The rest of #31

Summer laziness has hit.  I thought maybe it was only Winter that laziness hit, but the truth may be that I'm just lazy 24/7, no matter what season it is.

It was a beautiful weekend here. Canada Day we just stayed home and did a few things around the yard. Ryan fixed the lawnmower, which I had managed to pull the cord right out of last time I went to start it. RAWR. I need to watch my super strength. The kids and I mowed the lawn, (punishment for breaking the mower to begin with I think) and Ryan pulled the front door off and got to painting.

I'm going to show you the pictures, just don't hurt yourself squinting at them, trying to see the differences...

The Befores and Afters: 

Ha! Could you tell which is which?? (side note: I also like how the front light is crooked in BOTH pictures!)
How about in this one?

So shocking I know!
How about now?

Let's just say no one is stopping us in the streets telling us how big of a change it is! Although we did manage to fix and hide a wee measuring and drilling mistake made when putting in the new door handle and the door actually looks clean now! Yay for us. Taking the front door off for about 4 hours also called for some creative dog coralling.

Nothing Rodeo loves more than to run down the street as fast as possible at any given opportunity!

Speaking of Rodeo, he's been declared officially overweight. Poor guy. Maybe I should let him run free willy down the street more often??

What 'chu talking about Willis??

I get to cross things off!

Sunday was such a nice day.  Hardly any bugs, not a cloud in the sky, and most of all, no wind.  A perfect time to paint the outside doors.

Ryan decided to paint the back door first. It was strange wandering in and out of the house all day, not being able to shut the back door behind me. After borrowing a couple of sawhorses, he taped off the window, removed the handles and the lock and got to it.

He also took this opportunity to spray paint the keypad lock's cover black.

We were a little leery about what color to pick to paint the doors. I didn't want cream. The handles were black, so that color was out. Gloss or matte was also a big question. We ended up picking a basic white gloss metal spray paint. We decided the worst that could happen is we would hate it and have to repaint.  But I have to tell you, it looks SO much better. 

We started off with this:

And then changed the door handles:

And ended up here:

Ryan also taped off the spot outside where Rodeo had been clawing at to say he wanted in.  It started off looking like this:

And now looks like this:

So much better right?  Ha, and I like how that same little red car is still sitting there, a month or two later.

Since Ryan put two coats of spray paint on each side and we wanted to make sure the paint was nice and dry before flipping the door over to paint the other side, we only managed to get the back door painted.  The front door will have to be next weekend's project.  The towels got hung though!

I get to cross off #32 from the list, as well as the "s" on number #31!  This weekend, my mom and I are having a garage sale so I also get to cross off #8, and #9 too!

Let's hope I survive Garage Sale Weekend and all the prep that goes with it!

Happy Mother's Day!

Today was a pretty great Mother's Day.  I mean I did bake all day, but that just means I have more snackies to eat all week!  The kids got me some really pretty earrings and a basket full of bath items. 

Last Sunday was a great day too.  In fact if you ask Rodeo, it was probably the best Sunday of his year so far! We went out to Dad's and he got to go and run free in the woods.  We only had one tense moment when we thought it was cute that he found the stray cat.  I mean after all, he loves cats. Too bad this cat wasn't so keen on him. Still it was funny to watch his reaction, that is, until he gave the cat chase across the road and into the neighbor's acreage, yelping and chasing as fast as he could, ignoring our yells to get back here right now. 

Looking rather pleased with himself

Anyways, after we worked on the desk, Dad wanted a little help with some trees he thought might be a threat to the trailer's roof.  Don't mind the old green fridge. It's only been there for about 6 months, probably will be there for another 6!

Whew. Those logs were wet, heavy and a really good workout!  I'm glad we got them all cut up and cleaned up though. 

No trip to Grandpa's would be complete without one (or ten) rides on the quads.

It was a really great day.  The kids played hard, Rodeo ran hard, we worked hard, and we all had the best time. 

And now, the rest of the story...

In my head, the title of this post is said in a deep, dramatic manly voice, about to explain to me The Rest Of The Story.  Anyone else remember that old radio program???  Man, I used to love catching that on the radio. My dad used to listen to it all the time too.  Maybe it was only a Canadian thing? I don't know.  Anyways, The Rest Of The Story.


After clamping the leg into the vice, Dad hit the welds with the grinder in order to loosen off the flat plate that used to attach the leg to the desk top. I wanted the desktop slightly lower than my old one, so the plates had to be removed, legs cut, and then the plates re-attached. Dad has this nifty little machine that saws metal in a nice straight line effortlessly.  I can't remember what the heck it was called though..

Checking the length against the previously cut one.  If nothing else, they will both be the wrong length.  That my friends, is man logic in my family.

Perfectly cut leg. 

