Grace under chocolate

Gracie turned 3 yesterday!
And she has the chocolate stains on her clothes to prove it. That no amount of Malaeluca spot remover will take out. No matter how many orders you buy.

We had a great homemade dinner and some wine past it's drinking prime. But hey, it's vinegar now. Can't even cook with it. But it's alcohol so I think I can clean some paint brushes with it. Or use it on my other toe where the toenail is coming off to keep it clean from bacteria.

Now I know how to tell if wine has oxidized. I can see the change in colour. It's very evident. Whites are meant to be drunk. They don't last in a bottle. Reds on the other hand...ah...maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not my WinoCentric cousin who can tell the specifics of a wine, by licking the wine list.

In preparation for the day, Kieran made that poster taped to the wall, and popsicles from watered down juice. The less sugar the better.
Mama got all the food, salad prepped and made the lists of stuff for me to get. And I got the tables out. And bbq'd the cheese without having it fall on the briquettes. And sent the list of wine to WinoCentric to select via Twitter. It was quicker than email. I'm getting the hang of it. I'm so behind tweeting. Anyways, Twitter has got it's uses.

So the 2003 Nobilo wine was off. The 2004 Kim Crawford wine was good and the Moscato was amazing!

Then I took WinoCentric for a bike ride around the neighbourhood and down to the lake he's only seen twice in 13 years. And it's a big lake. However he's seen the ghettos of Scarberia, every year.

And he finally got to go up the former Tallest freestanding structure in the world - the CN Tower.
Had a 3 year old birthday lunch.



I think this neighbourhood we live in is one of the nicer areas of TO. Not snobby, but more about family. A Euro heritage, with young folks coming in looking to build a better family, instead of a better career.
Good thing we rode the bikes, our alcohol levels would have had us pulled over. And it was getting dark, so no one can see the redness in our cheeks. Or the darker shade of brown in my ears.
And he saw a cool white bridge, near the condos off Palace Pier.

And VINKO was his name-Oh

V-I-N-K-O, v-i-n-k-o, and Vinko was his name-Oh.
I think this children's song is over 100 years old.
We were invited to several parties on Sunday. And we could only go to 2 of them and so we split up. Kieran went to his cousin's 3rd birthday party while we went to Mary and Julie's dad's 100th birthday!

This was living history I had to be a part of, how often do you get to sit next to someone over 100 years, unless that person is a tree or a tortoise.

What do you get someone who turns 100?
They've seen the horseless carriage, the commercial flight, space flight, TV, TTC, the Blue Jays winning back to back World Series, and the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup. Heck, I'll be 100 when that happens again.

Hey he's even got an iPod. Nah just kidding. That's his hearing aid. But it looks hip.

This is a pretty special event! You even get letters from the Queen and the Prime Minister, GG, Premier, and mayor of TO when you hit this land mark age.

He's been living in Canada longer than is native country of Slovenia. He doesn't even need glasses. And he's not the hunchback of Notre Dame either. He's over 6ft and straight and his mind is sharp as a tack. And he's even got a full head of hair. Only thing going is his hearing. Too much Eminem playing loudly in those ear phones.

And this village apparently has several people in their 80's and another gentleman in attendance who's in phenomenal condition and is 99! Except he's lost most of his hair.

What's this Village People's secret to longevity?
No salt. And everything is homemade, lots of veggies and walks every day. Stay away from Good Ol' American fast food. It's designed to put dollars in the pockets of the giant Pharma corps and Insurance companies.
And no TV. It turns the mind to mush.
What about Reality TV?
That stuff is just crap.
Basically. Garbage in, garbage out. Eventually the garbage bag rips.

Read books. Respect yourself and your fellow person.
Be nice.

Click me for more photos of the Centenarian

Hallway to completion

This stairwell was full of rubble. Now a little over 4 weeks later this stairwell, plus the downstairs hallway project is 95% complete.
A big part of this was the stairwell and the wall.
It's all insulated, closed up, primed and ready to be painted. Well re-painted.
I painted it with the same paint colour that was there before, but Tresa may decide to paint it the same colour as the hallway.
It depends. So. Hey. Whatever.
It just means that Kieran can paint the wall again. He seems to like painting. It's just that I have to QA his painting.


Mel came over last night to help me drill the holes for the pot lights. I didn't want to the lights to be misaligned. It would just ruin everything. And his laser do-hickey tool is perfect for the job. The lights are spaced 3 ft apart. I only wanted 3 lights but I could not get 3 lights spaced out evenly because of either duct and pipes that were in the joists. So I had to go with 4. I had marked out the vicinity where the lights were going to be. I had even marked where all the joists were, transferred them to the wall but then took them down as we painted the ceiling and. Then I had to find those joists again to ensure I wasn't going to hit a joist and mess up the ceiling.

But it all went in rather easily. I love these pot lights. And they aren't from Home Depot, Rona or Lowes.

