Ξ January 31st, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
It’s been a little crazy lately. A family member shattered their tibia and needed extensive surgery to rebuild the tibia so I’ve been helping out with that. Not the rebuilding, obviously, but the recovery.
Side 1 of the basement is finito. Katt did all the faux’ing on the walls down there so now we just have to get our furniture and dungeon stuff organized. The second room is well underway. Katt is 1/2 way done the faux’ing in that room. All that is left after the faux’ing is to paint the dividing wall. That’s a detailed job, but it shouldn’t take more than a few days.
We got a new bed frame from Ikea for the master BR. It’s not fancy, but it looks good and it was cheap. OHohohohohoh.. cheaaaap.
We still haven’t hung the art yet. We won’t do that until we get a mantle piece for the fireplace. If we hang it before it could result in a lack of balance after it’s put in.
The house is getting really close to being ready for…
get ready for it…
a PARTY!
I’m really looking forward to it.
I’ve been feeling really crappy over the last few weeks. Other than doing some web work and a little work on the nursery, I’ve basically been living on my sofa. Actually, if you count driving into Vancouver to pick up a massage table, the three days we had a client here, and the painting I did tonight in the basement stairwell, I’ve done a fair bit.
I finished painting inside of the cupboards in the basement tonight. I did a first coat of floor paint on the stairs to the basement too. I also went to the GYM *gasp* today.
I’ve been feeling really down. It’s been a struggle to get out of bed every morning and to get motivated to do anything. There’s nothing wrong in my life at all; I’ve got a home, a bed, food, a lovely partner, two pugs, and a lot of books around. I just feel crappy. Bed time has been my favorite part of the day.
I’m hoping that getting back to the gym will help. If it gets much worse I’ll look into medication.
My to do list is still fairly big.
Left to do in first room:
Paint inside of cabinets.- Faux the concrete walls
- arrange furniture
- hang dart board
Left to do in second room:
- Paint dividing wall red
- Faux the concrete walls
- Finish painting door
Left do do in entry room/laundry room/stairwell
- Second coat of floor paint in laundry room
Paint stairs & walls in stair well- Hang curtain to partition/hide laundry room
It will probably be March 1 before we’re finished both rooms. I think we can get the first room finished in a week or two if we do a bit every day. We’d be down in the first room Faux’ing the wall tonight, but the paint is still wet on the steps.
The rest of the week is quite busy. We have to go into Vancouver tomorrow so Leila can get an adjustment on her lap band, and we’re going to go to Ikea on the way home. Thursday we have guests. Friday we have an appointment, and Saturday we get to go to a kinky party.
We had a few threatening e-mails recently demanding we take a few of our sites down or ‘you will be exposed across the internet”.. Uhhh… Everyone knows who we are anyways, so who cares? Certainly not me. In fact, it could be good for business. The server is secure, the registrar is locked and has been warned about possible attempts to hijack the domain. Mt reputation certainly won’t be harmed, since everyone I know, including my family, knows what I do for a living. There are benefits to being completely out; nobody can blackmail you.
Bed time.
Ξ January 12th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
The floor in the second room of the basement is DONE! Woot!
Left to do in first room:
- Paint inside of cabinets.
- Faux the concrete walls
- arrange furniture
- hang dart board
Left to do in second room:
- Paint dividing wall red
- Faux the concrete walls
- Finish painting door
Left do do in entry room/laundry room/stairwell
- Second coat of floor paint in laundry room
- Paint stairs & walls in stair well
- Hang curtain to partition/hide laundry room
I think that is all that is left, other than filling the basement with dungeony goodness.
The nursery is done other than hanging a few shelves. It is starting to feel like things are coming together.
Ξ January 10th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
Get your mind out of the gutter!
I got wood of the oak and cherry variety. The place I went to today to pick up the firewood had about 1/2 of a cord of split oak and cherry wood, another I picked up 1/4 cord of unsplit cherry. The trailer was about 3/4 full by the time I was done. I would have picked up more of the wood, I could have filled the trailer twice, but most of the wood was really wet and unsplit. Nice guy that I am I took all the split stuff! I also know that there were a few other people interested in the wood, and I don’t want to be a scrooge and grab it all when other folks need wood too.
The only problem is that it’s very wet from being left outside. I think it needs to season a bit more. Which means I need to unload the trailer tomorrow and stack the wood so it can dry. It also means I am going to keep my eyes out for more free/cheap firewood that’s local and DRY so we can burn wood this winter and save some money on our heating bill.
The joys of living in an under insulated house!
Ξ January 9th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
Tomorrow, I get wood.
Just in time, too. We’re expecting a blast of cold weather to come in Tuesday overnight. Our gas bill for heating last month was super crazy so we’re hoping to reduce our heating bills by using our fireplace to keep us toasty. I should be getting between two and three cords of wood. It’s been in someone’s yard for about a year, which means it should be seasoned. But it may not be dry, which could mean I can’t use it until it dries out. We shall see. I’ll hook up my little utility trailer and pack it all in there. I’ll have to split it once I get it back home. Katt has said that watching me split wood will be the highlight of her day. She gets turned on by these things for some reason. I’ll split wood as we need it.
I haven’t done any painting over the last few days. Yesterday I finished putting the nursery together and did some web work, and today I did web work all day. If I am energetic after I get wood tomorrow I will do some more painting. There is not much more to do. In basement room #1 I have to paint window trim and touch up the ceiling. In room #2 I need to paint the floor, one wall, and window trim.
