Home Renovations........

I don't think it matters whether you own an old or a new house there is always something that needs doing to it.  Whether it be a simple painting a room or renovating the whole house, there is always work to be done.

I happen to be married to a man who loves doing DIY.  The only book he will read is a DIY book.  His main hobby in life is DIY.  He's one of these guys who likes to be on the go all the time.  Whereas I am quite happy to sit all day with a good book and read.

The one good thing about my dh is that he is good at DIY and is very picky, and believes if you're going to do something, it needs to be done right.  Mind you as he is now in his mid-50's he is slowing down, so jobs are not getting done as fast as he used to be able to do them.  But when he has done a job (the attic) it is really well done.  We are still fiddling on with the basement, as he is now putting a tiled back splash on the counter top down there.  I picked out white "Subway" tile, as they are plain and simple, and cheap!!!  Plus they are neutral and at the end of the day its a laundry room in the basement.

When that job is done we are moving onto something else. HOWEVER, and there is always a however, with multiple jobs wanting done and very limited funds it's a case of trying to figure out what to do next. 

The jobs we have done so far have been huge jobs that have taken a lot of money, but have had a huge impact on the house.  Renovating the attic and making it into a livable space is a bonus.  Insulating it all so that that heat from downstairs doesn't rise and go directly out of the roof is another good thing.......LOL Photos of the attic are here and here and here.

The same with the new basement, there was a distinct lack of insulation down there and it made it a totally unusable space.  It's now a great space with a lot of uses.  As with any old home there were no closets, we have remedied that situation and both the bedrooms and the bathroom on the 1st floor have good sized closets fitted out with closet organizers. Our master bedroom closet photos here 

We have put money aside to get new shingles installed on the garage roof, as it is raining in; that job should be done by the end of this month, weather permitting.  We cannot afford a new kitchen, so we have decided to maybe replace the counter tops with a good quality laminate, as any stone is so way above our budget it's crazy.  Plus change the sink and taps, as the taps are leaking, and the sink is a white porcelain and is nasty!!

I talked about painting the cupboards, and did speak to someone at a home show this weekend about it and that is maybe a job I will do.  She did warn me, to tackle a few cupboards at a time, otherwise you will be pig sick of it before it's all over with.  I think that will be a cheap solution with huge impact, or at least I am hoping it will be.

The garage needs other work on it doing, which we can do ourselves.  The family room needs a makeover, as does the living room.  The mud room needs ripping apart and starting again, as it is an addition and has practically ZERO insulation in it.  Both bathrooms need total revamps, and the shed is hanging by a thread...LOL

I guess I just need to take a deep breath and say we need to take our sweet time and do what we can do and the rest will have to wait!!!

Are you renovating?

If you are new to my blog it is worthwhile clicking on the links to see the before and afters.

New Basement

We were busy down the new basement this weekend, as we are getting close to finishing it...........I know for those of you who have been with me since the beginning this has been an ongoing project since 2010, check out this post. 

We have two basements in this house.  The old basement which is part of the older part of the house, and the new basement which is under the family room extension.

Now to be fair we stripped the new basement down to it's bare bones and even replaced the two windows and patio doors as it's a walk out basement.  Everything has been replaced as nothing was worth saving.  When we moved into the house, this basement was cold, smelled damp and we even found some black mold.  

We re-insulated the whole place.  Used blu-wood for all the studs.  We had new stairs made in pine as the other ones stunk of dog pee.  Divided the basement into two, with one side being a laundry room and a main room which I think I may use as a sewing room, as it's nice and cool down there in Summer. 

Dh is now back in the laundry room as we have to put up the drop ceiling and main light in there and then we have a back splash to install.

Here are some photos though of the main room.

