Just found out today that Hot Springs
played yesterday in Halifax. Of course I would find out this morning while checking out their music out online randomly. They have been on my work playlist for a long time now.
Why always one day too late?!?!
This is what I get for reading stupid Steinbeck instead of The Coast!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Thought it was about time to post on non-house related topics. I’m starting to turn into one of those single-topic people. At least it’s not about my dahr-ling kids…
(one day, one day)
On top of being a procrastinator, I can thank my genes for having an addictive personality. This manifests itself as doing unproductive things for ungodly amounts of time without being able to stop myself (I have consciously stayed away from more harmful vices than TV and internet for obvious reasons). I realized pretty quickly in undergrad that we couldn’t have cable, because I would just watch endless hours of TV and not get any work done. So that went by the wayside in second year (yay! one less bill). And the most disturbing thing was that I didn’t miss it after it was gone. Lately, a similar thing has happened with the TV entirely. Whereas normally I would catch maybe an hour of TV in the evenings, the house has kept us so busy that we have a wonky schedule and are not even home most evenings. When we are at home, I’ll pick up my latest book. So in the last three weeks, I’ve read three novels – first was The Kite Runner, recommended to me by a friend (heart wrenching – I’m not even sure I could see the movie at this point) the second was Spadework by Canadian author Timothy Findley (meh. Loved the first novel I’d read by him called Headhunter, but then Not Wanted on the Voyage disturbed me and this third one elicited no reaction at all) and now I’m reading The Bean Trees by the go-to gal Barbara Kingslover. God I love her. Whereas Timothy Findley is all over the place, Kingslover churns out these amazing character-driven novels that seep through with strong themes that I can resonate with – independent capable females, the splendor and frailty of nature, the dubiousness of religious fervor. What I would do to meet her, have lunch, chat awhile. Of course, it would have to be organically grown and locally harvested food. I started off with the Poisonwood Bible (a beautifully worn copy received as a gift from a generous soul), picked up Prodigal Summer for two dollars at a Thrift Store, and borrowed The Bean Trees from the local library. I want to run out and read all the books immediately, one after another. But my practical side is shouting “Wait!! Keep them safe for now, and after a bout of two or three uninspiring novels in a row written by others – whip them out! They’ll be twice as good!”
And for music. The soundtrack of my life of late has consisted of whispering mid-Westerners with banjos. In particular, Iron & Wine has been on heavy rotation. Instead of picking up the entire album, the songs have come piecemeal over iTunes as I find (and fall in love) with new ones. The played live in Barcelona, Spain on my birthday, which is a kicker because I am going to Barcelona in the near future, but the dates don’t match up. The closest to East Coast Canada they are playing is Chicago, which they play often. Not near enough, unfortunately.
Artist number two is Sufjan Stevens, whose ambitious project is to create an album for every state (while also recording other, non-state inspired albums). My favorite album is Illinois, but since that one was thirty dollars at the record store and Seven Swans was only twenty, I got the latter. It sees heavy play at home, especially the first half (which has my favorite song of the moment called “That dress looks nice on you”). Interesting enough, both Stevens and Iron & Wine have biblical undertones in at least some of their music. I’m not sure what that means, but it does remind me of something that happened this morning:
Today in lab meeting, Dr.Ford Doolittle gave a semi-philosophical science talk that dealt with creationism and its place (invited or not) in evolutionary science. What our role is when dealing with intelligent design arguments, as scientists. Overall, it was an excellent presentation. If my mp3 player/recorder had battery left, I may have recorded the talk because he’s, like, eminent. In the presentation, he brought up bacterial flagella, which is used often in intelligent design argument as an example of irreducible complexity. And mid-presentation, I was reminded of a dream I had, about a month ago, where I was arguing against irreducible complexity in the bacterial flagella. That’s right, apparently my special brand of geekiness spills over into unconscious-land. I was fighting the good fight in my dreams, baby!
