10:30 pm and only just getting dark

It is 10:30 pm, we just got home from the movie theatre (LOVE that it is two blocks away!) where we watched Star Trek and loved it as Trekkies can and it is only just getting dark. It was still light out on the walk home and now the sky is that dusky light right before full darkness.

I had forgotten about the late late late light this early. I remembered mid-summers not getting dark til 11 but did not remember it starting in May already. I like it.

Can't wait to get out and enjoy it more. This weather has been so uncooperative - you just never know what to wear (coat, no coat? Boots, shoes, sandals (not quite yet). We haven't even cracked 20 C yet and most days lately is still under double digits.

However, luckily everything is turning green, the trees are finally budding, and the mornings are perfect for running (did another just-shy-of-3-km run yesterday and plan to go again in the morning before work).

Work is good. Great in fact. Breakfast meetings rock. Especially when the breakfast is amazing!

Husband is happy in a summer job that pays him as a student but is totally interesting and fun place to be (Fort William Heritage Park - he's working in the Cooperage, apprentice barrel maker in costume daily!) So the pay is terrible but I'd rather him be happy and earning less than dreading a job where he is earning more but hating life. Cause then we're all unhappy.

So Life is good. Really good. Yay for that right now.

Night :)

Our bathroom - the reveal and hopefully soon the "before"

The house we bought was built in 1927 and has obviously had some work done to it to help maintain or revert back to it's original character. For example, you can see a line of old nail holes on the living room floor where carpet had been previously nailed down and the hardwood is nicely polished.  Other aspects were not treated as well. Almost every possible bit of wood trim is painted and usually not that well, so it's partly chipping off. We also have lovely popcorn ceiling in most of the rooms.

There is so much to do. Being that I am married to a guy who barely tolerates all my projects that I start and don't finish (fair enough), with this house it will be all planned, bought and ready to go before tackling any projects.

Not that I need a perfect house. But I would love to love this house back to some glory. And a shower wouldn't be a bad thing either.

I've been content with much as is (for now - and it has only been a month or so) which also means I haven't been taking a whole lot of photos.

However, this morning, a drop from above in the kitchen meant some plans may need to happen sooner than later and I have to start setting aside money and getting plans ready for a refurb...

... before this cast iron 1920s bathtub lands in our kitchen... which also needs redoing but definitely not under those circumstances!

The towel on the floor is there to soak up water from "showers" since this is the extent of our washing capability - only a tub and no option to stand in the tub, since right above it, the roofline slopes, which you can see.

My husband is a big guy. Heck, I'm not small. To say it is awkward without a shower would not be overstating anything. Surprisingly though, neither of us is complaining too much (give us time) and I am loving being able to bath in a deep bath.

So this morning, he "showered" (there is a handheld attachment on the taps) and then while we made breakfast thereafter, we got some drips. So drips got through 10 layers of lino (from a rough guess). Here's hoping the floor is not rotten...

Aside from that wonderous story, there are many other great reasons why I want to redo the bathroom:

1. The lightswitch is outside of the bathroom, in the hall. You can see that in this photo. The lovely light plate is pretty awesome too. And even more fun, if the light switch is off, the power plug doesn't work. So no nightlight. No shaving during the day with the light off.
2. There are two types of lino, at three different levels. Dunno. Can't explain that one.
3. There is no shower.
4. There are exposed pipes in the corner next to the toilet. The big waste pipe apparently collects air from outside to help it work but why it isn't blocked in all the way down? Not sure.
5. The lights flicker when someone walks in another room. Oh and the lights are brass and oh so ugly.
6. The vanity is the size of a small car. It is painted strangely in a deep green base coat with white splatters and is probably heavier than the cast iron tub. It is also waaaaay higher than normal. My 5 year old is much taller than average and he can't reach the taps or even spit into the sink. So he sits on the vanity to brush his teeth. At least we don't have to worry if it could hold him up. If we ever get a severe storm here, I'm hiding in that. Speak of the inside, it is so big it is almost un-useable because how can I organise all that space? So yup, I just leave all my crap on the top of it. And don't even try to hide that when I take pictures.
7. The curtain is hemmed really badly by someone who tried to hand sew without knowing how to hand sew. I notice this every time I sit on the toilet. But the view is good!
8. There are no towel rails, so we randomly hang towels on whatever nail in the wall or door frame we can.
9. The bathtub taps need to be tightened so hard to stop them
   
   from dripping that you can hardly undo them later. The shower attachment bit is held on with a hoseclamp and not too successfully.
10. The bathtub needs refinishing so that it doesn't look dirty all the time, even when it isn't. Luckily that doesn't drive me mad, but it makes Kirk crazy!
11. The tiles were originally pink. Then someone painted them blue. Then the off-white they are now. How do I know this? Because they didn't do a very good paint job in all places and sometimes, like around the toilet paper holder, you can see all three colours. Awesome!!