Next up, straightening the plates by the tried and true method.  Covering it with a steel plate, and smacking it really hard with a sledge hammer. 

Oh, don't worry, we all had on what passes for safety precautions in my family.  My brother even posed for you with his on....

Now, if only I had remembered to cover my ears as he was smacking that iron plate!

Dad re-welded the plates on the newly cut legs.

Too bad the legs were only made of questionable metal!  Amazingly this was the only hole out of all the welds. 

It will be hidden under the desk anyways.  I'm pretty sure the only people who will ever possibly notice it will be the kids as they play Hide-and-Seek!

My dad's shop is a treasure trove of stuff just waiting to be found and used by me.  Found:  black paint to re-paint the legs.  Found: wood to make a base for the filing cabinet to bring it up to the right height.  Found:  all tools and screws and power toys to make it all happen.  And when I say make it happen, I mean Ryan did it while I took a few pictures!

Back at home, Ryan took the old door outside and sanded down all the chipping paint.  As you can see in the middle picture, the door was far from square! I give Ryan all the credit for getting this desk done. I was beat from working at the farm, and he sanded, primed, and painted both the desk and the stand for the filing cabinet, as well as actually putting it all together again.

The desk finally getting put together. Everything fit. Everything was level. Everything looks fabulous!

And finally, after about five days of no computer (I was much too lazy to set it up some where else, so it sat on the floor behind the couch), all systems are a go again!

Only thing left to do, is build a small platform with casters for easier access to the paper shredder. I didn't end up getting any drawers but I do have the filing cabinet, and I have a huge space to put a large desk calendar.  Plus, we get to scratch #4 off of the list!!

Oh and the whole project was free! Yay!  Now to get rid of the rest of the left over desk pieces....

The start of the new desk

I bought this desk about 9 years ago from Staples.  In the store it didn't seem so big!  We got it home to the rental apartment and it took up half our living room! Grandpa had gave all us grandchildren our inheritance (minus what we may have owed him and never repaid (let's just say Karrie didn't get a full amount, ha!)) and I wanted a desk for our new-to-us computer (you know, so I could play Solitaire in comfort....).  I also bought the chair at the same time.  As you can see, it's lived a rough life, but it still holds me and doesn't dump me on the floor or anything, so I just keep duct taping the ripped parts!  Looking back now, I'm not sure what I loved about the desk.  I've been craving desk drawers with a filing cabinet and one big flat open surface.  You probably can't tell, but I even took off the top shelf piece on the desk to make more room for my super tall, all powerful, pretty, lit up tower.

Back in October, we brought home a super ugly, seen better days, door from my Dad's place.  It was actually the door off of the very first addition we ever had on our trailer.  It was also green on one side, brown on the other, and chippy and dirty all over.  It's sat in the basement ever since we brought it home, but this last weekend we decided to head out to my Dad's and get going on my new desk.

The plan was to scavenge any usable parts off of the old desk for the new one.  The old one had been moved more times than the press board was up to, so I decided to re-use parts off of it and will probably end up tossing the rest of it.  First up, stealing the legs off of it.

Let's ignore the dust, okay?  The plan was to take the metal legs off of this one, go to Dad's, cut them down, re-weld them, re-paint them, and attach to the new top.  I don't know if you can see them or not, but the legs had holes near the top of them to run your power cords through, to keep your desktop neat and tidy.  (It also at one point had a power bar mounted underneath the top shelf to help with the cord situation.  Maybe that's what drew me to it?  I don't know.  Distracted by organization and technology! Ha!)

We soon discovered one little issue with those cord holes.  I remember sitting at my desk and noticing one of the little kids standing near by and sort of giggling while toys were slowly disappearing from their hands.  Children always have a way of figuring these things out...

Can you see?  Over the years, even though I told them to stop, they had been slowly filling up the leg with anything that would fit!  Since both the top and bottom of the legs were sealed, I could never get the stuff out.  I had actually totally forgotten that they used to do that until the leg was off and something was moving around in there. 

Here's their collection over the years.....

A whole lot of chips (ew), a half melted chocolate bar (double ew, apparently someone didn't like the taste of it, and I can tell you I didn't like the feel of it either!!), crayons, wooden blocks, a whole package of Halls Centres(!), a bouncy ball, a car (which Blade promptly reclaimed, even though you know it was him who put it down there to begin with!!), and even poor Dora ended up in the tube.   There was actually two more blue blocks in there too, that I just couldn't seem to convince to come out.  Mmmmm... half a Cheeto anyone?

Crossing #23 off the list

If you had any doubt about how long I can delay on doing something, this picture below should put your mind at ease, or maybe that should be unease at how I can get so little done and yet not have a job.

