Backwoods Wife

{pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ Valentine's Edition

 

A valentine for Mommy and Daddy from Hendrik.

{pretty}

The week leading up to Valentine's Day and Emma's birthday was a busy one.  We tried to stop and enjoy the roses along the way though. :)  My sister Christen and I found these lovelies at our local grocery store on Sunday, we split the bouquet between us.  Aren't the colours amazing?  These photos have not been enhanced, nor has a flash been used, this is their natural splendor!

 

 

 

{happy}

Dwayne and I went out to a formal event on Saturday night.  We have friends who are part of the RCMP and thought this a great chance to visit with friends, have a night out together, and have an excuse to dig out formalwear (we were hunting around outside in -20C looking for the storage bins containing our suits and formal dresses!).  Sadly, I didn't take a photo of us dressed up.  Silly!

 

 

 

{funny}

If I dig out my camera, so does everyone else.  Here are my sweet, funny girls taking photos too on their play camera and iphone.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

{real}

There is real progress happening in our yard these days.  If you look past the heart decorations on the window you will see menfolk milling lumber and splitting logs in preparation for the addition we will putting on soonish.  Yay! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cobweb Love

It would appear that my lack of housework lately, at least in the vacuuming department, has paid off.  The rugs have been vacuumed enough, but the poor corners of the ceilings and support beams have been sorely neglected.  As I sat at the computer yesterday, I noticed a long strand of web blowing in the breeze.  Breeze!  Aha!  An air leak.  Sure enough, when I climbed up on a chair to investigate I found a spot where the house had settled, the chinking had shifted, and there was cold air coming in from the -40C clime outside.  I pulled the books off the shelves on the adjacent wall shelf by shelf and discovered a couple of more spots in need of attention.  Dwayne sealed them up, along with another one we found near the front door.  I know that there are more behind the other bookshelves, but I just haven't got there yet.  Those dusty cobwebs have resulted in a much more comfortable sitting place at the computer.  No more frozen feet, no blankets required in the evening.  Yippee!  This is why I love cobwebs today.

Home again!

We're getting back into routine again around here after assorted comings and goings.  I was in England for the Sense & Sensibility Historical Costume Tour and with travel days included, it was 16 days away.  I had a wonderful time but it was also great to get back to Dwayne and the kiddos.  Dwayne picked me up on the return portion so we could combine travel home for me with a supply run for the shop.  The kids stayed with Mom & Dad for the duration of the time as Hendrik had just started kindergarten and Dwayne was working long hours at the shop.  Everyone is home again and we are sorting through clean and dirty laundry piles, wiping noses (the kids all caught a cold), doing homework, and trying to get into some semblance of routine.  So far things are going well, today is the first day the girls and I have had home together since big brother started school.  A different dynamic - no boys!  However, I just heard Riley  and Abby suggest that they fix a broken puzzle piece with duct tape! :)  Now there is some sort of marching game happening and I'm sure there will be wands and fancy dresses and tea parties later.

We are tackling the living room today.  There are a lot of clean towels to fold and put away.  We do have a couch somewhere under the pile!  We purchased a new rug for the living room this trip as the floor can be cool in the winter for little ones.  I also found a screaming deal on a silk plant.  $20 from $100!  Not too shabby.  In celebration of that sale, I spent more money on some seasonal silk flowers to brighten up our upcoming winter days.  I found a floor lamp at Ikea to make reading easier in the evenings but will wait until a certain mechanically inclined little boy comes home from school to assemble it. :)  Then there are the books!  Time for another clear out.  Too many books, too few shelves and no room to expand at the moment.  Hopefully the living room will look completely different at the end of today than it did at the beginning!

Off to put on some music, fold towels, and brew a pot of tea to share with the girlies!

P.S.  Blogging of the trip will follow once the house looks a little bit more orderly.  In the meantime, check out our fearless leader Jennie's blog In Jane Austen's England to see what we got up to!  You can also get an idea of our itinerary here: Sense & Sensibility Tour 2010.

Photo taken in front of Bath Abbey by my delightful roommate Karen.

