Progress without the evidence!

Okay, I FAILED at taking potos of the disaster that is my basement! But I have made some progress since I last wrote.

First, last Friday I climbed onto the roof (while D was still here) and shoveled snow all morning.


It was actually invigorating and fun, and turned out to be very necessary. I discovered that we had a very large ice dam in the west eave, under the spruce. D cam home and cleaned that out, and we have not had a problem with melt water in the hose or porch

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On Monday, I emptied the boxes that have sat on the desk in the basement for however long. Many books into storage, many to go to charity. All in just a couple of hours. Thursday, D helped me by hauling boxes out of the storage room. We sorted through a couple of dozen boxes: stuff that we moved and did not unpack, stuff that has been taken out of the kids bedrooms, yada, yada. Ended up with some treasure:

My first teddy bear:





Alex's kindergarten scrap book, Katie's sixth grade writing, a full set of Portmeirion dinner ware (who knew that was sitting there all these years).

And we ended up with a van full of stuff to take to Goodwill.

Wednesday, ATCO arrived (unexpectedly, and with the house looking like a tornado hit) and they will be moving the meter this spring. Timing is good, I hope, and their work can mesh with the reno. However, outside they will need to dig up the front yard!

The renovator came by for some measurements Friday and so things are really progressing! A few more days of emptying and sorting, aggressively getting rid of 'stuff' and we should be ready to finally whip that basement into shape.

The next thing to get into shape will be me!

Projects

So I have some pretty big projects underway, and I really need to focus my efforts better, so I am hoping that writing about them and keeping track of them in photos will keep me on track.

First is basement clean out and renovation.

A big part of cleaning out the basement will be figuring out where to put or what to do with our "stuff". A possible storage location would be the garage, but then that would need to be cleaned out first! :-)

Anyway, I shall take some "before" photos tomorrow, sometime between shoveling the roof and my shift. And I will take a progress photo once every two days, minimum!

Other projects include my two big photo shoots this spring, and getting fit.

It's March!

Good grief, time really has been flying by. March 6, 2009. And it is -25C today! Bleck!

I've been working for SmugMug for a month now, and it is great! I am quite enjoying the job, settling in to a new schedule but still struggling with using my other time well.

I had intentions of walking with Kelso daily, but the truth is I am a fair weather pet owner, and the weather has just not been fair most of the month. We have gone out a couple of times, and that has been great.

I also intend to get the basement totally cleaned out and get rid of all that junk. The thing that will force me to do this is we finally have a renovator lined up. YAY! And we will be giving the basement a really good makeover, starting with moving the laundry into the back corner, building a bath between the laundry and Colin's room and then opening the whole remaining space into one large room. The little space on the back side of the fireplace will become a guest room. I am really looking forward to this; there is so much space down there but it is soo poorly organized. And right now, it is just full of junk! We are getting close to setting a schedule, so the junk must go.

I want to have that well under control so that I can start garden clean up as soon as the snow is gone. I will have a great garden this year, and I will get some serious landscaping done.

I also have not done very well at a PAD project. I figured that I would at least make some progress with that by using my iPhone and SmugShots! But, I just don't take a photo a day, and am not sure random snapshots are a great way to "push" my skills.

We are still waiting for resolution with our two insurance claims. Katie slid into a tree with her car, and it has been written off. That claim is mostly finalized, but her replacement car is not in her hands yet.
The repairs and replacement of all things broken or taken during the "party" has been finished, and now it is up to the insurance company to process that claim. It will end up being a $10K "sweet sixteen" :(