Saturday, October 27, 2007

Et voilà.

Bon.

J'ai attendu longtemps pour prendre la photo du produit fini.
Ma cuisine était toujours pas assez parfaite pour prendre une belle photo. Pas assez propre, pas assez de belle lumière, etc...

Mais j'ai décidé de la prendre quand même, cette photo, parce que bon, ça fait longtemps que le cuisine est terminée et que je ne serais jamais complètement satisfaite de la propreté ou de la lumière de toutes façons...

Alors voici l'officiel avant-après.
D'abord, la cuisine:


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(sur les photos, le vieux comptoir a l'air beau et blanc - mais détrompez-vous, il était beige-rose...)

Salle à manger:





En tout, nous avons:
- Recouvert les armoires
- Changé les poingées
- Remplacé les néons pour des belles lumières
- Installé switchs, dimmers et ampoules sauve-énergie
- Remplacé les comptoirs
- Remplacé le lavabo
- Installé nouveau robinet
- Acheté une nouvelle planche à découper
- Installé nouveaux planchers
- Installé moulures
- Peinturé le plafond, les murs et les moulures
- Acheté une nouvelle table extensible
- Acheté un nouveau grille-pain
- Fait et installé de nouveaux rideaux

J'en suis pas mal fière, surtout pour le temps que ça a pris et le tout petit petit budget qu'on avait. Une nouvelle cuisine et salle à manger pour 1500$. Pas si mal.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Very cool

I was just watching the fifth episode of this season's Heroes.

Peter Petrelli is in Ireland and has no idea who he is and paints a picture of two people in front of a building next to a church.

Ça m'a pas pris de temps pour reconnaître l'église Notre-Dame dans le Vieux Port.
Yé! Peter s'en va à Montréal!!


That's so cool. Can't wait to see our fair city shot in the Heros' style...

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Annoying.

I have never had so many at once before.

You know, those little painful white dots you get on the tip of your tongue? Yeah, I have about six of them. No kidding. Three on the tip and three further on the back. It hurts like hell. It's soooooo annyoing.


Anyone know how to get rid of them, presto?

Monday, October 22, 2007

Déjà Noël

Quand on habite à Montréal, on soupire chaque année quand les décorations de Noël arrivent dans les magasins à la mi-novembre. C'est trop longtemps à l'avance. On sait que Noël s'en vient; il commence à faire froid, les premières neiges se pointent le nez et plus souvent qu'autrement, on étudie à fond la caisse pour nos examens de fin de session.

Quand on habite à Adélaïde, les choses sont pires. Il n'y a pas le buffer de l'halloween pour retarder l'arrivée des décorations de Noël. Il n'y a pas de citrouilles, pas de chats noirs, pas de gros sacs de bonbons à vendre au kilo. Les décorations de Noël sont déjà sur les tablettes depuis trois semaines. Imaginez. Début octobre, et déjà les boules brillantes, les lumières, les père-noël en plastique. Vraiment. Deux mois et demie d'avance! Sérieux, c'est trop.

Jingo Bells en octobre, ça colle pas.

Et moi qui attend Noël avec tant d'impatience cette année, c'est dur de voir tous ces trucs quand le 24 décembre n'est vraiment pas prêt d'arriver. Je n'ai pas besoin d'aide avec mon anticipation...

Sunday, October 21, 2007

My first shower

Baby shower, that is.
I have always been in the wrong country for all the baby showers I would have been to: Annie's, Charlie's, Janice's...

But I was here for Kristy's. She is due on November 3rd, but really hopes she'll pop before then. She is so over being pregnant. She wants to be a mom.

So Charlie and I combined forces and put together a hamper of baby stuff for her. Clothes and hats, things like that, but Charlie put in some things only a mother knows. I, on the other hand, stayed true to my crafty self and scanned marthastewart.com to find something to make for her. And I am not a baby person, you guys know this. But when I saw these, I couldn't resist.



I downloaded the template, printed and blew it up to size in photocopy. Got some felt, pinned, cut and sewed. And here they are. My first handmade felt booties.


Of course, they weren't as perfect as Martha's but Kristy loved them, which was the whole point. She's a country girl and likes to cook wholesome meals and do things the old fashionned way. I thought she would like a little something homemade for her bub.


Oh, and did I mention she is having a boy?
Thomas Alan Price.