This photo is taken from the back of the room looking towards the stairs.  I have stained them, but haven't varnished them as I can't open the windows and doors to ventilate the place.  Dd made the piece of artwork.  To the left you can see a glass door, that is the door to the laundry room.  There is a window in the laundry room.  I do have a question for someone though.  The glass door is frosted, and has paint on the frosting, and I am not sure how to get the paint off, as it's in the grooves of the frosting any ideas? (By the way the factory put the paint on, not me!!)

Although you can't see it behind the art work wall is a closet.

If you live in an old house, one thing that there is never enough of, is closet space, so dh made sure we put in a double closet. I have made good use of the space, and cleaned up quite a bit in the old basement.  Yes those are some of the kids toys, including the blue clear box which has the Brio train set in it.

We are looking towards the patio doors.  We have done everything ourselves other than putting down the ceramic tiles and we paid a guy to do that.  

This is looking from the laundry room door towards the other end of the room.  The bottom of the stairs is to the left of the photo.  As you can see we have a fair bit of light in there and as I painted it a pale beige so it keeps it bright.  I am so pleased with the flooring it was well worth the price; $500 for the main room.

We didn't have an exact budget for this as we did it as we had money.  I would like to think we didn't spend more than $10,000 for it all, and that would include the new windows and patio door, and the new stairs.  Regardless it was well worth the money and we have more usable space.

Very different.....

I had a few jobs to do on Tuesday and one of those was to advertise the snow tires with rims from my old car.  They are almost new and don't fit my new car.  I advertised them on kijiji as it's free, so fingers crossed I sell them, as it's close to $1,000 for ones for my new car.  

I took the car to get the oil changed, which was free as the sales guy gave us a coupon for a free oil change when we bought the car.  Otherwise it would have cost over $42.  Is that expensive, how much do you pay for an oil change?

Another job I had to do was fill in all the nail holes on the window and door frames in the basement.  I am going to sand them today.  It is a job I absolutely hate doing, but I am determined to get that basement finished!!

I finished machine stitching the baby quilt, so all I had to do is hand stitch the binding on.

I am determined to get all my jobs done on my list regardless this week!!!!


Fab Find has a a little article called Fab Spot every day and this was what it was about on Tuesday:

Adding salt and pepper to your favourite dish is nothing new, but doing it with some magic certainly is. Putting on a sprinkle, a dash, or a pinch just became a lot more interesting with these wand-like shakers. You’ll have your food under a spell in no time. Plus you won’t have those awkward grinders or ugly holders at your table. Your favourite spices will be more charming than that four-eyed fictional wonder boy. Just don’t forget to say abracadabra whenever you shake them. Otherwise all that time spent studying at Hogwarts will just be thrown out the window.

Very cute don't you think?

A Weekend doing odds and ends......

Not sure about you, but this weekend just flew by; however not only the weekend but the month also.  We're now entering the last quarter of 2012, and again have to admit the year is moving along fast as well.

On Saturday we went to dd house as dh had to do some prep work as he's doing some electrical work at her house next Saturday.  Dd made us lunch and we had a M & M's Meats, Supreme Homestyle Lasagna.

Have to say it was really good, and will be buying it in the future. There is a promotion on at the moment, that when you make wine using the Glad Hatter brand of wine you get a $25 gift card to use when you spend $50 in M & M Meats.  I am going to use mine at the end of the month, to stock up the freezer.

We then went to pick up the laminate flooring for the basement.  It was on sale for $1.89; it should have been $3.29 per foot.  It is 12.3 mm and we are hoping to get it installed this month, so I'll show you photos when we have it laid.  I had hoped to keep it under $1.50 per foot, but this one was well worth the extra money.

On Sunday I cleaned out my coupon file, a job well over due; but as I am going grocery shopping today it was a good job done.  We then went to the Orangeville Fall Home Show.  Luckily we didn't have to pay to get in, as we were in and out in less than half an hour.  Came home and had lunch and then I did some more sewing on the baby quilt.  I only have to sew the binding on now and then I'm done.  However the Indian baby shower has be moved to the middle of November now, so no urgency to get it finished, but I want it out of the way as I need to work in the garden and the basement for the next couple of weeks.

