Saturday 28 November 2020

Painting Refresh

I had always meant to paint the garage door a darkish grey, it has been white and slowly fading since we moved in. I had envisioned faking a row of windows near the top, with paint (taping out squares, maybe even some light shading to give them depth.) Then I saw that you can get decorative garage door hardware, which would look fancier than windows and be easy. (They also have them in magnetic form to stick them on metal garage doors too, but I got the screw on ones since ours is wood.)

When I mentioned it to Jason though, he wanted it painted black. (Which reminds me of the song when I was younger, that I gather is actually a cover of The Rolling Stones. But isn't a cover when it is done exactly the same? There is a difference, it is a bit like a remix or something. I like the Gob version better and, upon looking it up, found out they are Canadian. It is a little more metal than The Stones rock version.) 

Paining it black then meant that I had to spray paint the decorative hardware a different colour to get it to show up - I went with 'stainless steel.' It didn't really made it look like stainless steel so wouldn't recommend it for that purpose, but it worked to make it a greyish colour that would show up against the black. Jason helped me attach the hardware.
Happy with how it turned out! Even more so now that I see what it looked like before!

Saturday 21 November 2020

Birds In A Row

First time feeding chickadees, and he gets a line up!
Photo by me, with Jason's phone - Saturday Nov 21, 2020

Tuesday 10 November 2020

Couch Reno

It might have been Two, however I think it was more likely Binx, but at some point one of the corners of the couch got torn up. This couch has been around forever, I think it was at Rrunuv Bayit for most of the time and has been at Casa Verde since we moved in. My parents got it for our family room in Paris when I was a teenager, maybe even a pre-teen. The issue with the torn up corner is that it is right as you enter the room! It is the main corner, very visible. 
I figured you could get patches but I wanted stick on ones, not iron on ones, and they needed to be large enough, strong enough to work with a couch. I eventually came across some faux leather ones that you heat up with a hair dryer before sticking on. There were tons of colours so I was able to get a beige that coordinated with the blue and cream couch stripes. I cut a custom shape that so it would tuck under the first fold of the arm and then wrap around the corner with the the other three corners rounded (recommended in the instructions, also looks nicer.)
So that it didn't look as much like a patch and more like a purposeful part of the furniture I made sure to get and make enough to do both corners on the couch and over on the chair-and-a-half so that everything matched. After I finished I asked Jason if he noticed anything new in the living room, and he had about 6 wrong guesses before I just gave up and pointed at the patches. He thinks this shows how well they blend in and is not continued proof of how unobservant he is.
Looks like our living room furniture has little leather elbow pads, like on tweed academic blazers/sweaters. I am very happy with the refresh and hope that it will continue to extend the life of this couch because I don't want to replace it anytime soon.

Monday 9 November 2020

Baby Face?

Went for an ultrasound today to check on the status of my low lying placenta. Tomorrow I will be 28 weeks and officially in the final trimester of this pregnancy, so I guess right now is the last day of the second trimester. 

According to the various charts and sites on the internet, the baby is the size of a plate of pancakes, eggplant, head of lettuce, butternut squash, Kraft Dinner Mac and Cheese box, and the list goes on, all being slightly different shapes and sizes, making it really hard to understand how big she is. However, the tech asked if I wanted to know the baby's approximate weight - which is exciting data! So apparently she is currently 2.4 lbs (or 1.08 kg).

While showing Jason over the phone at the end of the scan the tech was able to get the front of her face - Jason let out a little squeal! I asked if we could get print outs and the tech was very excited about how 'cute' the face was, with its 'chubby cheeks.' I have included the images but made them small since I think they are super creepy and look ghost-like, click the picture to see larger. Jason claims that when it showed up over the phone it looked a lot better (it depends what 'slice' the images are as to what they really look like.) It was the first time he had seen something that "maps directly to a real face, a real human thing."

Friday 6 November 2020

A Door By Any Other Name

There was a very heavy windstorm right before we left for our road trip. It broke the glass on one side of our porch door. Once we got back, Jason and I discussed what to do about it and decided that we would replace all three screen doors using the people we got to do (most of) our windows in 2018. Since Jason had been the main person to deal with that, he reached out to get a quote for the doors. 

We have an enclosed porched at Casa Verde, so there is a screen door into that space (which has the broken window from the wind) then once you are in the porch there is a screen door in front of the main wood front door. Then in the back there is a screen door before the wood back door. Basically all of these are broken in some way, usually the spring and cylinder closer part. Also we are slowly switching from white doors and windows to black ones as we update things so this is a chance to do that for the doors.

Anyway, Jason got the quote and wanted me to look over the fine details with him, "starting with the fact that they said they were for storm doors," which had him very confused and concerned. I explained that 'storm door' is actually the more accurate and contractor-used term for a 'screen door.' He wanted to know what the wooden front door types where called, my guess was 'exterior door' but I wasn't as positive on that term. It is going to take some time for them to be ready and installed but I will post the before and after shots when they get put in.

Wednesday 4 November 2020

A Distanced Game Day

Last year Teri and her family launched an annual event in honour of her late father. Gord's Game Day is held in September and brings people together to be outside, active, and connected. Her dad was involved in many team sports both playing and organizing them, as well as, a driving force for their extended family to gather and have a good time. The event last year, in 2019, was at a public park in Hamilton, with obstacle courses, giant jenga, soccer and more. Entry fees and fundraising go towards the Brain Aneurism Foundation of Canada.

With the pandemic this year, the event had to go 'virtual' with a request that family groups and small gatherings of friends try to keep the budding tradition going by running their own Game Day in honour of Gord. A bunch of the participants sent in photos and clips from their activities, which have been made into a video. We did our own Game Day at the waterfront in August, organized by K. The video starts off with a clip from that day and me pushing a ball of Jason's spoon during a race (I am the worst!) You can catch glimpses of Teri, her mother and brother, Greg, R.O.M, K, Jason, Mike, LeMonde, Kristen, Noah, Leo, Monica, Andras, Sebi, and the list goes on. It is a fun montage!