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Me and my growling dog

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I’m all alone at home this weekend. Well, not totally alone, my Labrador Retriever is here with me to keep me company so I guess that’s a good thing.

My husband went to his parents house in Brantford on Friday to help his dad get a few things done around the house. They were supposed to get the eaves troughs cleaned out and re-parge an area of the foundation that was cracked but it’s been raining a little bit here and there so I don’t think they got a lot of outdoor work done. I could be wrong though.

My husband’s been pretty good about checking in while he’s been away from home. He’s been calling and filling me in on a little bit of what he’s been doing. I guess his sister showed up at his parents house today and was helping his mom vacuum and somehow between his mom and his sister they managed to suck a sock up into the vacuum tube or something so my husband spent about two hours trying to unblock the tube to no avail.

I guess while he was trying to work on the vacuum he and his sister were talking. His sister and her husband have two RV trailers up North on a property but they want to get another one so more family members can go up for visits so now they’re applying for rv loans so that they can make it happen. Personally I think two RVs are enough.

Hopefully Midnight, my dog, and I get through tonight ok. Something is setting her off. She’s lying on the couch with me, but she’s growling every two or three minutes. That’s really not like her, but she’s been doing that for the last hour or so, so she must be smelling something outside or maybe since my husband isn’t her maybe she’s feeling more protective. I don’t know, but the growling is setting me on edge.

I wish I could relax this weekend

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All I want to do this weekend is relax, but I don’t think there’s any hope of that – not at all. If the weather holds up I have to work in the garden, in particular near the fence that’s about to be replaced on Monday. You see, we have trellises and plants attached to the fence so we have to take things down so that when the old fence comes down on Monday we’ll be ready.

I also have to prepare for a birthday party for my husbands uncle. His family put me in charge of getting the personalized birthday banners so I have to look into that this weekend too.

On top of all that my Cable/Internet/Wireless company – Rogers – is really stressing me out. It’s a long story but they sent me a new phone at the beginning of May and I didn’t like it so I sent it back. They then charged me a cancellation fee of $400 twice, and gave my cellphone number away to someone else (I got it back!) .. but to keep it short, all these things have conspired to make it almost impossible for me for me to get another new phone because they kept telling me that 1. the other phone hasn’t been put back into stock so I can’t get another phone, and 2. now that the other phone has been put back into stock finally (as of May 30th two full weeks after it was returned!) some problem with them giving my cell phone number away two weeks ago is now causing a glitch in my account and not allowing hardware upgrades. DUH!!!!!!!!!! ROGERS SUCKS!

I’m so very stressed tonight and well .. for the last couple of weeks because basically I’ve been on the phone to Rogers for hours and hours in the month of May trying to fix these problems and get the phone that I want … I kind of felt earlier today that I might have a heart attack. Yes that’s how stress out they are making me.

So you can see why I really want to just relax this weekend? I’m going to try my best …

Waiting for Spring to warm up

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I can’t believe how much rain we’ve been getting here in Toronto. It seems that every time I try to go outside with the dog it starts pouring! Oh and our dog is a Lab .. a dog that traditionally loves water, but for some reason not rain drops. Uh huh … strange dog.

When we come back inside she goes to her crate where we keep a folded towel and she jumps up to stand at the side of the crate to look at it, indicating to me that she wants me to get the towel to dry her off … even if she’s not really all that wet because really she just wants to play with the towel. My dog is just too smart.

It’s been raining so much or other wise so miserable for the last few days that we really haven’t been out as much as we normally are. I took advantage of a break in the rain this afternoon and took the dog out for a long walk. While I was out I ran into one of my neighbors, a lady who just loves my dog and always stops to pet her and gives her a treat every time she sees her, and I guess she’s working from home these days. She told me she was just taking a break from working on her computer. She was busy trying to install inetsoft performance management software for her company and then it was back to work for her.

It seems more and more of my neighbors are working from home. I’ve worked from home (being sick on medical leave) for five years but when I first started blogging and doing some work from home I was the only one in the neighborhood that I know of working from home … now just about every house seems to have a person staying home doing work.

Anyway … I’m hoping that the rain will stop soon and Spring will start to warm up to normal temps. It’s been cold, wet and just kind of miserable. How has it been in your area?

It’s going to be a long time before our neighbors move in

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Our neighbors that come to their home infrequently to renovate were here for a few hours today. I really don’t know about them … I mean .. who buys a house, a year ago now, and only renovates it ones or twice a month? Who has the time and money to do that?

At the rate they’re going their house won’t be finished for about five years!

Right now they have no walls inside, or well just frames and as I said they’re going at a snail pace so it doesn’t seem like they’ll be moving in any time soon. I guess it’s a good thing his parents don’t seem to mind them living with them!

I was talking with the woman and she was telling me that there were going to eventually put in a laminate flooring called armstrong grand illusions. It looks nice. I’m sure their house will be very nice once they get everything done, but as I said, it’s taking forever. I was looking forward to having new neighbors, last year, but … I’m going to have to wait a long time before that happens!

We really need to finish our living room and dining room reno

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Do you ever watch home renovation or design shows on television? Sometimes when I find that I have some spare time on my hands, usually on Saturdays, I take some time to watch some of my favorite design or home reno shows.

I find TV shows like Flipping out, Marriage Under Construction, Homes Inspection and any DIY shows interesting.

My husband and I are home renovators. Well … stalled home renovators. We currently have an unfinished living room dining room ceiling and need to finish the wall (currently open and covered by plastic!) that runs between the basement stairs and the dining room. Its been that way for oh .. about … four or more years.

I did say we were stalled in our home renovations didn’t I?

The only good thing about taking our time renovating is that I’ve had tons of time to come up with renovating and design ideas and plenty of time to see what ideas have stuck through the years. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to put in the all glass brick wall between the basement stairs and dining room anymore … you see what a few years to think about things can do?

I’m hoping we’ll put on our renovating hats again in a few months .. I really want to finish our living room dining room. All we really have to do to finish the reno job is put up the tin ceiling, maybe add in monte carlo fans in the living room for cooling, put up molding and baseboards and then work on some new furnishings – possibly.

Are any of you stalled DIY’ers? If so … what did you do to get yourself motivated again?

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