Plugging away at Partying, Painting and Purging

Well, the holidays are over and it is back to work for Bill and I. At least for a wee while.

During the 11 days we had off between Dec. 23 and Jan 4, we had a plan. There were some family things to do, some travelling and some work lined up.

Our house is in pretty good shape for being 40 years old but there are always those little touch ups that need attention, especially when it is going on display soon. It needs to have on the best dress!

So, first the partying. Since we'd had our Christmas party with CanAm  on Dec. 19 all that was left of that memory were a few pictures. 

Dinner with members of our CanAm family

Stepping it up on the dance floor, I realized how much I missed line dancing and movin' to the beat of good tunes.

Boot scootin' Boogie - oh yah!

Bill and Aunt Ruthie

On the 25th we had a nice Christmas dinner in Stratford at my sister-in-law's place and then on Boxing Day we popped in for a 'hey there' at Aunt Ruthies'. Such a dear sweet lady, we love her to death! 

On our way to Stratford

Then we drove on to Hanover for a couple of relaxing fun days with my sister, brother-in-law and Mom. 

Mom and I had a nice time working on her jigsaw

My Ridge garden in December

Playing with a new camera lens

Darn hawk flew before I could get closer although my lens did a pretty good job

 I was lucky (or should I say good) enough to have Santa bring me a new 70 - 300 mm lens for my Canon. I'm just an amateur at photography so this is very exciting and challenging to me. Let me rephrase that statement. I have been photographing people, things and places ever since I had my first camera in my teens but have just began to get serious when I bought my EOS 30D a couple of years ago. I just need to practice so had fun over the holidays doing just that.

Since our Mobile Suite needed a new roof (oh no!) from some mysterious tree damage (I'm still very questionable about the origin), we had made arrangements to drop it off at CanAm before the holidays while the weather was on our side. Hey George, we do have beautiful sunsets here too!

Leaving CanAm after dropping our Suite off

We came home from our two nights away and picked up our 'home' on Monday, December 28th. Tuesday it snowed so the timing was perfect, I was relieved and my husband was happy. Next to the happy wife.....you know, we gotta keep our guys smiling too! They did an awesome job on the roof and all covered by insurance too.

Fun and games were over. We picked up some trim paint and set to work. 

touch ups on the stairs

I washed baseboards and windows and painted on my hands and knees while Bill taped and painted the higher places that required a ladder. It is amazing what a fresh paint job will do. 

The next job was to tackle the kitchen floor. Ever since we changed the colour of our dark kitchen cupboards to a bright yellow, I've hated the floor. Very bland looking, dull. Without wanting to put out too much money into a house we are about to sell, I had already purchased enough 12 x 12 stick down floor tile in a colour that I knew would compliment the cupboards nicely. 

Doesn't everyone have a fridge in their dining room?

Linoleum lifted

It turned into a bigger job than originally planned only because I have an anal husband. I never argue because I know the finished product will be worth it! There were a couple of cuts in the linoleum that would have created an issue if we had just peeled and stuck the new tile down.

Poor Clemson can't figure out what we're up to NOW

 So, of course the old tile had to come up and as expected, the finished job is terrific!

Should have done it months ago

new kitchen floor tile

We managed a bit of purging also in between going out for New Years' eve to celebrate 2016's arrival.  For our fourth year, we went to Archies for an early fish and chips dinner

My seafood platter at Archie's

 and then using a gift certificate from our daughter for Landmark Theatres scooted backout  to watch "Joy" at 9:50 pm.

The earlier show was sold out so by then we were hungry for the free popcorn and drink. 

We brought the new year in filling our faces in the lovely reclining seating. This was waaayyy past my 9 o'clock bedtime but I managed to avoid the pumpkin transition for once. The movie wasn't as rewarding as I expected and didn't really turn Bill's crank at all BUT we were together at midnight for the mushy 12:00:01 kiss!

Baa Baa Black sheep, 2 bags FULL!

Once more, I tackled the clothes closet in the spare bedroom. Time to really decide just how many dresses I really need. Come on!! Bit by bit, try on by try on, I managed to deposit more skirts than I care to mention, 5 tops and about 6 dresses into the donation bag.

I was in the mood to do it again and it worked in my favour.......or should I say in Bill's favour since with each Goodwill bag out of the house, more and more room appears IN the rv. It is like magic! Tadah!  It is truly getting easier to get rid of my 'beloved' garments because the future reaching out to me is almost within grasp. 

We were both feeling excited about having the house prepped so emailed the real estate agent we are listing with. Just a heads up "we will be ready near the end of the month to list".

The next thing was carpet cleaning. After working for a week, we decided that it was cost effective and time effective to hire a carpet cleaning company to come in and do our 2 bedrooms and living room. For the low price of $99.95, we couldn't go wrong. We couldn't have rented one and bought the materials for that price.

So Saturday morning, we prepped the three rooms. Removing the furniture we could into other parts of the house. Into the laundry room, into the hallway and closet and downstairs until we have only one or two main large pieces left in the rooms.

End tables in closet

Other pieces in laundry room

Master furniture shoved to one side

Congested dining room

Living room devoid of furniture. Only one confused cockapoo left!

Royal Steam were in and out in an hour, spot cleaning where necessary.
Nice job!

Well, in the meantime who doesn't want to save some money on a house sale so we decided to utilize our Swap Shop at work and offer it ourselves until we list. If there is that chance that 'someone' is looking, we could skip over real estate fees. Worth a shot and we are not obligated in any way at this stage. It helps that our brother-in-law is in the business in mid-western Ontario and can provide us with his expertise if we need it.

House for Sale!

Our house New Years Day night (huh?)

In the meantime, our house is pretty, we've sold some tools and household things and we are now in the year of our retirement.

Thank you for coming along for the ride and reading our story.