Ahhh...Coffee

Gotta love a nice cup of coffee mid way through the morning. I was too busy after getting home from the gym to start a pot. My kitchen was left in a mess last night. Chris promised to get up and help me with it in the morning since it was almost all his doing.

He made it into the kitchen in time to watch me wash the last dish.

So I made him make the coffee, which he normally does anyways, so he didn't care.

We're having a BBQ this evening. Last count we had about 35 people say they would be attending. It started out as a BBQ for us and 2 couples, but just grew and grew. It should be a lot of fun. But I think tomorrow I am going to need some more of that coffee to get through the day.

This morning Chris made potato salad and I made guacamole. We still have chip dip and fruit dip to make and we have to cut up all the fruit. That will have to wait until after lunch because I am too busy enjoying my coffee at the moment.

Oh, and I drove the car this morning. The windshield wipers have two settings. Off and Super Fast. And when you turn them off from Super Fast, they just stop wherever they feel like it. We're going to need to figure that out before we're driving in the rain.

Driveway Decor

So while I continue to think about decorating the inside of my house, Chris has been busy 'researching' how to decorate the outside. He started with the driveway. This is our newest decoration.

We've been contemplating a second vehicle for a while now. Technically this is a third vehicle, but don't get me started on the giant blue monstrosity that is currently parked in my garage. I will continue to pretend it's not there and call this our second vehicle.

We threw a bunch of ideas back and forth, new, slightly used, used, lease etc. and spent a couple of months thinking about it. We visited every dealership in the city and met a lot of salesmen. We even visited a few dealerships 2 and 3 times, and each time got a new salesman. We obviously have no loyalty, lol. And then in the end we decided to get a used car that was being sold privately. It's a 1999 Malibu and hopefully it's more loyal to us than we are to salesmen.

Back to Blogging

It's been a couple of months, but I swear I have a good excuse. Well to be honest my good excuse is only good for the month of July, I cannot explain what happened to June.

In July the girls and I went to the lake, for the whole month. I took a job there at a children's' camp as the Camp Administrator. I caught up with some old friends and made a few new ones. A good time was generally had by all. Unfortunately though, the Internet was dial up only at the lake. It was painful, but I must say, less painful than I originally thought. So my Internet time was limited to downloading email and once in a while I would check on a forum or try to catch a friend of two on MSN...oh and Facebook, I'd try to check that once a week or so as well.

So now we are home and back to the same old same old. Which I am already a little bit tired of, lol. I'm hitting the gym every morning, even though some mornings I can barely drag my butt out of bed. And I bought a new bike with part of my summer pay cheque so I am riding that to and from the gym at the moment. Once the snow falls (Mother Nature I beg you...please let me have until at least Halloween) I will start driving my van again. I am also back to babysitting every weekday. Luckily I have great kids, so it's a pretty easy, yet very busy, job.

Now that I am back to blogging, I need something to blog about. A theme for the year, or a while, I suppose. Not that I will stick to a theme, but if I have one there will always be something in the back of my head nudging me to write. I've been thinking about what's missing in my house lately. We have all the basics and more, but if you came into my house, I think you'd notice one main thing that is missing. DECOR.

It's glaringly obvious that I am not a decorator. Our walls upstairs were white when we moved in and they are still white a year later. Our pictures, those that are up, are just hung on old nail holes. It's really quite sad. I suppose I should give myself a little credit though, we have a small nook in our hallway that is decorated. Chris spent some time in Nunavut a couple of years ago and brought home some soap stone carvings which are beautiful. I have those in the nook with a painting I found at a garage sale for $5. It looks nice to me, but remember, I am not a decorator. I'll have to take a picture and post it sometime.

It's not that I am scared of paint exactly, that's not why my walls are still white, it's more that I am scared of starting painting and not knowing where to stop. All of our corners upstairs are rounded corners so one wall leads to the next, and the next and the next. I'm told you can still paint and just make sure you tape the corner well so there is a definite line, but I don't trust myself or my husband to tape it that well. So we just don't paint, and we look at our white walls day after day after day.

Which brings me to my goal for the year and my blog theme for a while, again, not that I will stick to it, lol. I want to decorate my home this year. I want to place my pictures in planned places, not left over nail holes. I want to buy some home decor items. I might even want to buy some, dare I say it, curtains. I don't really like curtains, but they often look nice in other peoples' homes, so maybe they would in mine too?

I went to a home party they other night and bought a magnetic frame thing which I am excited about getting and planning what's going to go in it. It's one that you can put scrapbook pages or pictures in and change it up every so often. It was my first step in my home.

