I am ...almost. I still have a few small things to pick up, but I know what I need so that'll help.
So on to another non-adoption update:
Saturday, we took E to the mayor's Christmas Party. That was a lot of fun for E. She didn't even mind the hour wait that it took to finally get to talk to jolly St. Nick. However, he didn't seem too jolly by the time we got there (poor Santa seemed really tired) and E was suddenly very shy and needed some prompting for what to say to him. Once prompted, it was like turning a tap. She talked and talked until Santa encouraged her to go see Mrs. Claus to choose a book. Mrs. Claus was a lot more enthusiastic, however the few hundred children that had passed for at least 2 hours beforehand did not sit on her lap.
My brother suggested that they should have more than one Santa. I am sure that Saturday's Santa would agree. It would cut down on the wait time and allow the Santas to take breaks. Santa needs a contract. :)
Anyways, it was a fun time. The mayor's party planners were very well organized and had lots of fun things for the kids in addition to visits with Mr. and Mrs. Claus.
Monday was E's last day at gymnastics. Since it was this session's last day, the parents are allowed to take pictures. Unfortunately, I couldn't go since I was on course Monday and Tuesday, but my parents went and took some pics of E doing some of her gymnastics stuff.
Yesterday, I took E to Ikea to pick up our Christmas tree and one for my folks as well. It was a very snowy day and took a lot of people a very long time to get home. So I capitalized on the fact that those same people wouldn't be interested in heading out in their cars again to go shopping and how lucky were we! There were only a handful of people at the store, noone at the cash registers and only one other family in the tree lot. I went and paid for 2 trees, picked out 2 from the lot and headed over to the new house to check on the renos with E in a balsam fir smelling minivan.
L is doing a great job on the basement bathroom. All the plumbing, electrical and heating vent are worked in and the drywall is up too. Next, he will begin tiling the floor and then installing the fixtures. Once that is done, he will finish insulating the back room on the main floor and then that's it. The clean up will begin.
We have decided against insulating the living and dining rooms for now since they are all open concept, including the kitchen. This means also having to do the kitchen and I can't/won't/don't want to do the kitchen right now. And if I don't intend to do the kitchen, any energy savings from my living and dining room are only going to be lost in the kitchen.
There are other reasons for not insulating those rooms that don't even include the kitchen reason, such as opening up the walls would make me want to put up a nicer ceiling too, but the kitchen is the main reason. I desperately want to renovate my kitchen, but what I want to do to it is pretty major. So there is no sense pulling everything out in order to insulate only to put it all back as the same kitchen. The changes I want to do to my kitchen are time consuming, bank draining and stress making. So the kitchen waits.
Besides, my roof is more of a priority than the kitchen. The south side of my roof is taking a beating, shingles are peeling and this needs to be addressed. The north side seems ok though. So that gave me an idea. Since it is the sun beating down on that side of my house with such strength that it is weakening the adhesion of the shingles, I should find myself a tile that can withstand that heat. Not only withstand it, but turn it in to electricity. I am hoping to install photovoltaic shingles. Another adventure begins...I have all winter to figure out how to do this. Wish me luck!
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