RenovationSensation

We've managed to get cracking on our renovations in the last while, and we've got some photos lined up of the new look of a few things! Our living room is done, pretty much. we gave it a new coat of paint, replaced the baseboards and slapped up some crown molding. The once wood-panelled ski chalet is now a classic looking room. Also, the basement suite is renovated and rented.
ALAS! Those photos are yet to come. Perhaps the more exciting development is the demolition we have done on the walls enclosing what we suspected was our chimney. after some limited probing to test our theory, we couldn't stop ourselves from tearing down entire sections of wall.

from the first two pics, one can get an idea of the fireplace that is in the wall in

our living room closet. it's a small little Victorian fireplace, and it needs some work. Above he fireplace, note the wallpaper with willowy branch prints and japanese or chinese characters on it
(I'm not well enough versed in Asian langauges to know what's what)







the beauty of this demolition is...
It's in a cupboard right now. we can close the door on the mess (ps, old living room paint job. please ignore. Besides, once the fireplace is ready to go, that cupboard will be coming down anyway).




On the other side of our wall is the kitchen.



in this pic, on the right hand wall, note the pink-covered, walled-over chimney outcropping.


here's me in the demolition phase. Any guesses what year that wallpaper was put up? Any guesses as to why someone would make an enclosing wall out of flooring?

Ooh, looks like my pants are falling down in sync with the wall.
you probably should ignore my saggy butt. and the look on my face (it's sheer intoxication over the joys of demolition. those who have done it, know).


and here's the exposed chimney!






Add some cozy chairs and accent lighting, and VOILA! A room with some character is born! It's just that easy, folks :)



the fun continues! ta ta for now!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR AND SO ON!

Hello all! as you can see, our new house is decked out for the holidays! the lights went up on December 1st, the first full day we were in the house.

as you will see from the following pictures, the interior isn't necessarily as well decorated as the exterior! we've already done some work, but those photos will have to wait until the next entry or two. after all, it's more fun with the before / after effect anyway :)

so what you're looking at is our dining room, living room, back yard ( the last owners had SEVEN cats, hence the mesh that was their encagement! and it all collapsed in the snow...), and a taste of what the basement suite is painted up like. pretty , no? and the wood panelling? We'll be attacking that stuff with extreme prejudice. Gorgeous. and what of the chandelier? a real touch of class. there's five or six chandaliers in this house. nope, not sure why.

Last but not least, just a slice of the view from our spare room. we can see the whole North shore range from our house! (to those of you on the prairies / back east, etc... these are called mountains.. mahwn/tayns

well, despite the snow in these pics, and the lights on our house, this isn't an overly Christmasy holiday message so... ummm... uhhhhhh... Oh, I know, here you go... Click This!

New Digs and other info

Well, It's been six weeks, give or take, since I updated this thing, so I'm going to try to cram as much of it as i can into one breath, so as not to waste your time in this sound-bite, give-it-to-me-now age of information...



okay, Deeeep breath iiinn...aaaannndd... GO!



updating you from mid october on Kate lost her wallet then I crashed the car the next day and then we bought a house two days later and then two more days later my contract at work finished up and then Kate got the flu or something gross like that and then her wallet showed up magically in the mail with everything in it so yay but even though kate now had a license again she still had no car but kate's mum gave us her truck which was good as kate needs a car for her work which is going well by the way and also cause the car wasn't fixed until just before rememberance day which means it took a month to fix the car which tells you that I smucked it really good but when we got it back we used the car to go to kamloops to visit my parents over the long weekend which was nice and mixed into all of that I have been trying to line up another contract and hopefully one that is longer than the last because that was way to short and I have also been touching up and fixing up this house before we move out of it which happens this thursday, november 30th and hopefully the snow that has been falling here the last couple of days will have disappeared or at least sorted itself out as moving day could be gross but I think the snow is maybe a bit better than the 320 mm of rain we have so far received in the month of november and since it's the end of november that means I'm only three months away from being an uncle and if you were wondering Dina's baby is doing just fine and nellie the dog is also fine and mum and dad are fine they went to mexico for a week last month and that was nice and dad just finished his very last chemo this week way to go dad it has been a long year but you rule and now I think we're up to speed which is good because I'm about to pass out.










......WHHHHEWWWW....


did you catch all that? highlights include:


-looking for work
-bought a new house, which is awesome, pictures to follow

so that brings you up to speed! when next I write, which will hopefully be next week, we'll be in our new place, and with any luck I'll have another gig lined up.

Death, and Birth (y'know, just the light stuff this week)

Overnight on September 27th, 2006, family man and avid fisherman Gordon Loutit lost his battle with lymphatic cancer. He’d been in the hospital for three weeks before he snagged snag the big fish that carried him upstream and away from us. It's said that a graceful death is the ultimate acheivement in life, and for all the months he was sick, and for all the weeks he was in hospital, there wasn't one complaint to be had...

...I first met Gord at Kate’s high school graduation in the spring of 1997—that was only the second “date” Kate and I went on, and needless to say, it's an odd thing to one's ENTIRE family all in one fell swoop so early on in a relationship. But that's what happened, and among the family members present: Gordon Loutit.

