Halloween & Prepping for Christmas

Well, we got the house put back together!  The kids now have carpet and it looks like we won't owe anything for it due to all the work we did on our own.  Insurance settlement still to be signed off on.

We left off in Mid October.  I started tutoring 4 4th grade girls next door.  It's been interesting seeing how math is taught differently than I was taught and It's going alright.  We're making progress and I can see that it's helping. After one teaches them how to multiply 2 digits x 2 digits using distributive property apparently my old school ways make more sense.  I showed the kids and H was particularly interested to see how it worked to go up to really big digits. 

V caught up to H weight wise and now weighs about 54 pounds, H weighs just over 50.  He's still taller and about a size up in clothing. We'll see how long it lasts.

V's started educating me about things she's read or learnt in school. There's not much warning except that it usually starts before I've had coffee, over breakfast.  Her talk about Komodo Dragons:

Paul got to talk to Glen Howard, the best Canadian curler, ok, curler EVAH!! Here's proof! they were in a bonspeil together, not on the same sheet of ice, but he did offer to buy Paul a drink.

I baked cookies for H's class at school.  I had enough left over to make "poop" cookies to try out my newest cookie cutter. 

Halloween: C went with a friend, V stayed home to pass out candy, only H trick-or-treated around our neighborhood, up and down about 2 blocks.  It was actually kind of nice! H likes to chat people up and usually his brother and sister are more down to business and quick, H had a chance to talk to all the neighbors and it was pretty neat. 

 

H lost the last of the 4 teeth on top. He's now eating lunch at the hockey player table.

 

 

 

V learned a Remembrance Day song

 

 

 

We got our first carton of Egg nog. 

F V says, “oh egg nog, we’re back with a old friend.” She drinks it at every meal if possible.


Parent conferences were the best ever. Worst problems are that oldest is sometimes not interested in topic and middle is not eating enough lunch. All are doing fantastic-V does math and reading at a 4th grade level.  The boys are at the top of their classes. Well, C still has issues with French and P.E., but I'm not so worried about that.


We had a bday party for H with a few friends from school.  C and I made a bit of a treasure hunt/role play for the goodies. 

 

 

After H's birthday we decorated the Christmas tree

 

 

We put the lights up!

 

 (Note that this plus the tree lights are all the lights we own!)


A Christmas miracle, all 3 children had school pictures worth keeping

 

Paul and I had our 14th anniversary!

 

 

I finally installed towel racks in our upstairs bathroom.  Why it took me 4 years and why there weren't any in there in the first place I'll never know, but now that a certain someone is showering daily we need more towel racks that people can reach.

 

V practiced for her school Christmas concert.  A lot.  The boys are going to be excited when it's over and she stops practicing.

 

H and V are back to curling.  I've kept H with the 6-8 year olds that I instruct due to his size and maturity level. This means my kids make up about 1/3 of the Little Rockers at our club.

 

  There is a competition for curling in Ontario where they have to draw, hit and tap. He's been playing with the 6-8 year group even though he turned 9 last month because he's tiny! They play with little rocks (about 20-25 pounds) on a 1/2 sheet of ice rather than a full sheet. He's been a great help to me as he's experienced in the game and does demonstrations and is a leader for the other kids (it's his 3rd year). Unfortunately when they are 9 they have to do the contest on a full sheet of ice with rocks that are regulation (about 42 pounds). He tried for 1.5 hours to push the rock with his 50 pound body and can't get it a full sheet. Even though there were lots of tears of frustration, he did not give up. I was proud of his spirit!  We've since done some brainstorming and are working on some ideas of ways to help him throw the full sheet of ice.  I'll keep you all updated after the holidays. Meanwhile, his speech after playing in the Holiday Bonspeil (a competition-2 games with lunch in between.) We played a total of 7 ends.  As per usual, H got pretty frustrated by the end of the second game so as soon as the game tied up the other adult and I looked at each other and called it finished.

H's acceptance of prizes speech on behalf of all the players as the other boy had to leave and none of the girls would speak into the microphone.

 

 

 

We've had snow-last week we had 3 dumpings of about 3-4 inches each.  It then warmed and melted but there's a fresh dusting tonight. It's looking like a White Christmas is in our near future.

