Still wondering where the firepit and the wood fired brick oven is going to go?

Modern Vintage Style

by Emily Chalmers

Undecorate: The No-Rules Approach to Interior Design

by Christiane Lemieux

Design*Sponge at Home

By Grace Bonney

We went on an after dinner walk one night and ended up at Chapters where I fell in love with a few books "Modern Vintage Style" and "Undecorate" plus "Design Sponge at Home" from my favourite Blog of all Blogs.

I love the idea of being an amazon associate but I am finding it hard to make it look nice in the post. I've been fighting with it for the last hour. It would be nice to have a little passive income from the site somehow. You see every body does it, google adsense and all that, even the big guns whom you would think wouldn't need to bother with this pettiness, but I guess every little bit helps. It would be even cooler if a Canadian chain were doing this.

Who needs toys? Keaton has kept herself entertained for the last two hours with our dog's leash, trying to hook it on to various things and two rusty screws which she has not put in her mouth Thank God!

Does it hook onto this?

Things are winding down for the day and finally a taste of summer weather. I can hear weed whackers going and smell Barbecues. It's torture! I am getting excited to move in. Still wondering where the fire pit and the wood fire oven is going to go. (Ha ha) They might fall into the category of "over improvement". 

I had pretty romantic ideas about renovating that were colored by HGTV I thought we could handle this. As I said before, we aren't doing anything extraordinary or difficult. I'm not afraid of hard work. I've worked very very hard, hard physical labour, 17 hour days. But this has been unlike anything I've ever done. I am going through something here. In the process, in the muck. Maybe because we are weeks behind and we haven't had any of the rewards yet. They seem like everything else so far away. 

It's also frustrating trying to mother my 1 year old during all this because most of the work falls on Peter alone to do. If I helped I wouldn't see Keaton for the next two months. Right now if it rains heavily Grandma can't get in the garden so she watches Keaton and then I help Peter. Today I got to help for about 15 minutes, wrapping a drainage pipe in landscaping cloth for the ditch. Then Keaton needed a diaper change and a snack. It's impossible. I love to have her near but she demands my full attention so my contribution lately has been mostly child care.

Look what Gammy did!

I don't know if I want to do this again. I want to move on up but to a turn key house. The work itself is drudgery, repetitive, boring. There will be more of the same maintaining the house. The only thing I have loved doing is pulling those nails out of the ceiling. I know we are very lucky to have this opportunity, there are so many great things about it, really really great. I'm just surprised at the feelings.

Good things:

Going to the Trout Lake Farmer's Market  first thing in the morning, shopping and then having a crepe from La Boheme. Then walking the Dog and Keaton around the lake. It's going to be a good summer if we can make this our Saturday morning ritual.