Sunday, January 31, 2010

I highly recommend

Ahh...if you have $41.00 in your pocket, go over to Nice One Nails in Brooklin and get yourself a manicure and pedicure. I went there today with Stephanie from Eat, Run, Quilt! Fabulous!!

Not much going on, just the usual January blahs. We've been lucky that there has been very little snow this year but some very cold days. If you remember I had said earlier that I was working on a boy and girl quilt for a set of twins born to my Big Man's co-worker. The girls is done except for the hand stitching of the binding to the back. Below is the startings of the boys quilt. I really like this pattern so far, incredibly easy.

Now I FOREWARN YOU.....the next picture is pretty gruesome.....the Big Man had to get a mole cut out of his back for precautionary measures. The cut is about the length of a thumb but has been healing beautifully. It's only been two days and it looks great....if that's actually possible.

I hope everyone is keeping well....SUPERBOWL is next weekend, must jog extra hard and long this week cause I see a feast in my future next Sunday!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

New Year = New Bedroom

My Big Man had to work over Christmas so I took advantage of 4 days off from work to re-paint and organize our bedroom. Below is the final result. Before, the TV used to be mounted on the wall and there was a mirror on the dresser that drove me crazy because it was always dusty.

Originally the bedroom walls were a dark red. It was a Ralph Lauren paint colour called "Thoroughbred Red". I loved it but I had used an eggshell paint finish that showed all the imperfections in the walls and major dust bunnies. There were dark brown curtains and sheers on the windows. I forgot to take a before picture; this is the best I have at the end of the first prep day, Christmas Day.

UPDATE: My Sister in Law from New Zealand just sent me this picture of our bedroom before! Thanks C!!

On day two, Boxing day, I primed all the walls with Sico brand primer. I hadn't noticed when I purchased the primer that it was oil based. It was super smelly but one coat provided an excellent fresh canvas.

Day Three was one coat of paint in the morning. Shopping for new pillows, a duvet and cover from Sears in the afternoon. Finished with a final coat of paint that evening. Again I used Sico Cashmere paint in a Benjamin Moore chip colour called "Princeton Gold" that I stole from a friends dining room. I love it, it's gold in the day but greenish at night.

Notice the new blinds. In the picture above, the are pulled up, but they also have the option of dropping down from the top. They are an accordion pleat style with a metallic room darkening core to help when the Big Man is working midnights. We purchased them from "Blinds to Go" in Whitby. Pricey but I would recommend this store -- excellent employees, ordered on a Sunday afternoon and they were ready for pick up by 10 AM on Tuesday.

I moved the bed closer to the window, the tall dresser used to be where the bed side table is now. With the curtains gone and the new furniture arrangement the room feels so much bigger.

On the final day I painted all the trim and baseboards. Girly was really good and never bugged me once. We're so happy with the end result. It is fresh and new and feels like being in a hotel room.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Ops, I forgot I had a blog....

Why yes, I am still alive!! My lovely Big-Man reminded me the other day that I have a blog but have neglected to update it for a while.

I thought I would give a quick post and update you on at least 10 things that have happened in between.
  • As per below picture, the Christmas tree is up
  • I had jury duty two Monday's in a row, sadly was not picked
  • Made and mailed out my Christmas cards last week


  • Going to the gym with Quilting Newbie on weekends when the man is working
  • Stopped colouring my hair to find out that I have more gray hair than I remember
  • I spent over 1,700.00 on car repairs in the last two weeks
  • As per below, turned 37 to a fantastic bottle of wine and "New Moon" movie


  • Working on two baby quilts, damn twins, just joking!!
  • Babysat 6 month old, confirming I made correct decision not to have children
  • Had a freaking fantastic trip to Punta Cana!!


My cheap Price Chopper Amaryllis has exploded, I have 4 flowers on the one stem and 5 on the other, and another bud stalk on the way. I hope everyone that reads is doing great and I promise not to be gone so long again.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Mmmm, Salsa!

