Tuesday 1 March 2011

Who Stole My Posts?

.........Ok so no-one actually stole them, I didn't write them. I have NO idea where last week went, well yes I know where it went but who'd have thought a few small simple DIY jobs would completely eat up my entire week and we're {TH} not done yet. Although I have no cash to complete the last few things I want done *sign* we will get there, eventually.

So where exactly did my week go and what did we (it's a small we) achieve? I shall start at the beginning......

Monday - {S} was unwell, so no school for him. {TH} had already made plans to make a start on refurbishing the doors for our lounge and dining room, so even though we had {S} off school, we decided it was still possible to at least make a start. After checking (and double and triple checking) that I had got the math right and we did have the money we thought we had, {TH} and his cousin (roped in at the last minute to help) took a trip to the DIY store. They were gone for hours, what is it with men and DIY stores? Now bare in mind that Monday's for me means college. So while they took their time wandering round the DIY store (most probably checking out every power tool in the place!) I got myself sorted for college, while trying to keep {S} entertained. {TH} arrived home just in time for my to run and get the girls from school. I quickly got the girls and {S} fed before running out the door for college. I had no idea what {TH} had bought to refurb the doors with, nor how much he had spent. A fact that annoyed the hell out of me while I was at college, so much so that during our 10 minute coffee break I rang him to find out. Now {TH} is used to be calling home during my break, normally to remind him to put the uniforms in the dryer so I can iron them when I get home. So when he didn't answer I was a little annoyed. I tried several times during my break calling both his mobile (cell) and the home phone. We are not allowed our phones on during class so on my way back to class I put my phone on silent, still rather grumpy over the whole not knowing thing. I don't do surprises very well, in fact I hate them and am a total nightmare at christmas time (but that's another story). When I finished college at 8:30pm I checked my phone, {TH} had sent me a message apologising for not answering the phone, but he was busy with the doors, would I grab KFC for tea please. The text actually said 
'sorry no answer busy with doors grab kfc pls cba cooking can u c u l8r x'
KFC is literally over the road from college, so I trudged over there, stopping at Tesco on-route for bread, milk and 2 blueberry muffins. Grabbed a variety bucket and headed home. It was a little after 9pm when I got home, {TH}'s cousins car was still there which meant they were still working on the doors. I stuck the KFC in the oven and made a cuppa for us all. {TH} and his cousin had completed one full set of doors while I had been at college! They weren't hung but they were complete.
Turns out they bought cupboard backing, which is white on one side and a rough wood on the other but it is very thin. The old perpex we took out of the doors was approx 3mm thick so we needed something of similar thickness or it wouldn't fit the gap in the doors. {TH} and his cousin had covered the woody side with white Fablon (a sticky back plastic) so I had total white panels in the door. Even though they weren't hung they looked a million times better than the yucky 70's perspex that was in them originally. If we'd have had the money we would have replaced it with clear or frosted perspex but oh my that stuff is so expensive to buy. With 16 panels needing to be replaced it would have been cheaper to replace the doors with new ones! So we went with a cheaper option but the result in brilliant.
{TH} and I hung the doors after his cousin left, which was pretty much as soon as he drank his coffee, poor guy was goosed and his mrs was not a happy bunny either. They had done the doors from the dining room to the launchpad area and once they were up they really did look great. That was pretty much it for Monday, we ate the KFC chilled for a little while in front of the tv watching who knows what lol and headed to bed, knowing that we had to do the other set of doors tomorrow

Tuesday - {S} was still not well enough for school, so another day of him being home, yet he was quite happy to lie on the sofa and watch his cartoons with his duvet and Scooby teddy. I had work I needed to do for college while it was fresh in my mind from the night before, but {TH} wanted the doors done. His cousin was not able to come and help him so I had no choice but to roll my sleeves up and get on with it. I did move my keyboard and get my note paper and pencil out, working on the theory I could make notes for my college work while helping {TH}. I actually managed that quite successfully. A lot of the time I was just required to 'hold that steady' or 'pull that down' or 'pass me that screw/fitting/whatever he wanted' so I plodded on with my college work and helped to refurb the doors at the same time. A prime example of multi-tasking lol. It took us all day, (not helped by my nipping out to collect the girls from school) but eventually the doors were complete. I had a governor meeting at the school at 6pm, so the doors were going to have to wait to be hung, I had to feed the kids and get myself cleaned up. Crawling round the floor leaves you dirty and not how you turn up to a meeting, although {TH} didn't understand this when only a few hours earlier I had been to collect the girls dressed that way.
I got back from mymeeting a little after 8pm. Neither {TH} nor I had eaten so I refused to help hang doors until I had eaten something. Between the 2 of us we rustled up somethinge edible and relaxed for a while. We got the doors hung at about 10pm that night. 2 days, 2 sets of doors completely refurbished. Although now I decided (much to {TH}'s annoyance) that I wasn't quite keen on the solid white panels.
You see, we only replaced the panels where the yucky perspex was. The pretend wood panels (dark wood) remained in place and I think this is what was upsetting to the eye. However, I promised {TH} I would 'live' with them for a while and if I still dislike them in a few weeks we will work out something to improve them.
There was some left over fablon from covering the doors and {TH} set about covering the fire surround in the lounge with it. The fire surround (like everything else it seems) is dark wood. Although we have some dark wood furniture (a small coffee table and unit to house sky box, ps3, wii and games/dvds), it still makes the room feel closed in a dark.So {TH} decided that while we had the left over he may as well put it to use 

