mercredi 18 novembre 2009

Almost to the weekend again ...

Weeks are just flying by around here ! I'm really busy at work, lots of projects going on at school. I'm involved in the Christmas show at our school this year - we haven't had one in YEARS ! It does my heart good, it swells with joy to hear my students singing happily and asking eagerly whether they are going to sing during their English period or not ... :)

I'm gearing up to make lots of Christmas cards with my students that want to do it during lunchtime, like we did last year. We gave the cards to seniors in a residence and they were so happy about them ! I believe that I started a tradition last year ... one that I aim to continue for many years to come ! I'm also gearing up to write the report cards this weekend : they are due on December 1st, following our move to our new home the weekend before ... so I want to finish the report cards before then.

Our moving our stuff to our new home is going along in a speedy fashion. DH drops some stuff at our new home every morning, after having dropped our son to school. Last weekend, we did set up my stamp room (storage room #2 - I'll eventually name the two storage rooms (scrap and stamp) by something more interesting, just haven't had the time to go there yet !). DH assembled quickly my IVAR shelving system and Rafael and I put back on the many shelves. It went up pretty quickly. I'd say it took about 3 hours to redo the set-up that I had in my previous home. I had placed all of my stamps which were in plastic trays (by category) in boxes so it was a piece of cake to just unload the numbered boxes and put back the trays on the shelves.

DH and DS assembled our PAX unit (from IKEA) in our basement. I love watching DH and DS working together. It took them quite a while !

This afternoon, I went in after work and spent 2 hours working in storage room #1 : I have now put away all of my CS and PP ! So happy about that ! I still have lots of shelves that are empty so I'm deliberating what else this room will store. I did put away quite a bit of stuff this afternoon and I felt quite satisfied with my work when I left Orleans at 4:25 to go pick up DH and DS. I'm thinking of going back tonight after DS is in bed to empty more boxes. We're officially moving in to live in our new home on Saturday November 28th and we want to feel like it's a home, not a house filled with boxes !

Gotta go : supper's ready ! Some yummy mussels that DS prepared ! Take care !

vendredi 13 novembre 2009

so excited ....

... because tomorrow we're setting up our basement combined art-fun family room ! After much planning, it is soon going to be reality ! Yippee !!! :)

In order to make this happen, late this afternoon we went to IKEA with the U-HAUL trailer behind our car. We purchased the table tops for our computers plus the table tops for the creative section of the basement. I will have enough space for 2-3 persons creating at the same time - perhaps 4. I'll know more after the set-up is done. After that part has been set up, I'll make the final decision on whether or not I'll buy the IKEA kitchen island to scrap standing up. I really really love it, but since it's a big purchase, I'm carefully weighing the pros and cons in getting it. I'll also be setting up my old and practical IVAR shelving units for my rubberstamps in the second storage room, the one I call #2 because it's a little bigger than the storage #1. I am really excited to have my rubberstamps at my fingertips and be able to stamp again. In my former art room, there wasn't enough space on my scrap table to be able to stamp and emboss on it without having embossing powders flying on the table. I'll admit it, I'm anal about not having any glitter on my scrap pages. It just bugs me to have pieces of glitter moving around in my plastic sleeve of scrapped pages. In my new art room, I'll have a separate table to stamp and emboss and glitter to my heart's content ! :)

In case you don't know, I used to rubberstamp extensively, especially scenic art. I used to belong to the BIO scenic club, By Invitation Only, but dropped out of it after I had my son because I just didn't have the time to rubberstamp. This club, which still runs, has the best scenic stampers in the world. I was sad to read lately that the person who started this club years ago, Joan Wear, a fabulous scenic stamper, one who started the movement of scenic stamping, stopped stamping a while ago and is selling her stamps. For reasons of health, she can't stamp anymore.

On another note, I need to get in touch with our family doctor again as our son is still falling asleep in class although he has slept 11 hours during the night. This situation has been going on for the past 2 years. Today again, he fell asleep during class. He started his math evaluation and then fell asleep. I'm hoping to be able to get in touch with a sleep specialist. This situation has been going on for too long. I don't know that we'll get an appointment with a sleep specialist soon as CHEO is really busy with the H1N1 flu : Rafael's scheduled EEG in November was postponed indefinitely we were told a couple of weeks ago.

I had tears in my eyes at noon today when I read in the papers that a 38 year old University physics teacher, father of 3, died of the infamous flu. It's so sad.

Hope you have a great weekend : it looks like it will be a splendid on, weather-wise ! We intend to take advantage of it during the afternoons. Thanks for stopping by !

mardi 10 novembre 2009

Two weeks to go ....

