Day 2 - Forming and Pouring the Footings

Since there was rain in the forecast for last night and the possibility of a lot of it, Jay went to the site late last night and covered almost the entire driveway (300') with plastic to keep the driveway dry in case of rain.  He also secured the use of a pump to pump out any accumulated rainfall in the excavation hole.  Though it was certainly windy and the lightning was flashing, no rain fell.  The driveway and the excavation hole were both dry this morning!  Thank you, Lord!

The guys took up where they left off last night, framing out the footings with large 2x10s.  When I arrived just after lunch, they were putting the small pipes that are part of the drainage system for the underside of the house into the forms.  It is not the most conventional way of draining a house's foundation - often black corrugated and perforated pipes are used - but neither is this a new way.  This has been used many times with great success so we decided this was the route we would take. 

Once those pipes were in place, final bracing pieces on the tops of the footings were attached so I jumped in and helped. 

Then after a bit of a wait the concrete pumping truck arrived.  While it got settled into place we made sure all the last minute details for pouring the concrete were secured. 

A little while later the first of 2 concrete trucks arrived. 

That meant it was show time so I moved the kids to a higher and safer viewing area where they could watch all the action but not get in the way.

While the concrete was being pumped, Mr.W manned the pump hose,

Jay screed the concrete,

Mr.B (another guy we hired) moved concrete from the high spots to the low spots, and I "vibrated" the forms by smacking them on both sides with a hammer. 

If you want a good arm workout, that is one way to do it.  I now have a blister and calluses forming on that hand!  However, I got it easy.  Jay worked the hardest of all of us and I am sure his back will feel it tomorrow!

Pouring concrete is one of the more intense parts of the job since you have only a short amount of time to work with the concrete before it starts to set up on you plus you have only a certain amount of concrete to work with - you want to ensure you have enough without too much waste.  We had the PERFECT amount today!

After the second concrete truck came and went, we finished screeing all the concrete, leveled out the forms and smoothed them off. 

Once those were done we waited a little while before removing the extra bracing on the tops of the forms. 

After that, the guys inserted the rebar into the setting concrete as that will tie the walls into the footing.

As that was finishing up, the truck with the Fox Blocks arrived and delivered the Styrofoam forms we will be using for the walls.  After they arrived, we cleaned up the site for the day and called it quits (after all, we had supper and baseball to get to!).

So, at the beginning of today, this is what it looked like:

and at the end of today we have this:

All in all, it was another great day with great weather. I really enjoy working with Mr.W and Mr.B, and, of course, my hubby! We are all having fun working together in a relaxed environment and the progress is smooth and steady. Of course, it is only day 2 but we are so thankful for the great start!

PS:  If you are wondering who is taking all the photos when I am working, it is my oldest.  I hand him the camera when I start working and he snaps away, taking some really great pictures!

Partying over here:

         

Mortgage Free!

So, apparently, after a brief discussion with my hubby yesterday, I discovered we are mortgage free! Umm, doesn't that kind of milestone deserve a party or a date or some sort of celebration? No, he says, that costs money! :0) I don't even know when that accomplishment was reached but sometime in the past 8.5 years, we paid off the debt on this house! (Pats herself on back! Okay, pats hubs on back - he earned the money!). Now, don't get me wrong, we are not debt free. We have always paid our credit cards, never carrying a balance on them, we have bought all our vehicles with cash and we don't believe in borrowing or financing for things like furniture or TVs (as a matter of fact, we don't believe in buying new TVs!) or whatnot. We do have still a bit owing on the new country property we bought plus we have an agricultural investment that is still owing. The nice part about that one is that it pays out (very occasionally in this market) and is a tax deduction - the best kind of debt to have, next to no debt. So, anyway, I am celebrating with a tall glass of cold water the fact that our house is paid off! Yippee!

Learning to Read

RJ has shown incredible amounts of determination when it comes to schooling. She loves to be right in the thick of it. She loves to work on her books, complains the least (note that she does complain at times), and is absorbing rapidly all she is learning. This week we passed a milestone I suspected we would pass before she turned 5 - she read her first book! Granted it is a book filled with short single-vowel words and is only 58 words long but hey, she read a book! I caught it on video tape and I could not be more proud of her! Today she brought me another book and she read it as well. She does need a bit of help every now and then but she is doing so fantastic for only being 4! It just confirms my decision that homeschooling her at this early age was a good decision. According to school standards, she should only be starting kindergarten in September. I think she would be utterly bored by that point if she keeps excelling at the rate she is going. So, I say, way to go RJ! I am so proud of you! Learning to read is a huge milestone and it will take you many places in life!

