Eeeee!

There was a bunny!

A bunny, on my property line!

He was hiding in the hay, but he came out to inspect us as we stood in the yard, talking to the roofing guy.

I wanted to take his picture, but when I came back out of the house with my camera, he was gone.

That's just a lesson that I must learn....... NEVER. LEAVE. HOUSE. WITHOUT. CAMERA.

D'oh.

Flowers are pretty, yes they are.

This one was growing behind the shed, hidden away from the world.

There was a tiny beetle living in it, but he flew away before I could get his picture.

Sigh.

Elena & Tiana

Elena & Tiana came over to spend the weekend with Tyler and I. It was part of our birthday present to Tiana, who turned 12 last week. The other part was that I would take pictures of her and Elena, and get them developed for the two of them. Here's a few of the very best that I took today.

Tiana

Elena

Elena

Elena & Tiana with little princess Lucy.

The two girls, all shiny and pretty!

Ava thinks something is funny!

Just something quick, again, because a storm is coming! Eeek!

A pretty picture

This is Linda with baby Ava Grace, a few weeks ago at the Canada Day celebration. Ava and Linda are good buddies!

Roofing our Back Room

Tyler is very happy about getting the steel roof put up on our back room.

His mom and dad are here to help us.

But trouble is a-brewin'.

Those rain clouds look meaaan.

I'm helping out by keeping the ladder secure. My posterior is earning its keep, today!

(Don't I look super awesome in my sandals, shorts, winter coat, and sunglasses?)

Tyler and his Dad work furiously to beat the storm.

Almost done! Just need to put the piece on that fits snug against the wall, to keep the rain from running down into the house.

There! Doug supervises as Tyler drills in the last piece.

Done, with lots of time to spare before the storm hits.

Hooray!

Thank you Deenil and Patchik!

My baby brothers came over today to help Tyler put strapping on the roof of our back room.

We were going to do shingles, but as it turns out, putting steel roofing on was only about a hundred dollars difference. So we metallicasized our plans.

Here's some super fun news.... the main roof of our house is now leaking, thanks to that monster storm last night. That was a doozy! It woke me up, and I usually sleep through storms. At four in the morning, I stirred from my sound slumber. I'm not sure whether it was the thunder that woke me, or Tyler, who had gone to use the potty. Irregardless, I was awake.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

"Hey Tyler, is that a leak?" I asked.

"No, that's coming from outside." Tyler said to me, as he closed the bedroom window.
He may not have said the words, but the tone of his voice said "Silly woman! Lay down, go to sleep, stop talking."

I settled down, hoping he was right.... but also resigned to the fact that I was not mistaken.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

"That's coming from inside!" I murmured sleepily. The tone of my voice said "Get out of bed and go find out what is going on! You're the man, you know!"

So he did, and sure enough, there was a leak.

I had to work today, so I tried to catch some zz's as Tyler stomped through the house, tromping downstairs to get the big bright light and the extension cord, then clomping upstairs and climbing up into the attic, where he noisily thumped about, looking for all the leaks. Yeah, I didn't catch any of those zzs. They are very elusive things. Like a Gobi.

Eventually I got out of bed, and helped Tyler strategically place buckets and containers throughout our attic, to catch all those rotten drips. Our attic is not very scary, but it's almost there! Cobwebs, and abandoned wasp nests everywhere.... yeck.

By the time we were done, it was time for me to go to work. Hurray!

But I've lost my original intent.... to thank Dan and Pat. Oh yes.

I picked them up on my way home from work, and as soon as we got here, they got right to helping Tyler like there was nothing else in the world they'd rather do. Tyler appreciated it a lot, because now the roof is almost ready for the steel to go on.

I am very happy, because it spared me from having to go up on the roof (heights and me have a stand-offish kind of relationship.... I don't do them, and they... just scare me.) I did the wifey thing, like going into town to get a chisel (I got the wrong one, by the way.... d'oh), making cold drinks to refresh the menfolk, bringing them rice crispies, and barbecuing a mean steak for their supper.

It was awesome.

Then we watched a dumb movie, and after that, Animal Planet. There was a show on about Orangutans.. those big funny orange apes. They make me smile.

Anyways, it's the end of a long day, and I'm very tired. So goodnight.

I get to paint my back room soon!!

Yippee, Yippee!!!

My husband is working away mudding our back room, with quiet determination. Yes. Because, to properly mud a room, any room, you need to be studious, methodical, and you must never give up. If you do, your wife will never get to paint it. And that is what she is SO looking forward to.

I can't wait to get the dryer out of my kitchen, into the space it belongs in. It's funny how things get out of order when you renovate. One room gets torn apart, so they all get messed up.

It's going to look so good when it's done!! After we're done the back room, all that's left to renovate are the last two bedrooms upstairs. Then we are DONE.

Until I decide I want to paint our living room an icy, pale green instead of pumpkin brown. Which may be soon. I don't know yet.

I think the green would look fabulous with the dark stain of the woodwork in there.....

I'm slowly figuring out that life is about stuff to do. We always have stuff to do. Cleaning, cooking, renovating, loving each other, talking, writing, scrapbooking, going places, eating, praying, and... stuff.

I have a lot of stuff to do today, and though my hopes are high, I'm not going to get it all done. Especially since I'm being bullied into writing a new post. Why doesn't anyone pick on Adeena? It's been a WEEK since her last post, it's only been three days for me.

I went to a candle party last night, which was fun and not fun at the same time. It was fun because I was talking and laughing with my mother-in-law's crazy cat lady neighbour, who despite the fact that she has SIX cats, is actually a nice lady. Very talkative.

The not fun part is that I was very, very tired, and it lasted until 9:00, which is usually Sarah's sleepy time. Not this week, though! Every night in this 27th week of 2008, I got less than 5 hours sleep. It's almost like I'm in training to be a mommy.

It's not all bad, though. Wednesday night we (me, Tyler, and a lot of my family) went to see the movie Expelled, which was awesome. I probably have lots and lots to say about it, but I'll say it some other time, because I gotta go get working on some of that stuff I have to do. You can go to Linda's blog officialjesterplace.blogspot.com to read more about the actual movie.

This is waaay overdue.....

I should have posted this a month or two ago, but other things struck my mind at that time, so it kept on getting pushed back. Oh well.

Brady used to sleep in a medium sized green kennel, which was HUGE for her when she was a puppy. Here she is, beside Lucy's kennel, which was only a little bit smaller than hers. (I don't have a picture of her in her green kennel... gasp! How terrible of me.)

Is she not just SOOO cute????

Anyways, time passed, and she got bigger. She had to duck her head and huddle down to get in and out of the green kennel, and when her tail started to form a permanent crimp in it, we decided she needed an upgrade.

Peekaboo!

She LOVED her new kennel. She was absolutely enthralled with it. She kept on walking in and out of it while Tyler put it together. After I took this picture, she sssttreetched out as far as she could go, and gave me a big doggy smile.

Of course, this isn't the end of the story.

Later that night, Tyler said something that made me very upset. Something like, I'm violent and unstable and fly off the handle too much. The nerve of him.

I got him back, though.

That's right. He's in the doghouse.

I let him out... eventually.