The bathroom has one saving grace though - the register cover is one of the few (only?) originals and is amazing. I would redesign the whole room around the register cover. And yet you never get to see it because it is hiding behind the door. Which is also not good for heating this place in winter. 

So for now, I'm stalking a new blog that I found where they are remodeling a 1890s house and her bathroom is amazing (except they must have a few more $ than us - but that vintage style shower fitting on the link to her blog's bathroom page is soooo gorgeous) and looking on Houzz.com - consider yourself warned at how easy it is to get sucked into that site!

I'm thinking white subway tile walls, moving the tub into the linen cupboard a bit, heated tile floor, maybe moving the door or reorienting how it opens (?), and putting in a skylight in order to put in a shower that we can actually stand in. Bear with me while I deliberate, do up a plan and a budget and then cross all that off to do probably, well, nothing because of lack of funds!

I'll explain the linen cupboard and the rest of the upstairs soon!

6 k week - finally

I just got a training update email from Dailymile.com - the first training report I received in many, many months. That felt good!

6 kms last week.  I woke up on Monday morning and thought - Enough. Just. Go. Finally.

I should really tattoo that on my forehead - it may just help!

And I was back by the time I would normally have finished being on facebook or whatever, so was still able to drop my son off at daycare (luckily he's now at daycare on campus at the university I work at, so super easy for drop offs!) and make it to work on time.

So Wednesday I did it again and went slightly farther and was back even faster. Beautiful.

Now I just need to stick with it.

This is Monday and I didn't run today, mostly because it was raining most of today and it was a day off for a long weekend (yahoo!) and so meh.

I did however spectate for my friend who did a 10 miler (16K) which has been happening in town for 105 years, if you can believe that! They passed by only 2 blocks from my house and I told her to keep an eye out for me, so I grabbed some old cardboard and painted this sign. I went by myself and cheered for everyone that ran past. It was fun!

note that this is once it was soaked and I had already folded it up
and thrown it away... a good blogger i am not!

My original idea was to paint "Hey random stranger - You are awesome!" but I couldn't get the letters right, so was annoyed and changed it to this. Which actually made it funny, cause I got a number of comments from guys saying "what about me?" and "hey, where's our sign?"  I even got a guy who ran past all campy, did a little dance and said the sign was obviously for him. It made me laugh. And I got a lot of comments from runners saying thanks for coming out, great sign, etc. Well worth doing.

I enjoyed being a spectator!  I saw a lot more people that I knew - some from high school that I haven't seen in over 15 years and a few that I knew to look out for. And one person even said "Hi Annet!" and I still cannot figure out who she is. She only had a number on the front so I didn't catch it and I couldn't look her up or anything. I'm thinking it must be someone from work that was just out of context...

I stayed way past after my friend ran past, to cheer on some of the stragglers, since by then it was raining pretty hard and they all looked a bit miserable. Glad I stayed because some random girl stopped to have her photo taken with me, which I loved. I didn't stay to the end though, because I wasn't sure how long that would be and I was soaked.  By the time I got home, I had wet pants, underwear, shoes, and socks.  My new spring jacket however was perfect and I was at least dry on top!

So now I'm stating it here - next year, I will be at the starting line of the 10 miler Firefighter's Run.

That's my goal. 10 miles. 16 K. One step at a time.

NOT AGAIN!

This was the photo of our backyard from last week. A day later, even that bit of remaining snow was gone.

Spring had finally arrived...

Until this. On May 2. And it's deep and wet and still coming down. UGH.

Make it stop. Please make it stop!!

Four bags of garbage - and how it made me sad

I didn't go for my neighbourhood walk on Friday. I did eat chips though. ACK. I have serious chip issues...

Anyways, I did still pick up garbage this afternoon though.

I cleaned up near our back boundary on a gorgeous spring day (hallelujah for spring!).

You can see the footbridge in the top of the
satellite photo. Our house is the one on
the top right of the screen. The white roof on
the bottom left of the picture is an old school
turned church and they have that empty field
that you see below.

We live right next to a main walkway, which is a footbridge that gets a lot of traffic. Unfortunately, it also gets a lot of trouble. Seems people kids like to hang out under the bridge and get up to trouble.

I figured there was booze involved and so that doesn't thrill us, because we live right next to the river and we don't want something awful to happen, plus drunk kids in our backyard is no good (we don't have a back fence) - so they could theoretically duck under the bridge into our backyard. So far they haven't but we've only been here a few weeks.

However, in picking up the garbage this afternoon (and filling 4 shopping bags with it all, plus more plastic bottles for the recycling bin), it struck me that these must really be kids and they are in sad kinds of trouble. I found 3 empty mouthwash bottles and 3 empty hairspray bottles. And I don't need to explain to you that they aren't brushing their teeth or doing their hair under a bridge.