My first step on my blog was to change the background...much easier, and no paint lines to stress about.

Katie's Room

Katie's room is getting close to being ready for her to move in as well. It's painted, but it needs a closet door, and all the trim (baseboards, door and window moldings) and of course a ceiling. Once we get a few more things done in there, and the furniture from my brother in law, she can move in!

Looking in from the hall. We bought that daybed at a garage sale last summer. With all the bedding, mattress and mattress cover. Only $50!

This her doorless closet.

And looking out. Isn't it a huge room? I think it's bigger than the master upstairs. That dresser may or may not stay. I want it in my room one day.

It's been a while

That's becoming a pretty standard title around this blog unfortunately. I really do have good intentions of keeping you all up to date on what's going on around here, but it's really been the same old same old lately. Basement Renovations!

But we're getting sooooo close to being done. And again, I say we as if I have played a major role. I painted the first coat in the office and family room, and a few walls got a second coat done by me, but other than that painting, my involvement has consisted of helping move a few heavy things and wandering down stairs every so often and pointing out little flaws in Chris's work. I really am a horrible wife. But he did tell me that it doesn't bother him that I have not done much when it comes to the major work of this reno, and in fact he much prefers it if I stay away!

This blog entry is going to be mostly pictures. I don't have time to post all of them, so for now you get to see the family room and area and our new couch. I mean sectional. No, I mean monster couch sectional. It's crazy huge.

We went furniture shopping last week...on a whim. We knew we were going to need new furniture, but we had not decided for sure what we were looking for. We had two options:

1. Move the furniture from upstairs to downstairs and get smaller stuff for the upstairs living room or

2. Buy something new for the basement family room and move stuff around upstairs.

The set we have in the living room now is quite a large leather set. It takes up a lot of space. We love it, but it's big. That set and our wide screen tv made my upstairs living room seem very crowded and small to me. I was leaning towards option 1. We also had plans to get a smaller tv for the upstairs living room.

So back to furniture shopping. We found this very cute, reasonably priced leather set. It was much smaller than what we had and was designed for condo spaces. Perfect! It was comfy too. We asked about it and found it could not be delivered until July. That was okay, we could survive. We decided to look around a bit more, but we were pretty sure it was the one. Fast forward about 40 couch sets, all of which we had to sit on, and the kids had to attempt to jump on, and put their dirty shoes on (note to self....floor models may look clean, but they are obviously very, very dirty). We're still thinking of the first set...until....we see a sectional. We never even considered a section. You pretty much have to have the right space for one, and we never really have, until now. This sectional was gorgeous. It had a huge ottoman that all the girls could lay on, at the same time, and not be falling off. And only Katie's toes hung over the edge a bit. If you pushed the ottoman right into the corner of the sectional, it basically made a double bed, perfect for company.

We thought about it for a while and then decided what the heck! The salesman went to check on delivery etc. and it turned out we could get one piece of the sectional and the ottoman right away and the other piece in July. Sure, why not. While he went to right up the order, we went to look at tv's. Then we saw another sectional, in front of this huge tv (which in hindsight probably helped make the sectional look much smaller than it really was). We all had a seat. There were two reclining chairs. One had a vibrating function. And there was a phone in it. Built right in the arm rest of the chair was a phone. A real life, I am so lazy I am sitting in my vibrating recliner chair, not lifting a finger, calling you on the phone kind of phone. The couch also had a hide-a-bed. Bonus. They are heavier than heck, but if our future goes as planned, we will always have movers, so not our problem, lol.

You probably guessed that when the salesman got back and told us this sectional was on sale for $500 off the ticketed price, we were pretty much sold. Chris later told me he didn't really like the first sectional, but that he could tell I really did, so he figured it would be fine. This one, he really likes and I really like, so that's good. It was delivered yesterday and it is huge! It really makes the tv area of our new family room small and cozy, but it's turned into exactly the space I wanted. We're a tv family, I won't deny that. We all live to sit around in the evening and watch a show or a movie together. This space is exactly that. Yay!

Unfortunately though, our new fireplace is not going to fit in that space. We could put it behind the sectional, but that is going to become a kids play area, so I don't really want it there. We've decided it will come upstairs to the living room. Not quite what we had envisioned when we bought it, but it will still be in space where it can be used quite often. And if we buy the right tv for the living room, it will fit right on top of the fireplace (remember, we're a tv family).

So without further ado....our new furniture.

And hidden in one of the armrests of the middle chair is the phone...seriously, can you believe that? Do you think we'll actually use it much?