 

 

I've started physio (physical therapy for you Americans). My 13 years of diagnosis of carpel tunnel looks more like TOS (basically a neck that needs to be stretched out and the nerve pathways between it and my hands is messed up).  So between physio, tutoring, reading with V's class and curling I've been keeping busy.  Oh, not to mention both H and I had a wicked 24 hour stomach bug over the last week.

But tonight the holiday concert!

 

 

I'll show pictures of how the house turned out and my recent furniture projects when I get them done in the next few days.  Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

Why I'm so tired and progress on the house

September is when I get all my projects done that I've put on a "when the kids go back to school" list.  The last two years I've been lucky enough to have Paul home to help me, but this year he also went out of the house each day. 

The first two weeks were spent talking to contractors about how to fix the damage from the March storm, signing kids up for activities, getting caught up on laundry, grocery shopping (we had pretty much used up everything in the fridge and freezer), touch up painting around the house and other odd jobs, including a much needed tidy up of the house and the neglected yard.

As soon as I got the house clean, everything caught up, etc.  the contractors let me know they were ready to start work. 

Work list:
V's room: repair ceiling drywall inside and outside of closet, scrap the ceiling (we have popcorn and since a lot would need to be scraped anyway, we figured it was a good time to update it to a flat ceiling); repaint all walls (due to drywall tears when taking the mold out as well as expected damage as the ceiling redo was done)

H's room: repair ceiling drywall inside of closet and paint closet (I opted to do this as I'll explain later)

Workroom/office: repair ceiling drywall where the mold barrier ripped it, repair drywall that had to be removed (2 bottom walls) due to drywall remediation, repaint all walls, new flooring that also extends to hallway and bedroom.

There was also some tape/ceiling damage in the rec room that we are opting not to have repaired at this time as a) it will save a headache of trying to get everything moved around from rooms that need stuff out of them (when the flooring is put in, our bedroom AND the office will need to be emptied.  We'd also need to empty the rec room if we did the repairs now).  It's a lot of money.  The rec room is not terribly noticeable and will be fixed at a future time, however we're going to hold off at the moment.  We do not know if the repairs will be done by us or hired out.

I opted to move the contents out of the rooms and paint H's closet because in addition to all of the above, we're opting to put carpet in the kids' bedrooms.  2 have 1960s parquet (not a tragedy, but they really could use a sand & stain-big job) and the other has a pretty cheap laminate in it.  The kids all have expressed wanting carpet and to thank them for all the upheaval we're doing it. We also get a discount on the installation because they'll already come out for the floor, so it made sense to do it now while 2 of the rooms will be empty. By doing all our own heavy lifting, painting the closet and opting to save the rec room for later, we will almost (I think!) have paid for the carpet.  We'll still need to address the rec room and I've been very busy, but I think it will be worth it.

First-unload the workroom (formerly my office, but after all this it will be a studio where both the kids and I can create) and 2 smaller bedrooms:

I'm invading the rec room and bathroom

 

looks like a super-fun place to do laundry right?

 

 

The living room has all the kids' stuff. You can't even see their dressers, which surround the TV.  C's stuff will be added to the mix in 2 weeks when the carpet arrives.

 

All the kids are bunking together. Guess how fun it is to get everyone to bed on school nights?

 

 

My hope is once the paint smell dissipates a little I can move the mattresses back to other rooms for the 2 weeks until carpet arrives.

 

Last week and this week the drywall and paint was done.  A sneak peek of V's no longer pink/white room which will soon be transformed into a Pokemon paradise.

 

 

Paul thinks the flat ceiling makes it look even bigger than before.

 

So, while the inside has been driving me nuts and torn apart, I've turned my sights to the outside. Namely the drains.  2 of the drains can go into the dip between us and the elementary school, so I've decided on the advice of the office of the siding guy (I'll fill you in on that later)  to bury the drainage rather than keep hitting it with the mower.

 

The side drains: front has a dry well as it ended up a little deeper than I was expecting due to roots, etc.

 

 

grass seed has been planted hoping the rain will get it watered and little sprouts will show with all the nice temperatures we are having.

 

The back side drain:

 

 

more grass seed planted

 

I like this one better-it has a bit of a little dry river bed that ends next to a tree and the fence.

 

The front drain, though had no where to go and had been buried into the garden but was in about 4 pieces and full of dirt, so I dug it up and had originally thought about putting in a PVC french drain and running that through the garden.  Then I consulted with my dad and Paul and it was decided to connect the front drain to the back and shoot it out past our deck/gazebo and down the slope.