It saddens me to my core. I don't know quite what to do.

We're only new here - we don't want to cause trouble, get targeted or call the police, but I don't want to do nothing either.

So I'm going to think on this. I might talk to the church next door about any ministry ideas they might have.

And in the meantime, it will be my own patch of ground that I will feel responsible to keep clean. Keeping it clean might mean less garbage thrown down. Keeping it clean might mean they realise someone cares about that patch of ground. And that's the best I can do for now.

This photo from our dining room shows the bridge, the river (more like a large creek really) and our backyard. And a weird reflection showing our van that is actually parked beside the house.

Soon, I'll post more photos of the house. Really. I will.

Oh and I've been meaning to say for a few weeks that if you don't already have bloglovin', you should get it - you can follow the blogs you like to read (ahem) and then you can get either a daily digest where you can read any that are new that day or you can get notified whenever a new one is posted, which is really quite a crazy time suck. bloglovin.com

Very short neighbourhood walk

I went for a very short neighbourhood walk tonight. A block. And I am embarrassed to be a bit puffed.

Oh how the (not) mighty have fallen.

I guess the only thing is to get back on the damn horse.

Anyways, what I did like is that the snow is rapidly melting. We had a freak blizzard here last Friday, April 19 (biggest blizzard of all winter, in late late late spring!!!), so much so that I got sent home from work, the university cancelled exams and shut down (hence getting sent home), police begged people to not drive anywhere, busses got cancelled, etc.

Such unusual weather for April. Today was 9 C (only a week later) and tonight was crisp enough to still need my winter jacket and my cheeks feel cool, but you know spring is really here. I believe I said this all 3 weeks ago, but this time it is really so (please Lord let it really so).

Saturday's forecast is 17 C. Begone patches of remaining snow! What a difference a week makes.

So my short neighbourhood walk made me realise (other than just how out of shape I'm getting. Or fat, as my very blunt husband put it - but he can say that because he is too and he knows it) how much garbage is exposed when snow melts. Tomorrow, I vow to be that person that walks around picking up garbage. Starting a movement in my patch of this city. Or not. Whatever, I just don't want to see it. Garbage on the ground irks me to no end.

Tomorrow, I vow to walk a lot farther (today I had to get cream for coffee, only a block away) and stretch these legs out of winter's doldrums before venturing for a run again soon. And to carry a bag, so I can be that weird lady that picks up garbage (isn't it sad that that is considered weird?).

That's tomorrow. Tonight I plan to get to bed early and sleep. Oh for some precious sleep!

update on our wheat-free diet

We went wheat-free round about July/August - perfect timing for our big move back
to Canada (not!). David had been having ongoing diarrhoea and stomach cramps for ages, but always worse after pizza or other dough based meals. I knew about gluten free from the nutrition podcast I subscribe too (Dishing up Nutrition, search for it on itunes and listen to it, I have learned so much!) and so I thought let's try, even just for a week to see what happens.

After two days already I knew we had SUCCESS! Cramps stopped, real poos commenced, his energy level rose a lot, hubby stopped farting all the time (an added, unexpected bonus!) and then I needed to get to work... how to go gluten free without suddenly just buying every gf product out there and doubling my shopping bill?! We have never gotten him officially diagnosed as I figure it's pretty obvious he is allergic to wheat (a tiny bit will cause a reaction about 24 hrs later) and apparently the test involves going back on wheat for an extended time to see for sure, which makes no sense to put a 5 yr old through that. "Here eat these yummy things, writhe in pain and oh look, you are allergic to wheat, and now you can't eat these yummy things anymore." He's going to be referred to a paediatrician soon for his heart condition not-quite-annual check-up, so I will raise it with the doctor then.

Our first bit of good news was that we could still eat spelt. Friends of ours found their autistic boys did badly on wheat but could still tolerate spelt, a more ancient type of grain. (full blown celiacs cannot handle spelt either). So on our friend's recommendation, we tried that, starting with one of their breadmaker loaves of bread, and again, success! I've been able to use spelt in flat, roll-up type (Dutch) pancakes and replacing that for regular flour in much of the baking. Though the light spelt tends to work the best and the different varieties vary considerably. The downside? Spelt is EXPENSIVE. A bag of wheat flour is about 1/6 the price of spelt.  It is also heavy and full of protein, so you definitely don't need as much. A meal of spelt pancakes, I can manage 3. Wheat pancakes, I could down 5. It is great for thickening and such.