Technically he’s a neighbour, but more appropriately he’s been a father figure for Kate since she was born. As a young girl, Kate would spend hours at Diane and Gord’s house across the back lane when Kate’s mum was at work. In later years, when parental supervision didn’t matter, Kate could still be found over at the Loutit house, sitting in the kitchen drinking tea and eating brownies.

Gord would tell a fishing tale to anyone that would lend an ear, talk about the fishing show he caught on TV the night before, or tell stories about near anything for that matter. He loved to talk about construction projects going on around the city and province, to gripe about government, and fume about cost over runs on this and that. With a gleaming eye, a grin and a chuckle, Gord managed to pull me into one of his fishing stories at that high school grad of Kate's back in 1997. All I had to tell him was that I was from Kamloops, and that I hear he liked to fish. From there, I was told everything I could have wanted to know about the waters around Kamloops and the marine life that inhabited them. Instead of being a fish out of water, I was made to feel as comfortable with their family as I could have hoped.

Not an entirely docile creature, Gord would be quick enough to tell his grandkids to go play in traffic if they were annoying him, and would be more than happy to tell you when you’re wrong. But on the other hand, if you needed a ride to Timbuktu, he’d be the first to offer it. And if you needed something when you got there, he’d give you the shirt off his back. And naturally, he’d be there to pick you up when you wanted to get home again. Kate was ferried back and forth by Gord more times than she could ever count.

There’s a family that misses you now, a groove in the TV room chair that no one else will be able to fill, and a particular fish-motif coffee mug in the cupboard above the sink that will sit empty. Here’s to hoping the fishing ‘Up There’ is better than it ever was down here…

Tight lines, Gordie. We love ya.

---------------------------------------------------------

And now, on to new life... An update on the happy news I mentioned last time about my Sister in law being "with Child" as they say...

We got Pictures, baby! (pun intended...)
Here's the first ultrasound of the wee one! The Docs say he / she is perfectly healthy so far with a strong heart, and Dina reports that she can feel the baby moving around in her tummy now... in true Dina fashion, she likens this feeling to 'indigestion'...

I'm not entirley sure what to make of these pictures thus far... on the first image, my future neice / nephew looks a bit alien, and the second image looks more jellybean than human :) No doubt there's all sorts of cuteness just waiting to be formed! and it's perhaps more exciting to see the pictures than it was to hear the announcement in the first place---It's real now!!

That all being said, it was my brithday this week, as well as Dina's brithday, which falls on this very day! Given those facts, and amidst the birth and death going on around me, I can't help but remind myself that in between, there's lots of life to live!

"To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted..."

Ecclesiastes 3

waxing on the waning sun...

Sadly, summer is disappearing, as is evident in the chill of the light of both dawn and dusk. The frigid fingers of Fall are wrapping around the longneck bottle of summer, preparing to tip the season upside down altogether, the last drops of a warmer, brighter time of year spilling into the gaping maw of autumn.

sigh...

I’ve started wearing sweaters again here and there, and the hangers of warmer clothing are slowly making their way from the back to the front of my closet. For the first time the other night, I had to wear a jacket to the dog park. All these decidedly un-summery items are hanging up front and centre with the dress clothing, which has also been put back into high rotation now that work has started up for me again.

Speaking of work, it’s going well (easy to say after only a week back at it—I’m still in the honeymoon phase!) It’s a different position than I’ve held before. Less PR, more PR / Marketing, so it’ll be a switch for me to adjust to that, but it will be really nice to add to my skill set with some totally new things. The people in my department are really great, which is always nice. As you can see from the photos, it took a while to get settled into a “complete” office. The materials were a little slow to arrive. Thank goodness my kind and caring coworkers were so willing to pitch in and put together an office space using their own supplies…. The desk is a little small, the pen a bit frilly, and the paper a bit pink, but my coworkers are short females, so what should I expect?



Before work got started, Kate and I were in Kelowna and Kamloops visiting family over the labour day long weekend. Kate’s dad, his partner and her sons (as well as the dogs) and Kate and I had a chance to do some swimming in Lake Okanagan, which was still a lovely temperature. Up in Kamloops, we didn’t have a lake while visiting my parents, but the neighbour’s pool was open, so good enough! The local black bear has been making good use of the fruit trees in the area, and in general making regular appearances in the yards, as evidenced by these pics, taken by my sister, Kari.

Sure, he looks cute, but the droppings he leaves all over the lawn are far from adorable, all full of the remnants of everyone’s fruit that he’s been stealing!

And Finally (last, but certainly not least)Some big news coming out of Kamloops, comes via my brother, Jamie, and his wife, Dina. In true pop culture style, the pair let it be known that they’re expecting a wee one as of March 3rd, 2007! They did so by having us all over for a barbeque, and they presented my dad with a Grandpa Burger from A & W... GROAN!!! ;) My parents are totally thrilled, as are the rest of us. Kate and I are looking forward to the aunt and uncle gig! Congrats again to Jamie and Dina! YaAaAYyYYYY!

on that note, I'll close things off. The thought of new life is a much happier one than that of the end of summer ;)