 

  The drain previously went along the front of the fence (buried) under the walkway and out to the garden. I dug up the old drain.

 

sloping along the house. I told Paul if the white bothers me I'll spray it brown or red to match the brick.

It goes underground by the time it connect to the back downspout.  We've not glued it together so in the summer the rainbarrel can be hooked up and it's in a few pieces right now. at some point we'll make it a little prettier with one spout at a proper angle.  This back spout goes into an upside down T and diagonally under those really heavy paving stones (they are about at my weight limit for what I can lift and have to be lifted a few times each to be properly leveled back into place. 

I finally gave up for the evening when my arm looked like this from the mosquitos feasting while I tried to finish up before dark

 

 

I keep telling Paul I'm not tired from all the digging, I just have West Nile Virus (it was found on the trail behind us, could happen, just saying)

 

 

The pipe then straightens under these pavers which I made with the kids using flower bucket bottoms and cement, both left from other projects with some dollar store glass rocks.  They kept getting dirty and gross in every big rain though. Their purpose is a clean place to put my bare feet so I can uncover the hot tub since the pad is just wide enough for the tub itself, so since I was playing with pea gravel generously donated to the project by my sister-in-law from her now-gone playset, I used a little to solve this problem as well.

 

It then turns under the pad and heads down the hill between our deck gazebo/outdoor eating area/bike storage area and the fence

 

The reason there are bricks on the fence side is that due to the fence being held up by that lovely stick wedged into it down below, it is being replaced next summer, so I bordered the gravel and moved the pipe closer to the gazebo side from the fence side so that when the fence is replaced we have less things to work around.

 

I was also tired of mowing behind them before, but now that the stick is there, I can't get the mower in there, so I'm stuck weed eating. Now I won't be.

 

On the left is my little dry riverbed which actually continues through a hole under the root. I couldn't continue any further down the slope directly due to HUG roots from a tree just where the gravel stops. I'm hoping as I find small rocks in the garden and around the yard I will gradually cover the last bits of landscape fabric.

 

 

I also beautified where our sump pump exits.

 

The sump pump wasn't hooked up when we moved in, so we hooked it up, removed a few deck boards and it now comes out on the back of the gazebo.

 

 

So this is why I'm tired, I've been moving furniture, digging about 70 feet of trenches, hauling pea gravel between my inlaws and my house and all around the yard, not only are my arms and legs sore (the legs are new and started last night, I'm guess from hauling gravel) but my carpel tunnel is acting up and my hand go numb with alarming regularity these last two weeks.  I am drinking lots of water and I have started calling around to find an acupuncturist to see as it's helped in the past when other things didn't and now that Paul has insurance through work, I can get a few appointments covered with only a copay.

 

 

We are now in a holding pattern for 2 weeks when we empty the last two bedrooms-the vinyl laminate flooring for downstairs comes the 30th, the carpet comes the 31st and the 1st will hopefully be spent finishing up baseboards (some are changing due to flooring, some pulled off when the drywall was replaced, etc.) and while Paul's curling that first weekend in November the kids and I will be putting everything back together.  I've had the windows open all day but suspect the kids will still be sleeping together tonight, but maybe not tomorrow night!

 

 

First day of everything

The kids started school!

V and C started in split classes, but all 3 have now ended up in straight 7th, 4th and 2nd grade classes as the school has done a little reshuffling between teachers hired for expected students and the students that actually came on the first day.  C will be next door this year and next year before going over to the elementary school.  His teacher is new to the school and seems young (not brand new, but a little younger than me I would guess) and very excited with her new job.  H is in a classroom that is between the upstairs and downstairs in an alcove.  He says that there's not much noise from the hallway, but there is noise from the nearby gymnasium.  V is still downstairs in the primary grades.  H is very excited to apply to volunteer to hand out milk and pizza at lunch time.  They all seem pleased with their teachers.  They have a new principal and no vice principal this year. The PE classes will be taught by the former learning resource teacher (who has worked with both C and H in the past) who is also the cross country coach.

 

And in big news, the hubby is going off to work as well!  After 2 years off work, he's got a low-stress, 35 hours a week job at a University that's only a 15 minute commute door to door.  It's a little different work than he's used to, but he's hopeful it will be something to keep him busy.

