The Bushrod Chronicles

so since my last postings back in ‘07 we’ve finished the basement… except for some minor stuff… and close to completion is my long-dreamed-about music room… a little guitar based sanctuary if you will…

so as love-of-my-life karen mentioned yesterday… it snowed… breaking (i think) the all-time record for annual snowfall in the toronto area… i woke up this morning to do a little shoveling… again…

there’s been so much snow that we’re running out of places to put it… had to leave some in the driveway and carve out an extra parking space…

i miss seattle winters… says it’s mostly cloudy today… chance of rain…

so the past weekend was utterly consumed with painting… a i mentioned a couple of posts ago we’re humpin’ majorly to try and get the basement done before christmas…

i shall officially cross “ceiling painter” off my list of dream jobs…

a big break since my last post… life has been a little hectic and filled with lots of changes… one of which is our uber-exciting finishing-the-basement project…

ever since we moved back to canada we’ve been talking about getting our basement finished… it has been, until now, a large concrete box filled with all sorts of stored stuff… pretty much everything that we don’t use on a weekly-or-so basis…

well that all started to change about three weeks ago when we finally took the plunge… and we’re far enough along now to post a couple of pictures of the quite lovely progress to date…

step one… we busted ass for a day or two moving most everything out of the basement and into the garage… we’re going to have one unfinished storage room so the really heavy stuff stayed there… after cleaning up we were left with this…

step two… framing & running electrical stuff…

three… drywall…

and today… starting to prime the walls & ceiling for paint…

when this grand ol’ project is finished we will have a great space to live… i think it’s going to be our number one hanging out place in the house… and in addition to a groovy rec room / play area avec pool table there will be a separate scrapbooking / craft room for k and a music room for yours truly…

our goal is to have this finished by christmas… our carpet pals have to come through for us big time… the likelihood of which is a tad questionable… but if they do i think we’re going to make it… which’d be pretty spiffy as this is essentially love-of-my-life karen and my gigantic xmas present to each other…

the good…

friday night was a date night for love-of-my-life karen and i… the kiddos were with their omi so we hung out and had a relaxing evening at home… had a fellow drop by to give us a quote on finishing our basement, had a drink or two, and caught up on some tv shows that we haven’t had time to watch… ’twas lovely…

the bad…

yesterday… the day i officially got old… for two reasons…

first… k and i dropped by the home depot… that gleaming orange beacon of possibility… and checked out some paint and carpet samples for the aforementioned soon-to-be-finished basement… whilst in-store we dropped by the most excellent and quite convenient tim hortons located therein… and were treated to quite possibly the funniest/most frustrating retail experience that i’ve seen in a while… behind the counter there were two kids that were truly inept… the lil’ feller that eventually “waited” on us was seemingly petrified/confused to be doing so… it was interesting enough to watch this poor soul deal with the public before us and then stumble through our order… when it came time to exchange funds is when it truly became great… our total was $2.93 (or about $3.11 USD… zing… hah) so i gave him $3.00… he says (and there’s no way to fully describe the sheer aggravating whinyness of his voice) “erm… we’re out of pennies” and gives me a nickel… i looked at it and said “so how are you gonna give me my change” or something to that effect… at this point love-of-my-life karen started edging away from the register… heading for paint and carpet land… the cute lil’ in-over-his-head feller shrugged his shoulders and said/whined “it’s only two cents”… so i explained to him that it was actually my two cents, called him a whippersnapper, and killed him… actually… after a second to process the situation i laughed it off and went to look at paint and carpet…

second… being as we’re about to embark on this basement thing all the crap treasures had to be moved out so whoever ends up doing all this stuff can see the floor… evidently that’s important… so i moved it all into our garage… and while in the past i could usually count on being a bit sore a day or two later from such an endeavo(u)r yesterday i was feeling it right away… by the end of the day my knees felt like they were going to explode and my body hurt all over… old… definitely old…

and the ugly… that’d be this debacle… looking for some kinda silver lining it becomes evident that a 1997 rose bowl rematch between the bloved buckeyes and my pal dw’s asu sundevils is a real possibility… and that’d be awesome…

the basement (and music room therein) is soon to be embarked upon but is as of now unfinished… as evidenced by the backdrop seen below - you’ll notice the “wall” treatment looks strangely reminiscent of an allied van lines moving blanket…

but being a smidge extra inspired as i mentioned in my previous post i thought i’d post a pic of my guitar-type amigos… i’m by and large a pretty non-material-possessions-influenced feller… my wedding ring and music stuff seem to be the exceptions… i’m pretty gosh darn attached to these… and i think they look kinda cool in a row (moving-blanket-wall aside) now that i got a couple of those guitar-hanger-thingies…

came through nicely…

phone experiences aside…

the check’s in hand… and all’s well that ends well i reckon…

thanks candice…

so upon our arrival back from our latest oregon adventures we were greeted with a wondrous sight… our deck… i love a deck… we had a good ‘un at our seattle abode and now we do here too…

and here’s me doing the mj…

so after much work… logistics… negotiations… and less than ideal living arrangements along the way… we’re settled in our new place…

love-of-my-life karen has posted about the house a bit… it’s awesome… everything we wanted… and we’re now about 95% unpacked and it feels like it’s officially ours… meaning, essentially, that the myriad of kids’ toys that are such a part of our lives are now comfortably strewn hither and yon throughout the place…

it’s been a while since i posted (again) and life has rolled on…

as i said… we’re in our new place…

we went on an awesome vacation to the land of cheese w/ the laceys…

i miss all our peeps in seattle…

kenzie’s in school… and it’s going well…

flight back from our oregon adventure was (as predicted) less than idyllic, however, it had its good points… mainly the ohio state win (it’s early but i might as well milk it) … actually… that was the only one… but it was a good one…

today we had our offer accepted on a swingin’-uber-cool house… conveniently located in the toronto area… where we’re gonna live now…

love-of-my-life karen and i are ecstatic…

now we just have to clear the inspection and stuff and we’re good to go… move in date is scheduled for august 31st… this is a good thing… i hope karen’s mum doesn’t off me before then because i’m really looking forward to living in the new place… hah…