till May for the next installment!  And A Highlander For Christmas by Sandy Blair, I will give it a  because the story was fun to read, but the editing left a bit to be desired, there were parts I wasn’t sure what was going on.  I am now reading High Noon by Nora Roberts, so far so good, but I’m only just started.

I posted the link below for the Facebook album but since some people can’t see it at work here they are!

look! all done!!!!!! Sat., Dec 8th, 10 pm and we are done! Then I had to wash the floors…. vacuum the couch and all the cushions…. furniture placement is not set in stone yet, that’s why the picture is off center of the couch, it used to be further down the wall. This is the back right hand corner of the livingroom.

Front of the livingroom. That is the corner where we are putting the Christmas tree tomorrow. That is our old kitchen table that James was using as a workbench to store tools. Now we have to find a spot for it in the basement. those are also our old, old curtains from years ago. They are all stretched out of shape. I threw out the garnet ones we were using just prior to the renos as they were sunbleached, now I have to buy new ones. Any ideas as to colour or style????? I need help!

Back left corner of the livingroom. Ignore the spots and reflections, I think the camera lens is dusty lol That’s Keely’s cat Sassy glaring back at us from atop the filing cabinet, have to find a place to put that now too…. the brown chair and ottoman will move over there to make room for the Christmas tree, that’s where the chair was originally anyway.

Other front corner of livingroom, you can see the kitchen from there. I need to clear the crap off the shelves to put my gazillion books away! I’ll take more pictures once the Christmas tree and decorations are up. We still have to install new baseboards, but James is waiting till we are done all the flooring as he is getting a deal to buy enough baseboards for the entire house from his guy at the home improvement store.

Here is the link to my Facebook album, now off to rest!

 Renos Part 3

Now that we set aside the too wide boards and James is using his level to make sure each board is straight, everything is going smoothly!  What a waste of time!  I hope we don’t end up with too many boxes of waste  

Last night we finished the main hallway, decided to leave the back hall till the end as I want the livingroom done!  We got about 4′ into the livingroom started, but had to stop as it quickly became 11 pm and we didn’t want to piss off the neighbours too much (our goal is just alittle bit, as they did renos this summer and we had to listen to all their banging and sawing.) 

Here is our hallway looking from the front door,  the picture is kind of dark in the background…. and yes I’m trying to get loads of laundry done while we do this.  We bought that little bench at Ikea for the front hall.  It’s supposd to be for a kids room, but it matches our kitchen quite well and is not too deep so it doesn’t take up too much room, just the right size to sit on as you are putting on shoes, and there is storage in the seat, so that’s where all the hats and mitts go!  Oh and that’s my Norwex mop in the foreground, sweeps the laminate really well! 

Here is the livingroom looking from the kitchen.  And that’s wee Sugar who is now back to normal, hoping this weeks work doesn’t stress her out again and make her pee all over the place!

Check out what we found UNDER the carpet and underlay?!?!?!?!? 

7″ square wood “look” lino tiles.  Can you imagine living with that?????  Match it up with the same tiles in speckled dark green that were in the kitchen and hallway (and we know are up the stairs) and you have one purty townhouse   It’s also really HARD!  It’s hard lino right on top of subfloor, no cushion to it at all.  Here’s a close up……

The tiles are popping up on their own, with no effort from us!  Here is Master Rowan getting to work pulling staples out of the floor.

So we have a routine set for the livingroom, roll up carpet, rip out underlay, lift up tiles, pull up staples, hammer in nail heads, sweep, vacuum, install new underlay, install laminate, sweep laminate (with my handy dandy Norwex microfiber mop) move furniture onto installed laminate…… start all over….. keep going til the room is done.  My goal is to be done by Thursday night as I have a lady coming Friday morning to do a market evaluation of the condo LOL

Tonight is almost a write off.  I have my work’s Christmas party, turkey dinner *yum* and present exchange   James has a council meeting, so neither of us will be home until at least 8, we are hoping to get some work done afterwards….   Tomorrow is Keely’s birthday!!!!  She’s going to be 10 *yikes*  Can’t believe it!   So we will have what she wants for dinner…. perhaps I’ll have time to bake a cake?  We will celebrate this weekend, she wants to take a friend to dinner and a movie, The Golden Compass, well as long as her friend’s mom is ok with it, since there is so much controversy over it  Personally I don’t think any kids reading the book or watching the movie will read into all the religious undertones that the adults claim are there, but whatever… Otherwise we’ll see Enchanted if its out.

So this is where we left off. Wish us luck!

We spent all weekend trying to get the laminate installed in our hallway, what a PIA!  We had the laminate installed in the kitchen as far as the main hallway, but we have another hallway that goes behind our kitchen (the wall the fridge is on) to the powder room, so Saturday James got the flooring installed there working towards the main hallway so we could continue it.  I got the livingroom prepped in anticipation of being able to do it today (big square room it will go fast when we finally get to it!) I took everything off my bookshelves and entertainent unit, what a CHORE!  I have way too many books    But James started getting frustrated doing the main hallway last night so we stopped, we have learned that is a good idea when we are feeling flusterd, have a drink and get a good night’s sleep!  So today we started off optimistic…. we spent a big chunk of the day cutting out part of the hallway wall for a cold air return, then got to work on the flooring…. just as we were getting the last few pieces installed we realized we had a problem, something was out of whack somewhere, causing the boards to not align properly.  We tapped, we whacked, we wrecked some boards….. we took boards apart……  James finally decided to take the back hallway apart and then reinstall it backwards to see if it was maybe just not meeting up right….  But after all that, he discovered that some of the boards we were installing in the hallway were slightly wider than others  hmmmm James says he noticed a problem when he was doing the kitchen with one box of boards being slightly thicker than the rest, so they set it aside to use it for the stairs….  so we are back to almost where we started.   I really want to get the first floor DONE this week so we can decorate for Christmas!  I’m a stressin’ out!  Tues night James has a council meeting and I have my work Christmas party, Wed is Keely’s 10th birthday….   I tried to push James to continue getting more done tonight but his knees couldn’t hack it anymore, all that up and down and kneeling, and my sciatica is yelping at me.