 

It's been very quiet this first week, but I've been very busy with projects I'd put off while the kids were still home and I haven't yet had a chance to sit around with my feet up and eat bon bons.  I'm enjoying cooking and baking back in my own kitchen and even made a pie with the cherries I froze from our tree this summer.

 

The house

So, back in March, our town had a massive wind storm and 2 days later had 2 feet of snow dump in one day.  The wind storm day started innocently enough.  Hubby and I opened up the service panel of our hot tub we'd bought new last summer as it wasn't getting power.  We wanted to see if something looked wrong that might be an easy fix.  The wind started picking up, so we decided to put the panel back on after not finding anything with our limited knowledge.  I went back in to the house to wash my hands and looked out the kitchen window at the school next door.  Then I realized that our giant fir tree from the front yard was laying on the fence.  It took me a second to realize that it a) didn't belong there and b) hadn't been there that morning.  I ran outside calling to my husband and he was running around calling for me.

 

Then we noticed shingles all over the yard.

 

 

We called our insurance company.  From my cell phone since the tree had taken with it our electrical stack to our house.

 

As I tell you this story, please keep in mind that although it is frustrating and taking seemingly forever, everything that has been replaced has been replaced with better quality and is an improvement to the house. 

 

The insurance connected me with a lovely adjuster.  They also connected us with a company we will call Contractor #1

 

Contractor #1 got our electrical stack repaired and power restored within 2 days so that the heat was back on by the time the 2 feet of snow hit (while we have a gas furnace, the thermostat is electric).

 

 

Because the house is from the 1970s, the electrical box and stack had to be brought up to code, which means we now have a more modern electric box and stack.  The bad news is that when they replaced the box, it was bigger and they lowered it about 2 feet, leaving a big hole in the siding.  We assumed someone would be back soon to fix that, or cover it up, or something.

 

Someone came from Contractor #1 to do an estimate of siding repairs from the stack being pulled out, roof repairs, electrical and tree remove.  That person also used some 2x4 boards to nail tarps to our roof to cover the damage.

 

Contractor #1 sent out someone to cut up the tree off the fence.  It took a few more calls to get them to send someone to clean up said wood. 

 

About that time we were switched to another adjuster, Tina since there were so many claims from the storms, they had to redistribute  the work.  After 3 weeks and MULTIPLE calls and e-mails to Tina with NO response (to the point I started wondering if she even worked there anymore) we got out rakes to level the wood chips left and spread grass seed.  We never have heard if relandscaping was supposed to be part of the claim, only that they wouldn't replace the tree.

 

After 2 months of me calling Contractor #1 3 times a week with no response regarding when our roof will be repaired (I know they are busy, but an estimate would be good) they finally decided they were too busy to deal with it and sent out Roofer #1.  A young guy comes out to look at what is involved. Contractor #1 apparently had only sent him 2 of 4 pages of the estimate so I printed all pages out and he realized it was a much bigger job than he'd thought.  He says he can be out within a month.  The line by line estimate from Contractor #1 includes diagrams. Through confusion and the power of geometry we discover that the entire roof is to be replaced except for a very small patch at the back of the house.  Which seems strange to us that they are replacing the entire garage roof which was not damaged, but not this little patch, but whatever.  We figure out how much they are replacing and using algebra determine that the back portion should be roughly $400 and decide that's a cheap new roof. 

 

Well, Roofer #1 comes back and says it will be $2300 because TWO slopes of the roof are not included.  The diagram clearly shows damage on the slope he says is not covered and I do the geometry again to compare what the company says is being charged and it's clear that the slope is included.  We fire Roofer #1 who apparently can't do geometry which is a little concerning.

 

Around the time we are firing roofer #1, I'm out in WA with the kids and Paul's about to follow us out a week later and he discovers mold in my office.  See, the hole in the siding never did get covered and water has run down the wall and damaged drywall and flooring. The flooring runs through 1/3 of the basement.  I had been complaining of a weird musty scent for about 2 weeks.

 

We call insurance company and reopen our claim. I insist on a new adjuster and am given Stephanie who is much more helpful and communicative.  We also fire Contractor #1 now that we have additional damage due to their ignoring us.  Husband spends a week with us and makes calls to a sponsor of his baseball team, Miller Restoration and they agree to come out when he heads home after a week to look at the damage.

