Wintry White

Yesterday, almost 15 inches quickly gathered on the ground, enough to warrants hauling out the snow blower and powering it up for its first driveway clearing duties.

Last night as I walked up to the neighborhood cookie exchange last night, I did the unthinkable by slipping and actually sprawling on the ground after my right foot hit a patch of icy snow under the powder fluff.

As quick as I could I stood up, hoping no one saw my fall and I began to quickly brush off all the snow on my clothing.

How silly I felt but the giggles came and didn't leave for the duration of the walk up the hill. I thought maybe in the dark of the evening I was alone in my giggles, that is until I heard the echo of a child yelling "are you okay mommy?" - loud enough in the hushed insulated snowy blanket atmosphere for an entire neighborhood to hear.



As the guests gathered in our hostess' home, another woman living down the road from me mentioned she almost fell on her way up. I snickered and confessed that I had fallen. With an ah-ha expression on her face, she said she followed my footsteps up the road and saw my splat in the snow, because it's where she too almost landed.

I was caught not once, but twice. What a hoot it was from then on. I think I shall never live that spill down now, giggles exploded round the room about the whole imagined scene as I detailed the story and my subsequent fast action clean up.

Again today, the snow is falling, and we are expecting similar amounts to last night. Oh so lovely.


The timing for the snow to fall couldn't be more perfect though because yesterday a crew of four men arrived in the later morning to replace the back doors.

First one side of the double doors had delaminated in the summer from extreme heat issues and the beveled glass from the other door required replacement from a broken seal.

Four men worked hard to change the doors,
replace trims, and replace the beveled
glass from its broken seal.

Talk about waiting way too long to replace doors in the middle of winter, however this crew had been delayed from a wrong sized door delivery and then the door manufacturer produced the one door without matching decor trims.

Frustrated, the crew worked the door using the old trims to match both doors up, replaced the glass from the old door to the other side and install the new door later on.

Our temporary protective doorway from the snow falling outside

The snow began to fall, and mount up as these men worked between our home and their huge workshop interior of their truck.

Around the perimeter of the huge door entry was the discovery of dormant ladybugs hiding from the elements for winter. There were not but a few, rather there were hundred and hundreds of them, suddenly free to roam about while the doors were removed for repair. ugh,ugh,ugh.

Grossing everyone out with the amount suddenly appearing, the children ran for bug bottles, dust pans and one of the men scooted off for his portable vacuum system to assist in ridding our kitchen of these bugs.

An invasion of hundreds of ladybugs was beyond incredible!

Don't get me wrong, I like ladybugs, just not quite so many of them invading my home all at once!

After four hours of working on both doors, at least 7 inches of snow had accumulated directly behind the makeshift tarp panel protecting the doorway.

While the door was being repaired and replaced, it began to snow...and hard!

In the heart of this snowy winter, we are at last very pleased to have this major item now crossed off our list, though still incomplete with missing screw plugs on the door trims, and in the spring the newest door will require painting.

Talk about having it all complete.... in the nick of time. Whew...

One beige and one white door until spring.
And for now, let's hang the blinds back up...

Winter Preparation Triumphs!

Telltale sign of serious roofing issues last winter

We are happy to report our roofing issues are now complete. When we moved in, the builder failed to empty the gutters of bird nests, and the design of the roof had allowed for much ice buildup, which in turn wreaked havoc with dangerous and precarious icicles ready to bolt down onto, or (gulp), into anyone below.

Our shingles were damaged from the ice, and water poured into our garage, over and over again as it began to thaw.

On top of our own winter preparation list, some of our home's outdoor deficiencies remained on the hotspot chart for us.

No longer made roof shingles were located

Since July we've waited for the promised repair from not only the damaged shingles, the builder's helper used an ice pick last winter when things were getting real bad, and subsequently damaged the roof in more ways than you can imagine. Plus, the design of the roof lines required new flashing and much more.

And then the news came - the shingles were no longer made! ugh. The waiting game lingered on. Two weeks ago, all was finally, finally complete. We were beginning to sweat with snow around the corner and frozen ground already here. A roof not prepared for winter? What a helpless feeling for us! But it's done! Yeah!

