Life: Summer Finally Arrives

The seasons have been taking their sweet time making their exit on time. First winter drags into May. Spring finally arrived in June with all kinds of rain. Not that it's July summer has finally arrived with some hot weather. And a few days of sunny skies at the correct time is all that I ask for.

We finally got moved the last weekend of June. It was slightly painful as we got screwed by the truck rental gods again. I must say we have some of the greatest friends in the world for sticking with us to get everything taken care of that day. I was certainly thankful for taking loads of boxes to the new house in the days leading up to the move since it certainly made life simpler to concentrate on the furniture. That's not to say that more and more boxes didn't start appearing, but there was plenty we still needed to take pack that was still needed to live off of.

Despite not doing much running, I completed a ultra just the weekend before - The 48 Hours of Flooring. I spent 14 hours on Saturday installing laminate with help from the brother-unlaw. All three bedrooms and the living room were finished by 10:30pm. Sunday was another 10 hours to get all the old carpet and other crap to the dump and finish the laminate. All that remained was the rec room, but some finishing demolition need to be done on the old lino floor around the cabinets. After that things moved along quickly. Lots of running up and down stairs to take the laminate pieces outside for cutting meant I did a hell of a lot of elevation. My legs certainly felt it along with all the squats getting up and down from the floor. The laminate does look good, and it will be so much easier to clean than the carpets.

With the move complete it was on to the unpacking and other sundry tasks of post-move. The kitchen is looking good after much work by Aerin. It will definitely need a reno, but we'll survive since it's really no worse than the last one. Aerin also did a great job on the bathroom banishing the pink paint. Aerin's mom has gone above and beyond for us with painting baseboards that I've now started installing. With the bedroom repainted now since we had to take out the old closet organizer and three layers of pink flowered wallpaper, I can finish the baseboards and we can put in the new closet organizer with reuse of some of the original bits.

So once the baseboards are done there is plenty exterior stuff to work on. There's the chaulking around the windows that needs doing once I can get a ladder. I haven't decided if I should buy or borrow one yet, but I will need to do that soon. We've also scheduled redoing the garage shingles for the weekend after the long weekend in August, so here's hoping for some good weather. If that doesn't work it's two weeks later to get things done.

And finally a camping trip is on the horizon. Being busy with the house has put a damper on getting out to camp this year. Only the one trip is currently scheduled, but we'll have to get something else in before the year is out. Not sure where or when, but I would like to get away for at least a couple more weekends before the snow flies.

But mostly life is about the house and getting settled in. It doesn't happen overnight, but it is slowly taking shape as our place to live for many years to come... because I don't want to house hunt/move again for a VERY LONG TIME!