Growler = Happy

Haven't had a chance to post anything all week so here's a quick one before I head off to the big smoke with five 10/11 year-old boys for Mr. T's birthday. Wandering around Chinatown, Jamaican patties for lunch, then off to the Royal Ontario Museum to see what's new about what's old.

Ok. Here's the post. I think a picture definitely paints a thousand words in this case but let's just say that stopping in at our local Publican Brewery (literally 4 blocks from our house!) gives me a little giddy happy feeling every time. Getting home with the goods makes me even happier.

Shown above, a growler full of Henry's Irish Ale. Yum.

Oh, The Floor!

The bathroom floor was installed today. I went to work this morning, leaving behind U.G.L.Y. and returning to this...

 (yes, these renovations have turned the house sideways - we're working on that next...)

Is not it lovely? (I have to say this like I'm in a Jane Austen novel. I think Lydia, the silliest sister in P&P says something like this about a hat she likes). But really, can you imagine a lovelier colour? I have a couple of pieces left - a large one that is waiting for the right project and a small one that I am seriously thinking about putting on my desk at work, it's just that nice. I wish you could see it in person because the photos just don't do it justice.  Stop by if you're in the neighbourhood. If you make in the next 24 hours it will likely still be clean enough to caress with your bare hands. After 24 hours it may never really be clean again. Not my forte.

A Great Rabbit

A dear artist friend has created a wonderful installation called Voices at Hand that has been taking her around the province for the last couple of years. It's a letter reading performance and she has been gathering letters as she goes, sorting them into categories, and sharing them on her blog. She's recently moved into Trent University for a short stay and has just posted about the Stewart family letters that she found in the Trent Archives. The Stewarts were one of the first Peterborough families.

She's posted two letter excerpts - the first about travelling in winter (9 miles in one day!) and the second is a juicy gossipy one from Ireland. It contains the line that inspired the title of this blog and the jumpy-belly, happy feeling I have this morning. It is, after all, the birthday of my two beautiful boys - they are 11(!).

Mary Anne Garnet is just going to be confined again for the forth time — She is a great rabbit She married just two years after you — She is a poor douny indolent looking thing — it tires one to look at her...

And here they are, the birthday boys. Then (with their extremely unhappy, I-can't-believe-they-brought-in-TWO-usurpers, three-year-old big sister)...

...and then...

... and then...

...and then... (sorry - still waiting for my daughter to teach me how to rotate this...)

...and now!  Mr. Li, born first at 7:30 am...

..and Mr. T, born an hour later (he really wanted to stay in and he's still a bit of a homebody) at 8:30 am.

Happy Birthday boys!

Chartreuseum

A few days ago I promised a picture of the new flooring for the bathroom. It's Marmoleum and when my friend and flooring advisor MM and I went to pick it out we were oohing and aahing over all the colours and patterns. But, this one stuck for me. It is dee-lish. 

Plus, being all "natural" (made with linseed, resins, wood powder, backed by jute) you probably really could eat off it. And it smells lovely - takes me back to the time my mom was a 4H Homemaking club leader (I was too young to be in 4H so just hung about watching the cool older girls). It was in the seventies so the projects were cool - one was making lino-cut prints from linoleum which is basically the same as marmoleum. Hence the scent memory. That picture does not do justice to the colour, "chartreuse".  It is really lovely.  

 The jute backing. Nice.

This is what it is replacing although the colour is all wrong in this photo - it's off-shite (ha ha! typo) actually it's off-WHITE with gold swirls and fairly worn out.

I Don't Deserve To Be So Happy

I've decided to begin posting things that make me inexplicably happy. These will only be the things that make me feel, like Scrooge at the end of the Alistair Sim film version of A Christmas Carol says, "[that] I don't deserve to be so happy."
(And that scene is one of the things that makes me feel happy - in a deep down, can't explain it way - why should that make me feel so happy?)



So the thing that made me happiest this week was this tiny news item buried into a back page in last Friday's Globe and Mail (which was delivered despite the fact that we only get delivery on Saturday... coincidence? I think not!) The picture is from the online version of The Guardian. Seems that the authorities in a Russian town would not give a group a permit to protest in the town square, so after many months of waiting, they came up with this solution. The police were totally freaked out and were seen to be writing down what was written on the signs. I can't decide if my favourite is Sailor Moon protesting Russian political corruption or the little Lego police officer keeping an eye on it all.

Oh My!

I just noticed that the wonderful librabygirl, blogger of Living in the Kingdom of Too Much, has posted my blog on her list of some blogs she likes - eek! I feel the need to post more regularly. I've actually had some (ok - maybe 2 or 3) strangers looking at the blog. I had a spike in my stats from 0 to SEVEN one day. I've now had visitors from Australia and the US (although this may be my parents who are in Florida for the winter).

So, this is just a quick message before I leave for work to anyone who's visiting to say I promise to try to post more regularly. I have an update to do on the reno soon and then I'll start cleaning the cupboards so there will be more added to the Winklepedia. Hang in there. I'll give it a go.

(PS. Thanks a bunch librarygirl.)

Let the Restoration Begin

Now that all the mechanics are tip-top and brand-spanking, the kitchen can be put back together. That includes drywall and wallpaper. To that end, here's what's been going on this week....

The new ductwork for the new island range hood...

 The framing in of the plumbing to create new bulkheads...

 The strapping of the ceiling to create a level surface for the drywall...

And four hours of wallpaper stripping later the pros have removed... 6 inches along one 6 foot span... Wow, I'm really happy I'm not doing that job...

And then the drywall - yep, that's the hood duct, and you will note the further 6 hours of wallpaper work by two male strippers with a giant steamer and they've managed about a foot wide and maybe 10 foot span...

New bulkhead (still needs a little drywall underneath)

And the corner where this whole adventure began, ready for tape and mud.

This is the only wallpaper that will remain when it's all done - the kids height marks for the last nine years, and the heights of many of our friends kids too.

Oh, apparently the wallpaper above the door was holding the plaster in place and so now, it's drywall. There's another spot like that above the living room door that I expect will have the same result...

Wallpaperless. Or at least, less wallpaper...

Within a week we could actually be living in this room again. What a concept.

Oh yeah, the bathroom is on it's way too. I'll save that for my next post. You can ogle my pretty flooring sample...
cd