KITCHEN!!!!!

Here it is; the finished product! (minus toe-kicks, and trim).

It rather looks like a kitchen!

Unfortunately we weren't able to have the kitchen finished prior to Mare's arrival and the weather played a truly evil role in preventing a lot of work from being done (the countertop couldn't be brought over in the -20 weather because the extreme changes of temperature may have caused the arborite to pop off of the base). Brad put in some of the door fronts and installed our over the range microwave over the weekend which has made the kitchen useable (and REALLY nice!). Then yesterday we had a wonderful treat and Ben and Nick came and installed our countertop! YAY!!!!!! Ben did an amazing job making this custom countertop and it looks fantastic in the house! Next step is to have the plumber come in and finish up with hooking up the sink and dishwasher....then we will officially have a working kitchen!!

A weekend of scrapbooking? Yes, please!!

Mare left yesterday after a spending just shy of a week in Saskatchewan visiting with me. I picked her up from the airport on Wednesday evening and we spent the night in the city to avoid a long drive home at night and to get in some good shopping the next morning. We came to town on Thursday and proceded to do some serious relaxing in the form of hours of Big Bang Theory episodes, a night watching Emma, a surprise pedicure and three days of scrapbooking! A perfect long weekend, if I do say so myself!

Cupboards, IN!

Things are moving along nicely and we now all of the cupboards installed! The pantry isn't in yet, but that'll come last I believe. Next is the countertop which Ben has been kind enough to offer to make for us, but the aborite won't be in until tomorrow or Tuesday. Then the plumbing, and the microwave, and by george, I think we'll hvae a new kitchen! WOOT! (Oh, and the light fixture is new, too)

FINALLY, a picture or two!

Our floor is in and the walls have received their final coat of paint (Brad has conceded that I am a better painter than he). SOoooo, here are the photos!

Teaser

The floor is in and looks AMAZING!! And the first coat of paint is on the walls. But I'm not posting pictures until the second coat is done. So you're going to have to wait with bated breath!

A coat of paint makes me smile

As part of the renovations to the kitchen, we (I) decided it would be a great idea to paint one of the living room walls. I had the brilliant idea after painting the spare room downstairs that it would be really amazing to have a feature wall in the living room in a nice sage-type green. So I picked up a slew of samples and stared at them for months, finally deciding on the colour last week. The wall was going to require a coat of paint with the creation of the new pass-through anyway, so I decided to take the opportunity to change things up. One coat is done and the next will come tomorrow, but I couldn't wait to post the pictures.

(yes, that is an inflatable minion from Despicable Me peeking in from the scrapbooking room through the hall. I bought the blue ray and there was the option of getting a minion too for the same price! I'd have been crazy NOT to!)

Who Put that Giant Hole in Jess's Kitchen Wall?

Our new kitchen has been sitting in the basement in pieces since November when IKEA was having a sale on kitchen cabinets. We ordered (me), received (Brad), counted (Brad) and assembled (Brad) the cabinets and have been waiting for a slightly more opportune time to demolish our kitchen. Why renovate the kitchen? This is why:(Ewwwwwwwwwww)

So we debated on colours (finally I vetoed with the "you've liked the other colours I picked, just go with it" card) and flooring and counter top, etc and Brad decided to take the week off to get cracking on this fairly major project. Here is our (Brad's) progress so far:

Demolition begins!

Waiting for the plumber to come and fix this monstrosity of old plumbing. (fyi, we needed it plumbed in for a DISHWASHER!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!!)

On Tuesday Ben and Brad started working on the ginormous pass-through we planned for the wall between the kitchen and living room.

Pass-through complete on Wednesday!

Wall is plumbed in for all that we need, electrical work is done, and the wall has been insulated, vapour-barriered, drywalled, and mudded! Also, the carpet *cough*gross*cough*cough* has been removed and the floor is ready for a new sub-floor.
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And this, is how IKEA tells us our final product will look (minus counter tops and sink, etc)! Getting excited!