And this is a shot of the family room from near the basement stairs.

And a shot of what will be the kids area behind the couch eventually. That china cabinet will be moved into the office when the cabinet in the office gets moved to someone else's house. The Universal Gym will also be gone (know anyone who wants to buy a gym...cheap?), so that leaves a nice sized kids play area. It's good though because next fall I will have two 5 yr olds every other day when they are not in kindergarten (one is my own), two 2 or almost 2 yr olds, and one 6 mos old in my dayhome.

Quotable Monday ~ Strength ~

These are for you Michelle...

Once you go through something you think will kill you and it doesn’t, every day is like a present. ~ Elissa B. Terris

To find in ourselves what makes life worth living is risky business, for it means that once we know, we must seek it. ~ Marsha Sinetar

Don't think about how weak you are — think of how strong you're going to be. ~ Michelle (Berry) Dougherty

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Lucky Ducky!

On Saturday the girls and I went to the Child and Family Expo. It was mostly a bunch of booths of local business that have products for children or families. Dora the Explorer was also there, but the line up to see her was pretty darn long, so thankfully none of the girls cared to wait in line to be able to get to stand next to her for 12 seconds. We were there for a couple hours, wandering around booths, participating in the fun crafts and jumpy house things, etc. And while we were there I entered my name into the door prize draw for grown ups and the girls entered their names into the draw for a bunch of Dora and Diego stuff...$150 worth of Dora and Diego stuff to be more specific. That was just one of many draws, but I really didn't want my kids names in a bunch of draws for home parties and stores etc., who would probably put us on email lists or call us asking us to host parties, lol. So they entered the one draw only. It was sponsored by the Army Cadets, so no harm in that right?

Well last night I got a call for Beth. She was the lucky winner of the Dora and Diego prize! I couldn't even remember what was all in the prize since I never really gave it much attention when we entered. We never win, lol. I stopped by the Army Cadet place tonight while Beth was at Sparks and picked up the prize, and here she is with her stash!

That's a lot of Dora and Diego stuff!! I told the girls we would open a few things and the rest would go in the closet for birthday gifts, but I think they have me convinced that we should keep it all. They don't even like Dora and Diego that much, but the idea of new toys, especially the ones that talk and make noise, has them glowing with excitement!

Quotable Monday

Yes, it's been a week since I blogged. I haven't done much since last week though, so it's okay. I did paint a little bit in the basement, but I have not gone back down, since more painting involves moving furniture and vacuuming drywall dust. So on that note....

I'm not going to vacuum until Sears makes one you can ride on. ~Roseanne Barr

Quotable Mondays

Stealing a great idea from a friend of mine who also blogs. I'll try to post a quote that sums up my weekend, or the week to come every Monday. Not sure how long it will last, but it should keep my amused for a couple of weeks at least, lol.

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
~Margaret Atwood

Let's Play!

I babysit a little girl who is Anna's age. A few minutes after J arrived this morning Anna asked her if she wanted to play Pokemon. Anna said she would be the Pokemon and J would be the trainer.

Before I go on, I have to say that I love listening to 4 yr old conversations, they generally make for great blog material. If only I could remember to write even a third of them down, lol.

Anyways, J was unsure about how this game was going to work and didn't know what a trainer did. I wasn't sure either since none of the kids have every played Pokemon before so I was also listening carefully to the rules. Anna simply said "I'll be the Pokemon and you stand there and tell me what to do."

Awww....it's the same game Chris and I play everyday, but we call our game Marriage.

I'll let you guess who gets to be the trainer most often....

The basement is coming along!

Now that more walls are up it's starting to actually look like something. We had our first and second inspections and the third and last one does not take place until you are done. Yay! There were no problems with either inspection so nothing was or is holding Chris back from working away to his heart's content. It's really hard to get good before and after shots since when walls go up, the places I stand to take my pictures sometimes no longer exists. So these shots will have to do.

I couldn't use the flash for the first couple because Chris was mudding and sanding walls while I was taking pictures and the drywall dust really made for a bad picture with the flash.

The first picture is looking into the family room area from the bottom of the stairs. The second looks into the family room and you can see the door into the office.

Looking the opposite way from the bottom of the stairs is more of the family room area. It's a big open space and this is the spot where the weight bench and my elliptical will end up.

This is the office. Directly above is the living room and a bay window and this basement wall follows the same outline as the bay. Along the opposite wall is the kids' computer. Since I took these pictures Chris has finished the walls and I believe they are all primed and ready for paint! I should be able to start painting the family room in the next couple of weeks, but I can start in the office as soon as we pick some colors.

