Sweep!

France, Dave, Eric & Tim played in a skins format bonspiel on the weekend at Mount Bruno where Eric is a member.
They didn't win but they sure were entertaining. Cathy & I are convinced they were trying to provide us with comic relief with all the tripping & slipping that was going on!
Mingo, the pink flamingo mascot, unfortunately, did not bring them luck this time...but we all had fun. (I think?!)

Sanitation engineering

We have come to the conclusion that we musn't have the same garbagemen on Mondays & Thursdays. We much prefer the Thursday crew...they actually pick up the bins with the long pieces of wood with protuding nails and the rather weighty boxes filled with chunks of plaster disguised as computer servers.

Today we should actually obtain our building permit. I love how they make you go through this whole process of applying for it and submtting plans and descriptions of the work and you don't even know if everything is accepted but they'll certainly cash your cheque to pay for the darn thing. Now all our nosy neighbours can officially know we are doing work on the house.

The floor scraping should be done today.

Dreams

Do you ever wake up in the morning and remember a dream and have it set your mood for the day or change the way you think of somebody?
I'm not good at retelling dreams as vividly as someone like Stéphanie so I won't try and describe what I dreamt about last night that brought this thought on but I do recount dreams rather well in my head sometimes.
And then I can't stop thinking about it. That is until the ADD kicks in and I move on to something else and then to something else and then to...!!!

My biggest muscle

Who knew you could get sore glutes from scraping a floor?!

Hardwood it shall be

After looking at our options for what to do for the kitchen floor, we had pretty much decided we would do laminate floating floor in a maple finish but upon ripping up the ugliness that was the linoleum and Armstrong tile underneath, we discovered hardwood in pretty good condition. It would be a shame to rip it up so Paul and I had the pleasure of scraping it down yesterday to uncover the beauty! Very labour intensive but definitely worth it. I get excited about how beautiful it will be everytime I step in the kitchen!

Jouni and Tim had the easier job of putting up plywood and drywall

Safety first

I decided with all the nails strewn about and the possibility of dropping heavy pieces of wood on my toes not being a pleasant experience, it would be best if I invested in a pair of safety shoes. So I headed off to L'Equipeur and found a pair of shoes in my size worth $109 discounted down to $30, score! And Caroline's family discount card was still accepted so that was another 20% off, bonus! Now if only my safety glasses would stop fogging up.

New basement door

Our access to the basement has now been moved with help from Eric and Jouni. We blocked off the doorway in the kitchen and made a hole from the hallway instead. It took some getting used to but is much more convenient!

More power to ya!

We acquired yet another power tool (will it ever end?!) We are now the proud owners of a high performance 18 gauge finish nailer. Unfortunately, it is not yellow. Yellow tools are apparently way cooler...

New appliances

We braved the pouring rain on Saturday the 14th and headed over to Sears Décor on the Shore to purchase our kitchen appliances. After doing some comparison shopping we found them to have the best prices (that is after getting an extra $10 off on the range as Corbeil had it cheaper and they do a price match thing.)
So we now have a new range, a FULL size dishwasher and a microwave/range hood.

The venue has moved back to Bishop St.

Pub night happened as regularly scheduled, the second Friday of the month, but we've decided to meet downtown again instead. Better service, better music and we can even walk home. But Ms. Organizer was absent this month...Better not make a habit of it!

Entschuldigung, mate?

Should the OLF be advised?!

And so it begins

The destruction has commenced!

Blood donation failure

I went and gave blood for the 44th time on Tuesday but I couldn't fill the bag. It stopped flowing before they had enough of my life juices to be able to use it. :(
But I do have quite an impressive bruise on my arm from the nurse playing around with the needle. I guess next time I will stick to the right arm as it seems to flow a bit better from that side.

Did the Earth move for you too?

Apparently we had 2 earthquakes this week. Well I didn't consciously feel either one. Monday morning's was at 10:30am so I probably though it was just a train going by. I guess I must have felt the one on Tuesday cos I did wake up around 4:30 and asked myself why the heck I was waking up at such an ungodly hour.

