Happy Birthday to Erynne!

I hope your day is as fresh and new as a spring garden - and as interesting. Have a great day Erynne!

--Ginny

all the best Erynne! have a great day!

Happy Birthday Erynne, hope it's great.

Good Day & Thank You all for the birthday wishes Ginny, drivenbonkers and MG99!!!

I just got the loveliest indoor plant arrangement delivered to me (from DH) and came on here to figure out what they all are. One is type is a bunch of Kalanchoe but that's the only one I recognize. I'm not so much an indoor plant person.....I usually manage to kill indoor plants somehow ;).
Other than that, I'm working my petunia off today and we will probably head out for a nice dinner with the kids after this day here is done.
The family also got me the most beloved garden centre gift certificate and it's already burning a hole in my pocket, hehe. Oh yeah and a gift certificate for needlework supplies which I've been doing quite bit. I'm glad I picked it up again.

The catalogs have arrived for several places and I'm now making decisions on what seeds I will be starting and what plants I want for my garden this year. We had thought we may move this year but I'm kinda glad we changed our thoughts on that for now as many of my babies will now be in the "leap" stage of development plus the daylily seedlings (from 2zeus) should bloom this year too......I miss them....waaaaah. So much snow out there and so bloomin' cold!!!!

Okay, thanks again and btw, who's winter sowing this year?? I am ;)

Erynne (who's now 35 years young!)

I *might* winter sow a few things that I had no luck with last year. We'll see if I get up enough ambition :-)

--Ginny (who's dreaming about what 35 was like)

Happy Birthday, Erynne! A hope you are having an absolutely wonderful day. :)
Laura (who's so far past 35, it's just a distant memory)

Happy Birthday Erynne!

Happy Birthday Erynne, you youngster, you! LOL.

Joanne Ü

Happy, happy birthday, Erynne! You share the same birthday as my Mom.

Sandy

Happy Birthday, Erynne. I almost missed it - didn't look at the list for some reason. Hope you had a great day.

Ann

Hope you enjoyed your birthday Erynne. Have a great year.

Thank you Laura, Al, Joanne, Sandy, Ann & Brenda!
We had a nice dinner tonight at the Mandarin and the boys each made me a card....so much more thoughtful than store bought eh!

After dinner we came home to a freezing cold house....ooooh no! Something is wrong with the furnace and of all times too! It's minus 15 out there but feels like minus 22.....yeah, I'll just say it's minus 22 because that's what the body is telling me, lol.
The furnace starts but peters out quickly and then nothing happens. I swear I'm starting to see my breath in here and I had to send my kids to Grandma's house for a sleep over tonight. Thank goodness for Grandmothers!
So DH & I are sitting here waiting for the service fellow to come and fix this thing....I was told he would come between 11pm and 2 am......I hope he doesn't find us covered in frost & icicles by the time he gets here ;)

Erynne, who's thinking to sit by the heat of the oven!

Thinking of you this morning as it's minus 23 out there! Hope your furnace got fixed.

Sandy

Oh, No! Not the kind of birthday present you want. I sure hope your repairman came and got it back up and running.
Ann

Lousy birthday present! Are you warm yet?

Hello!
Yes, the fellow came near two in the morning and fixed the beast! Took a good while to warm the place up and it took even longer to fall asleep afterwards. I think we got 3 hours in the end.
We have the protection plan so if anything goes wrong with the furnace we don't have to pay the repair charge .....I'm so glad that DH signed on for it because the service guy showed us what it would've cost for his visit....gulp!
I've got the cold stuck in my bones though from last night and I've been tired all day from waiting up ....this is a recipe to catch something for sure! Lets see how long before I got the sniffles, lol.

Erynne

oh and btw, I'm rather grumpy these days because I've been in reno hello since beginning of November. After being the "squeaky wheel" today, the HD contractors are finally coming tomorrow to finish a job that should've been done in early December. I can't tell you how many things they messed up and wrong parts they ordered. I went through Christmas with half a kitchen.....ei yi yi.

This is a good belated b-day present though!

Glad it worked out OK and best of luck with the renos. Christmas with half a kitchen? ei-yi-yi is right!

Sandy

They bailed on me again today.......HD contractors were a no-show and I can't get hold of the contact people at HD. Oh Sandy, I'm going mental.

Erynne - having gone through a kitchen addition - 6 weeks w/o one although it was mostly functional by Christmas (still no dishwasher though), I can sympathize. I hope your contractors show up soon and finish the job.

Sure glad you had the furnace plan and that your furnace was repairable.

Ann

Erynne...sorry...missed your birthday so am sending belated tidings..hope the contractors have made it in..

Thank you Betty!
Well, the contractor still didn't show up. I'm getting so tired of being given excuses.....yesterday the guy's van broke down and today it was the excuse that the garage didn't give his van back yet. I guess I didn't "squeak" loud enough to Home Depot. ....I wish hubby & I had more aggressive personalities when it comes to these things,lol, but I can't imagine either me or Gary truly yelling badly at anyone. I yell at inanimate objects though, like furnaces! ;)

Ann, if you can believe this, we had the dishwasher that came with this house, ripped out and opted not to have another one installed so there would be more space. Good thing Gary likes doing dishes, hehe.

Erynne

Here's a couple of pics of what's been going on with the reno. Please note, I have a very small kitchen so it's not too glamorous or anything.

Here's the kitchen "before" just as it looked on any given day. The cupboards were original to the home. I hated it so much that I didn't even try to make it look nice. Please don't enlarge the photo as you may scare yourself,lol.

Here's what happened when they started ripping things apart.......yuck!
Do you know that there were four layers of flooring!!

I think this where they started some plastering. See that slope thingy in the left hand corner? That has been the most problematic issue about this kitchen and there is nothing that can be done about it.....it is the bulkhead over our stairs that go to the basement. The HD had to get pretty creative to hide this puppy. We'll see what the contractor does tomorrow...if he shows.

This is a view through the wall that was being taken down, looking into the kitchen. The wall separates the living room and kitchen but we opened it up.

The wall is gone! Pot lights installed where the wall used to be.

This is how it looks now. I took this picture from an angle that hides the unfinished area. Sorry about the crappy photo (yet again!) but it's the only one I have right now and still have to take more.
We also had the entry way replastered, the stairs recarpeted, new closet door installed and new door knobs for several doors. No more getting locked in the bathroom!!!

Oh yeah, we ended up getting a back splash rather accidentally that is not shown in the above photo. The HD measured the countertop wrong so when the guy went to install it, there was a gap on one side and he told his bosses the only way to fix it was by putting in a backsplash because a whole new countertop would be way more pricey. They paid for that backsplash!!

Okay, I'm done now.

Nice reno Erynne! I know it's no consolation, but your experience is pretty much what most everyone in Calgary has been experiencing during our building boom. No trades available, or if they are, they're suspect. We built a house three years ago; what a nightmare...always worry it might blow over in a strong west wind. LOL...

Joanne

Erynne, beore you know it your home will be a showplace and you'll be up here buying more lilies and playing in the garden...

Up early, couldn't sleep, not sure if you heard but a friend of my sons 39 had a snowmobile accident Sat. night ..ice breaker had gone through and he hit it..they were taking him off life support yesterday, so here I am wide awake watching movies..could be at your place helping out...

Wow, Erynne, that's quite a transformation! Lovely and cozy. And I'm so glad no one will be getting locked in the bathroom anymore! lol

Sandy