Laundry Lessons

Laundry! Just the word itself usually brings about serious dread! I can always picture the heaps and heaps of dirty clothes waiting (and waiting and waiting and waiting) to be washed, the clean clothes waiting to be folded and the folded clothes waiting to be put away. Laundry was never done. Laundry was an all-the-time every-day stresser. No clean clothes in the drawers, the clothes that were clean and folded were suddenly unfolded and unclean, the list goes on. I wanted to conquer the laundry monster and tame it, control it, bring it back to where I was in control. So, after Christmas we found the usual "Mom, I have no clean clothes in my drawer (and they were right)" situation happening yet again. We spent hours washing clothes, drying clothes, folding clothes and finally, finally (even delaying school just so we could get it done) putting all the clothes away. And since then, since that day 2 weeks ago, I have been completed caught up on laundry. And I like it. No, I LOVE it! Does that mean there is no dirty laundry in the house? No, of course not! We are 7 people, we make a mess. We pee our bed. We throw up. We spill our food. We play in animal "matter". We make a mess. There is dirty laundry right as we speak. But, there is also closets full of clean clothes. And, in these two weeks, I have learned some lessons. Some valuable lessons that I know will allow me to rise above the patterns of the past and follow these new, much better habits. Here are the lessons learned (in no particular order, more so to remind me of the great thing I have going than to tell you what to do!):

1. Never leave clean, folded laundry out where the littlest members can undo your hard work. If you cannot put it away right away, put it somewhere safe. For me, this is back in the laundry room (which was previously not an option due to the probability that it would be considered dirty laundry and rewashed!)
2. Do two loads of laundry every day. And, since I have stayed on top of things, that actually means I don't need to do laundry on Thursdays (Homeschool Co-op in the morning and office work in the afternoon leaves little room for laundry) or the weekend! Imagine that! A weekend without having to be chained to the washing machine! It really is freeing!
3. Get the kids to bring their hamper of dirty laundry for sorting on Tuesdays and Fridays. This prevents them from spilling over the top (remember, we have both boys in one room and the three girls in another - we need to empty them often).
4. By doing laundry on a regular basis, the 4 laundry sorters are all that is needed. The loads have been reduced to only 4. Before, no joking, with the once every 2 weeksish laundry marathon, we would have 2 black loads, 2 denim loads, 2 pink loads, 1 light blue load, 1 dark blue/grey load, 1 white with bleach load, 1 lights load, 1 color load plus all the bedding and towels (these may actually be on the low side). My 4 laundry sorters were stuffed full plus there were piles all.over.the.place! By doing laundry every day, all the loads stay in those sorters, my many laundry baskets are empty waiting to be used and I can actually walk to the washer/drying without tripping over piles of clothes!
5. Lost socks are found!
6. No more complaining there is no clean underwear. No more looking through baskets of clothes on Sunday morning to find clean tights or dresses to match the tights that are actually clean.
7. The favorite clothes are almost always clean.
8. When your clothes are washed so frequently, you don't actually need that many! The kids drawers are stuffed full! We needed that much when I didn't actually wash them but now? Now we need to sort!
9. Jason no longer needs to help with the laundry. I feel more like I am being the wife I should. I see all these household chores as ministry opportunities for me to minister to my husband and kids and when I fall short, I feel like I failed. Yes, I am well aware that should not be the case but now that I am doing what I want to be doing, blessing my husband with clean clothes, I feel blessed in return!
10. Oh, having a dresser for the clothes instead of cubbies right above the laundry hamper is a much better idea! In our "old" arrangement, most of the girls clothes were in the closet. All dresses and sweaters are hung up, the pants, shirts and pj's were on a shelving unit with cubbies for each. The problem was when they took out the one thing they wanted, 3 more fell out onto the floor and by the dirty laundry. Somehow it made its way into the dirty laundry and I was washing clean clothes. I had bought a long dresser I intended to use as a vanity in the new house. I decided to change out the buffet I was originally using as a change table/toy storage for the long dresser. All the girls clothes (minus the hanging stuff) is now in the dresser and the toys are in baskets in those cubbies previously holding the clothes. Now, if the clothes fall out when they are taking out their clothes to wear, it is no big deal. It is not close to the hamper so I can just pick it up and put it back. Or they can. Yeah, right! Like I said, I can!
11. The kids can put away their own clothes. The boys have been doing it for a while already! What a huge help! They are 6 & 7 and completely capable of doing this chore. I don't even sort their clothes, I just put them in a basket, put the basket in their room and tell them to put it away. They know what belongs to who. The girls' laundry I still sort into piles. RJ (4) is very good at putting them away, Ali (3) is helpful as well and baby girl Ari (1) is already learning to do it. Monkey see, monkey do, right?! :) It may not be put away exactly like I would do it but it is put away. I can always fix it later!