Well something funny happened this weekend, we pulled up some of the livingroom carpet thinking there would just be underlay on top of subfloor…. nope!  There is REALLY UGLY brown “wood look” lino tiles under the underlay.  Hard to believe when this place was first built that those tiles were the livingroom floor and the hallway and kitchen was a nasty dark green lino tile  did people actually think that look GOOD?   Good news is they are popping off the floor really easy LOL

Wish me luck the rest of the week, I am going to need it!

So we have been plugging along getting stuff done, but I haven’t been motivated to take any pictures.  I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, too much to do, not enough time or motivation really.  You almost get complacent living amongst the reno mess.  But I’m happy to say we have gotten some progress happening this weekend.  I got our front yard cleaned out yesterday since it wasn’t too too cold out. The kids bike’s and the deck furniture are now stored away for the winter.  James started working on installing the trim, not all of it is done (we ran out) and the toe kick’s aren’t in yet and we have a couple of filler pieces yet to install, but it is starting to look nice.

We are thinking of adding another cabinet in that empty space that is supposed to be a desk area.  But now that I am working in the ktchen, I think four more drawers (like that unit next to the space) would be more beneficial.  We would have to disconnect that outlet in the wall as well.  That is my baking area as well btw…. so much space to roll out dough!  I made tea biscuit’s tonight for the stew!  Oh and the microwave cabinet is also our *hic* liquer cabinet  

We installed a little white shelf over the sink.

No toe kicks installed yet either! There is beef stew simmering in that slow cooker, James says I look so happy when I’m cooking or baking now lol

I also discovered this morning that ALL the upper cabinets need to be moved up by at least 1/4″ as my coffee maker is trapped I can’t fill it! This is disasterous. Maybe I need to pull out the old coffeemaker, it was shorter…. it’s somewhere in the basement….

Our kitchen table! I am impressed with the amount of space we still have to walk around the room. We also need to get a window covering as it’s VERY bright first thing in the morning! but it’s an oddly sized window so ready made might not work well for us. Ideally I would like a blind, but the inner dimention of the window frame is 49″ W. Any ideas? Oh and I don’t know what to do with a colour….. White? Natural like the chair seats? Something else?

James also got some flooring installed in the back hallway, I am really wanting the first floor completely done in the next week or so, so that we can decorate for Christmas!  And I’m already thinking of our next big project (after all the flooring is done)….. our disgusting stained bathtub needs to be replaced!  I took a picture of it today AFTER I cleaned it….

There is even a wee child’s footprint stained into the end of it!  There is no finish left on it from the water level down.

We have an extra foot or so down at that end that we could tear out and put a longer tub in….. I’m liking the thought of that, as I barely fit comfortabley in the 5′ shallow tub we have now. Not that I’d WANT to soak in it, the stains really turn me off that idea!

The next series of pictures will be of the hallway and livingroom with new flooring!  *fingers crossed*

What I’ve been reading lately….. The Harlequin by Laurell K. Hamilton.  It is the most recent installment of her Anita Blake vampire hunter series.   I found this one a bit boring.  I think if anyone picked up this book without having read the others in the series they would be bored to tears and not undertand anything that was going on.  I didn’t even enjoy the couple sex scenes she through in as they were just ODD, and that’s saying something for this author!  lol 

Honestly…. unless you’ve read the whole series and just want to know how the series is progressing, don’t read it.  I’m hoping Touch of Frost, her most recent Merry Gentry book is better!

Next…. Exit Strategy by Kelly Armstrong, I have high hopes for it!

Where did the time go?  We have been busy!  On top of all the reno stuff we have a sick cat and the other cat killed one of the betta fish, did you know they can live out of water for HOURS????  We didn’t know that, and when James went to clean up the mess of the dumped betta tank, the fish jumped 5 feet and scared the poop out of him LOL  We ended up having to flush him anyway, he just didn’t bounce back from that experience  

Oh and the sick cat….   Arran’s baby named Sugar started peeing all over the house, but because we have two cats it took us a bit to narrow down the offender, then James noticed her walking away from a cushion with pee on it, and there was blood in it *sigh*  So off to the vet…. we think she has an irritated bladder (cystitis) which can be brought on by the stress from things like home renovations   So she is now on a pricey Rx food and hates it!  We end up throwing most of it out.  And it’s oh so muh fun feeding two different cats two different diets….

And while we’re dealing with that…. we’re still finishing off the kitchen!  I don’t have any new pics to upload, but I have a working kitchen again! We have the counter top installed, sink in, dishwasher hooked up and working.  All the cabinets are in, all doors on, all upper knobs installed.  We still have to put the knobs and handles on the lower cabinets and install all the trim.  James also assembelled our kitchen table and chairs so we are eating in the kitchen as a family now!  No more eating in front of the TV!  I’m hoping to get most of it done this week/weekend then I’ll take pictures!  We have another trip to make to Ikea,  probably Saturday morning, one of the drawer front’s is chipped and we need another end panel. 

The kids are enjoying indoor soccer.  Rowan scored a goal on Saturday!!!!!  I have been doing all the running to and from games on Saturday’s while James gets work done in the kitchen.  I keep forgetting to bring the camera though. 

I am trying to make it through the new Greg Iles bk True Evil but it’s a long slow process… I have had to renew it once already.  It’s just dragging on…..  just another 100 pages to go…