Misc Ramblings – Page 23 – a hippie with a minivan

water + gravity = mess

On Saturday morning, two weekends ago, I got out of the shower, walked into my room and saw drops of water on the floor looking like water had splashed. I looked around, not understanding where the water would be coming from. I heard a drop, then another and another and I saw that my comforter was soaked and then looked up and saw that water was dripping from the ceiling fan. I turned the light off, ran up stairs (our room is in the basement) and went to figure out where the water was coming from. The sewing room is above my room… so it was the first place I checked. No water there. I went into the bathroom… no water there…

We looked more and finally found that the problem was in the bathroom, the pipe under the sink was broken and water was running into the cabinet, out the back and into the floor and of course the ceiling below. We don’t know how long we had had the problem, but the water dripping from the fan was the first clue… There was no water on the floor in the bathroom, there was no other sign. While Simon turned off the valves, I called the insurance company and over the course of the day the ceiling started to sag. Simon touched it a few times and each time he did I cringed. The next day it was even worse. On Monday morning the emergency crew came over, looked at the ceiling and went into action right away and took off all of what was wet… taking out more than half a large bucket’s worth of water from the ceiling, held up above our bed by just a few layers of paint.

The insurance guy came in the week, then the evaluator and it was all sent to the construction company with the estimated cost of the damages are about 3 500$…

The work in our room is just putting a ceiling up and repainting, but the bulk of the cost is the vanity. The vanity doesn’t look effected, but it is all wet and needs to be taken out. The vanity in the bathroom is the bulk of our bathroom, the drawers are used every day, the cabinet is used every day. The sink is there. It is where I potty Wilhelmina. Next week they will come start the work and part of that will tearing be out the vanity. It needs to be replaced, they said that their carpenter is quite busy, they said that it might be a month before we have a vanity/sink again.

I hate the uncertainty of when things will be back to normal, I have that there will be people in the house making even more of a mess…

I am also looking forward to having a bedroom ceiling again. It is not the look of the missing ceiling as much as the fact that when Simon takes a shower in the morning before heading to work, the sound of the shower is amplified by the big space and it sound like I am in the shower with him…

It’s not the end of the world of course, but it is all a big inconvenience for a family of 6…

*sigh*

clutter…clutter… clutter…

I was looking back at old posts this morning and realized that there is a pattern of me needed and wanting to declutter in November. Seriously, blogging is a great way to see what was happening in previous years.

Yesterday I put Wilhelmina on my back and attacked the cupboard above the fridge. It attacked me back and I have the bandages toe to prove it. It still seems full but I got rid of a half of a garbage bag worth of stuff. I still can’t fathom how that all fit in there! The more I declutter the more I realize how much I have (or had) a problem with keeping things. I was always thinking “maybe I’ll need this one day” and it would just sit there for years. My mom had the same issue when I was younger, there were times that we didn’t have much so she kept a lot of things ‘just in case”. The house was always clean, but there was clutter.

It is hard cycle to break but it feels so good now to get rid of things. It feels so good to have space to put things, to see what I have instead of forgetting about things. It feels good to be able to clean up the main living space easily and quickly. It feels great to know where things are and be able reach it without clutter getting in the way. It feels great to look at room and only see things that you like, and need and use. It is that feeling that drives me now. When I look at the things that I was keeping “just in case” I am starting to see it as what is preventing me to be happy in my home. I see it as garbage and well, clutter.

I would like for us to sell our house and move closer to Montreal. Even if that means renting again. I can’t fathom doing so with so much clutter in our lives. I was to simplify, I was to make things easier, I want have less things to think about if we were to move.

I also want to break the cycle with my kids. Xavier has a lot of problems letting go of things, I want to teach him that letting go is OK… yesterday, as I filled that garbage bag I was proud to see that Xavier came and looked at what I was doing, and accepted that the things in there and accepted that they would be leaving the house. He didn’t protest when he saw the old sandbox next to the curb, and was excited to see that it was gone about an hour later.

I try to do a bit every day, even if it is just a stack of papers or a kitchen utensil that I don’t use any more. We still have a lot to do, but our efforts are working and little by little the weight of having so much stuff around us is being lifted.

Quiet time…

I have to admit that having four kids drives me crazy at times…

Unless they are all sleeping, there is constant noise… narrating games, animating figurings, making sound effects while drawing,knocking things over, rolling trucks on the floor… It is hard to get some some quiet time. Some people that know me think I am patient, but days like today, I am far from it. It is really hard to be parent some days, especially when you are someone who is sensitive to noise. The more I try to get quiet time, the more I get annoyed by each sound.

So on days like this, I turn on the music, I make things louder, I sing out loud and dance with a kid or two or three or four and I embrace the noise…

I’ll have some Quiet time when they are sleeping…

We have a winner!

On Sunday, the phone rang and the caller ID left me a bit confused.. I wondered who would be calling me from a Grocery store up North in St-Jean-de-Matha…

I answered the phone and the person asked for me and then said that Colin had won the colouring contest they had! The last time my mom had taken the boys they had picked up some colouring sheets at the grocery store, went home to colour them and brought them back the next day to enter in the contest…

Colin was so happy to have won! the two others were a tiny bit jealous…

They said that I could go pick up the prize at any time, so I decided to head out there yesterday and then head out to my mom’s new house that she rented for the winter.

So I packed everyone in to the car and headed to the ferry…

There are times that I look in the rearview mirror and am surprised to see that the minivan is so full…

Though I often miss the mountains of BC, I do have to admit that the Quebec countryside can be quite beautiful also… Yesterday was one of those perfect November days. Cool, at just 5C but the sun keeps you warm when you are outside… The sky was a brilliant blue with just a few clouds at the horizon…

We headed to the grocery store first…We got to the desk and the woman there gave Colin his prize and then took a picture of him…

Colin was so proud of his new monkey and blanket…

We then headed to my mom’s new rental house… it is in a great quiet location and is the perfect size for her and not too far from the cabin that she stays in in the summer… The boys played around the property and my mom and I hanged out with Wilhelmina. Even though my mom doesn’t live too far, we don’t see each other often, so times like these are good for Willa to know her grandma a bit more…

I also coveted her stove while she made tea… the dials on this are so cool!

We then said bye to my mom and left just before dark to head back home to meet Simon for supper….

I just love days like these… I really need to do it more often…

NaBloPoMo 2010

Well, it is November 1st which means that it is the start of NaBloPoMo 2010.

I debated whether to do NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) this year and decided that I would. This is the third year that I will be participating… if not for anything else then the fact that it gets me back into the habit of blogging on a regular basis. It also gives me the drive to think about posts to write, take more pics of the things I make and do so that I can share and just helps my blog continue to grow and change. Summer is so hard for blogging so it really is the time to get back on track…

If you blog and sometimes go for a long time between postings then NaBloPoMo is a great incentive to keep you blogging and get back into the habit of blogging on a regular basis! Check out the site, register your blog and start blogging… Share your link here also so that I can check your blog out also 🙂

(taken at the family cabin)