In the office there is a little nook where we have bookshelves at the moment. I'd like that area to stay with shelves but I don't know if I want to keep the ones we have or build something that will suit the area better.

Katie's room has not changed much so I didn't take any pictures and the bathroom was the same when I took the pictures but Chris has since framed in the back wall, so there is a bit of progress being made there as well. We have had 2 plumbers both say they would like to do the job of running the water lines etc., but neither have been able to actually find the time to do the job. Hopefully we'll find someone soon who can do it.

This last picture is my laundry room. To the left are the washer, dryer and deep freezer. The furnace is also over there. On the right will be built in shelving and storage. Things like clothes that don't fit the girls yet, or the out of season clothes, sleeping bags, spare blankets etc. will all have a place on the shelves I have planned out in my mind. There will also be one or 2 closet bars for hanging laundry or storing winter coats etc. There is currently one on the left you can see with a bunch of jackets on it, but that spot is temporary until I get my shelves. Chris is going to drywall in the laundry room as well, but I'm not sure if we will bother with mudding etc since it's just a utility room.

Beth's Birthday

Beth turned 7 on March 15th! We didn't know what to get her that she would love for more than a week. We also didn't know when we were going to have the time to go buy whatever it was she would want. So a few days before her birthday I asked her if she would like a new outfit, a hair cut and to get her ears pierced. Her eyes lit right up when I mentioned the ears!

So Saturday morning we all went out for brunch and then went to the mall for the ear piercing. It was one of the malls we don't normally go to, but there was the annual baby crawl going on and a friend of mine had a table selling her adorable homemade soft sole slippers, so we had to check it out. You can check out her slippers too if you like. Beware....they are incredibly adorable. Her table looked fantastic and she sold quite a few pair and handed out tons of business cards. The mall was packed, but luckily the store where they do the piercing was pretty empty.

Beth was so excited and could not wait to get her earrings. She spent a while picking out the studs she would get and finally decided on her birthstone. Then we paid, and I swear as soon as the debit machine spit out the Approved receipt, the tears started. Beth was so scared of it hurting and she kept saying over and over "I don't want it to hurt!" There was never a "I don't want my ears pierced" so we kept working at getting those studs in. As she cried the ladies convinced her to let them put the guns over her earlobes so she could see how it felt before the earrings went in. Then I told her we would count to three together (the ladies nodded to each other that they would shoot on 2) and we started to count. One, two, CLICK and it was done! There were a few more tears but that ended pretty quickly as we distracted her with picking out some new headbands, lol.

After the ear piercing we had a Girl Guide event to attend and we were cutting it close on time so we had to wait for another day for the outfit. In fact she's still waiting and be unusually patient about it all. After our event we headed to a local restaurant to pick out her ice cream birthday cake. There were tons of cute cakes with all sorts of pictures iced on them, and what does my 7 year old pick? An old lady cake. No offense to any older ladies who read my blog, but honestly, does this cake look like one a 7 year old would choose?

I suppose they all taste the same, and she was happy, so that's all that matters, right?

Happy Birthday Bethie!!

Theory of Evolution

by Beth

We used to be monkeys. That's why we are hairy people. Then one day a monkey drank a potion and turned into a scientist.

What's in your cupboards?

A friend of mine asked on her blog: "What's in your cupboard above the fridge?"



So in response to that, the camera came out, and you all get to see what I keep in that pretty useless space. And I'll tell you this, when you are 5'4", that space is not simply useless, it's impossible to reach AND useless. I do think we are using the space quite well though. The only things I can actually reach without a chair are at the very front. Very accessible after a long day at home with the kids.....

Just kidding, I don't actually need to use any of those bottles after spending time with my kids, lol. Let's take a closer look at what we've all got in there (you can click on the pictures for a larger image).

I didn't label the bottles. I thought they were pretty self explanatory.

It's Family Day today

It's an actual holiday in 4 provinces now (SK, AB, ON and MB....although I think in MB it may be called Louis Riel Day).

So in honor of Family Day, take some time and make your kids smile today!

Work out much?

Since the beginning of September I have been going to Curves every morning before my family wakes up. Sadly I have not seen the most amazing results but dropping pounds slowly is way better than not dropping at all right? Plus, I feel so much better than I did before I started, and although I am not always sleeping great, on average I sleep much better than I did a few months ago.

So if you work out, or believe in the benefits of working out for overall health. Take a look at the following website and think about sending an electronic postcard or personalized letter to you local MP encouraging them to establish an Adult Fitness Tax Credit.