 

Husband gets home to discover mold on the ceiling of V & H's bedroom closet ceilings from the roof that after 5 months has still not been repaired.

 

 

Miller comes out and says to call the insurance company to work out living expenses because the kids can't sleep in their bedrooms.  They also start working up an estimate and tell insurance company a mold remediation specialist needs to come out and do samples.

 

The kids and I get home and go to stay directly with my inlaws.  We all stay with them for 4 weeks while the roof is redone and the mold is cut out, samples are taken, air cleaners are running, cleaners are wiping everything down and I do about 20 loads of laundry.

 

Staying with my inlaws was a total Godsend.  We looked into hotels in the Niagara area. They ran about $200 (yes insurance was paying, but we had to put the money out first and wait for reimbursement) and it was hard to find something.  Everything around here tourist wise is by Niagara Falls which is crowded and touristy and congested in the summer. I try to avoid the whole town all summer long.  Other nearby towns were all booked up.  My inlaws graciously moved down into their basement letting us having the upstairs bedrooms, we had a beautiful pool in the backyard, I barely cooked. All of us got along aside from my husband and my short tempers the last week as we got frustrated with the waiting the last week. 

 

My inlaws had just had their roof done by Parent Roofing and called the owner to see if they could find a way to help us out (no point in doing all the mold remediation if the roof was still leaking).  Within a few days they sent over their longest-running employee.  He worked alone for an entire week and that roof is amazing.  They did the entire roof for what Contractor #1 said they'd only do all sides but one for and it's way better than what we had originally.  He added vents to the roof (Miller was happy about that as our attic where they were doing mold remediation was an oven) and 3 vents to the garage where we had none.  One is even available to set up with a fan connected to the garage door opened that can run 10 minutes or so to let carbon monoxide out.

 

As soon as the mold was found, we were switched to Adjustor #4, G who is in the area and came out to take a closer look.  The gist of that conversation is that the insurance company is rightfully as unhappy as we are that Contractor #1, who they sent us, left us with even more damage than we started with and are approving what we need done with little argument.  He also wrote a check for living expenses for the first two weeks right away.

 

The siding repair is set to happen next weekend (9/16) though the check for that has apparently gone missing. Adjustor G is working on that.

 

Bob the Mold Guy came through and tested and sent a protocol to the insurance who hired him, then it went to Miller, that all took about 10 days , then a week of cutting drywall, air scrubbers, etc. then another 3 days of waiting again for results and being cleared to move back into the house.

 

Since we moved back in last Thursday (right before labor day weekend) we've cleaned more and realized nothing can make you into a Minimalist more than something like this.  We've gotten rid of V's dresser and bed (a 10 year old IKEA set), H's dresser (a put together kit from about 20 years ago that had moved 4 or 5 times).  Husband and I are sharing our small walk in closet and our dressers are now to V and H and the bunk beds are debunked and they each have one.  C is perfectly happy in the upstairs original master bedroom with a queen sized futon that while from husband's single days was a very nice purchase (high end with springs in the mattress, etc.) and a dresser we got last summer when husband's single days dresser became too small for his preteen sized clothing (that dresser also found a new home with a friend moving into her first home).

 

All 3 kids are back into their original rooms and we cleaned out the playroom to find really just the Lego Table and Nerf toys are jointly used-they are in a corner in the living room where they started along with the art desk that will move downstairs into my office (now art studio) when that room is repaired.  All other toys are distributed amongst the kids who play with them.  Books will be redistributed once the bedrooms are repaired.

 

The current estimate is that drywallers will come in 8-12 weeks (hopefully before Christmas).  Then paint and flooring.  A flooring person has come to do an estimate and we need to head to his shop to pick out new flooring.  As part of that, we think we are going to spring to replace the kids' dated (C & V have 1970s parquet; H has a very cheaply done laminate) flooring to carpet now that everyone's potty trained. So again, we'll end up with something nicer than we started with.  Because V's ceiling was damaged we'll get the texturing scraped off and her walls painted to match the new Pokemon bedding.

 

The biggest hassle now is that all my office/art stuff is spread out downstairs and not in my office and will be for the forseeable future.  The kids' bedrooms will have to be emptied or covered when the drywallers/carpet installers come but they are comfortable for now.