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A day in the life (of Fitz)

20 January 2012, 10:41 am

Fitz is spoiled, he better enjoy it, i’m sure things will change once the baby comes!  But over the past 9 months that we’ve had Fitz he has been spoiled almost constantly.  The difference is that now he’s comfortable here and I think he’s starting to take advantage :)

Case in point: The couch.  At first there was a definite no couch rule.  Then occasionally Ryan would pull him up onto his lap for some petting.  Then it was my turn and I dragged him up once or twice when Ryan was working late and I wanted some company.  Finally last week after daycare he was whining (he wants to go up to his good bed when he’s tired) so I put his blanket (one of many) on the couch and ‘coaxed’ him up.  It didnt’ take long and now he’s comfortable jumping right up if invited (although he does sit for you first if you’re inviting him to make sure you want him).  So now he’s taking up 1/3 of the couch some nights between Ryan and I.  Oh boy!

Second point: Daycare.  It started to get him socialized (or keep him that way anyway) and he got agility class at the same place.  But I never knew how he was behaving at that daycare, couldn’t tell if he liked it (he just whined when we got there and when we left – I have no idea what that means).  So I found a nicer daycare (aka. more expensive) that he LOVEs (and I love because I can see how he is during the day – they send pictures) and I can spy on him when I drop him off/pick him up.  He is much less whiny (I told them when he whines he needs a break and I suspect they are giving him breaks to relax), and he still sleeps the whole next day without bothering me (bonus for me!).  Daycare once a week seems to be the key – again, once the baby comes this will stop (at least during my maternity leave – because the daycare is halfway to work).

Third point: Walks.  We’ve always taken long walks with him, but when we got him it was spring/summer.  As the weather got cooler (actually when I got pregnant) – walks got harder for me (I got sick after about a mile).  So he got shorter walks but almost every day he got to walk at least to the nearby park to mark all the trees.  There are days he doesn’t get to go and that happens more and more (freezing cold out/snowing/raining).  But even on days when I don’t want to walk far, I usually put him on the lead and we play ball for 10 minutes or so.  And lately I’ve resumed the walks even in the COLD weather because it’s good exercise for us both.  He loves the snow – so he got 20 minutes in the snow with his ball today which means I have to stay outside with him because if I go inside, he just sits and waits for me (and starts shaking if it’s cold out).  So again – spoiled.

That’s Fitz’s life.  I think it’s a drastic improvement over his life before he came to us as a stray.  We know we spoil him but he had 4+ years of who knows what so a year of spoiling is deserved – once the baby comes he’ll probably get a little less attention but hopefully he knows we love him (best dog in the world) :)

Filed under Dogs.
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A little spackling

17 January 2012, 11:25 am

Last week (Thursday night) I managed to motivate myself to do a little spackling on the tvroom closet!  Got a skim coat on the left side plaster wall and taped the right wall.  The ‘corner’ has to be taped on the right and that’s going to be interesting with the curve but that’s for next time.  The ceiling also needs a lot of skim coats (the left wall needs a few skim coats as well).  This will be a slow project but at least progress was made!

Skim coat on the left hand wall

Taped the right hand wall

Filed under TV Room.
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Fitz’s new daycare

10 January 2012, 11:36 am

Yes our dog goes to daycare – once a week to get his energy out and he loves it.  Well we decided in the new year to try out a new daycare – the Bark-o-lounge in Littleton.  Today is his first day and he’s already had a busy day playing with new friends.

Hey Fitzy boy

Meeting new friends :)

Getting introduced

And outside time

More friends

Actually pretty calm

And more friends

He is going to be exhausted tonight (and hopefully tomorrow when I’m working from home).  I really like this place, they send out emails with pictures during the day and have a facebook page to follow where they post some pics during the day as well.

Filed under Dogs.
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Stomach bugs…

9 January 2012, 9:43 am

What a strange weekend we had.  Saturday I was feeling so much better from my cold finally so we worked on the house (knowing we had only one day this weekend since Ryan had a bunch of work work to do on sunday).  First we ran to the dump to drop off the final loads from last weekend, then over to pick up our new windows from Marvin.

Home again we decided to continue the demolition in the upstairs diningroom so we could put up the new wall for the hallway.  It was very messy demo due to the insulation in the ceiling and we only did half of the ceiling (just enough to put up the new wall), since the master bathroom will not be done for a long while and i’d rather get the floor down before we demo the rest (it’s not fun cleaning demo debri from the upstairs and downstairs due to cracks in the subfloor).  The demo went pretty quickly (poor Ryan had to do all of it) but I helped with bagging it all up and now we have another dump load for another weekend waiting outside (hopefully before it snows!).