Look at me and my fancy credentials!

I had the opportunity to take a course through the Institute of Professional Management to teach the finer points of recruitment. Being that I am a recruiter by day (scrapbooker by night?), I thought it would be beneficial, so I signed up and took the 20 hour on-line course. Granted, I received the CD-Rom in the mail in June and didn't put my nose to the grindstone until November. Regardless, the course took less than the promised 20 hours and I sent off my final exam to the institute for grading and acceptance into my official professional association! I received an email in December that I had passed, but my certificate officially arrived in the mail this month! That's right, I'm now officially a Registered Professional Recruiter, with the fancy letters RPR after my name! Hey, it may not PhD, but I'm pretty proud. See?

Christmas...more than a month late, but whatever!

The risks of this blog becoming nothing more than a photo album are far outweighed by my desire to post photos. So, I'm posting pictures from our Christmas holidays.

We drove the 20 hours to Smithers on December 17th and 18th to spend Christmas with my family (the first in four years, I might add).

During the stay, I baked 45 butter tarts, made over 120 perogies from scratch, showed my Mum the joys of embossing, relaxed, drank gallons of tea, went cross country skiing with Carly (Carly: "I thought we'd do the 5k track." Me: "Sure, sounds good!" Me, inwardly 30 mintues into it: 'Oh dear god, I'm going to die!' Carly: "Just three big hills to go" Me: "you mean the last ones don't count?" inwardly again: 'I'm DEFINITELY going to die'), went up the hill for an afternoon, visited with Maureen and Barry and had the chance to see other friends, played wii, learned that I am pretty much a master when it comes to Settles of Catan, and taught Brad the joys of a game of rummoli!

Hello, My name is Judy Jetson

For Christmas this year Santa brought Brad and I a Roomba. We are now the proud new owners of a robot vacuum. The first time we set it up to run, Brad and I were in the kitchen making supper and Brad asked if I ever thought I would own a robot vacuum. "This is Jetson's stuff, right here!" he declared. I agreed and said it was about time. I want to know where my flying car is, but for the time being, having a robot doing the dirty work around the house will suffice. When the Roomba first became popular, I recall wondering about the brand name: IRobot. I believe they first climbed the stairway to popularity following the Will Smith movie "I, Robot" and it crossed my mind at the time that this was perhaps not the greatest time to really push a new product to the masses. Please, buy our robot vacuum of the same name as the movie about servant robots that revolt and attempt to bring down humanity. Hmmm... I don't know which came first, but the irobot Roomba has stuck around, and it's clear why. Regardless of the ever-present fear of a robot insurrection, I delight in the little circular bot puttering around my living room cleaning up after my slovenly ways while I lounge on the chaise eating bonbons and watching soaps with curlers in my hair...or something.

My Vapid Blog

Over the past few months I have become increasingly aware that my blog is vapid. It has developed (or regressed, perhaps) to a glorified photo album with the occasional quip or witty caption. My blog has become an obligation for friends and family; "I better check to see if the blog has been updated in case she references a photo. Ho-hum". Well, it stops here. Or, I rather hope it does anyway. I have some fairly substantial obstacles in writing a truly captivating blog. Many of the things I find ironic or interesting are off-limits in the realm of blogging.

Here is my list of blogging no-no's:

1. Work. - I work for the Health Region. When I started, I signed a Confidentiality Agreement. This means, if I write, speak, whisper, sing, chant, or otherwise write in code anything learned at work in the context of work will get me fired. Basically immediately. I love my job: the people I work with are great, my work is enjoyable, and it helps to support my shoe and cheesecake habits. I can't afford to lose it by utilizing my blog for the common "venting" that seems natural.

2. Uncharitable thoughts about people I know. - You're wondering who I could possibly have such uncharitable thoughts about, aren't you? Well I can't tell you. It may be someone you know, it may be your best friend, it may be your boss, it may be your coworker, it may be a family member. Hard to say. But Why would I wan you to be annoyed with me because I can't stand ___________? Exactly. Off limits. It's that lesson I learned in kindergarten: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

3. Other uncharitable thoughts. - If I'm annoyed, it sure can't come out here! Chances are the thing I'm annoyed about is something that you love and will therefore result in you ostracizing me. Neither of us want that.