Wednesday - {S} was still not fit for school, at this point I wondered if he would make it in at all this week! He wasn't the only one, my throat was scratchy and very sore so I called in school and explained I wouldn't be in for my placementthat morning. There was no way I could have done that. I poked {TH} and told him I wasn't well, he got up and sorted the girls out. {TH} took the the girls to school and I went back to bed, {S} came and snuggled up with me while I went back to sleep. {TH} woke me again a little before 11am, after a cuppa I was actually feeling much better. {TH} thinks it was just of me being drained and needing more sleep, I think he was probably right. 
Now I don't know how it came about, I think {TH}and I were watching an old re-run of the gadget show, but anyway, we both decided that we had to get the washer out of the en-suite (it doesn't fit in the kitchen unless I get rid of my dishwasher!). We went, tape measure in hand and tried to figure out if there was any tiny way we could get the washer into the kitchen. It can't go next to the dishwasher as the pipe work for the sink is in the way (the washer is about 20mm to wide). We could take a cupboard out but that would still mean ripping apart a kitchen we don't own and wouldn't be the easiest thing to put back right again if/when we move.  The only, even slightly viable option was to put the washer where the dryer was. Remember I have that 'small room' that I moved my dryer and wardrobe into?
It would involve drilling and making a 3" hole from the small room to the en-suite in order to plumb the washer in. We already had very long pipes from when we plumbed the washer into the en-suite. {TH} spent at least 2hrs making the hole and carefully removing the tiles off the bathroom wall so he didn't shatter them (and more) when drilling through. Finally we had a hole. We moved the dryer into the hallway and humped the washer into the corner of the small room, posted the fill and drainage pipes back through the hole in the wall and got them all hooked up. Turned the washer on to check it was filling right and ACK! we had a leak. So quickly turning the water supply off and the washer we hunted for the leak. As we found out {TH} had loosened the pipe on the back of the washer when humping it round, accidently of course, so once that was tightened up and the water mopped up (luckily not much water) we tried again.....NO LEAKS!!! So we got the washer into the position we wanted it. 
We got the dryer into position next to the washer but it didn't leave much space for us to get through, so we put the wardrobe next to the washer and the dryer where the wardrobe was. 
Now all that's left to do in there is get some shelves above the dryer and washer. I want 2 shelves above the washer and 1 above the dryer. I'll be putting my washing powder box, stain removers and softener on the shelf above the washer, leaving the actual top of the washer free to hold folded wet washing. Not sure what I'll put on the shelf above the dryer but I still want a shelf there. I'd also like to redecorate, as the room used to be mine for my pc it's painted baby pink and baby blue with matching floor tiles. I think I'd like it bright yellow and the floor replacing but that will have to wait. I really like what Jen over @ IHeartOrganizing has done with her laundry room {here} with the painted pegs of the wall. I'd love to have something like that.
While we had some left over fablon from covering the doors so {TH} decided to cover the fire surround in the lounge, it was (like pretty much everything else) dark wood in colour which neither of us liked. So {TH} set about covering it. It took him a fair few hours but looked so much better afterwards. It used to have 2 glass shelves that sat either side, but I talked {TH} into only putting one on each side and getting some vases and silk flowers to put under the shelf.


Thursday - {S} was finally better by today, so all 4 of us had a nice walk to school, I had my placement today. The weather was actually lovely this morning, and the flowers are all coming up in the gardens on the way to school. The kids love pointing at the pretty gardens and asking what the flowers are. I only did 2 hours in school today, so I was back home by 11:30 and ready to catch up on some serious housework, it's been seriously neglected these past few days. {TH} was going to visit his uncle and grab the vases & flowers I wanted to finish of the fireplace.
When he got home he'd bought some glass beads too, so we build the vases up with glass beads and put the flowers, finishing my fireplace off lovely.
I remembered that I was visiting my cousin this evening with my sister, so after the kids got home and had tea, we did homework and I went off to see my cousin.
I was only gone a few hours but on my return I was in for a shock! {TH} was part way through painting the chimney breast in the lounge. As I was leaving with my sister, {TH} was in the garage looking for something. I never bothered to ask what as we were running a little late, turns out he was looking for what paint we had left over. He was actually looking for the terracotta originally used on the wall to patch up some bits.
However we didn't have any but he did find a lovely shade of purple and away he went painting. It's looking lovely and really brightens the room up, espcially with the fire surround now being white.