Christmas is over

Man, I think it takes just as long or maybe even longer to un-decorate the house from Christmas. We took our tree down on Sunday and of course that entailed lots of pine needle vacuuming. But we all know we'll be finding needles in the strangest of places all the way to July!
And so the bare tree still lies in front of the house as the city hasn't picked it up yet. At least ours didn't blow away in the wind like the neighbour's from across the street.

Planning and shopping for the kitchen

The weekend saw us starting to shop around for various elements we shall be requiring for our new kitchen. Sink, faucet, stove, dishwasher, vent hood. Thank goodness we can look up a lot of this stuff online...we found the same sink that we saw here at Lowes in the States and can get it there fo $200 cheaper even after the exchange. Yay for a strong Canadian dollar!
We also pillaged the Colby household and got a tall cabinet that fits perfectly in the dining room to use as a temporary pantry and also various tools that will be required once demolition/construction begins.

Return to the scene of the crime

Last Friday I spent the day at Lallemand as my presence was urgently requested to go in to do some analyses! I also went in this past Tuesday. It'll make me a few bucks and not make me feel so guilty about procrastinating about finding a job!
Yes, although I had told myself I would definitely start hard core job searching this week, it hasn't really happened other than me sending out a few CVs...so (dare I say this) you all have permission to make me feel guilty and nag me about it! (but be gentle!)

MEC

Last Thursday Gillian came into town and we took a trip to MEC and France tagged along too. It was nice to see Gill and spend some time together as the last time we saw each other was last May! And after all these years I finally got my own MEC membership! I never saw the need before as I have always gone with someone who has one and it would mean receiving 2 catalogues at home. But they've now wised up and only send 1 catalogue per household. For a while there we were even getting catalogues addressed to Colby, Tim and Rozon, Chris which I thought was pretty funny although I don't think Tim did! Anyhow, I got 3 cheap tops for cycling and/or hiking and then we went for lunch at Futenbulle on Bernard. Quite good although they did not have my first choice of beer La Chouffe
so I missed out on a free glass as they had been giving them away as a promotion when you got a bottle of the golden ale. We then walked along Mount-Royal so Gill could get some used cds at L'Echange. I hadn't been around there in ages!

I spent that evening making a variation of this soup recipe that Jacquie sent me...very tasty...Sweet potato and clementine bisque

Nappy Yew Hear

Well even Moose has finally updated his blog to wish everyone a Happy New Year so I guess I should do the same...

May you all have a great 2006 and may all your wishes come true!

That said, what have I been up to in the last week? This, that and the other, I guess...

Tim worked last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday much like the rest of you employed people so I took the time to do some errands while the stores were somewhat empty before the pre-New Year's rush. The exciting purchase was a new Welcome mat for the front door! I got it when I finally checked out Warshaw's Home down by the Atwater Market. Lots of good bargains on household items are to be had there.

Saturday was spent preparing for the evening celebrations as New Year's festivities were to be held at Columbia Avenue after a 2 year hiatus. We were 16 in all, including Elise and a very quiet Arianne and a good time was had by all (or so I believe!)
No photos of the event appear to have been taken with my camera so I have none to share, sorry!
But here's one of Olaf & Tim playing in the park the following day...


Steph & Olaf slept over so they could both enjoy the fine wine we served and wouldn't have to drive all the way back to Rigaud after the party, smart move! ANd they also got treated to french toast the following morning.

Sunday evening was turkey dinner with my family and after a late start, we enjoyed a fine meal that was definitely worth the wait. We even got some leftover turkey to bring home for yummy sandwiches.

And what would New Year's be without the traditional vegging out in front of the television for a marathon viewing of 24. Monday we got in 11 episodes of season 4 and yesterday after a trip to Ikea (CRAZY!) to buy a reading lamp for the corner by the couch we squeezed in another 9 episodes.
We seem to have inadvertently passed on the tradition to Steph & Olaf as they borrowed season 1 and proceeded to watch 10 hours on Monday.

So such is life...