A Fall Walk

Fall is by far my favourite season. Aside from the rain, of course! I love the fabulous colours and am most often reminded of God's amazing creativity. We like to take lots of walks during this season, to view the colours and just to get out of the house before all the snow comes! We went for a walk at a park in Innisfil and took our camera. Here's what came of it:

We hope you're enjoying this beautiful season too!

Beard Trimmer

For those of you who have seen me this past year, you know that I have been 'sporting' a grizzly-looking goatee. Well, the other day, I discovered the problem with Beard Trimmers. That is - that I should check that I have the trimmer set to the right length. Which I didn't, so this past week I managed to shave it off. Unintentionally.
But I don't think Emily will mind.
I remember her telling me - over Skype (those of you not using Skype should install it) - that the goatee made me "look like a Wookie."
Thank-you, Emily.

Update, Thanksgiving and Regrouping

Dave has been bugging me to write a blog....he doesn't know what to write about and apparently I do. Not really true, but we'll go with it anyway!

Life here has been extremely busy (hence our lack of interesting blog entries...sorry about that!). School started off with a huge rush of busyness and I'm finally just starting to catch up. Omitting all the marking I have to do, I am enjoying my kids and being back at school. I do have quite an interesting bunch this year and they exhaust me, but they also make me laugh so sometimes that makes up for all the frustration!

Dave has also been busy working, painting, and coaching. I'm thankful that he's been given the opportunity to coach because he really enjoys it and does a great job! He's also finished painting the basement, which looks awesome! So now we only need to decide on some storage options so we can get it all cleaned up.

Thanksgiving was a great weekend to relax and spend time with family. We were at my parents and did lots of chilling and eating. But mostly it was nice to get away from all the craziness. A couple of family pictures:

And now that we're back at it again, we're trying to regroup and get ready for the next round of busyness. We started choir this week for our Christmas Cantata, so if anyone wants to check that out it's on December 19 and 20 (I think...).

And we're apparently starting the weekend with no hot water....AGAIN! I think I've just about had it with our water heater.....

Hot Water

We've finally had our water heater repaired! It only took us a week, and a few days to get it repaired. Who knew that painting your basement could cause you so much stress, eh? And who knew that you could be so relieved to get to take a shower again...?

Anyways, our only other news of late is that (seeing as we bought a big 21 quart pot for heating water - for our baths...) we decided to try our hand at canning our very own homemade tomato jam. Yep, so it turned out okay. You might get some at christmas. Maybe you won't. Maybe you don't want any, seeing as we used the pot for baths and all...

Welcome back Fall, wait, I mean Winter.

Who knew that oil-based paint gave off flamable fumes? This is day two without our water-heater. It's proving to be a long process to get the fumes out of the basement.... So we've decided to just keep going (with painting the basement) and live with heated water on the stove for a few days. We'll see if our water heater turns itself back on later.

Other things we're up to...
Steph's teaching. I'm painting.

I've also volunteered my time to coach the boys soccer team at Timothy C.S. and at the same time I'm back as the coach of the girls basketball team at Unity. It keeps me busy. I'm hoping we get a better season than what we had last year. It'd be nice to win a few games before going to the 'playoff' this time around.

Our leaves are turning yellow. Which stinks. 'cause I looked at our October postings on this blog from last year. Yeah... Snow on October 21. Snow stuck around as of the second week in November...

Oh, and we're not joking about the snowblower. If anyone is looking to upgrade their present snowblower, and would like to sell their old snowblower cheap, let us know. We'll talk. Have your people call my people. That sorta thing. Seriously.

Snowblower

Seeing as Barrie just had its first night in the negative temperatures, I thought I'd ask if anyone has a snowblower available?
Let me know!

Wallpaper

Many of you now know that I have been trying to get rid of some wallpaper in the basement, and have had some frustration. I was having some difficulty as the paper would tear off in only two inch by four inch pieces.
"Have you tried perforating the wallpaper?" was a common question people would ask... indicating the method whereby you perforate the wallpaper with something akin to a fork and then soak the wall with a spray bottle.
I was doing that from the start.
Now, I know some of you might be thinking "Do they not have steamers that will soak into the wallpaper and loosen it up for you?"
I tell you that is a copp out. It wouldn't be work anymore. And for things to be done right, it must be done by working at it. It is only Christian. After all, did the Lord not work for 6 days to create the earth, and on only on the 7th did He rest? And did He not create our bodies for the very purpose of doing work? (If he did not give us bodies for this purpose, then why do we have bodies at all?)
Besides which, a steamer would have cost me money. And as a person of dutch heritage, well, I think we all know what it means to be of a dutch heritage, however distant that dutch heritage may be.
So, I tell you that I have come across the most brilliant method by which a person of proper mind may be rid of wallpaper, and produce a brilliant finish.
Now, don't think that you need to go out and buy any special tools to perforate the wallpaper. No, just go into your kitchen, and find that handy-dandy tool commonly referred to as a cheese-grater.
Many of you don't know this, but a cheese-grater was originally designed for plastered walls. It produced a finish that is hard to mimic by any other means. Time has run its course, and most people, (I dare say, all people) have forgotten it's original intention.
But yes, a cheese-grater, or as it is properly called -- the wall-grater, is the just the tool you need.
Those store bought tools you see now-a'days hardly even touch the wallpaper, but a wall-grater, takes a good solid rip out of the wallpaper, and also gives the frustrated person a good healthy thick sound of tearing at the wall.
Now, I know some of you are thinking -- won't that result in deep grooves in your drywall?
I tell you not to worry.
After finishing with the wall-grater, you should have a nice roughed up finish throughout the respective room that you are working on.
And yes, gypsum (the stuff that drywall is made of) will be prone to falling off the wall, seeing as there is no longer any paper to hold it to the wall. But don't worry.
I'm told that a little bit of plaster, and a healthy coating of oil-based primer will do just the trick to hold it all together.
Of course, if any parts of your wall are still looking a little loose, then a few healthy knocks with a hammer should put it back in its place.
After you have plastered and primed the walls (remember to use an oil-based primer!), your wall should be perfectly prepared for painting. You can use any sort of paint you want by now, because oil-based primer is just the primer, and there is no worry about using latex paint over an alkyd (oil) primer.
And there you have it. A sure-fire method for getting rid of wallpaper, in an expedient manner, resulting in a modern, rough "Texan" finish (everyone is doing this in those southern states where wallpaper was once the rage).
Good luck!