OK so we're having our first party tomorrow night. It kind of happened by accident: a good friend of ours is headed back to Tokyo for the holidays and will miss another mutual friend's Christmas party in two weeks, so I said "Oh, we should have a party for you before you go" and suddenly, that's what was happening. Then she invited some other mutual friends and I invited a couple of people and now it's a party. It's not dinner (we have no dining room table yet) but we're going to get some snacks, get a Christmas tree and some wine, and just decorate our tree, drink, snack and hang out. Should be fun, but I have to admit that I'm a little nervous. Our house is FAR from done but it's definitely coming along. We haven't ever had more than two people over to our place, even in our old place. So it will be a new experience.
I've just gutted my entire house, right down to the studs, and am slowly rebuilding it. After months of nothing but demolition, I'm finally starting to reverse the process. My bathroom contractor is working today to get ready for my tile guy. The insulation guy worked yesterday, so the house is nice and cozy now. (Right, except that I have to put the windows back in.) On Tuesday, the sheetrock guy comes to start putting my ceilings and walls back.
Just as soon as I wrap up my work in the attic: 2 more ceiling joists to sister, one more ceiling fan mount to install, plus 3 more fixture mounts for other lights. I'd planned to sister all the 5 ceiling joists that need it this weekend, but Tuesday I created a little emergency. While trying to rip out a piece of planking in the wall that had bowed and split--thereby preventing the sheetrock from being flush--I discovered that two of my ceiling joists were actually resting on that plank, instead of on the exterior load-bearing wall. The reason? when the foundation failed in the 40s that wall bowed out about three inches, and the joists slipped off it.
Which is how I broke my nose. With all that weight on the plank, it was under a lot of pressure, so when I finally managed to pry it off the studs, it came loose at high speed and whacked me in the face. I blacked out for about a second, before that little quiet voice in the back of my head kicked in. You know, the little voice that whispers, "Maybe you shouldn't take that short cut," and "Get up and check the door." My little voice said, "Don't fall off the ladder."
I didn't. I managed to get myself down the ladder, my head ringing, and my dust mask filling up with blood. As I was just starting to wonder how badly I'd fucked myself up, I heard this soft groaning sound and looked up. Above me, the ceiling was sagging about three inches. Not terrible, but likely to become so.
This was at about 8 pm, and who was I going to call for help? Sure, 911 would take care of my face, but they wouldn't do anything about my ceiling joists. So I went out to my truck, grabbed the jack, and a couple of 2 x 4's on my way back through the garage. I slapped one 2 x 4 up to the ceiling with a pair of screws (thank you, trusty cordless drill), wedged the other one up under it, balanced on top of the jack, and cranked the ceiling back up to the proper height. Contrary to my expectations, it worked perfectly. After all, that little jack was designed to lift one quarter of my truck, so it was strong enough to lift one tenth of my ceiling.
Then I could worry about my nose. Luckily I still have a kitchen sink, so I went it and pulled the dust mask off. Blood, lots of it. I washed off a bunch of it, but I didn't have a mirror, so I couldn't really see what the damage was. I had half a bag of ice in the freezer, so I grabbed that, stuck it on my face and drove to my temporary digs.
I kept the ice on it for about five hours, and that seems to have done the trick. I have a bump, a bruise, and my eyes are a little black, but my nose is straight. I'm pretty sure it's broken, because I can feel it wiggle when I laugh, and my eyebrows actually hurt.
Episode 2 was me calling into work sick the next morning. Only I didn't stay home. I couldn't. I went to the house and crawled up in the attic to sister in the three joists that just couldn't wait for this weekend. Then I had to repair and replace the plank I'd originally been intending to fix when it bitch slapped me. I won the rematch.
Automatic posting from my Twitter Account:
- 12:23 On our floor, we have a chronic epidemic of personal cell phone usage in the hallway. The conversation snip-its are at times... interesting
- 17:17 Packing it in for the day. Tonight: more knitting. Gotta get the gifts done.
- 18:45 Normally, not a huge fan of Guy Fieri, but love his Bumped-Up Brussels Sprouts bit.ly/4ttAQV
It's December 3rd
It hasn't snowed in Toronto yet but we're going to get an inch of snow in Austin tomorrow.
What the heck is going on???
I did not sign up for snow here!
I've been headboard-less since I moved here and I haven't found the right headboard. The headboard I dream of is tall, grey, and tufted. I've seen similar ones on TV. I've looked online and found nothing suitable that was reasonably priced. I do not want to spend $2000+ on a headboard!!
Overstock and Amazon were the sites I searched today, but everything was too short. I googled "tall upholstered headboards" and came across a bunch of DIY headboards. This headboard from Domino Mag (RIP :( ) is kind of what I want but in a different colour:
I'm going to email my cousin and see if this is something she can help me out with after the new year :D
I'm off to email my cousin :)
This story shocked me.
So we finalized all of M's paperwork: now's he got his healthcare card on its way (thanks, Quebec), a Social Insurance Number, etc etc. We expected to stand in lines all day today but it actually went pretty fast and painlessly.
Trouble has have moved into our house, and I need to know how to get it to move out!
Things you do not want a telephoning child to say - We have a problem. How do we turn off the water?
Things you do not want to find when you arrive home - Water pouring from the light fittings, the ceilings in general, flooding on the floor, discovering some of this water is hot.
Things it is quite nice to find when you get home - your three male children have managed to deal with a crisis without making it worse. And the dinner wasn't ruined either.
The boys were cooking dinner and went into the garden for a cigarette (as they are not allowed to smoke in the house). They took Heidi out, smoked their ciggies and chatted. 10 minutes, 15 max. When they got in, it was raining. Inside.
The massive leak was caused by a joint going in the piping from our hot water tank (middle floor bathroom) to our shower (top floor bathroom). Unfortunately for us, that water gets from A to B using a substantial pump. So it pumped and it pumped and it pumped.
The lads got the water turned off, having to move all Husband's quite heavy diving cylinders out of the way, they got towels and receptacles under leaks, they turned the dinner down so it didn't burn and they turned the lights off.
So, right now these are the things we do not have:
No lights downstairs - somehow, the light fittings did not appreciate water dripping flooding rushing over them.
No hot water to our lovely en-suite shower - but we do have cold, so the toilet flushes and we can clean our teeth (and sleep commando!)
No Internet - our hub was in the under-stairs cupboard, directly under the leak.
We need to decorate quite intensively - the stairwells, the under-stairs cupboard, downstairs toilet, computer room, hall, and dining room all suffered varying degrees of dampness, resulting in varying degrees of paper falling off and damage to the plaster.
Ah well, on Friday we find out how much of this our insurance will cover. Fingers crossed for us, please.
Automatic posting from my Twitter Account:
- 20:41 I'm lean, mean slipper-knitting machine! Love these: bit.ly/7DTEDc
*Cooking a lot the last few weeks. I guess it's my way of getting ready for winter: I've made chicken tortellini soup twice, chicken fettucini soup, chilli, cream of cauliflower soup, popovers twice, meatloaf, plus I've baked cake twice and cookies several times. Oh, and I'm making real oatmeal every morning with omelettes. It's kind of getting a bit out of hand, all this cooking.