Final protective coating on the new front steps is complete

The final protective coating was brushed onto our repaired front steps and though we were concerned about new changes since we have original stamped concrete stairways, when the builder sent a masoner to raise the levels properly for passing our final inspection using stones on top of the stamped concrete, we were hardly thrilled at first, thinking maybe it would become a patch job eyesore. Not so!

The masoner worked his skills so well, matching the stone to the pattern on the stamped concrete so well, one might never know of the initial issues the municipal inspector had a problem with... so our final inspection can now proceed...that is whenever our builder decides to get moving on it. That though is the least of our worries about now, settling in for winter trumps it.

Autumn Days of the past...

In this new home, we're still in the honeymooner stage if you will, we've had to take heed not to revisit our moving day last mid-December where snow was knee deep and throwing all things into our home was a game of survival of the fittest and the basic game of staying ultra warm with doors wide open and the chill of frozen temperatures seemed to make anyone's teeth chatter wildly. brrrr.....

Remembering what it looked like here during our move

I for one hope to have a cup of warm brew in my hand when this scene above visits us once again, when winter blows in and the quiet hush resulting from it dancing gently to the ground reminds us to S-L-O-W down.

Winter seems to be a time for a tremendously exquisite beauty outdoors here, when this new season's weather surrounds and envelopes us with its gorgeous splendor, all the while feeling a soothing balm with the thought that, for this moment alone - all is right with the world.

And this pig built a house of stone...

There are days when even our best drawn plans and goals tweaked out on our calendars can become muddled in a second, and patience remains at a premium when tested through no fault of our own.


I shared with a friend how I felt everything was falling apart around me, and sure enough, it is!

In my humble opinion, just give me back my former red brick classic looking home exterior again anytime, this stone facing stuff so far, is for the birds. But if you ask my hubby how he feels, he prefers the stone. laugh.


We are in "Week Two" of stone de-facing detailed work on our home's exterior. I am usually a good sport at most anything, home deficiencies and all. I have to admit though, it's fast becoming (almost) annoying to find subtrade workers chatting and inspecting with their coffee clutching early morning moments outside of our windows BEFORE 7am every day this week. Little by little, the time has become earlier and earlier for some reason.

Add to that, multiple (house shaking) hammering stints when workers began removing said stone pieces at two different locations so far from the front facing of our home on each side of our front door, and one's patience (mine) has been fairly tested.

Noise pollution rocks the house, and the drilling has rattle my core during periods of my day. And then, we won't talk about the lack of privacy for outdoor viewing, from both the dining room and library windows....someone always right there before us when looking out the window panes.


I completely understand this task is monumentous and must be complete before winter. Our subtrade crew couldn't be nicer people. At least despite the early working hours to begin their day, it's outside. For all of that, I'm very grateful.


The purpose again of this stone work removal and re-installation had to be performed due to faulty mortar and many loose stones resting on the facing of the house. Dangerous at best, someone could have been injured if a stone had fallen before now, happy none ever did.


BUT, the worst part is the water drainage from the contour of the rooftop was working its way through that faulty mortar and into our home, or missing the eavestroughs below altogether. In winter the huge icicles hung, eaves backed up and iced to expand them, forcing roofing shingles to heave and the water paths to wonder everywhere. Damage to our garage was preventable, and the original stone masons are long gone.


Enter into the picture a new company on our home from the original people, and they just keep me entertained while shaking their heads at the end result they've discovered after the stones are gone.


Yes, two fine young lads have been our main working team, two inspectors lagged behind showing up here and there, and one of those lads father is the owner of the company.

Add to that a few laborers who drive in and out of our driveway with tractors holding skids of rock and cement bags plus a few trucks with looky-loo stone workers curious over "what discoveries were made behind those stones", and a home owner endures much commotion outside very early in the mornings, continuing all day long until the dinner hour.

Soon, very soon this will all be behind us, in the past, and it will be then we will toot this experience as one of those HOT TOPICS during our "Thankful things" during Thanksgiving dinner.