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Essential daily companions

I bought these work gloves this fall when we were out purchasing other supplies for the house. These were the first pink work gloves I had seen and when I saw them I knew I had to buy them. There is a strange phenomenon at work in my family - work gloves usually disappear unless they are quite distinctive. Everyone tends to end up with similar looking gloves and they get forgotten and reclaimed and make the rounds before some recognizes them and says, "Oh! That's where those went." I figured this way the menfolk wouldn't mistake them for theirs and likely wouldn't even borrow them if they couldn't find their own. So far so good!

I use these gloves at least a dozen times a day when I am loading or checking the wood stove or when I am filling up the pots and kettles to heat up dish water or if I have to grab something from outside quickly and don't need the warmth of my winter gloves.

Mine are the "Petal Pushers" from this page. Technically they're gardening gloves but they are great all around gloves as well. :)

Saturday afternoon " fixing "

Dwayne spent part of the afternoon on Saturday adding a bit more insulation where the walls and the roof join to seal up some air leaks we had found. This involved taking down some of the wood trim, insulating with spray foam or fiberglass, and then nailing the trim back up. Hendrik thought the hammering was something he should help with so he found his little plastic hammer from his toolbox and went to work just like Daddy. After they were done, Hendrik noticed Dwayne had foam insulation stuck to one of his fingers. Hendrik tried to rub Dwayne's finger on his so that he could have some foam on his finger too! Somebody sure wants to be just like his Daddy. :)

A side effect of not having hot water....

We have an interesting problem around here today. It is the second time it has happened in the past week or so. Our septic tank has frozen over. Because we only have cold running water right now there is not enough heat in the septic tank to keep the bacteria active and the liquid from freezing over. It isn't frozen solid thankfully but there is a small skim of ice over the whole surface. This means that we can't use much water inside because it doesn't drain well with the holding tank being frozen over. Fun, fun.

After work today Dwayne is going to the hardware store to get a special kind of heat tape (used in cold climates to wrap around pipes to keep them from freezing usually) to drop into the septic tank to thaw things out. Our hot water heater should be here today along with the vent kit so hopefully we can get that installed soon and then we won't have this problem anymore. :)

In any case, no dishes for me today - later this evening perhaps. Maybe the kids and I will spend some time upstairs in the loft getting clothes organized instead. We need to do it and seeing as we can't do much else we might as well take advantage of the opportunity presented to us.

The house!!! A sneak peak. :)

Here are a few pictures to get you started. The kitchen, bathroom and loft are almost indiscernible right now so you'll have to settle for the living room until we get some more organizing done. :)

But first, what's a log home without a little taxidermy?



From left to right:


Our "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree. :)








Back door, woodstove, stairs to the loft.



Taken from beside the woodstove, looking across the dining table to the kitchen and front door.



From the kitchen, looking into the living room. Our couch is backing onto the dining table.

Kidlets!

Riley, like her big brother, loves tools. She managed to find a screwdriver...



Not so happy when Mommy took the screwdriver away.



A very serious looking Hendrik after his nap.



Inspecting the socket.

The Latest

The kids and I went for a drive this afternoon to see how things were coming along at the house. It is starting to look more and more finished. The fridge and stove are both inside now and Dwayne was finishing off the shower stall. There are piles of boxes and bins everywhere. We are hoping that we will be able to spend the night out there very soon.

Tonight Dwayne and Dad moved out some more of our furniture - couch, chair, dining chairs, dining table, bench, assorted pictures, etc.

Here is the kitchen! The odd shaped white object on the floor is the range hood waiting to be installed. The dishwasher will sit to the left of the fridge and eventually we will put up some cupboards to the right of the fridge. Pardon the array of tools spread everywhere!



Here is the shower stall. The little white bits you see are tile spacers. We'll take those out when we grout the shower tomorrow. The pipe sticking out on the right of the picture is for the sink which has been moved out of the way to make it easier to tile and grout the shower.



Dwayne, hard at work, as usual!



This is our wood stove with the back door and stairs in the background.