(one day, one day)
On top of being a procrastinator, I can thank my genes for having an addictive personality. This manifests itself as doing unproductive things for ungodly amounts of time without being able to stop myself (I have consciously stayed away from more harmful vices than TV and internet for obvious reasons). I realized pretty quickly in undergrad that we couldn’t have cable, because I would just watch endless hours of TV and not get any work done. So that went by the wayside in second year (yay! one less bill). And the most disturbing thing was that I didn’t miss it after it was gone. Lately, a similar thing has happened with the TV entirely. Whereas normally I would catch maybe an hour of TV in the evenings, the house has kept us so busy that we have a wonky schedule and are not even home most evenings. When we are at home, I’ll pick up my latest book. So in the last three weeks, I’ve read three novels – first was The Kite Runner, recommended to me by a friend (heart wrenching – I’m not even sure I could see the movie at this point) the second was Spadework by Canadian author Timothy Findley (meh. Loved the first novel I’d read by him called Headhunter, but then Not Wanted on the Voyage disturbed me and this third one elicited no reaction at all) and now I’m reading The Bean Trees by the go-to gal Barbara Kingslover. God I love her. Whereas Timothy Findley is all over the place, Kingslover churns out these amazing character-driven novels that seep through with strong themes that I can resonate with – independent capable females, the splendor and frailty of nature, the dubiousness of religious fervor. What I would do to meet her, have lunch, chat awhile. Of course, it would have to be organically grown and locally harvested food. I started off with the Poisonwood Bible (a beautifully worn copy received as a gift from a generous soul), picked up Prodigal Summer for two dollars at a Thrift Store, and borrowed The Bean Trees from the local library. I want to run out and read all the books immediately, one after another. But my practical side is shouting “Wait!! Keep them safe for now, and after a bout of two or three uninspiring novels in a row written by others – whip them out! They’ll be twice as good!”
And for music. The soundtrack of my life of late has consisted of whispering mid-Westerners with banjos. In particular, Iron & Wine has been on heavy rotation. Instead of picking up the entire album, the songs have come piecemeal over iTunes as I find (and fall in love) with new ones. The played live in Barcelona, Spain on my birthday, which is a kicker because I am going to Barcelona in the near future, but the dates don’t match up. The closest to East Coast Canada they are playing is Chicago, which they play often. Not near enough, unfortunately.
Artist number two is Sufjan Stevens, whose ambitious project is to create an album for every state (while also recording other, non-state inspired albums). My favorite album is Illinois, but since that one was thirty dollars at the record store and Seven Swans was only twenty, I got the latter. It sees heavy play at home, especially the first half (which has my favorite song of the moment called “That dress looks nice on you”). Interesting enough, both Stevens and Iron & Wine have biblical undertones in at least some of their music. I’m not sure what that means, but it does remind me of something that happened this morning:
Today in lab meeting, Dr.Ford Doolittle gave a semi-philosophical science talk that dealt with creationism and its place (invited or not) in evolutionary science. What our role is when dealing with intelligent design arguments, as scientists. Overall, it was an excellent presentation. If my mp3 player/recorder had battery left, I may have recorded the talk because he’s, like, eminent. In the presentation, he brought up bacterial flagella, which is used often in intelligent design argument as an example of irreducible complexity. And mid-presentation, I was reminded of a dream I had, about a month ago, where I was arguing against irreducible complexity in the bacterial flagella. That’s right, apparently my special brand of geekiness spills over into unconscious-land. I was fighting the good fight in my dreams, baby!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Chilly weekends = chills from a head cold
The view from the apartment on Monday, after the snow last Sunday
Last weekend was a quiet one around the house - no major updates just small things that needed to get finished. These included putting the two basement windows in, installing the sliding patio door & the front door and cleaning the house of wood scraps/construction waste. The kitchen cabinet person came by for measurements. We were supposed to start shingling the roof as well - all the materials were on hand and the elaborate staging was in put in place. But then it started to snow, which hampered the shingling. This is the last step that needs to be complete prior to out second draw for our mortgage, which means we can't get money until it is done. The options were to take three weekends and do it ourselves (weather permitting) or hire someone to do it for us for $1000 in a few days. We went with the latter, and they are almost all done. The plumber was in this past week and has pretty much finished the rough in too. As soon as the roof is 100% complete, we will contact our mortgage person for an inspection.