Patience....I'm praying for my cup to continue running over with this fine virtue.


On another note, I had several blog posts all written up and ready to upload all this week, that is until my computer began acting up severely from a sudden virus via someone's email. I acted quickly and performed a factory setting full blown 'recovery' on my computer, where everything vanished. Thank goodness I backed everything up recently, not to worry then. Admittedly it's a little inconvenient, but on the BRIGHT SIDE, I feel as if I have a brand new computer again. teehee.

I'm typing up all my posts from scratch again, so keep watching out for more to come.

Blessings;
Renee

Action galore today, company too!

Our oldest son and his wife are in town for a short visit and we are enjoying this brand new day together.

It's already been a busy day here. It began by organizing our younger son and getting him off first thing this morning for his week long camp. It's too bad he won't have a lot of time with his older sibling but everything was last minute for our visitors to fly here. At least I was able to snap this photo above, catching the scene in the kitchen before leaving.

Yesterday all of the boys went off to enjoy a round of 18 holes of golf, three brothers aged 12-30 (very soon anyway). What are the odds of that happening for our family with most of separated by geographical distances, so this was heart warming for us to note. The girls enjoyed time together, cruising beaches, playing with the dogs, dodging mosquitoes, and making puzzles. :-)

Workers continue to hover about the property, yesterday's work resulted in "Murphy's Law" aplenty when they accidentally cut through out telephone lines. Oops! Having too much happening here all at once has been adrenaline rattling, though admittedly it truly has been quite exciting to watch the activity progress. My hubby is smiling and very pumped! I am too! In fact, we are all pumped to see this progress.

Here is just a glimpse of what I speak of today in the front area, the very same spot we "thought" our family had tackled with our mammoth workbee day together blogged about HERE. Not so though as it just began to grow and grow even more after we cleared it. So, we bit the dust and hired out, and boy did the men work HARD getting our front area cleared for good, underbrush and more trees cut down. I think though once you see for yourself in the photos below just what the end result turned out to be, you'll agree it was a fabulous decision to get outside help for this area.

More orange paint on the front trees, those doomed to be knocked down.

See all of the orange paint out there?
What a jungle we live in!

New soil, eight loads so far around the property!

Eight men, One Bobcat, One Tractor, Hours of Labour!

Bare ... well almost

Our load of beautiful looking bark mulch

Ta da!

The grass seed has been spread on all of the areas you see that aren't mulched as designated garden beds.

Doesn't this look so much better? We are completely satisfied and so happy with the result! We were even able to have the owner use his tractor to move the concrete planters left at the house when we moved in out further away from the house nearer to the gardens. Soon, soon, soon - we will have green grass around the front jungles, and simple maintenance will be easy to perform with a lawn tractor.

Our chipmunk city was disrupted under this area, and we've already seen several of those silly critters active in consuming our grass seed. Hopefully that won't last long and the grass grows really well. It's guaranteed to grow, at least that's what the landscapers have told us, critters or not.

I'll be back to show you the back later on...more, much more to come.

Week in review, #5

Summertime

When it was raining...and oh how it rained, that's when we opted to work indoors instead.

• - Once the work was complete on and below the larger deck, all of the patio furniture and the gas BBQ were to be moved and settled onto its surface. Problem? They were in the back corner of the garage....so the entire double garage was another task on the list.
  

Our garage, on a good day last March

Garage; every single item was tossed out of the large wooden opened garage doors and myself and two others rolled up our sleeves, donned our ipods (because it was such an unpleasant detail and we were all grumpy), and began to melt and sweat to bits in the 87 degree humidity stricken, monsoon rainy day, which alternated with more heat when the sun actually shone throughout the summer storms of the day.

Once all was removed, we could begin anew, something we haven't been able to progress with since our move into the house in the dead of winter with three feet of snow on the ground, thus is the reason why the detailed task took so long in the first place. Freezing in the depths of the garage never felt too great initially anyway.

Success at last!
We can now park both vehicles in here! Yes!