Friday - I got up a smidge late this morning, but luckily we managed to get to school just as they were blowing the whistle for the kids to line up, both me and the kids hate it when they are late. It doesn't happen very often, I think last year they were late maybe 4 or 5 times in the whole school year. It really annoys me when people are late, as a governor I see the numbers of lates and the repeat offenders. Seriously how hard is it to get up 10 mintues earlier and get to school on time? Some people really annoy me
Anyway, as my housework has been neglected (we kept finding other things to do hehe) quite a bit this week I decided that when I got home I would get stuck in (and record Homes Under The Hammer I love this show lol) I popped the kettle on when I came in and went to lounge to pick up the kids clothes they left abandoned there, I noticed snake skin on the bottom of the tank, I know one of our snakes is ready for shedding so I opened the tank to pick the skin up and check on the snake. What greeted me I did not expect. As you know I have 3 corn snakes. They are little buggers and like to climb and lie on the glass shelf at the top of the tank. When I opened it, the red snake was there at the top (although he hadn't shed his skin)  and the white one was there too, along with 2 eggs! I was shocked, I knew we had a female (possibly 2) but I didn't know she was pregnant. I ran to wake {TH} (who I'd left sleeping as it's easier to clean with him out my way) and tell him we had 2 eggs. About 10 mintues later, {TH} wanders out of the bedroom and armed with a cuppa each we go to investigate the snake again....ANOTHER EGG!!! although it was very much smaller than the other 2. I sat and looked up some info on the net and we decided we would try and incubate the eggs. According to what I read depending on the age and size of the snake they can have as few as 5 eggs and as many as 30! We kept a close eye on her all day, removng the eggs as she had them and placing them in our homemade incubator (an ice cream tube, filled with damp bedding to keep the eggs moist) by about 8pm she had, had 8 eggs! We were so proud of her, we fed the snakes (who should have been fed Friday morning but they had to wait until she was done laying eggs), neither the black nor red snake would eat. The red snake was due for shedding so we weren't surprised he didn't want his food. However this the 3rd week the black snake hasn't eaten.


Weekend - No idea where this went lol, we didn't do any DIY or clean up or anything like that, I think we just had a lazy weekend 


Monday (yesterday) - I was a bit poorly today so didn't do very much, no that's a lie I did lots and lots of college work. I called into college to tell them I wouldn't be in as I wasn't in tip top condition. I picked the kids up at 4:30 today as they had after school clubs, {B} did choir, {S} did rugby and {LM} did gymnastics. {LM}'s teacher told me she hadn't been feeling well most of the afternoon and hadn't been herself, but she had wanted to stay to do gymnastics. I made them egg on toast for tea, as they have a cooked proper lunch at school. {LM} ate a little of her egg and sbout 1/4 of a piece of toast and was promptly sick. I got her cleaned up and changed and got her the bucket. I gave her some calpol and not 5 minutes later she was sick again. I cleaned her up again and got her changed, {TH} said to just settle her down on the sofa with her duvet and eeyore (that ended up being eeyore, kitty, monkey and several other cyuddlys). We left her on the sofa dozing till about 9:30 when I took her up to bed. No DIY and no cleaning today. 


Tuesday (today) - We kept {LM} off school today just to be safe. She didn't want breakfast so I didn't force her, I just settled her down on the sofa with her duvet and all the cuddly's (there was more than last night!) I had a tutorial with my tutor today, so I got myself ready and off I went. I won't deny I was a little worried about how I was doing on my course, I have an assignment due next Monday and even though I did alot of work yesterday that assignment had me stuck! However, after speaking with my tutor, I feel alot better, I was just looking at the assignment wrong.
I nipped into town on the way home to get some decaf coffee/tea bags for my friend. I also wanted to pick myself up a notebook to jot down all the design and DIY idea's I keep having before they leave my mind forever lol. I also saw this lovely square marble tea light holder, which I just had to get. I grabbed some Lime and Sexy Strawberry & Cream tea lights, I thought they would look nice on the dining table (need to clear it of junk the kids stuff first). I am so not sure when I am going to get my housework caught up on, I have my placement tomorrow morning and again on Thursday morning, an appointment with the head on Thursday and of course this assignment I need to do. I also have to go into school Friday for an event they are having, although {B} is taking part in the event I am going in my role as governor.
At some point I will have the time and energy to catch up on everything that needs doing.

No comments:

Post a Comment