So, with these sorts of limitations, I find I have only a few topics I can discuss:

1. Ollie. SO CUTE!!! Hahahaha, and while I KNOW you all love him, there are only so many times I can post pictures of him snoozing under a blanket, or wearing a cute t-shirt before I become the crazy person who treats her dog like a baby. And believe me, it's a slippery slope.

2. Brad. I'm fairly certain he doesn't read my blog often...and I can chance some embarrassing stories here and there.

3. Hobbies. UBER boring for anyone who is not interested in the same things as me.

4. Random anonymous anecdotes with peoples' names removed to protect me. I.e. "Don't you hate when A PERSON does SOMETHING really annoying?? Me too! It happened to me just THE OTHER DAY at THAT PLACE I WENT TO."

So, while I seem to be experiencing some rather substantial writers block, combined with some serious off-limit topics, I will be striving to write entertaining blog entries, if not for you then for me so I can actually want to blog again.

in the meantime, here is a photo of Peet, our budgie. She is dangling upside down by one foot in her cage, and looks like she's starting to doze off.

A Christmas-y Weekend

It's a tradition in my family to not turn on the Christmas lights until December 1st. So, on December 2nd (whoops! TOTALLY forgot about the 1st) we turned on our house lights which Brad hung while I was in Halifax. In keeping with the theme of the tradition, I don't decorate the house until December. This weekend,. being the first weekend of the month, was the first weekend of Christmas-y tasks, including creating Christmas cards and decorating! Last night I sat down at my scrapbooking table and made 20 Christmas cards to deliver to friends, family and coworkers. I continued on today and have officially made 28, though I still have another 8 to make.

Today was our official decorating day as well! Brad and I did a clean of the living room and I put up our Christmas Tree, front and centre in the bay window so it can shine for all to see!

The next tasks inlude wrapping prezzies, buying stocking stuffers, and doing a lot of Christmas baking (though I think I'll be doing that at my parents' house when we get there!) The past few years I've been late in getting the Christmas spirit, but this year, well, I'm diving right on in!

Sha-Na-Woot!

Mare is officially comng to visit! It's been three years since she's been to Swift Current and will be coming to stay on February 16th! Sha-na-woot!! She will be the official first guest of Chateau Giesliams since we renovated. We decided that the flights would be our Christmas prezzies to each other and what could be a better prezzie from one's best friend than to have her visit for 6 days during which all we will do is scrapbook, shop, watch chick-flicks, and wear comfy pants? Merry Christmas to me!

Halifax 2.0

This year I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go to Halifax for a career fair. The weather was fantastic (especially coming from -12 in Regina when I left) and I'm a big fan of the east coast. I stayed with Maureen to start with though she was unfortuantely (for me) called to work in Nevada to learn how to do some sort of underground geology stuff (that was all I was able to understand from her explanation. Whoosh...over my head!). We had Saturday to spend and went around Point Pleasant and the water front, but her flight left early Sunday morning so I was left with Sunday to myself. What does one do in the Maritimes on a gorgeous Sunday? Why, one drives around looking for the World's Largest roadside attractions, of course!

On the boardwalk in Halifax
~ This is not a "world's largest" but it is a pretty freakin big anchor!
~ A big wave in Halifax at the waterfront
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The World's Largest Blueberry in Oxford, NS - self proclaimed Blueberry Capital of Canada!
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World's Largest Lobster in Shediac, NB - the Lobster Capital of Canada
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A big freakin Rooster in Shediac, NB. It's advertising for fried chicken.
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The World's Largest Silver Fox in Salisbury, NB - Home of the Silver Fox
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My last stop was at the World's Largest Axe in Nackawic NB - Home of the World's Largest Axe.
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