There! My lessons learned! Maybe you will learn a tip or two. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some laundry to put away!

2011 - A Year of Promise

A Year of Promise. That is really what every year is, isn't it? A year full of possibilities, of dreams, of questions, of wondering where I will be and what will have happened in exactly one year from now and is it at all what I was hoping it would be? I am not one to wax philosophical so I won't but I really do love new beginnings and wondering ever so much about the journey that lays ahead!

I am not as keen on looking back at what as happened mostly because I hate looking at my shortcomings! Exactly one year ago today, I made these choices:

1. No sweets. That's right - no chocolate, no Kit Kat bars, no cheesecake, no Pepsi, no Saucy Hot Fudge Pudding, no homemade Hot Fudge Sauce to smother my ice cream, no Slurpee's, no homemade iced tea - get the point??!!
2. Run 500 miles. That sounds a little extreme, however, if you break it down, it is only 1.36986301369 miles per day or 9.61538461538 miles per week. Totally doable! Check out the running woman on the side to watch my progress.
3. Lose weight! #1 and #2 should help with this. So will Jillian Michaels and Billy Blanks. One of the reasons I love being pregnant is because I don't worry about my weight. If I have a big tummy, it is for a reason. Now I have no excuse (and I don't consider 5 kids an excuse!!). So, by the time 2011 rolls around, I'd like you to see about 15 pounds less of me.
4. Read through the entire Bible. I see this one as being the most difficult. I tend to get bogged down in Leviticus and Numbers. Something about all those lists. Okay, so if I get through most of the Bible, I will consider this done! After all, just watching the state of your physical being and ignoring the state of your spiritual being is pretty useless. Hell couldn't care less if you are thin.
   There you have it. My goals for 2010.

Oh, boy! How did I do?

#1 - Success! A whole year without sweets! Some people say they could never do this! You know what, you totally can! There are sweets people and there are salty people and I am far over on the sweet end of the scale. It is simply a matter of saying no to that sweet option. Not that hard. You could totally do it. Not that I am suggesting you need to but it is a great way of stretching your will-power. At times I felt like this was a dumb decision but it was made and I am stubborn so I persevered and here I am!

#2 - Running. Oh, how I hate running. I actually did run for a few months. And I hated pretty much every minute of it. Well, some of it wasn't too bad but really, on the whole, I hate running. This was the dumbest decision I made (dumber than no sweets) and I really failed. But I am still okay. I still like me. I just don't like running! I also realized that sometimes I may set my goals just a teensy bit high. Maybe just a tad unrealistic. You think? So maybe just setting more reasonable goals (for myself and those around me) would be a really good thing to do!

#3 - Lost weight! I started the year at 142 pounds and am now comfortably at 130lbs! I fluctuate between 129 and 132 but that is to be expected. I am lighter now than I have been my entire married life. I guess no sweets and no pregnancy probably helped! I have now dropped from a size 8-9 to a size 6 and I am no longer wearing medium but size small. For as long as I can remember, my whole adult life, I have been a medium, a size 8-9. It feels really weird to be shopping in the small section or looking to see if they have a size 6. I swear the selection is smaller! But, I am so excited to have lost about 12 pounds and couldn't be more proud of myself!

#4 - Read through the Bible. This is my greatest disappointment and, unlike running, I really feel I failed in this. I admitted when I made this choice that it would be my toughest and it was. Why is it so very hard to take a few moments a day to spend pretty much zero energy (as opposed to running) to read my Bible. I know it is a battle but this is one I really want to win. I will not give up on this. I will read through my Bible in a year one of these years!