Got a busy week ahead of me.  How about you?

Merry Christmas to Dh and I.......

We bought our Christmas present to ourselves on Sunday morning.  10 sheets of drywall/plasterboard:

We also bought a carry handle thingy to carry the drywall, which turns out to be the best $7 we have spent as per dh:

Here is a close up of the writing:

This is something we will use over and over, and as I couldn't help dh lift the drywall this was worth every penny.

Dh's goal is to have the rest of the new basement drywalled, taped and sanded before Spring.

In case you think that's an awful gift, if we want anything we generally just go out and buy it when we see it, if it's in the budget, and we don't really want anything at the moment.  So we thought drywall was the perfect gift. 

However, we are giving one another a $40 budget each to go out and buy a couple of small things for one another.   I am getting dh another book on renovating; they are actually the only books he will actually read.  Plus some scratch and (hopefully) win cards, and I am not 100% sure what else yet.

The new basement.........

On Saturday I promised to help dh in the new basement, however due to me hurting my foot, I didn't get much done.  He is actually doing quite well in the new laundry room and is now on taping/mudding the drywall.


We are putting a countertop over the washer and dyer as it is a front loader.  I have sourced out a place that has a piece of countertop at 32 inches deep and 8 feet long.  Of course when we went to the place there was no one there that could make a decision on the price of it, so left my name and number and will try and strike up a deal for the piece.  I do not want to pay over $160 for it, so fingers crossed I get it for less than that.  Normally to order a piece of countertop that deep it would cost upwards of $40 a linear foot.  However I think this place has had this piece laying around for a while.


I must say this whole laundry room is costing a lot more than we planned, but will look great when it is finished.  We must have already paid out nearly $3,000, but that does include the new stairs and all the tiling.  I am hoping that we can get the laundry room finished for less than $500 as all we need are tiles for the back splash, the door, the paint, the counter top, the sink, taps and fittings, and a few odds and ends; actually $750 seems more realistic.

I hope we can hook up the water by the end of next month and I can then move my new washer and dryer down there.  The rest of the basement we will work on over the winter.

My foot is still swollen and sore, but in the scheme of things it could be worse.  I did very little on Sunday, other than read a book, "Hill Country," by Janice Woods Windle.

"Laura Hoge Woods, who lived from 1870 to 1966, survived an Indian attack, experienced the diminishment of the Texas frontier, witnessed the advent of the automobile, and celebrated women finally winning the right to vote. In her youth, she loved a half-wild Indian captive and later grew to love Peter Woods, an older rancher whose horses she helped train. Throughout all her personal triumphs and disappointments--seven children, the death of a sister, a daughter whose dementia led to violent outbursts and eventual institutionalization--Laura kept her eye on the big picture: politics. The work she and Peter did with horses brought them to the attention of such luminaries as Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and Laura became a confidante of presidents, governors, senators, and local politicians and was elected to political office herself at age 87. This phenomenal woman bent without breaking to achieve the most she could at a time when women were just beginning to emerge as a major political force. She wrote her thoughts and ideas down on scraps of paper, napkins, and the corners of newspapers, hoping to one day write a book called "Hill Country." What Laura Hoge Woods was unable to finish, her loving granddaughter has crafted into a compelling tale of a woman who refused to let anything, especially gender, stand in the way of her dreams."

This was a great book, full of excitement and adventure.  Laura had so much guts and determination, you knew she would succeed at what ever was put out in front of her.  It was quite sad at the end when both her husband Peter and her best friend Rebekah Baines Johnson died.    I must ask our library for Janice Woods Windle bestselling book, "True Women."  Has anyone read that book, it sounds really good?

Mcdonalds...."I'm Lovin' it,".......I think not!!