Now it's just a matter of the paint colour that Tresa wants to eventually paint that big wall. That's out of my hands.
But my work is almost done. I have to paint the trim and put it all back. But that's relatively easy and can be done any time after we paint that wall. But we can start cleaning everything now. Get rid of all the dust. There's a thin coating of dust everywhere. Especially upstairs. When I opened up the hallway ceiling to install the pot lights. It created a lot of dust. Like someone put out a campfire and the particles rode the air currents everywhere.

We can finally take down the plastic sheet blocking the kitchen and living room from the hallway and clean it up the hallway and stairs. Put our shoes and coats back in the closet.
Hey, I even put a light in the closet. You can switch it off in the closet, but it's tied to the hallway light switch. Since you usually will turn on the hallway lights to get to the closet anyways.

I'm looking forward to everything being done. It's always stressful when a reno is in progress, because everything gets turned inside out and upside down.
The hallway, although it has all of my construction stuff, looks great! It's made the hallway look taller and more airy. It's amazing what pot lights will do to a space. It's not 100% complete, but close enough to clean up and get rid of the dust and reclaim the space again.

I got rid of the light at the top of the stairs and replaced it with the one we originally had downstairs and it's made the upstairs landing area so much brighter.

I know it's not energy efficient. But those areas were kinda dark. And I noticed that 1 CFL was out. Thought those things were supposed to last 5 years. I've never had a CFL last 5 years. Maybe 1 or 2 years at the most.

Click me for more stairwell & hallway project photos

Big Fish

It was Sukaboy's birthday weekend. I was feeling the need to forego the weekend and finish the reno that is very close to being done. The dust in the house, the untidiness, and the worry that we would misplace something that is of importance.

But I put that worry aside and Sukamama and I headed to the cottage.
Like my 40th b-day. My 41st one was in injury recovery mode. One thing that's evident is that recovery takes longer now. I wish I was 5 years old again and recover from a elbow dislocation in 2 days. It's so impressive how kids can recover in days vs months for adults. If I could bottle that, I'd be a Suka-millionaire.

It was a beautiful weekend. The weather was perfect. The water was warm and inviting. And relaxing.
I took my mtn bike with me. Since I wanted to do some physical activity. It had rained recently so I stuck to the dry roads. Although still very hilly. It was a good workout. I was wiped out afterwards and the sliwowicz and red wine didn't exactly replenish my body with the necessary building blocks it was asking for, but it was 10am and part of breakfast.

But at least I was not sanding drywall or priming or painting and putting a kink in my neck.
I was able to relax and let my body recuperate. And run off the dock like the other two monkeys.

Then there was the excitement of the fishing. Me...I can't stand putting worms on a hook. I will eat seafood, but I'd rather let someone else catch them and skin them and filet them so that it no longer looks like something that looked me in the eye as I was reeling it in.


So these 3 fishermen caught a large mouth bass. They released it back into the lake to live another day. But it took a beating before it got back into the water. It was man handled and kid handled and dropped on the ground a few times for picture taking and measuring.

Click me for more photos

This catching of Big Fish made my birthday really memorable. It was pretty exciting. At one point I thought I would have to touch the slimy thing, which I wasn't prepared for. But having the camera in my hand made me exempt. The kids were touching it anyways. They need a lesson in handling fish.

Check out these videos of Big Fish.

1. How we caught the Big Fish.
2. Big Fish bucket.
3. My new pet - Big Fish.
4. Measuring my new pet - Big Fish.
5. Playing with Liam's new pet - Big Fish.
6. Posing with Big Fish.
7. Bringing Big Fish home.
8. Having fun with Big Fish.
9. Letting Big Fish Live another day.

Freedom 50

Say "More SALT!"
It's my bro's 50th today.
Today is the start of something better.
Those in the know. Know what I mean.
Those that don't. Tough cookies, we are the G's not the B's.
By the way, did anyone feel that earthquake on June 23rd @ 1:45pm ET in Southern Ontario?
Apparently it was felt all the way to NYC.
It was bizarre. I thought I was feeling a little light headed since things were swaying a bit. Then I looked around and the everything was moving slightly.
It ROCKED my world!

Here is the GO-Between, trying to go between for cover and safety.

Click me for more photos of Freedom 50 (hopefully sooner) and the Go-Betweens going between.

Tree down, did anybody hear it fall

Did anyone hear this tree make a sound as it fell?

We had torrential downpour on Sunday. Wow did a lot of water come down from the sky.

As I headed down to the swim camp on Lakeshore. I saw the mess that it had made. The whole area from Sunnyside to the end of the boardwalk just before the Palais Royal was fenced off.

I saw large mature trees like this one knocked down or uprooted.



This one wasn't uprooted but it was in pieces. Not sure if lightning got to it, but it was no longer together.

You can see my bike there beside it for size reference.
It was a few years old.


In the parking lot next to the dinosaurs, right beside Sunnyside. There was a tree that had been uprooted. There was a small army of city tree huggers working away to clear the damage the storm had left.

This was taken 2 days after the storm. And the middle picture I just took today (Friday). And the fence is still up. So they are still clearing debris.