My cousin Nerrad and his wife are amazing cooks! Nerrad has often gifted us with jars of home-made Salsa proclaiming how easy it is to make; I decided to give it a try this afternoon.

I already had plenty of jars at home but I wanted the wire basket lifter thingy for the pot of water and the rubberized jar tongs so at noon I went to Canadian Tire to pick them up. The rack was perfect for dropping and blanching the tomatoes and the tongs also worked to pick up the hot tomatoes.

I had picked up this book from the Library on Thursday to find the perfect recipe. From beginning to end it took about 3 hours and made the exact quantity specified. I ended up with 5 x 500ml jars and about a half cup left over.

Click on the picture to make it bigger
Taste testing the leftovers...it appears that it's going to be awesome! I think it needs a little bit of salt to round out the flavours. Next time I'm going to make it an all day adventure and make a few different batches. Somehow I don't think these will last very long!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

New Garage Doors!

Just a quick post to show off our new garage doors. Below are the awful doors we had....

and these are the brand new doors. I love them so much! The new doors are so quiet when they go up and down. Only minor downfall is the lack of daylight since we chose to not have windows.

We had Durham Doors arrange the purchase and installation. Great Guys, excellent quality product and I would recommend them to anyone in an instant!

Went to the Legends Centre gym in Oshawa with Quilting Newbie this morning. I'm so very proud of her; she has stuck firm to her commitment of a new healthy living!! That's about it for now. I have a new quilt picture for me next post.....see you soon.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Vacation = Another Reno Project

Like most of our vacations, if we don't go away, we tend to tackle some sort of home improvement project. This time we chose our front entry doors.

After two price quotes at about $5,000.00 each for new entry doors, we decided to go the less expensive option and try and improve them ourselves.

Our main complaint about our front doors were the builders window inserts. You can see by the picture above that they had to cut a chunk out of the window framing in order to fit the insert plate (that is normally behind the lock).

This creative cutting was not only on the outside doors but also on the inside doors. I can see if it was a fluke, but EVERY house in our neighbourhood has the same cut-outs. Obviously this must have been a measure once and cut situation!

After the doors were out, and it being a sweltering 38 degrees out, we tried to keep the AC in the house. No such luck, Big Man still sweat off 7 pounds during the whole process.

Doors sanded and ready for painting in the oven; sorry, I mean the garage. Two coats and 10 hours later they were dry enough to add the new window inserts and hardware.

We are trying to do as much home improvements, within budget, as we can this year. The Canadian Government is allowing you a 15% Home Renovation Tax Credit for the 2009 taxation year.

It took us a total of 3 days to complete this project.

It was not one of the easiest projects, but for about 17% of the cost of the original price quotes, I'm definitely satisfied and proud of our efforts. -- Amazing how we could get the door locks to fit properly!

Our vacation was not a full working holiday, we also spent a great day out in Kingston, Ontario with my cousin and his wife, thanks Nerrad and Map! There were birthday celebrations at The Keg and a visit to the Farmer's Market in St. Jacob's.
Now I'm just really tired and need a vacation from my vacation.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

And it's not even my Birthday!

I'm sure I've mentioned it before but I have the best Big Man in the world!! Look what was waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday...a 16GB I-Pod-Touch!!

I'm not quite sure exactly what I did to deserve such an unexpected and amazing gift! (I wonder what I have to do to get a new Bernina 440 QE with BSR?)--just joking Big Man.

Look, he even got it engraved with my name, cell number and 32.5!

Now I have to learn how to use the freaking thing, technology is not my strong suit. One guess on what my first movie download will be........"Twilight" you say.....that's right, just think Edward at my fingertips wherever and whenever!


This is just the GIANT spider that has made a huge web across my backyard sun tent. I feel so bad that I'm going to destroy all his web crafting, but I almost walked into it a few times already....the scream would/is going to be insane when I actually forget and plow straight into it.