Have to say we have never set foot in McDonald's in an awful long time, infact I don't remember the last time we ate there.  A burger in McDonald's has the same effect on me as taking a packet of laxatives!!!  However in my magazines this month was a coupon for 50% off a salad.  So on Saturday night we decided to have a quick meal.

Dh ordered the Big Mac combo and I ordered the Caesar Salad, plus a $1 drink.  It still cost nearly $14.  It's quite expensive to eat at McDonald's now.  Mind you the place was packed, though we felt as though we were the oldest people in there.  Dh did not enjoy his meal, even though the fries were straight out of the fryer, and they were still tasteless things.

As I said to dh, we are past the McDonald stage as our kids have grown and we don't have grandkids yet.  Still I have to say I hope I don't become a regular even when we do have grandkids.......but I could be wrong there?

Do you like McDonald's?  By the way when I was writing this I had to look it up to see if it was McDonald's or MacDonald's as I had no idea!!!

Had a very lack lustre Saturday, just wasn't feeling great, my stomach is playing up, plus my allergies are really bad AGAIN.........dh made up for it by working up a storm in the basement and got more drywall installed.  We are getting the tiles on the floor installed next week, so need to finish up some stuff in there before then.

Have a super Sunday, off to church today haven't been in a while.........

Sunday am: Just spent a couple of hours catching up on everyone's blogs.  The only people I couldn't leave comments on were John D at Tok Tok Place and Flower Power because of the Blogger thing and there not being an anonymous option.  If I have missed leaving a comment on your blog, please let me know........

Good Deal, allergies and other bits and bobs

There is a good deal going on at Sobey's (Ontario, not sure about the rest of the provinces?) when you buy $20 of the following products, you can send in for a $20 Sobey's gift card, page 9 from the flyer.

valid with purchase of any combination of the following participating products in one transaction for a total of $20 or more (before taxes) at participating Sobeys stores: Gatorade Perform® and G2 Perform™ Beverages, all Aquafina® bottled water and Aquafina Plus+ Vitamins™ vitamin enhanced waters*, Lipton® Iced Tea (excluding Brisk®) 12 x 355 mL and Dole Sparklers® 12 x 355 mL beverages. Participating products must be purchased between July 29th, 2011 and August 11th, 2011 and must be purchased in the same transaction to be eligible for the Gift Card offer.

I also took part in the Shopper's Drug Mart promotion on Saturday, when you spend $75 you got a $20 Petro Canada Gas Card.  That paid for half of filling my gas tanks for the lawn tractor.

On Sunday I got a lot of the grass cut.  Still have around a third of the field to do, hoping to get that done tonight.  However when I got back in around 8pm, I was ready to pull off my nose, so popped a couple Benadryll pills.  For those of you with allergies, should I continue with the pills until I stop cutting the grass, or should I just take them after I come in from cutting the grass.  I feel fine this morning, just tired, as the Benadryll makes me tired.

We were also hanging drywall (plasterboard) yesterday so that too was a dusty job, so maybe that contributed as well?

Got company coming for lunch today, so need to get going as I have a few things to prepare.  Nothing exciting, just a quiche, some scones, some muffins and a raspberry sour cream pie for dessert from this recipe.

Sunday morning........

Molly is doing well, she is both eating and drinking now, and hasn't vomited since Friday.  I guess the combination of going to the vets, having a thermometer stuck up your butt, being prodded and poked, made to take two pills you didn't want to take, having a shower, which you hate and not feeling too great in amongst all this would make anyone feel unwell and want to vomit.  Especially as you can't talk, so I guess vomiting is one way of letting me know she wasn't happy!!!

So Molly and I want to thank you all for all your good wishes and concern.  I haven't had time to visit every one's blogs as I have been so busy.  We were working down the basement for a bit yesterday until the humidity got too much for us.  How did we know that; when we were drenched through with sweat.

We then ran some errands and by the time we got back in we were just plain pooped.  After supper we sat down and watched "The King's Speech," on DVD.  We have had it quite a while, my brother sent it over for us, actually it was for dd and they had been talking about it.  However as dd has seen it I thought we'd keep it until we had watched it before passing it along.