One piece bathtub, with robin's egg blue finish
Just kidding. Blue protective film, which will be removed to reveal white finish, from the other side
Playing in the snow at the house last weekend. My mother-in-law and I made a big box out of scrap plywood to hold excess wood (headed for the fireplace, one day soon). We put Tyvek on the bottom of it so it would slide easily on the snow. It turned into a sled when I jumped inside and my husband gave me a push.
My in-laws have been visiting and helping every weekend for almost two months. My mother has offered her help as well, but feels she is better suited to indoor work like insulating and drywall (although I'm sure she would kick ass at anything we asked her to do). So...I want to get her/my uncle/other family members up here to help March 1st weekend to drywall. Many, many things must occur before this can happen. Namely, the electrician must come in (which he will only do when the home is roof tight) and finish his rough-in in time for a municipal inspection. It will be a tight squeeze. But if it happens - we'll be rocking, time-line wise. Although we closed on the lot in mid-October, we really only started building the first week of January, so it hasn't even been two months yet.
Roofing
And despite battling a head cold, I was out helping install vinyl siding on the house. Not my personal fav as a siding option, but cedar shingles are time-consuming and expensive so we'll save those for our "real house" and not the one we plan on selling. It was nice to do something that gave observable progress. After last weekend, we needed a psychological boost and siding was the way to go, even though it really didn't need to be done now.
Installing vinyl siding on the back (I'm on the very left)
Vinyl siding from the front,with basement windows
A picture of the two walls of vinyl siding that I measured, cut, and installed all by myself!
The weather was mostly cold, but sunny (except for the last hour on Sunday). The wind was chilly, maybe - 15 Celsius and I had to warm up in the car every 45 minutes which was relatively often compared to colder days when I could stay out for longer. I blame my illness - it makes sense to me that my body would be hoarding blood for sick internal organs and view my limbs as expendable. Fucking freezing though, my feet felt like frozen stones the whole weekend, and would hurt when I would thaw them out in the car (picture included of our set-up; a plug-in portable heater sitting in the front-seat of the van. Hmmm...toasty).
Toe-defroster
And the neatest part of the weekend: our neighbours went skating on the pond behind out house. Yay!
Skating neighbour.
Check it out (narration provided by yours truly, nasally from the head cold no less...enjoy!):
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Pictures
Building mini-roof in livingroom in the rain
Different angle
Our casement windows from Piercey's - no grills.
The frou-frou front door insert. It was the last one , so it was a discount buy. Not my favorite glass insert, but not bad.
Looking in from the front door, into the future laundry room/guest bath.
Standing in the laundry room/guest bath
Bay in dining "room" (more like a nook, really)
Standing in the bay, looking out to the future kitchen (currently storing the windows) and the entry area
From bay to stairwell/livingroom area
Plywood stairwell
Looking up from stairwell landing to second floor
Looking down from stairwell into dining nook (note the two inches of water we had to sweep away on Saturday...)
Bedroom #1 with lake view
Close up of lake in backyard
"Hall" - Master bedroom on left, bedroom #1 at the end, bedroom #2 on the right
Upstairs family bath
Master bedroom view from stairs (with unfinished chimney)
Master bedroom
Master bedroom window - looks out onto the industrial park (and, hopefully one day in Spring, a big tree!)
Tyvek on the back of the house
Different angle
Our casement windows from Piercey's - no grills.
The frou-frou front door insert. It was the last one , so it was a discount buy. Not my favorite glass insert, but not bad.
Looking in from the front door, into the future laundry room/guest bath.
Standing in the laundry room/guest bath
Bay in dining "room" (more like a nook, really)
Standing in the bay, looking out to the future kitchen (currently storing the windows) and the entry area
From bay to stairwell/livingroom area
Plywood stairwell
Looking up from stairwell landing to second floor
Looking down from stairwell into dining nook (note the two inches of water we had to sweep away on Saturday...)