I am definitely using much less spelt than when we first went wheat free - we are much less dependant on wheat-based meals now, so I don't need it as a replacement as much anymore. I occasionally make a loaf in the breadmaker (though that is somewhat hit and miss). I occasionally make a homemade pizza (not often enough probably) and use spelt for the base but mostly, we just don't need flour as much. I'm also not baking as much as I used to or as I'd like, but that's mostly due to busyness rather than blaming wheat-free diet really. In fact, I'd like to try more baking using some of the other flours out there, like almond-meal and others, I just need to get a bit enthusiastic about some experimentation.

Breakfasts:
We do buy gluten free cereals, mostly for David, as Kirk and I eat a cooked breakfast at least 5

Image from Bob's Red Mill
website, though most of their pages
seem to not be working.

mornings a week. Cereal is also very expensive, a small box is $5.99. A similar much larger box of sugary crap is $3. Argh. Kirk and I eat 2 eggs, hash browns or fried potatoes, I'll throw in some leftover veggies if we have any, and some type of meat, though we lean towards loving bacon. Sometimes, if I'm organised, I'll make pancakes for breakfast. For those, I make Bob Red Mill's Gluten Free Pancake and Biscuit mix. It's made out of bean flour and tastes horrible if you accidentally lick your finger with batter on it (take my word for it) but makes some very tasty pancakes once cooked.

The cereals we buy are Brown Rice Krispies (though not always their brand), Chex in Honey and plain Chex and Enviro Kids Gorilla Munch and some other random gf ones we find. We have usually 4 boxes on the go at once in Tupperware containers, so we mix a bit of each together and top with a few raisins. Seems to make them last longer and keeps his interest.

Lunches:
Probably one of the harder ones is school lunches. Luckily, his daycare previously and his new one both have good cooks that care about his requirements. His new daycare also has a lot of kids that eat halal (Muslim kosher) so they eat a lot of vegetarian dishes, all which work fine for him.  Packing a school lunch 2 days a week is harder) not excited for 5 days! He used to eat rice cakes, now they always come back. So he'll have crackers (rice crackers or gf crackers), with cheese, so he makes little sandwich stacks. Always an apple sliced up with raisins, a banana or orange, try to send along carrot sticks though he doesn't seem to be a big fan, and always a "meat stick" or two - a gf pepperoni stick. He loves these and the protein is good for him, so it works well.

If we're home, I'll make a soup from scratch (all condensed soups have wheat in them, plus they are high in sodium). Soup is so easy to make from scratch that I never buy it ready-to-go anymore or I'll make pancakes (breakfast ones) if it has been a while or whatever.  He also loves the gf raisin bread, so we keep a loaf in the freezer for a quick toast.

I still keep some bread for me in the freezer for a pinch - take two slices of frozen bread, pack the peanut butter and a banana and I have a lunch ready in 20 seconds. (Banana sliced on peanut butter sandwich - yum!) However, I have noticed even myself that I feel much better when I don't eat too much bready products. I used to get almost a scrapping feeling inside my intestines (sometimes painful enough that I would be hunched over and could last for 10 minutes) when um, things were shifting downwards and that is completely gone now.

Dinners:
The easiest meal from cutting out wheat option. The only gf things I buy for dinner is rice pasta or quinoa pasta and even those very rarely. I think we'd eat pasta twice a month now. We're eating more potatoes than previously (from the farm where I used to work of course!), a vegetable and some meat, or rice with a vegetable and perhaps chicken or pork stir-fry or curry, or a chicken caeser salad or a quiche or whatever.  I really should blog some more dinner ideas, right Deb?

Take-out food/eating out:
Reality #1 - there isn't much, especially in fast food, that David can eat. So we don't. Easy and cheaper and we just have to plan ahead. Kirk and I have lunch out occasionally while David is at school, but if we are stuck out, we'd get him a smoothie I guess. Or McDonalds french fries, which is the only thing he can eat. So it saves us money. We probably ate out more than we realised in Australia.

Reality #2 - places are getting better (apparently, though for us it is all still so recent) but they seem to think only adults need gf food. Boston Pizza has a quite decent gf pizza which David likes, so we've eaten there twice for special occasions. But he can't get the kids menu with a gf pizza, so it costs us much more than anyone else eating there with a kid.

Eating at my parents is easy because my parents mostly eat potatoes and veggies and meat. If we're having pasta, we'll cook the sauce for everyone and boil him up a bit of rice instead of pasta. And he's fine with that - he's always saying "Mommy, does this have wheat in it? Read the back!" Apparently all candies have wheat in them on a day when I don't feel like buying candy... In reality, a lot of weird stuff does - twizzler licorce, smarties (but m&ms are okay) and some other things that escape me right now.

So overall, I think its been a good change. I've had to be more organised at dinner time and can't fall back on any old standards and its been quite different eating veggies for breakfast sometimes, but I love it and we all feel better for it. David has grown like a weed since we've been here, which granted at 4 is the right time for it, but also I don't suppose you can grow properly if you are expelling all your nutrients so badly. Now that he is regular, he really does have more energy.