Scraping the brick

Happy Saturday!

I can't believe how fast the weeks are flying by!  There are definitely lots of hours to get things done, but when I stop and ponder just what's been done when... it's hard to believe we're well into the summer already!


This week, after the Dining Barn 2.0 was cleaned up, I spent some time concentrating on getting our insurance claim done.  Fingers crossed everyone... that we don't feel like we've been robbed again once we hear back from them.  If I can give any sort of advice, take a rainy weekend to go through and document your house and it's contents; dates, photos, costs, etc.  It'll be on my list of things to do once the world gets back to normal again, and it won't bring our things back, but it'll be peace of mind that any further issues would help insurance go more smoothly.

We didn't get much else done during the week, except for getting my truck window repaired.  Glenn discovered on Monday that while driving, the back passenger window goes down on it's own over each passing bump in the road.  We knew the window's motor was shot, but it had been previously staying up on it's own.  Not anymore!  Grr.  We had them just fix the silly thing to stay up permanently ($100 labour) instead of fixing the motor and workings themselves ($$$+).  With 314,000km on the truck, it's not going to last another 300k, so we're pacing ourselves with it's repairs.

Saturday morning we did the pawn shop hunting.  I think we visited 8-10 of them.  No luck... although GW did find a couple instruments he wants, lol.  We also got more hangers for our HUGE closet, and I think we've graduated to our new laundry baskets.  The trimwork is the only outstanding thing upstairs it seems . . . and I went to get a little bit done after some time outdoors, and discovered that the caulking I had was no good.  So, off to Home Depot again for more caulking and wood putty. 

We also spent time Saturday afternoon out in the front yard.  I did some weeding, and then switched to a task I prefer much more; scraping the brick from the vines.  Ahhhh... The vines looked okay while they were up there, but they were really hiding a lot of wear and tear in the brickwork.  I got a couple of sections done but came to a stop when the heat was getting at me.  I have to go get a brush to scrape the mortar better, and will also use it to scrape the 5 layers of paint off our drastically aging handrail on the front step (eek, noticed that today too).  Glenn spent the time staining the rest of the front fence that he was working on a while ago and it looks great.  We decided to take out the shrub that's beside the front porch, as it's much too big for it's space, and hopefully once that's gone, Glenn can get the last fence panel stained.

After & Before.  Once we get all the vines and their suction cups off,
then I can start doing the repointing on the mortar/brick work.
The vines were hiding a lot of damage :( 

Today Glenn headed into Toronto to meet up with M&D Waugh and William to go see a musical.  It was called Million Dollar Quartet.  GW said it was quite good, and they all enjoyed it.  While he was gone out to TO, I headed out to Guelph to visit with Gwen & Mike who were down for a few days from their home in Ottawa.  They brough Baby Islay down so I got to meet her;  such a personality!!  I got to give her the gift I got her . . . and also got to see Robin who was there for the afternoon too :)  Good time to catch up.

Tonight we're watching Episode 11-13 of last season's Breaking Bad, in preparation for the new episode tonight at 10pm.  Very exciting . . . if you don't watch this show, you don't know what you're missing!