That brings you up to speed on how last year's goals went. I am not one to make resolutions. I rarely do, actually. But I will make one this year. Only one. One that is very important to me. READ MY BIBLE! I bought myself The 365 Daily Promise Bible in the New Life Version. It features one of God's promises for every day of the year. Each day contains a OT passage, a NT passage and a passage from the Wisdom Literature (Psalms, Proverbs). Hopefully this year will be my year of victory. Hey, if I can go a whole year without sweets, I can read through the Bible, right? I mean, how hard can it be??!! :)

Now I am off to have a steaming cup of hot chocolate, something I haven't indulged in in over a year and accompany it with some Death By Chocolate Trifle! Mmm, mmm, good!

I'm Dreaming of a Dark Chocolate Cheesecake!

Only 25 hours and 47 minutes, people! Do you have any idea how long I have waited for this moment? I do! I have waited 524, 113 minutes! Yup, in only 25 hours and 46 minutes (time is a ticking!) I CAN HAVE CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!! And I am just a wee bit excited! And the first bite of sweets to cross my lips and tickle my tastebuds? I've done a lot of thinking and cheesecake it is. Deep Dark Chocolate Cheesecake drizzled with Raspberry Coulis and garnished with a hint of whipped cream! Oh, I think I shall die, it will be sooooo good. A little dramatic, yes, but you try going an ENTIRE YEAR without sweets and then see how much you look forward to that first delicious bite! Jay was smart enough to buy my favorite chocolates for my stocking - Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, M&M's, Chunky Kitkat, Ferrero Rocher, other dark chocolate goodness (actually only the Reese's were actually in the stocking, the rest I am supposed to pretend I don't know about but I was right there when he bought it!). Oh, I am drooling with excitement! Gotta go pull out the cream cheese from the freezer so I can make the cheesecake first thing in the morning to give it time to chill before MIDNIGHT! I have never looked forward to January 1 with as much anticipation as I am right now (and I am now down to 24 hours, 38 minutes)! What does January 1 hold for you?

Progress at the Property

{Let me just preface this by saying that if you own a "diamond in the rough" 5 acre property, who needs a workout??!! With all the cutting and pulling, digging and lifting, my arms are in better shape than they have ever been! And I love it!}

I thought I would show you some of the things we have accomplished in the many weekends we have spent at our eventually-to-be homestead. I find it rather remarkable to think that we have owned this property for one whole year already. Just means we are one year closer to building! Yay!

With a larger property, it only makes sense to break it down into smaller sections. We are starting with the SW corner of the property since it is the first thing you see when you drive on the current driveway (which we are in the process of moving. It requires many large trees to be cut down but it makes much more sense then winding the current driveway through the yard.) In that corner of the property was a long row of Shubert Chokecherries, approximately 75' long with a smaller 25' row of lilacs butting up to them. Now, I love the red color of the shuberts and the berries are great for jam and syrup. I made many jars this past season. However, I did not like the blackknot that was rampant throughout the trees. Blackknot is a fungal disease that leaves large abnormally shaped black chunks on the branches and affects the trees itself leaving the whole think looking a little less than pretty. It is hard to control once established, spreads easily and I knew it would be more work to prune the trees and follow with fungicides for years to come rather than to pull them out. So, we decided to rip them out. It was a rather physical job made much simpler with a little help from John Deere! First, Jay dug into the roots to loosen them a little then we wrapped individual clumps with a large heavy chain and ripped them out of the ground. It worked quite well. Directly behind this row of shuberts/lilacs was another row of lilacs that were a little spindly looking. With the trees out of the way, I am expecting them to fill out nicely, especially if I cut them down a little.

Once the trees were gone, we killed the grass in a large area, tilled it up, brought in some topsoil, and made a new flower bed 100' long and 50' deep, semi-circular in shape. The size of that one bed is larger than my current front yard, I believe! I bought 3 trees in the spring and planted them here, 1 12' Autumn Blaze Maple and 2 smaller Sienna Glen Maples. They will look fantastic as they grow and show off their red leaves each autumn! This winter I will plan the rest of that bed with the landscape design software I bought for $2 at a garage sale many years ago.

As soon as you drive onto our property, you notice the mature spruce trees lining the south side. They are beautiful trees but a little neglected. About the bottom 6' or so of the branches were completely dead. Dead branches do not look nice, especially on an evergreen. So, I took to cutting all those dead branches off the 15 or so spruce that form part of the perimeter of our property. That is a lot of branches! It was so worth the effort since it looks so much tidier. Right behind the spruce are a few more rows of trees/shrubs that need serious tiding but that has been put on hold as we tackle removing the trees where the new driveway will be, about 100' over from where it is now.