With that completed I spent about an hour vacuuming up the exposed insulation and the debri.  Finally we started the new wall.  We left a few of the studs out so there’s a makeshift doorway to get through for now (since we’re not finishing the bathroom for a while we’ll use it as our ‘guest room’ while we work on the nursery – need to put the bed someplace!).

Finally with the wall in and secured to both the upper and lower joists it was time to remove the jacks to see if the floor had any less movement or not.  It has definitely improved, it still moves (the joists included) if you jump on it so we may need to take future measures but there was definite improvement over before.

Ceiling demolition

 

And the other side

New wall started (still needs 2 more studs and blocking but it's enough for now).

Unfortunately on Sunday, even though we knew Ryan wouldn’t be able to work on the house I still had hopes to get a few things done but I woke up with a sore throat and headache (cold really doesn’t want to go away).  The sore throat was probably due to not drinking enough water on saturday because staying hydrated sunday certainly helped.  So while Ryan worked I crashed on the couch with some Pride & Prejudice and stitched as well as napped.

Stitching Progress update. Making good progress on this piece.

Then the stomach bugs came to our house.  Kind of.  Fitz was the first to go down.  Sometime after dinner he got sick (right in his bed too), and it was horrible.  He continued to get sick 4 times total over the next few hours and we were on high alert for any sign he might need to rush outside.  I have a nice big load of dog blankets that need to be washed (waiting to see how today goes first).  Poor Fitzy.  I finally took away his water (since he was just throwing it back up) and he was okay through the night.

Of course then later in the evening I got a bit of a bug (or just an IBS attack).   I was up till 3am with uncontrollable shivers every 20 minutes or so.  Not fun.  Poor Fitz and I are quite the pair.  So I decided to work from home today due to my lack of sleep and wanting to be able to keep an eye on Fitz (who is acting fine but wants to eat grass now – can’t find any!  – which makes me think he’s not better yet).  He is allowed a little water (although he hasn’t touched it yet) and I gave him some yogurt with peanut butter  for breakfast so we’ll see how that goes.  If he doesn’t get sick he’ll get rice and chicken for dinner tonight.  Hopefully whatever it was has passed and he can go to his new daycare tomorrow.

I myself am feeling better, I feel like I always do after an IBS attack so that’s probably what it was (from eating too much yesterday?).  I’ll take it easy with what I eat today and stay hydrated.  I should be able to work most of the day (maybe a short nap at some point).  And poor Fitz is stuck in the room with me so I can keep an eye on him.

That was our weekend – so much fun :)   I am very excited about the house progress, we can now put down hardi-backer in the master bathroom area and make it into a temporary guest room with sheets for walls  and the bed moved in there.  Then the nursery clean out project begins and eventually we’ll demo that room and get it going!

Filed under Cross Stitch, Dogs, master bathroom, upstairs hallway.
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It’s a Girl – coming in May

6 January 2012, 10:02 am

That’s right – as everyone who reads this blog already knows – Ryan and I are having a little baby girl come early May this year.

Meet Itty Bitty

It's a girl!

This morning we picked out a daycare for September and I had my gender check ultrasound (we knew in December at that ultrasound that it was most likely a girl – but this one verified it).  She’s very active and everything is on track.  Her head is measuring on the large size (thanks to her daddy) which may be a concern for me come May :)

Now we just need to build a nursery for our little Itty Bitty baby Girl!

Filed under Baby, Family.
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Wednesday night stitching

5 January 2012, 7:29 pm

I think being sick means I’m in the mood to stitch finally. I continued working on the Royalty ABC banner by Jeannette Douglas, getting the first page completely done (of 4).

Page one done

I’m only making minor modifications here and there.  The crowns for example, while they’re all different, I didn’t like that hte one on the right had a queen stitch on top and the left one didn’t so I had them both have queen stitches and made them the same color too.  I did keep the styling different but I’m not completely sold on that either.  I like symmetry.

And Fitz ripped the head off of his xmas snake stuffed animal – too funny.  He’s finally gotten to destroying some of his toys (including is favorite orange squeaky ball) so I bought him a tough chew squeaky ball instead and we’ll see how long the stuffed animals last.  It does take a while for him to rip them (the snake has been a favorite since he got it because it has LOTS of squeakies).

Filed under Cross Stitch, Dogs.
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Sick of being sick

3 January 2012, 10:09 am

Well – it wasn’t allergies – I got another cold this winter!  No house progress yesterday, instead we went to the mall to get some quick shopping done.  Then we snuggled in to relax for the day re-watching season 1 of Downton Abbey (since it starts up again next week!).  I actually got some stitching done (that was as much as I could handle).