Bedroom #1 with lake view
Close up of lake in backyard
"Hall" - Master bedroom on left, bedroom #1 at the end, bedroom #2 on the right
Upstairs family bath
Master bedroom view from stairs (with unfinished chimney)
Master bedroom
Master bedroom window - looks out onto the industrial park (and, hopefully one day in Spring, a big tree!)
Tyvek on the back of the house
Monday, February 4, 2008
A house, not yet a home
I took a bijillion pictures of the house this weekend in anticipation of putting them up here but lo and behold the camera USB cord has gone missing so I'll have to root around more carefully. Hopefully pictures will be up by tomorrow. But the verbal low-down is as so: The house looks like a house now- there are four walls the entire length, with a roof clad in plywood (shingles are not done yet). The windows are in (well, mostly - see below). There is a make-shift stairwell made of plywood which is a darn good approximation of real stairs and are much nicer to ascend/descend than a rickety ladder. Many of the interior walls are up, with closets for the bedrooms. The interior door is sitting in the "livingroom", waiting for the drywall to be delivered after the tradesman have done their thing. The bathtub (a 1 piece acrylic unit) hasn't been brought in yet, nor the sliding doors. Since we drive a tiny mouse of a car ('99 Tercel) we need to borrow a work truck to get these items to the site. As you can imagine, it is much nicer to work on the house now that the walls are up and roof is on. There are, of course, two hundred small jobs to get finished (along with one big one-the roof shingles) but hopefully we can do those together in the evenings with a few bright work bulbs and some rocking tunes (and maybe, a small space heater!).
The windows arrived on Friday, three and a half weeks after we ordered them. On Sunday, I wanted to help out by placing all the windows in their appropriate rooms, next to the cut-outs in which they were to be placed. The large fixed window (4' x 4') belonging to the bay window in the dining room was dragged over to the opening, as well as the two smaller side casement windows. We stopped for a bit to do another job, and didn't bring the windows upstairs to the bedrooms. Glad we didn't. The large 4x4' window got pushed over by a gust of wind, knocked the two smaller windows down too, and they all landed in a giant heap in the middle of the floor. It was cold on Saturday, maybe -2 Celsius, so the plastic window frame pretty much shattered on the larger window. Astoundingly, the smaller two windows were intact (one had a slight dent in the frame of the screen) and the actual glass section of the large fixed window was not broken. I was told afterwards that experienced carpenters know better than to set the windows up against the opening, but I am not an experienced carpenter. I am thankful that the damage was so little (it appears that we may be able to get the plastic frame redone, but use the same window so it won't be the $400+ to replace the whole window). And the fact that it was the windows crashing to the ground rather than the way more worrisome husband or father-in-law that I immediately thought about upon hearing the sound was a relief. At the time, they were working on the second floor and some of their precarious moves give me pause for concern. Broken windows=fixable with a couple hundred dollars and a few more days. Broken people=not so much.
The windows arrived on Friday, three and a half weeks after we ordered them. On Sunday, I wanted to help out by placing all the windows in their appropriate rooms, next to the cut-outs in which they were to be placed. The large fixed window (4' x 4') belonging to the bay window in the dining room was dragged over to the opening, as well as the two smaller side casement windows. We stopped for a bit to do another job, and didn't bring the windows upstairs to the bedrooms. Glad we didn't. The large 4x4' window got pushed over by a gust of wind, knocked the two smaller windows down too, and they all landed in a giant heap in the middle of the floor. It was cold on Saturday, maybe -2 Celsius, so the plastic window frame pretty much shattered on the larger window. Astoundingly, the smaller two windows were intact (one had a slight dent in the frame of the screen) and the actual glass section of the large fixed window was not broken. I was told afterwards that experienced carpenters know better than to set the windows up against the opening, but I am not an experienced carpenter. I am thankful that the damage was so little (it appears that we may be able to get the plastic frame redone, but use the same window so it won't be the $400+ to replace the whole window). And the fact that it was the windows crashing to the ground rather than the way more worrisome husband or father-in-law that I immediately thought about upon hearing the sound was a relief. At the time, they were working on the second floor and some of their precarious moves give me pause for concern. Broken windows=fixable with a couple hundred dollars and a few more days. Broken people=not so much.
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