Slow down

After last week's busy-ness, this week has been a whole lot less so. I ventured out on Monday morning to pick up fresh fruit and veg, as well as a few sale items at our local grocery stores. My other reason for going out was to pick up potting soil for this year's planting. One of the cats, Stanley was very interested in the dirt, and kept a watchful eye on me as I seeded tomatoes (beefsteak), peppers, basil, and pansies. The latter are seeds I harvested from the plant last fall. Chances are they won't sprout but I figured it was worth a try. I learned my lesson last year and have reduced the number of wee pots. If you recall we were over run with tomatoes last fall. Our peppers didn't do as well so I've added a few more. 

The weather forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday was calling for heavy snow - up to 22 cms (8.6 inches). D has decided there will be no more shovelling this winter. This is Easter break and Eli is home from school, and thus, in theory we can wait until it melts. She ran out to do a few errands ahead of the supposed storm. In the end, it missed us entirely, and areas near Saskatoon and further north took the brunt of it. places saw about 18 cm (7 inches). We had less than a centimeter, and by lunchtime it was melting; walkways were clear as were the car windshields. 

The cat in the photo on Wednesday is the baby, Spencer. D found her in her garage in January 2025 during a terrible cold snap. D tried to find her owner through FB, and checked with local vets and the rescue in the NTO (next town over). No one came forward to claim her, and the rescue advised their waiting list to take in a stray cat was about 4 months. I was in Yuma at the time, and when D called to tell me about her, I said, I guess that means we have another cat. We certainly weren't going to euthanize her. D taught her the trick of standing on her hind end to ask for "uppies". Just like a toddler she asks for attention several times a day. However, she is terrified of men especially, and most any stranger. It took her awhile to warm up to me when I visited, but now she loves to nap on my bed...though my cat Saku isn't a fan. As for treats, she really doesn't need any. :p

Knit and Natter was held on Wednesday evening. There were only three of us there, but we had a nice evening. Both M and L were crocheting, while I continued on my knitting. I managed to get a lot done and should finish the panel this week. I'd hoped to have it done before this post but procrastination got in my way. 

As I've said it has been a quiet week. Some spare time was used to work on the Ancestry website updating information. My focus is on more current information rather than previous generations. I don't have access to anything outside of Canada (except newspapers) because the cost is prohibitive. But I feel that current and future generations would be interested in the materials and info I've found. That was the case this week when I received messages from two individuals who were interested in specific relationships. I was able to, at least, partially answer there questions.As an aside, this photo shows how I am using the external keyboard to access the letters s and w and the @ symbol.

I had thought that curling was done for the season but discovered the first Rock League event. It is being streamed on CBC sports on YouTube. The format is quite different with teams split between men's fours, women's fours and mixed doubles. The teams aren't specific to any one country and the members of the four person teams aren't static. That is to say that someone is generally a skip may be playing one of the other three positions. Scoring is different too and I haven't quite figured it out yet. 

Besides curling and knitting, I've no plans for the weekend. The weather is supposed to be lovely so we should see more melting. Spring is on her way! 

Have a great week ahead everyone!

Lazy days

Do you ever have one of those days or one of those weeks (in my case the latter) where your get and go has got up and left?  And, if you do, how do you get yourself out of that rut?  Or maybe I'm too hard on myself and this (hopefully) temporary lapse of ambition will pass.  

In any event, it has been a very quiet and unproductive week both at work and at home.  I've kept up with absolutely needed to be done but no more.  So, for example, if you were to walk into my living room right now you'd find the normal detritus of a toddler, as well as several boxes (books) and piles of clothing.  The latter all belong to my daughter and are destined for a future garage sale...that she has been planning since early May.  I call it the work of make a mess baby and make an even bigger mess mom.  The floor, though has been swept and vacuumed so the dust bunnies have been held at bay.  

What I should be doing is painting the bathrooms (or a least cutting in), as the worker is here on Monday to start the refacing of the cabinets.  The plumber was here yesterday to remove the sinks and taps.  He discovered there were no shut off valves in either bathroom so those had to be added once the main water was shut off.  

This is the main bathroom where the  problem started.  D noticed there was water dripping from the sink onto the floor of the cabinet.  When we checked underneath we discovered the sink had corroded through the base and so some overflow was actually leaking.  I started looking into replacing the sink but after searching for sinks on-line (no one local had grey sinks), I eventually came to decision to reface the cabinets as I did a few years ago in the kitchen.  Yeah, that's me...spent a little or a spend a lot...and I go with the more expensive option.  

This is the ensuite bathroom.  You'll see that both bathrooms have the banjo counter top that extends over the toilet.  That will be removed when the counters are replaced.  While the extra counter space is nice to have, it's a real pain to get at the toilet tank when the flange or chain needs to be replaced.  

The cabinets will be refaced with the same laminate material called chocolate pear, while the doors and drawer fronts will be replaced completely.  The counter tops will have similar laminate as the kitchen, except that the material in the kitchen has a gloss finish while the bathrooms will be matte. When the kitchen was done I have purchased the handles so these just need to removed and put on the new doors and drawer fronts.

 

This is a rather dark photo but provides some idea of what the counters and cabinets will look like.  (This was pre-installation of the microwave above the stove).  Unlike the kitchen there will be no tile backsplash, rather the laminate will be wrapped up the wall about 4 inches.  

I still need to find taps for both sinks - the ones I ordered on-line were too small so need to be returned.  This is part of shopping I like least...it's such a pain in the butt.  I'll probably replace the lighting as well as it is brass colored while the fittings are brushed nickel.  (see what I mean about spending more money...I started with needing to replace the sink....)

The paint I've chosen for the two rooms is quite a bit lighter than the original.  As both rooms are interior and without windows, I think the lighter color will brighten them up.  

I decided to go ahead with the refresh of the bathrooms as I think it will help with the resale of the house in a year or so.  The market in Regina has really declined over the past year or two, such that prices are dropping.  In the mean time I'll get to enjoy having nice(r) bathrooms. 

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We've been having some wild weather this week with more storms forecast for this weekend.  This storm, earlier in the week gave us a good soaking of about 1/2 inch of rain or more.  We've had rain off and on, nearly every second day so that I haven't had to water most of the containers.  I do check the 10" pots more frequently as they tend to dry out more quickly but even those haven't needed more than a sprinkling. 

I have small birdhouse that my brother and his children built, that we hung on one of my sheds.  This little chickadee was busy between rain bursts bringing food to whomever was in the house.  Unfortunately I haven't seen any movement in or out of the birdhouse the last day or two, so I fear something may have happened.  My brother R, said it is unusual for a chickadee to nest in a birdhouse so perhaps the pair moved.  I hope so!

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Finally, one more photo of my very handsome (and talented) grandson.  This week he discovered climbing!

Next to the cat tree is his toy box.  Lately he's taken to climbing into the toy box to get something, so it was a natural progression to take the next step of climbing onto the cat tree.  The view from there is so much better, right?  

I don't have a photo but the second time he climbed onto the tree, he made it up onto the perch he's leaning on and attempted to stand up!  That was it for the tree - it has now been moved into the sun room with nothing nearby to make the climb easy.  

Well, I'd best wrap this up and get to the bathrooms.  Procrastination is truly getting me nowhere!

Have a great weekend everyone.

P.S. I have my settings so that comments are e-mailed to me, but this function doesn't seem to be working. I've checked my settings and every thing looks okay.  Is anyone else having this issue or is it just me?