What a bunch of dopes.

This just in. According to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, the smell of marijuana coming out of an open car window is no longer grounds for a police officer to make an arrest and search the vehicle.

According to 53% of people who phoned into NewsTalk Radio this morning they felt the Court of Appeal made the right ruling. According to my husband, those 53% are pot smoking hippies.

Gotta love naptime!

Especially on those few and far between days that everyone is asleep (or at least laying down) at the same time! I should get at least 1 hour of uninterrupted quiet if everyone naps as they usually do. It's just that usually they don't all nap at the same time. Anna is not actually napping, she's just having a lay down in my bedroom and watching a Care Bears movie, but that's as good as it gets for her and it does keep her quiet and resting for a while at least.

Whatever will I do for this hour? Most of my housework is up to date and the laundry is already going, so I don't have to feel guilty about that. I do have a few books on the go that I could be reading, so, after I play online for a bit I guess I'll read.

One of the books I am reading right now is called Family Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin S. Sharma. Someone on talk radio recommended it the other day on a call in show and I reserved it at the library. I am highly disappointed. It's a self help type of book focusing on nurturing the leader within your child. It's really a non-fiction book but it's pretending to be a fiction book. By telling the story about the characters in the book the author is trying to teach the readers his lessons. I find it rather hokey. Don't get me wrong, I think the collection of lessons the author is trying to teach and share is very valuable but because of the the style of the book it completely disinterests me. I'd much rather read what the author has to say in a non-fiction style. And that's all I have to say about that.

I hear a baby. I guess I didn't get my hour.

I don't get the American political system. Maybe it's all the talk of the primaries lately that we hear about on the nightly news or talk radio, and the fact that I am not sure exactly how that all works, but I think it's more the celebrity endorsements I don't quite get.

They said on the radio today that Oprah endorses Obama, Martha Stewart endorses Hillary Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger endorses McCain. It went on and on about who each celebrity is going to vote for. I don't know why, but for some reason that seems wrong to me. In an ideal world, every citizen would pay close attention to politics and vote for the party or person they truly feel will make the best decisions for their country. But we all know this is not an ideal world, and I wonder if having a certain celebrity's endorsement is considered a leg up in this election race? Or maybe a leg down in the case of Hillary Clinton who also has Jerry Springer's vote?

February already!

I can't believe how fast January went! With how cold it was, it really should have been a month that felt like it was dragging, but before I knew it, it was over. We had some pretty cold weather too, I'm talking -52C if I don't cover my skin it will freeze in seconds cold, not wimpy I have to wear more than a sweater cold.


And so, as luck would have it, my van suffered the most from the cold. I avoided driving it as much as possible because I know the power steering hose likes to pop off when it's too cold, but sometimes I just need to go out. The week before last Beth was home from school as she was pretty sick, so last week when she was feeling better and had gymnastics, I braved the cold and took her, just to get her out of the house and out of my hair for an hour. Bad choice. It was one of the -50C something days so I kept my van going the whole time we were in the gym. I didn't want to leave the keys in it, so I just kept hitting the remote car start every 10 minutes. My car starter is not one of those fancy ones where you press the button from wherever you happen to be and it beeps to let you know your vehicle started, it's the kind where you pretty much have to be at the driver side door for the car starter to work, so I actually saw it start up every 10 minutes from the door of the gym. I wanted to keep it warm so my power steering would be safe.


No luck.


After gymnastics I buckled the girls in and went to drive away, and had no power steering. Of course I was wedged into a parking spot with one truck in front and a car right behind, and it would have been tough getting out of the spot with power steeering and it was darn near impossible without I tell you. I am pretty darn proud I didn't hit either vehicle actually. It took, no word of a lie, 5 minutes to get out the parking space. Luckily most of the drive home required few hard turns, so although it's really a pain to drive with no power steering, it can be done. Or maybe I am just getting used to it, because it already went on me once this winter and in the past has gone a couple of times every winter since we've owned the van.


Since I was babysitting every day, and Chris was out of town most of the week, the van never made it into the shop until Friday. They put the hose back on, said it was the other end that popped off this time, and ordered us a new hose, which they hope will solve the problem. Luckily they did not charge us for this repair, probably because it had only been in for the same problem a couple weeks earlier. I have no idea what the new hose will cost either. I dread vehicle maintenance bills!

But for now it's working and I can turn a corner with ease. There is no more -50C forcast for the near future so my fingers are crossed that it stays fixed for the rest of this winter, which by the way, is not going as fast as January did.

I dreamed the other night of melting snow. I wish.