A bunch of the branches and trees that were pulled out were piled into the garden and somehow a little den was formed. The kids loved playing in there! Just imagine the big bonfires we will have as this is the smallest of a couple of piles!

Finally, this past Saturday, I made a tire swing for the kids. There were many tires kicking around when we bought the place and we have yet to take them away. So, what does one do with extra tires and perfectly arched willow trees? Create a tire swing, of course! That one event tired me out just trying to throw the rope over the tree. First I tried throwing the whole spool of rope but that was a little heavy and I wasn't getting it high enough. Then I found an old toilet seat lying in the leaves (seriously, the amount of garbage we have discovered is ridiculous!). I used just the bottom portion, tied the rope to it, and threw it like a disc or frisbee. It actually worked! I cleared out a large area below the swing of the stickes, leaves, large iron rods and other junk so that the kids would have a safe place to play. I mowed a path so even baby girl Ari can wander down there with no chance of getting hurt! With the amount of willows and tires on hand, I could make a swing for each of the kids and still have plenty to spare!!

I absolutely love working at the "new country", as the kids still call it. I love the quiet, peaceful feeling that comes over me. I love the possibilities. I love the fact all the kids can play outside with a lot less concern from me. I marvel at the nature God has created and am blessed beyond measure that we get to call this place home. Jay and I have spent many hours together working up a sweat and everytime I remember what a great team we make. I love that we get to make this place ours, together. When you have to put your blood, sweat and tears into it, it becomes even more special. And, I am thankful that it is raining this week so I can actually get some work accomplished here that has been seriously neglected thanks to the unbelievably amazing fall weather we have been experiencing. Seriously, it is October 26 and we still haven't experienced a "hard frost." -2C, -3C, maybe even -4C but that is it. I still have begonias blooming on the north side of my house! Very, very unusual and very appreciated. We don't take that for granted here on the prairies! Now, I just need to get the perennials from here dug up and transplanted over there! All in due time, right?!

We Survived Week One!

Well, we have completed our first full week of homeschooling for this 2010-2011 school year and what a week it was! It was a full week but a really great one! If the rest of the year could go this smoothly (which it probably won't), then it should be a breeze!

Some of the highlights of the week:

• RJ is only 4. She turns 5 in February. She would only be going into Kindergarten next year according to all the government regulations. Well, I like to ignore those and do what I want when it comes to schooling. She started kindergarten this week with a bang! I bought a number of workbooks for her thinking if she was kept busy all morning she would want to play all afternoon, right? WRONG! She spent all Monday afternoon crying because I didn't have more school for her to do! So, we upped the amount of pages for her and that seemed to make her happier - at least until Friday when she insisted she was doing school in the afternoon just like the boys. So, I just may add some grade 1 books into the mix and see how she does with those!


• The boys are enjoying both geography and science. For geography, they are studying Turkey and they look forward to those days. Yup, they actually enjoy it! And they love making the lapbooks. I did learn that their cutting-with-scissors skills are a bit wanting - the perfectionist in me has to work hard not to cut out the little books for them so they look perfect!
  


• Pepe wants to be a zoologist thanks to science. He has taken to writing notes in little notebooks about the frogs he has been catching. Actually, we have now set up an aquarium in their room with 2 American Toads and 1 Leopard Frog. Turns out, you really do need to cover any small holes in the aquarium lid no matter how unlikely you think it is that the frog can escape. Cause it can. Just ask the boys! (When we left the house at 5:30 all 3 amphibians were present and accounted for. When we returned at 8:30 the frog was gone. Jay thought it was burrowed in the dirt. So I dug up the dirt. No frog. Yup, I spent the next 2 hours cleaning the house and searching for it while promising the boys the frog was not in their room and would not jump on them at night. It was found. I returned it to its home. I covered all holes and weighted down the lid! Trying escaping now, oh little jumping wonder!)
  


• I was super excited to teach composition to Pepe this year, following the program designed by the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I wasn't sure how he would do but after this week, I am convinced he will thrive! He is loving it so far and has given 3 oral reports about his work. He was scared at first to present the report to us but by the third time he was looking at us while speaking, smiling, raising his eyebrows and using excellent expression. I cannot help but be overwhelmed with pride when I see how well he is doing under my tutelage!
  