I have to say the movie was more interesting than entertaining.  As there were a number of things I was made aware of that I didn't know.  I didn't even know he stuttered, mind you he was dead before I was even born, so how would I have known?  I had heard there was no love lost between the Queen Mother and Wallis Simpson, but Wallis Simpson was portrayed in a very negative light in the movie.  As I said very interesting, rather than entertaining; and of course Colin Firth did an excellent job, he is however the quintessential British Actor in my eyes.  Loved him in the Bridget Jones movies also.

Hope you all have a relaxing Sunday.....depending how hot and humid it gets, will depend on how much work we accomplish, hoping to hang some drywall in the basement today, we'll see......

Oops......

When I looked outside the patio doors this morning, this is what I saw:

The weight of the logs had broken down the end of the log store.  So I had to pick all them up, so we can re-attach the end panel.  While outside I also picked up all the odds and ends of the logs to put in bags for kindling.  Have to say I was sweating buckets as it was ever so humid.

I then went down the basement and had a clean up as it was messy and put all the wood we can't burn on the woodpile.  We are still on a no burn ban but its better on the woodpile than laying in the basement.  Going to be busy this weekend working in the basement with dh.  I would love to be able to use my new washer and dryer!!

Still haven't had time to find that test been busy........

Didn't have a chance to post this morning....

been busy all day, but now as the temperatures are in the low 40's with the humidity I am now hibernating in the house with the a/c on.

Dh was busy yesterday in the new basement, which has resulted in this:

We now have to bring in the new stairs from the garage and install them.  We were out on Saturday afternoon looking for ceramic floor tiles for the new laundry room.  Dh thinks I am picky; come to think about it I am picky.  I have an idea in my head how I want it too look and have seen a couple of tiles I like, but they are $3.49 a tile so that is going to cost nearly $300 + taxes for the tiles.  I of course don't want to pay that much so dh has decided I should get on with it myself looking for these tiles!!!

All over the place the canola crop is in flower and it looks just lovely:

That is what my header photo is of as well, they make canola oil out of it.

I am now going to be busy for the rest of the night deleting emails from my Gmail account, as I haven't deleted them from the server.  I have over 26,000 emails to delete and can only delete 50 at a time!!!  Guess I am going to be stuck on my laptop all night doing that, as dh wants me to accomplish this before we install the new hard drive in the desktop.......{{{SIGH}}}

Happy Canada Day!

It's Canada Day here in Canada.

Canada Day (French: Fête du Canada), formerly Dominion Day (French: Le Jour de la Confédération), is the national day of Canada, a federal statutory holiday celebrating the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the British North America Act (today called the Constitution Act, 1867), which united three British colonies into a single country, called Canada, within the British Empire.^[1][2][3] Originally called Dominion Day, the name was changed in 1982, the year that Canada gained full independence from the United Kingdom. Canada Day observances take place throughout Canada as well as internationally.

Thanks to Wikepedia for the info.

Dh has the day off which is good.  Our plan for the day is to do some regular jobs around the house, but dh is going to be working down the new basement doing some structural work.  We are pulling out the old stairs and moving the position of them slightly and putting in new beams and walls down there.  We have a guy coming in to give us a quote on tiling the floor in the laundry room we are putting in there as well.  There is a lot of prep work as well sorting the floor out, so it's not a straight forward simple job.

We are not planning on working all weekend, but do hope to get a lot of work done.

For all the Canadians out there enjoy your Canada Day whatever you decide to do.

Comfort food at it's best.........

Nothing beats a big pot of mac and cheese on a cold Winter's day!

Here is a recipe for mac and cheese I posted on the blog a while back.

Another classic Christmas song, sung by the Celtic Woman




Saturday's cookie recipe is a good one 3-in-1 Sugar Cookies  It will be one I will be making, as I like sugar cookies.