That is a picture of my messy desk.  It's also a picture of my old computer tower.  We bought two new computer towers back in October (!!) and that old one has been sitting there ever since.  Shameful, I know.  I just couldn't bring myself to go through it.  I did initially copy off photos onto a few usb sticks but that's as far as I got.

I bought that computer, the second computer I've ever owned, right after Blade was born.  Seven years.  The thing is practically ready for the museum!  It has on it all my old Christmas letters, my labels, all my old videos and pictures, stories Clayton wrote for school, my brother's old resumes and cover letters, you name it, it's on there.  I actually toyed with the idea of not getting rid of it, of getting another monitor and moving it upstairs with a printer to be my offline work spot.  Which is my defense for not getting rid of it by now.  I was still debating if I wanted to keep it.  Turns out I haven't turned it on or hooked it up to the monitor since I got my new one!  So if I haven't even used the thing in the last 6 months, I don't think I need to keep it. 

I didn't want to deal with it in the basement though.  Ugh.  It just seemed like I would be sitting down to waste time on the computer.  *ahem* not like I ever do that.  Ha.  So I had Ryan haul it upstairs to the kitchen table as well as my monitor.  Did you know I could have done that myself?  Of course I could have, but this way I got to delay the rest of the afternoon too!  Sitting it on the table where we were going to need to eat in an hour or so made me get through the files and double check I had all the pictures off of it, delete all my documents and reformat it.  It also gave me a chance to see how dirty my screen is.....

Ayayayaye  and that's not even a good picture of all the finger prints!  I'd like to say I've cleaned it by now, but I'm pretty sure Ryan just moved it back downstairs and hooked it up again without wiping it.  You can't notice the prints when the screen isn't black I swear! (perhaps I'll do that right now so I can say I did something today besides waste time at my computer....)

The tower is at the front door now.  Destination: a) one of Clayton's friends b) one of those people who uses old computers for parts or c) the recycle area at the dump.  Check back in 6 months to see if it's moved yet.

My desk is now noticeably emptier and it's making me feel inspired to get on making that desk out of the old door we brought home from Dad's back in October.  It's Canada. It was cold all winter. We don't have a garage. Three reasons why it's still sitting in my basement needing paint and cutting.  The fourth reason is of course that why do it today when I can delay for a few months.

This weekend it may get done in the nice weather.  Except the weather is inspiring the kids too, and they want to make a trip to Grandpa's to play.  I can't argue with that!

#2

There's a little bit of celebrating going on around here.

This:

And this:

have finally been paid off!  Yay!  That means I get to cross off #2 off of my list.  I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible.  No really, thanks kids for being a tax deduction!

Also in good news, this:

will have it's last payment made next month!

With the Internet as my witness, I shall not finance again.  (in my defense, both were at 0% interest, but still such a pain to have to make payments)

Now if only I could afford to go back here:

Although at this point in my long Canadian winter, I'd settle for green grass in my backyard and a cooler in my hand.

One step forward, two steps back

The step forward:

The door handles! They have been installed! Okay, they actually even got installed way before last weekend, but I've been too busy and too tired to even take a picture of them.

Riveting pictures, I know.

Now for the step back part.  You can clearly see now how yucky the doors look and how badly they need painted.  I'm going to attempt to spray paint our keypad lock cover black instead of the weird off-cream it is now, and also try and cover up Rodeo's frequent scratching at the back door marks. One thing crossed off the list, two things added on to it!

Bugger.  Nice of him to wreck the paint no?

And lastly a big BOO!!! to Mother Nature who turned my brown grass back into this.

You're really messing with my projects lady!

True to Form

I love lists.  Love to write them.  Love to cross stuff off of them.  When I write them, I have a tendency to write things down that I know for sure I'll be able to cross off.  Sometimes I write stuff down that I just finished doing so that I can cross it off...

So what's the point of this?  Well, I think I'll add an item to the 2011 To Do List so that I can cross it off!  Don't judge me!  I never put this item on the list (mostly because I forgot, I'm sure) because I probably didn't think it was that big of a deal and at the time they weren't a problem.

Our two outside doors in the last couple of months have decided to misbehave.  The back one decided to break and lock us in the house one night, one snowy -30 night when the dog really needed to go out. Handy that.  Ryan fixed it as best as he could at 11 at night and now it only opens if you turn it in one direction only.  The front door has decided to become extremely sticky and looks like this 99% of the time when you open it.

You shut the door, and it swings back open. The kids run out the door, and then have to run back to shut the stupid thing again. We are constantly pulling the inside handle up to unstick the latch. 

Yesterday in a fit of PMS-Ijustcan'tstanditanymorestupid$%$^ingdoorgahhh, I made a stop at the hardware store and bought Ryan's job for the weekend.

And now I'm going to go add it to the list, so that I can cross it off this weekend!