I decided to work from home today, I feel up to working (now anyway, we’ll see if a headache gets worse or not being on the computer all day), but I wasn’t up to the drive and I had to sleep in a bit since I got very little sleep last night (I hate sleeping sitting up but it had to be done to get any sleep at all).

As for stitching, I worked on my Royalty ABC pattern by Jeannette Douglas, a piece I did in a Celebrations class a few years ago, I haven’t touched it since the class but got 3 bands almost done (the basket is almost done).

Royalty ABC progress

Filed under Cross Stitch.
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Happy New Year

1 January 2012, 7:25 pm

It’s a new year – and how did we spend New Year’s Eve?  Well working on the house of course!

We determined that the upstairs diningroom/master bathroom floor had way too much movement to hold a new bathroom at some point.  Just Fitz walking across made it sway (not good for grout).  So today we worked on the floor.  First Ryan and his dad took up the wood floor (we saved almost all of it).  We’ll re-lay it for the hallway but the bathroom will be tiled.  Then we de-nailed all the boards to save them and I cleaned up the subfloor.

Upstairs diningroom floor - gone! (see it piled on the right, that's most of it)

A farther back view - we still need to reframe what will be the entry to the hallway but at least there's a doorway.

A different view (toward the bathroom)

And back toward the stairway hallway

A view of the old chimney way - we're waiting to close off this hole in the floor until we know what we need to run to the attic through here.

Ryan and his dad then worked on supporting the floor joists from below – using 1/2″ plywood on each side of every joist after jacking up the floor a bit.  We have to wait 5 days for the adhesive to dry fully before we take down the jacks and see if the floor feels more secure (it feels very secure with the jacks under it) :)

Jacks holding up the floor joists for extra support temporarily

The supported floor joists - 1/2 inch plywood on each side, glued, nailed and screwed in

The other half of the room

And a different view

Suzanne made a potato, bacon soup for the guys for lunch that Ryan has been enjoying the leftovers from today as well.  We ended the evening with a night out at Chunky’s to see the new Sherlock Holmes – love sitting in comfy seats and getting to eat while watching a movie!  Unfortunately probably due to the dust, I was starting to feel like I was getting a cold/sinus infection by the evening and didn’t wake up feeling much better today.  But a day of relaxing certainly helped (as did tylenol for the headache).  I also think the high pressure system we had passed through which was not helping.  By tonight I was feeling much better and got the house vacuumed to remove the dust pretty thoroughly.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings … drawers maybe??

Filed under Diningroom, master bathroom.
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Demo-master returns

30 December 2011, 7:38 pm

The holidays are over and the house work begins!  That’s how we like to bring in the new year.  Ryan didn’t get to take the week off so while I was home by myself Tuesday and Thursday I worked on emptying out the upstairs diningroom and cleaning the house (Wednesday was a stitch day with the girls).

By Friday, Ryan was off from work, his dad and suzanne were out and we were ready to work on demolition.  And demolition they did!  The upstairs diningroom (that will become the master bathroom some day and a hallway) was emptied out and all taken to the dump (3 trips).  It was a long and very productive day!

The new hallway entrance (well this will get reframed out but this is what was uncovered when they took out the built-in)

 

The wall toward the master bedroom

The door toward the hallway of the bathroom (this door frame is now gone too)

The wall that adjoins the small upstairs bathroom - they have a double wall so the plumbing is hidden

And the demolished diningroom - to be master bath!

A great day!  We ended the day watching Sherlock Holmes – the original one, we’ll go out to see the new one tomorrow night at Chunky’s!

 

Filed under Home Renovations, master bathroom.
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Christmas Sewing

21 December 2011, 10:57 am

Getting close to Christmas!  Shopping is almost done (just need a trip to Joann’s now!) and I got my sewing projects done last night!  This was just a quick project that my sister-in-law gave me the idea for because she said my nieces both want hooded towels so I jumped at the idea.  I purchases regular sized towels with matching hand towels at target and some fleece at Joann’s earlier this month.

I cut the hand towels in half and made them into hoods, then attached them and cut out the girls’ names from the fleece, appliqueing that on with a blanket stitch on the machine (that was a first and it came out okay.  I hope the girls like them.  I wanted to add flowers applique’d on too, however I realized while doing the names how hard it was to go ‘around’ instead of in straight lines so it didn’t happen last night.

One for Emily :) - The towel is actually light pink, not white as the picture shows.

And one for Finley!

Can’t wait for the girls to get them on Saturday!  I had high hopes of making embroidered burp cloths for my nephew HOWEVER the universe conspired against me.  I couldn’t find the burp cloths (gerber cloth diapers) ANYWHERE – babysrus only had their brand which were gauze and gerber ones that were already decorated.  Target only had the gauze ones!  Failure!

Filed under Sewing.
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