Well today another winter storm is on it's way, so I need to flex my snow shovelling muscles again {SIGH}  One thing is for sure, we are going to have a white Christmas.  Also it's good news for all the ski resorts, as they are now open.  Here is a web cam of one of the ski resorts close to us.  Oh, I don't ski, I have enough problems walking when it's snowing, never mind hurtling down a hill with planks strapped to my feet!!!  That is an accident waiting to happen in my case..........

Spent Saturday morning helping dh put up the stud walls in the basement.  I forgot to take a photo but will have one on the blog on Monday.  We only worked in there in the morning, as Saturday was dh's last day off until Christmas Day.   Plus we went to his work's Christmas party the night before so we were tired.  We left early as it wasn't that great so were in bed by 11:45 pm, however that's way past our usual bedtime, so that's why we were tired.

Been busy and little Olga

I have been helping dh in the basement and on Thursday afternoon dh left work early so we could spend the afternoon in the basement getting some of the wood put up for the walls.  Namely the wood on the ceiling.  Everything is not as simple as it sounds and whatever we do we seem to run into one problem after another.  However we got all we wanted done before we ran out of wood. 


We then had to drive 45 minutes to Lowes to pick up more BluWood. Dh wants to use the treated wood as extra protection as we are working in the basement.  Oh and Lowes is the only place that keeps this product indoors.  We can buy it at a local dealer, but they keep their wood outside, and it is covered in snow and is as warped as heck.


On the way back we were hungry so we called in at a Fish and Chip store to take home fish and chips and I can safely say we WILL NOT be going back there ever again.  They serve frozen fish that they don't even batter themselves and chips they resemble MacDonald's fries, and to top it off they charged me $25 for the two portions.  I was shocked I wasn't running to the bathroom all night, as it all looked pretty dubious to me; oh I didn't see what it looked like until we got home.


Friday's cookie recipe was Guy's Craisy Oatmeal Cookies.............wouldn't be one I would  make but you may like it?

By the way this is Olga:

She is the little one we are trying to raise money for.  You will be pleased to know over $5,000 has been raised so far.  Liz was talking about this on her blog.  I hope she finds her forever home soon......to donate to her or any other the other little ones, please click on this link 

Also could I ask a big favour of you all.........could you tell all your blog readers about Reece's Rainbow and Olga on your blog, a big please and a super big thank you, as the more people we tell, the more homes we can find for these little ones.......

Monday and we are talking about all sorts...

I should mention something from yesterday's post.  Although we put tar paper on the walls in the "new" basement, we don't actually have any damp in there.  Even in the old basement that is dry.  We are lucky as a lot of old basements in older homes can be damp.  We did have a bit of dry rot in the old basement, but that was taken care of in the spring.


Sunday was the start of Advent at church.  I enjoyed the service, though one of the hymns just went, on and on and on!!!!  I am looking forward to the next few services.   Also found out when the Christmas Eve services are.  We have three churches in our parish, so one is at 4pm, the other at 7pm and the one at the church I attend is at 9pm.  Looking forward to attending that also.

On Sunday morning we had a lovely sunrise, and I took some photos.

Accross the road is a cell phone tower, I think it may be a Rogers one.  Anyhow the sun was shining off the tower and it lookes as though it was lit up:

I think I will keep the other two for Skywatch Thursday as they are really nice.

I also put up my Fibre Optic tree.  Have to say I love  the simplicity of that tree.  Pull it out of the box, connect the parts and switch on.......couldn't be easier!!  I am hoping to get our main tree up this week..............now that takes a heck of a lot longer to put up!!

The plant left of the tree is an orchid.  I see I have a couple of buds on there so I am expecting flowers from it in the Spring.  It was flowering when I got it for my birthday this year, see this post.  The santa's each side of the tree are these ones.

As you can also see by the last photo we don't have much in the way of snow and we are forecast for rain on Tuesday, so it will be all gone that day.........