• Lunch times are so much easier if you actually make school lunches for them either the night before or the morning of. I never thought I would make school lunches for my home-schooled kids but when I was reading this post by Mama Jenn I decided to give it a go. Now, she uses these really cute colored lunch dishes called Easy Lunchboxes that cost way too much to ship to Canada. (Sorry, Easy Lunchboxes!) I had to think of a more affordable alternative so I found perfect sized 2-compartment plastic containers at Dollarama. I also bought a few other smaller-sized containers for vegetable dip, fruit salad or jello or pudding, etc. These have come in so handy and make my day run that much smoother. Now I make their lunches ahead of time and label the dishes with their initials. They can get their lunch on their own and whatever they don't finish goes back in the dish and is handy for snack time! It really does save a tonne of time and they can use that extra time for more playing. I get to use that extra time for chores around the house or getting supper in the crock-pot, etc. I absolutely love making them lunches thanks to the extra time it saves and guess what? When you make the lunches ahead of time you don't serve KD! Imagine that! :)


• Finally, I have been using the workbox system as Mama Jenn describes (Hey, what can I say? She has some great ideas!). I have no idea how you are "supposed to" use the system but I like what I am doing. Everyone knows what to do next and the day seems to go very smoothly. It takes a bit more organizing than usual but the results are worth it. I have all 3 kids working on their assignments and it is so easy for me to go around and help them as necessary. They know what to do when they finish one assignment and don't have to sit and wait for me to tell them what to do! So, I love this part of schooling as well! And, I use the planning sheets Mama Jenn has created also! They keep me organized and on-track at all times! My day would be complete chaos without them!


• I love how we can be flexible with our schedule! We accomplished everything school-related we needed to do plus we attended a doctor's appointment in the city followed by some shopping, we helped my in-laws dig potatoes one afternoon and I took the kids to a bookstore one morning. A great, great week!

Well, that is the recap for the week. I don't have any pictures to show you since all 3 of my camera cards are full and need to get developed! That should happen this week! I hope your week was as good as mine and I hope this coming week is even better!

I Installed a "New" Toilet & Sink

Remember at our new country property there is a house trailer? Well, it is not in the greatest condition and I find it a bit gross. Creepy. We haven't had the water hooked up until last week so everything was getting dirtier and everything that was dirty had yet to be cleaned. Now, we have no intention of living in the house trailer. Not that I am opposed to house trailers - my parents lived in one for 6 years when they managed a Bible Camp down in Minnesota and I lived with them for 1 year. However, this house trailer is in need of a lot of loving and there is no way 7 of us could fit in there! Anyway, the bathroom is used often everytime we go out there to do some work. It was a gross bathroom. I told the kids not to touch anything as I was afraid they would get sick. Granted a lot of bleach might have made it somewhat more acceptable. However, the float in the toilet was broken so it ran all the time and the tap in the tub never turns off so it is always running water. The sink was rusty. I wanted new fixtures so I got new fixtures. Well, new to me. We bought a sink ($10) and a toilet ($25) at the local MCC store and I was determined to replace them myself. I googled how to do it (check out this link, this link, and this one) gathered my supplies and set about the job. I figured if something went wrong it wasn't such a big deal. No one was needing the bathroom for a few days!

Here is what the toilet looked like before. A beauty, isn't she? I just love the green and turquoise combination! (Check out that wallpaper and vinyl flooring!)

I removed the tank

then the toilet bowl!

I replaced the bowl with a "new" white one

and a matching white tank!

Isn't she so pretty (check out that fantastic silicone job at the base of it!) Now, truth be told, I have taken off and replaced that tank about 8 times. And I have to do it one more time. It kept leaking! Just a little note: if you are replacing a toilet with another used toilet, be sure to buy a new spud gasket and new tank-to-bowl bolts rather than reusing the old. It will make a world of a difference, you won't be mopping up water continually and nothing will leak. I bought a new spud gasket (in case you are wondering, it is the large "washer" that goes between the tank and the bowl) but apparently I should have chosen a different kind. After talking with my dad (who, incidentally, is a plumber!) I know which gasket to buy to solve the very minor leaking that occurs only when the toilet is flushed. You may be wondering why I didn't get my dad to do this job. Well, he is extremely busy for starters but come on! Not much of a DIY project if my dad does it, now is it? :) If you know me at all, you know I love to do things by myself! I wanted to figure it out and I did! I am extremely proud of myself (and, contrary to some of the tutorials, it most certainly does not take 5-6 hours - maybe 1 1/2 hours!). While I was at it, I also replaced the bathroom sink with a "new" white one that already had a shiny set of taps on it! I didn't bring the camera with me so no pictures of it. Just know that the green sink and green toilet were a match! I had to replace the pop-up drain assembly on the "new" sink, take out the old sink and put in the new. It all worked on the first try! So, with a coat of paint that I bought at MCC as well for the walls and the vanity, the bathroom will go from green and gross to quite acceptable. And I learned how to install a toilet and sink in the process (which, by the way, is very easy! If you can follow simple instructions, you can do it, too!)