This too was our third attempt at creating order in the garage, but still a final (!) grand detailing began by first sorting, organizing, and then purging much! Oh sure, the easy part was moving the deck items to the back deck, but the fallout with an entire day necessary to finish the job was unexpected.

• We used straw twine to wrap up the garbage cardboard flattened stacks.
• We gathered all of the items for charity and packed them into my vehicle immediately for removal later in the day. And they did go that day!
• We sorted much and sent a large box westbound with items for the grandchildren; hockey helmets, ice skates and life-jackets now too small for our brood still living at home.
• We began to feel "lighter" around the general working area.

We are still celebrating a week later at the fact that although our moving company failed to arrive as promised to recycle and reuse all of our many moving boxes, during a break this day and shortly after posting all on FREECYCLE, one very sweet couple came to rescue us (and bless themselves) by happily removing all of moving gear which was taking up almost 25% of our garage space in total after being condensed in size THAT EVENING! Can you say happy? Enough space was created for the first time, both my hubby and I have been able to park our vehicles in our own garage. YES! Sweet and simple accomplishments render much pleasure. So much more order, and space was created when all was in its true place and the load of moving items were GONE.

Our basement cold storage room now
required work with the junk shuffle

• As the day wore on, and fatigue began to reign high, I remembered one thing - the cold storage room in the basement was the area with MORE belonging in the garage. The garden tools were stored in there and now belonged in the garage for the seasons ahead. The snow shovels, toboggans and other assorted winter items from the garage needed to be hauled down there for storage until winter arrives.

The good ole staircase became the dumping ground

• And then there were other misc items not belonging in the garage at all, the ones I just got out of my way by tossing them all down the staircase from the garage to the basement for easy retrieval later on. The thought of next having to work my way into that storage room for sorting, organizing and purging possibilities was like a dark cloud hovering over my head, but somehow we pressed onward and by the next evening, all was checked off, done, complete and all were so happy, happy to have those chores behind us.
  

• - Our builder's service guy came to fill me with delight (NOT) when he began to plaster drywall putty around the house, areas he left like that for us to continue with. So the sanding and repainting began in earnest...all over the house! Somehow puttering about with only bits of painting details takes longer than painting an entire room, but it's now complete too.

Patching the walls went way beyond my level of comfort, not to mention all the colored re-painting necessary from happy go lucky wall mudders.

- Weathershield foam was in full use to fill up all of the gaps found in many areas of the outdoor pipes and throughout the home around plumbing, heating and sump pump areas. What we thought would take one or two cans to complete the task, it actually took three full cans to do the deed. We are now ready for winter and hopefully there will never be any more mice in the house from entering these zones again.

Necessary items for necessary tasks ahead

• - All of the tiled flooring areas inside of our home were never sealed, a dilemma one of our older son's noticed when he visited shortly after we moved in here. He found himself sealing the basement bathroom floor tiles, and then he also painted the walls in there (all of the basement drywall was only whitewashed, never painted so it's all to come).

Re-purposing yogurt containers came in handy

Sealing tiled flooring grout and tiles

• After a short tutorial, another son has been spending many hours using a scrub brush along grouting areas in between tiles, and sealing the flooring. It's great to have tiles in the house, a very organic and healthy flooring for allergy sufferers but in order to be installed correctly - they must be sealed. Each wee drop of water actually stains the tile, not a good thing when they are on the bathrooms and laundry room floors. Each day (when rain falls outdoors), one more floor continues to become sealed and eventually ever-complete.
  

• Our blinds are all installed and thankfully so as we were able to keep the house cool until the late afternoon when sun entered these back windows and the thermometer in our home fluctuated and heightened to highs of 80 degrees by the dinner hour. We now have a great reprieve from the sun's warmth without losing the view to the back forest with the special blinds we chose. Even though we love the warmth of the sun, somehow the air conditioning begins working overtime and canned air is just no fun all day long. It's a necessary thing though when the humidity climbs, something new to us here in the east, something we never had before and something we are so grateful for as a serious bonus to our time living here.

And this my friend is another update for our week in review. There will be more to come, I assure you of that. :-)

Week in review, #4

Summertime

Ah, the lazy, hazy days of summer.