Also on Sunday I was doing a bit of sewing, I should be finished by mid week, so will show you the photos then.  Hoping for a quiet week again this week.

Saturday down the basement.......

So woke up to miserable weather on Saturday, snowing and very windy!!  A great day to work in the basement.


So me and dh spent most of the day putting up the tar paper in the "new" basement.  Now we did have to take a break as we ran out of supplies, so had to run out for them.  Putting tar paper on the walls is not as easy as it sounds.  We could have done with an extra pair of hands, but once we got going it sort of came together not too bad.  We are hoping to finish it off on Sunday afternoon, depending on how long dh has to work on Sunday.

This photo is looking to the south side of the basement. The window is bigger it's just partially covered in tar paper.  Molly came downstairs for a look.......we bought all the insulation last year to do the attic and that is what is leftover.  We hope to have enough to complete the basement.

This is looking towards the north side of the basement.  Most of that end of the basement will be my new laundry room.  Again the window is a lot bigger when it's not covered with tar paper.  Oh and yes that is dh is the background!!

These are the patio doors leading from the basement.

Now it would be a big help if we could clear out some of the mess in there and so give us more room, but at this point, that isn't happening.

All we want to achieve at the moment, is to insulate the walls to make it warmer down there.  Then in the New Year we are going back to the attic with the hopes of getting that finished in the Spring.

The sun came out later in the morning and shone all day, it was a lovely day, cold but very sunny.

Janet and John......

I won a giveaway on Janet's blog.  Have to say it was an easy one for me, as I have been to the place many times; Blackpool Tower, although I don't recall how many times I have actually been in the tower itself?  Janet is raising funds and awareness for MND - Motor Neurone Disease, as her brother Andrew has Progressive Bulbar Palsy a type of Lou Gehrig's Disease.  So if you have time could you pop by her blog and say hello and wish her well with her goals........


Now Janet's brother is called John.  I have never met him, but I adore his blog and his way of life.  I would love to live in the same village as him, as the going's on with his menagerie of animals always makes for  good read!!  They have just adopted the most gorgeous Bulldog, which I think would make a lovely friend for our Molly.  Dh is not allowing me to get a friend for Molly.....(I am pouting at the moment!)   So if you have time pop by John's blog also to say hello.

Did you watch Dancing With the Stars?  If Jennifer doesn't win there is something very, very wrong...........

Helped dh with the basement on Monday when he got home from work.  Confirmed that I DO NOT LIKE insulation or drywall dust, both are icky, icky, icky!!  However have realized if you clean up as you go along, it makes for a better working environment!!!  Shame dh doesn't get it!  Still can't complain as he does work really hard.

Writing this on Thursday night........

My dad came over on Thursday and we worked down the "new" basement taking up some of the glued down 1974 lino tiles.......a lot harder job than we originally anticipated.  We got what I wanted done, so that was good.  We even started to pull out the nails and screws out of the beams on the ceiling and walls.

Dad is a great worker and he is a hard worker.  Meanwhile I am pooped and am hobbling around as my back is killing me.  However dh is really pleased with what we did and it has saved him a full day's work. 

This Saturday he is going to finish of doing some prep work. The prep work takes longer than the actual job itself.  He has to work on Sunday.  Then the following Saturday we need to put the tar paper on the walls...........not sure why we are doing this but we are.  Then I hope the following Saturday we will be putting up the stud walls and the following Saturday insulating.

Dh generally has a Saturday off but seems to be working most Sundays at the moment, as well as Monday through Friday, he too is a super hard worker.

Meanwhile it's 8pm at night, and I am heading to my bed, to see if laying down helps my back.  Hoping a good nights sleep will do my back a world of good, it generally does.............

(P.S. haven't dealt with the computer/photo problem yet, haven't had the time yet)

UPDATE:

Friday morning and after a nights sleep my back is good again, thank goodness!