I am so tired!

I don't know if that is a great title for a post - but boy are we tired - both of us! It has been a very busy week. Good moments and bad moments - frustrations and successes!

A few highlights from the week.

I went to my Quilt Guild meeting on Tuesday and the speaker was Pippa Moore. She lives on Vancouver Island - sells African Fabric and teaches courses. She has recently been to Africa to help set up a program in Uganda to help women earn money and support their children through quilting with the local fabric. It was a great lecture about the women and the process of teaching them how to make items to sell. I bought a set of placemats that were made by a woman that was the third wife of a Muslim man that had died of AIDS and the first and second wives had also died - so the third wife is left to raise all 10 children. I discover Pippa has a blog -- Check it out. She actually has a post about her visit to our quilt meeting on Tuesday. How great is that!!




My African Placemats

If you go to Pippa's blog and go back in the Archives to February 2009 you can read all about the trip to Uganda and the project. Well worth reading about.



I made a couple of small items - while I was stuck in the basement and Jim was away and it was too hot to take the dog in the car. Although I was able to take her for a few nice walks I could not do much else.

This is another little bag from "This and That" designs - Clutter Bag.



I also made a little carry case for my MP3 Player - now in the mess I can not for the life of me find the recharger for the darn player!!





The latest house reno adventure -- the drywall was delivered and the young boys delivering it put all the long 4 x12 foot sheets on a trolley to wheel down our fairly steep driveway in the rain and lost control of the trolley and all the drywall ended up in a heep at the bottom - stopped only from ramming into our garage door by the rented Bobcat.




The adventure continues. I will not be here for the next week. I am off to visit little Hunter - and the rest of the gang --- but mostly Hunter!! It will be Jim's turn to hold down the fort and manage the mess!!

The past few days have been really awful!

First I would like to say that Jim is away at meetings this week and I worked Sunday and Monday. Jenny was the only one that had a really good time because she got to have a sleep over at her pal Lillie's house.

The firplace has gone from this........on Sunday.




To this when I cam home from work on Monday night.......




To this on Tuesday........



I should have taken some pictures of the men working on Tuesday but I just wanted to get out of there - what a noise and mess.



This is the pile of brick sitting outside. The brick off the front is now being removed.

There is not much quilting going on that's for sure. I have a "Quilting by the Bay" for June 27th - so that will be my little vacation from all of this.... and of course my much anticipated trip to Sisters in July.

As I was driving down our street yesterday morning I stopped briefly to answer the phone and I looked in my mirror and there was a little black bear ambling down the street. Then the garage door would not go down when I got home at supper time --- so the garbage can in the garage got to spend the night on the deck with all the doors closed. What a nice meal that would have been for a bear. Just what I need is a bear rumbling through my garbage in the middle of the night.....Jenny barking... me alone and the phone wasn't working last night either. All has been fixed this morning.. phone back on.. garage door down and it's garbage day and the messy part is now finished. Funny how Jim managed to miss the whole thing!!

Day Three

These are pictures from yesterday. I am a day behind in my blogging and the builder moves at the speed of sound!

Here is the kitchen yesterday. Everything gone - wall between the kitchen and bedroom is gone and the closet is gone. Just waiting for the hardwood floor guy to come and take out the hardwood floor in the kitchen and closet so the new wall can be rebuilt.



A picture from the bedroom looking towards the living room. Fireplace still intact. As you can see the sliding doors on the right are the dining room.



This is the front of the house as of yesterday - those piles just keep getting bigger and bigger.



I spent a good deal of time this morning looking for my slippers. The problem is - I can't find anything - where I usually put things - or where they are supposed to be - isn't there any more. I finally found my slippers - where they really didn't belong. I couldn't find my camera battery charger either this morning - that has also since been located.



It is all starting to drive me a little crazy and we are only 4 days in!! I think the rebuilding might be a bit easier than the destroying - but I could be wrong.

I guess it's too late to turn back now!

The renovation started Monday morning.

Here are a couple "before" shots of the kitchen. It was a very, very small kitchen. Amazing that we bought the house because the kitchen was so small.



The entire floor space was only 39' wide by about 50" long.

You can see the size of the kitchen quite well in this picture. You must agree that it need to be made bigger!! The bank of cupboards that came out over the counter and block the window drive me crazy. It is like being in a little cage when you are in the kitchen. You can't see anyone in the rest of the house. So now - walls are coming down - windows made bigger - doors made where there are walls. What are we doing!!



Monday the master bedroom bathroom was removed and yesterday the work began on the kitchen.


This is what Jenny and I came home to yesterday after our walk.


You can already see how just taking out the over hanging cupboards that the kitchen is more open.

Jenny is NOT happy. She is quite out of sorts. She has to be kept in a room away from the work and away from the open doors.

The first day of construction I went out for just a couple of hours and left her on the deck. As it turns out the door from the garage to the deck was open - the garage was open and when I got home she came prancing down the driveway to say hello. I have no idea how long she had been out wandering on her own. Quite happy I am sure to have escaped. Good thing she came back!! Anyway a little closer supervision has been required and she does not like it.

You should see what the place looks like today!! Good heavens. I haven't even picked out floor tile yet. I will post more pictures - it is amazing what a disaster it is up there.