Simple Rustic Barn Board Bench

A little spot in the back yard has been calling for some sort of seating for the last couple of years. Just as this year, a number of years ago I got wood for Mother's Day and made an arbor of sorts. It sits up against the back of the house and has a couple of great honeysuckle vines climbing it but there was no place to sit underneath it and that was just a shame.

So, as I was scrounging around in the storage area under the deck, I stumbled upon some old barn board. Remember these barn windows I made into mirrors? Well, at the time hubs salvaged those from the barn his parents were destroying, he also brought me some of the wood itself not knowing why exactly I wanted it. I didn't either. I just knew it would come in handy. And it did. So, in just a couple of hours, I whipped together this little bench.


I love how you can still see some paint on parts of it. Gives it more of a rustic look. I have yet to seal it but I certainly will. Because the seat part of the bench was originally lap siding, I used the "wrong" side of the wood as the top. That means the part that was painted originally is now facing down and the unsealed part of it is facing up. If I want the bench to last any length of time, a sealant must be applied. Just not today!

Then I remembered a old rusty gate that we found at our new property in the country and got Jay to bring that home for me. Perfect!

See that little basket with the "garden" label holding the flowers? It was a gift from one of my little Sunday School sweeties! Meant for this bench!


Finally, the kids had to check it out as with every project! This time I got baby girl Ari to sit a spell - isn't she just a little cutie?



I am perfectly pleased with the way the bench turned out and now know that I need to keep even more of the wood from the shed we destroyed earlier this summer. Unknown projects abound, I am sure!

Adirondack Chairs

Have you ever heard the saying, "All work and no play makes a man boring?" or something to that effect? Well, hubs says I am a lot of play and a little work. He likes to work before he plays, I love to play and maybe work! So, although I wanted to make these chairs right after making the loveseat, I needed to work first. So work I did. 15 loads of laundry is work, right? Or was it 20? I lost count somewhere along the way. All I know is that the laundry is clean and I mean ALL THE LAUNDRY! I also know that we need larger closets and when we go to Minneapolis for our vacation, we DON'T need to buy clothes!
So, here are the two adirondack chairs I made last Thursday and Friday. It was a perfect rainy day activity!

I also got my 7-year old to take some pictures of me actually working just so you had proof that I indeed know how to use the mitre saw, the circular saw, the jig saw and my 18V Dewalt baby! Like the tool belt and ear protection? Neither is actually mine but I am quite sure that if I had a pink belt, I wouldn't lose it (or, more accurately, it wouldn't be stolen by the kids!)! I am also sure that if I had that pink belt, no one would take me seriously. That is, until they saw these chairs! First, I cut all the pieces (which are all 1x stock) to size with the mitre saw. I didn't use the top grade wood, even using strapping for the 1x4's - but with a bit of sanding, I think it looks just fine. It is cheaper, too. Each chair only cost about $16.

Then I started assembling them. After the first day, this is as far as I got. My pelvis was complaining again and this time I listened and stopped.

The next morning I attached the rest of the seat slats and arm rests


and rounded the back with a jigsaw.


And before lunch, I had two beautiful chairs staring back at me!


Of course, the kids needed to jump in for a picture to make sure the chairs actually "worked".


Once again, I am so thrilled with how they turned out. My gazebo looks so much better with these pieces of furniture than with lawn chairs!


As I mentioned earlier, the pattern is from Family Handyman and the instructions are super easy to follow. What isn't written out in the text is spelled out in the detailed diagrams. The only very minor modification I made was to round the corners of the armrests - I figured it worked better with the round backs and then no one would catch themselves on those corners. And did I mention they are comfortable?

I already purchased the fabric necessary to make throw pillows for them (buy 1 metre, get 3 metres FREE - are you serious?) so maybe that will be the project for this week. You know after I do more work! Cannot be all play and no work, can I? :)

I am joining up with

and

and