... before we actually move in our new home ! We've had the keys to it since October 15th but waited to move in for the installation of wood floors (dining room, living room and on the second floor (3 bedrooms, hallway) as we didn't want to live with the noise and the mess of having something installed in our home. We've also have had installed some "plancher flottant" (wood flooring) in the basement and boy did it ever changed the look of the basement. We love it ! The walls freshly painted in a revigorating green, same color that was in my previous art room, also made a H-U-G-E difference in the atmosphere in the basement ! I am sooooooo looking forward to organizing the living part of the basement as my art studio and also a space for our family and friends. It's a much smaller basement than our previous one but we do want to make it work for both art and relaxation.

We've been moving my art stuff progressively to our new home for the past 3 weeks. I knew that dismantling my art room (Studio D, as my DH calls it !;)), would be a lot of work and I was right ! I own a LOT of art stuff. Too much for that matter, but that's for another post ! Ha ! We've moved most of it in laundry baskets and other plastic containers. Simple and very quick !

This past weekend, we again spent quite a bit of time in our new home and I finally started to organize the smallest basement storage room (there are 3 storage rooms) : it will house my PP, CS and some other scrap supplies. This little room used to have ugly blah linoleum flooring and washed down pinkish white walls and the previous owners were using it as a storage room for their paints and tools for the household. This very small room is now sporting the same flooring as the rest of the basement floor and the same gorgeous green paint. It looks like an extension of the main living part of our basement. It's exciting to organize this room as I visualize myself (and friends) ambling over to choose CS and PP and letter stickers, among other things ! In our new home, I don't want all of my art stuff in plain view like in my previous scraproom ; it was too distracting even though everything was well organized and labelled. It was stiffling my creativity at times.

On the same topic of scraprooms, have you been following Donna Downey's scraproom rejuvenation ? I love watching her room evolve. I've spent some time during the past month on the internet, looking at other scrapbookers' rooms since I have to organize my new one. It gave me some neat ideas.

Here's a link to Donna Downey's blog, in case you would like to see her scraproom's transformation :

http://donnadowney.typepad.com/

If you have ideas or suggestions for the placement of stuff in my new scraproom, I'd love to hear them !

Until next time, take care !

O

mercredi 4 novembre 2009

Life ....

... always has some unexpected turns when one least expects it ! Ha ! Ain't that the truth ! These past few months have been super busy (and tiring) for our family. Also exciting.

Lately, it's still very busy. So many things and situations that appear and keep us so busy. Lately, it's our health that has been on the forefront. My son came back from school last Thursday, he had a fever, was tired, had a sore throat. He stayed home on Friday, fever got worse, started having some respiratory problems. It reminded me of 7 years ago when he had the flu and then asthma set in and he spent 6 days under the oxygen tent at CHEO (hospital for sick kids in Ontario, Canada). So Friday, when I noticed that his asthma was getting worse, I didn't wait any longer. We got into the car at 9 p.m. and headed straight to CHEO where we were greeted with a smiling woman who immediately gave us a mask for all of to wear. In fact, everyone in the hospital was wearing one, including small babies ! We left the hospital at 1 a.m., after the doctor had told us that Rafael had the H1N1 flu and had given us a prescription for Tamiflu, a ventolin pump and another pump plus a cupful of Advil. There were lots of people in the hospital. The personnel was pleasant even though it was clear that they were overworked.

We then spent 3 hours to get the Tamiflu. We had a list of pharmacies opened 24 hours so we went to the first one, in the south end of Ottawa, to learn that they had run out of the Tamiflu. While my husband was getting that piece of news, I was in the grocery store next door, getting some light foods for our son : jello, popsicle and such. Then we drove to the far end of Orleans, near Tenth Line, to this other pharmacy where we waited an hour and a half to get the Tamiflu prescription. We got home at 3:30 a.m. No one hardly talked : we were all so tired, we all headed straight to bed.

A good portion of Saturday was spent working in our new home, installing stuff, etc. DS spent a lot of time sleeping. Then DH went to work at 7 p.m. (yes on Saturday night) on a special project he is heading at work. He came back home at 4 a.m. Sunday morning. Yup, two nights in a row with little sleep. Result ? He now has a beginning of pneumonia. So he has been staying home with DS since the beginning of the week. His voice has gone down considerably lower. Quite a sexy voice ... almost. As for myself, I have been holding down the fort. But today, I started to feel symptoms of a cold. Sore throat, scratchy throat. I took a nap this afternoon. I'm hoping that I'll be soon back to normal. Positive thinking IS always good !

I am so looking forward to unpacking my art stuff : I miss so much having time to create art. I miss being able to amble down in my art room. Soon though. I still need to exercise my patience ! I am thinking of doing the December Daily again this year. For the second year. I haven't taken photos since the month of June. I am missing taking photos, especially of nature. That too will soon resume in my life.

It's already past 9 p.m. Time for this tired and a little sick person to get to bed. Have a great day tomorrow !