I’m probably repeating myself, but being this close to finishing the basement is exciting. I really want to start having parties here. In addition to having dungeon parties, I’ll also have poker nights once a month, and darts every so often too. Hopefully my Vancouver friends will come out now and again.
We’ve been in the house for almost 3 months now. That’s pretty crazy. There’s still so much I need to do to the place. When we were looking for a house we had two houses we ended up having to choose between, both within a block of each other. One house was a remodeled small 3 br house, and there was a 2 BR house with lots of space, gorgeous floors, and a amazing basement but it was not renovated. We chose the second house, the one that screamed HOME to us, realizing that we’d have to put a lot of work into the place.
In spring I need to re-roof the shop. The roof leaks and the wind storms keep blowing the old brittle shingles off. I need to rewire about 70% of the house to install grounded outlets. I need to redo a lot of the water piping. I need to insulate the attic. The fence in the back yard needs to be replaced eventually too. Right now along one section the fence is almost completely rotted. Given our lack of income right now, I’m just patching it until we can afford to replace the fence. The house will also need to have new shingles put on in a few years, but thats not a rush. Those are the things that really need to get done to the house.
Now the things that we want to do to the house but don’t need to do. Landscaping; the front and back yards need some TLC. I cut down some trees in the front and back yards and had the stumps ground out when we moved in. That didn’t cost me anything so it was a bonus. Now we’re left with areas that need some attention. We want to turn the garage into a third bedroom/entertainment room. That’s the first thing we’ll do if we ever strike it rich(ha ha). We’d also like to renovate the bathroom. (We need a grounded GFCI outlet installed in there which is in the need category). The bathtub is 40+ years old and desperately needs replacing. The tub is porcelain so the finish has really degraded, so in the meantime I may try a porcelain refinishing product to see if it restores the veneer at all. Cheap is good. It would also be nice to be able to refinish the kitchen some day. It’s very 1950’s which wouldn’t be bad if the cabinets weren’t coated with 50 years of paint and the counters were designed with something other than midgets in mind.
The nice thing about the house, aside from the fact that it is gorgeous, (have I said how much I love the floors!???) is that whatever renovations we do will add to the property value. It’s no. like the money is just going into a black hole (Like my belly. My belly is a huge black hole that devours chocolate chip cookies).
And with that, off I go to bed. To sleep, and hopefully wake up early enough to go unload the trailer so I can fill it with wood.
Ξ January 5th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
It’s strange, but our trip across Canada is mostly a blur in my mind now. It was a year ago today that we decided to sell our condo and take the plunge and really try to change our lives in a positive way. I remember little bits and pieces of our trip. We didn’t take many photos, but I did journal about the trip so I can look back in my entries to see where we here, and when.
I remember the Gaspe Peninsula and Newfoundland the clearest. That and a place in Nova Scotia called Antigonish. I obsessed for days on the proper pronunciation of Antogonish, to the point I really was getting obsessive about it. Crazy. I remember the marmots in New York state. They had the highest live marmots on the sides of the freeways of any place we’d visited. Of course there was PA, which had the highest marmot roadkill count of anywhere we’d seen.
I do wish we’d gone to the east coast of Newfoundland, but we were running out of time and had to get back to Toronto for Dr’s follow ups. The west coast of Newfoundland was beautiful. Very sparse, but really striking.
I am glad I wrote about our trip in my blog. It will help me preserve my memories. In some ways it doesn’t seem like we actually went on the trip now. The RV is gone, the travel stuff is gone. All that’s left are my writings.
Interesting.
I’m happy to be settled down again though. It is nice to have a big bed to sleep in rather than my little sofa in the RV. It’s amazing to have all of or stuff again. The best part about settling down again is the shower. The RV had a shower in it, but it was more of an emergency shower. We usually showered in the RV parks or campsites we stayed at. Having my own shower is heavenly.
I put a second coat of floor paint on one side of the basement today, and edged the other side. I should put a third coat on for good measure. I’ve got more than enough paint.
Ξ January 4th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
I’m back!
My absence has been due to a server switchover. Let me tell you, this switchover has been completely EVIL. THe hosting company I use dropped the ball completely with following the timeline we set up at the beginning. Thankfully they made it up to me. I like it when mistakes are fixed.
We’re now running the latest and greatest software on the server and it’s way more secure and such things than the old one. Hopefully we’ll not have to do this again for a few years. It is the suxxorz.
In other news, the basement to dungeon renovations are coming along very well. 9 of 10 walls are painted. The floor in Two of three rooms in the basement have a first coat of paint/sealant.
The house is bit of a disaster area as a result of the renos. Once I put a final coat of paint on the floor downstairs I will start moving dungeon stuff down to the dungeon. Right now it’s pretty much everywhere; and it’s disorganized.
Christmas was good. Had a nice tree. We didn’t exchange presents this year. We got the house in October and that will tap us out until 2033 or so. New Years was good too. It’s all good.
The next week will be somewhat busy. I have to finish painting some furniture, paint floors, paint a wall, design a website for a new client (who has been remarkably patient with the server junk going on), clean, tidy, arrange, organize, start photo sessions, update galleries on the sites, and fix lingering server issues. Fun.
I’ve also been dealing with moderate to severe depression. For me it shows up as severe anxiety and agitation, inability to concentrate, easily overwhelmed’ness, and a general lack of enjoyment of life. The anxiety and agitation is the worst part. It’s nothing uber serious yet, but I’m going to go get treatment for it s it doesn’t get worse.