• Time off school.
• Time to chill and unwind.
• Time well spent seeking the water's edge.
• Time spent working on becoming good stewards, not wasting too many idle hours during the extra longer daylight hours of summertime.
• Time well spent taking stock of overdue household chores and crossing them off the list as time permits to complete them.
• A time to work and a time to play.
• Balance is the key!

Okay, so vacation time came for my hubby and the rains fell, hard. Our plan B came into effect .... and a workbee progressed as planned mostly on impulse according to the weather for the day.

Much has been completed around our home. The joys of owning a home are usually loaded with a to-do list at the best of times. The decision to purchase this newer home rather than the other favorite on our house hunting list was the fact it was "newer", and not once did we EVER dream we'd have so much to do!

I could type up at least three pages of deficiencies here and bore you to tears, and still you wouldn't believe what we've encountered. From the mice in the kitchen, to the leaky roof with water pouring into our garage, the faulty hot water heat, the faulty gas meter that required changing, the gas leak in the dryer vent, live electrical outlets without covers tucked away inside of cupboards, plumbing leaks and sprays all around the rooms they are situated in, and no doubt, without continuing on and on.... you likely understand the picture here.

Over this past two weeks, we have opted to take advantage of "rainy days" and create another list of sorts, a "done list" with checked marks proudly noted next to each item. However, it hasn't arrived without much frustration, especially not knowing whether we were working outdoors or indoors, depending of course on - the weather every day!

Here is a small fraction of "the list" of successes, sweet and wonderful successes! :-)

When it wasn't raining...

• - Both decks were installed well, and are now complete.

• The smaller original temporary deck was moved and newly installed over here. It is now even preserved and painted.

We have a deck!
We can exit our home to the back of our property now! Yes!

• - Caulking was required along the wooden edges against the stone on the house exterior, LOTS of caulking!

• - Six square yards of road mulch pave gravel arrived requiring a good old fashioned wheelbarrow and shovel manual laborious detailing.

• Rock was hauled and moved to fill up the dips in the driveway and near to the garage and door areas situated near them.

• - Landscape paper was rolled out underneath both decks to prepare the earth below for the rock to come. Several family members began the task when monsoon rains drenched the earth and everyone ended up with a thick and slimy coating of mud on clothing, shoes, face, hands and even in hair. No one was allowed in the house until they had hosed off outside first, at least to rid their clothing and body of the muck found on them before hitting the laundry room.

• - Rock was hauled to the back deck area, the large one on the day described above, and all workers began using individual buckets to scoop up and empty where delegated.

• - Wooden borders were installed around the underpart of the deck where the rock was delivered by hand laborers drenched in mud.

• - The grassed area underneath of both staircases to the larger deck were removed and the areas were replaced with rock.

• - Our dogs run required attention especially after an entire winter of ruining the grass under their feet. The pile of wood chips left by the tree fallers came in handy when our older son used the wheelbarrow and hauled load after load up to create an comfortable base around the dogs' house and gate area where mud gathered from the ground being uneven.

• - The pots with plants from the cartage of moving here were moved from their original spots and all the grass underneath required TLC for a major improvement, especially since the bird nest located in one of the trees in one of those pots were now gone. Gardens will be carved out soon, shrubs/florals will either be transplanted or taken from existing pots and planted, with a layer of landscape paper and rockery atop for a finishing easy care detailing. (When i have nothing better to do, right? LOL)

• - The smaller deck moved to the other side of the house was in dire need of painting protection and the task of doing that is now complete. The larger deck will have to "cure" and won't be painted until next year.

The smaller deck was in dire need of painting. Done!

Last but not least, among many other things still to complete....

• - Our generator (a real blessing that came with this home) was serviced, and once each week revs up to ensure all is working just fine. We are now absolutely prepared for winter in the coming months with this baby! See my grin?
  

Oh, and respiratory physiotherapy is still in session, six hours each week so it has been very helpful for bodily movement functions to acquire ongoing "conserving energy" techniques to assist with the day to day activities our family participates in. God is good!