We can't wait to welcome him in our extended family.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Comme dans un film de Hitchcock

Ces jours-ci, chaque fois que je promène le chien et que j'arrive à la clôture qui donne sur la rue, je me sens transportée dans une scène sanglante de The Birds.

C'est le printemps, et les Magpies protègent leur nid.

Dès que quelqu'un s'approche de l'arbre en question, ils crient, et ils attaquent. Pas comme nos petites hirondelles super cute qui volent en arche à trois pieds de nos têtes, là. Ils attaquent pour vrai!!

Les Magpie peuvent atteindre une grandeur de 40cm. Ils sont gros, trois fois plus gros que le plus gros corbeau que vous avez jamais vu. Et ils ne font pas que passer quelques pieds au-dessus de votre tête: ils foncent droit vers vous, et vous touche vraiment! Les épaules, les cheveux, la tête!! Ils sont si féroces!! Et ils sont IMMENSES!! C'est tellement épeurant.


J'ai l'air d'une folle chaque fois qu'un magpie essaie de me picorer. Je me retrouve en petit bonhomme avec mon sac sur la tête. Et entre les attaques, je cours le plus vite que je peux pour passer la clôture et rentrer dans la maison, là où ma vie n'est plus en danger.

Sérieux, c'est pas drôle.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Notre jardin

En fait, je devrais dire: Le jardin de Allen.
C'est lui qui a fait tout le travail. J'ai seulement aidé à décider quels légumes et fruits faire pousser...

C'est comme on a dit.

Moi, je fais les makeovers à l'intérieur (designer, peinturer, faire les rideaux, acheter les meubles, etc) et lui, s'occupe de l'extérieur (tondre le gazon, faire le jardinage, tout planter, et s'en occuper) et c'est bien comme ça. J'ai les pouces les plus bruns au monde de toutes façons.

Allen a travaillé très fort pour completement transformer notre cours arrière.

Voici la cours en avril, lorsque nous avons acheté la maison.

Et la voici maintenant.

Il a arraché les mauvaises herbes qui avaient envahi le veggie patch. Il a déterré les buissons de romarin en fleurs parce qu'il est allergique aux piqûres d'abeilles. Il a aussi déterré, avec l'aide de son père, le gros arbre mort et en a planté un tout jeune, tout neuf à sa place. Et il a créé notre jardin de fruits et légumes et a dû installer une clôture assez forte pour empêcher Chomsky d'aller déterrer nos plants. Pas une job facile. Mais il adore ça.

Et ce soir, nous avons mangé les premiers légumes provenant de notre jardin. Des radis. Beaux et rouges. J'étais très impressionnée.

Nous attendons que la laitue, les tomates, les fèves, le maïs, les bettraves, les poivrons, les chilis, les melons, les fraises, les pêches et les nectarines poussent aussi, question de se faire une super salade.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Dans les vagues

Aujourd'hui, il faisait un temps absolument magnifique. 25, soleil, belle brise.
En fin d'après-midi, au lieu de la marche habituelle, j'ai décidé d'emmener Chomsky à la plage à chien.


Oui, il y a une plage à chien près de chez moi. Substitut du parc à chien. Makes sense, I guess. We live by the beach. There's more of them than actual parks around here. En fait, la plage à chien est la plage la plus proche de chez nous (un gros 3 minutes de voiture). Les gens peuvent laisser leurs chiens courir sans laisse et sauter dans les vagues.



Mais aujourd'hui, je n'ai pas libéré Chomsky de sa laisse. Parce qu'à sa première (et seule autre) visite à la plage à chien, elle était tellement excitée qu'elle partait en courant vers les gens et les chiens, même s'ils étaient super loin sur la plage. Et pauvre Allen devait courir jusqu'au bout du monde pour aller la chercher parce qu'elle était encore trop 'puppy-esque' pour revenir quand on l'appelait. Je me souviens, c'était la première journée de la visite à Steph. On riait bien en voyant Allen courir, mais ça ne me tentait pas de me retrouver dans cette situation aujourd'hui.

Mais tout n'a pas été perdu pour Chomsky. Nous sommes allées dans l'eau pour la première fois. J'ai roulé mes pantalons, mis mes flip flops dand mon sac, et mon petit pitou a découvert les vagues. Elle a adoré. ADORÉ.


(J'ai filmé un petit vidéo. J'ai bien tenté de l'uploader, mais après quatre tentatives, le résultat est le même. Error quelque chose. Alors, j'ai abandonné.
UPDATE: Vanou m'a montré une autre façon de le faire et voilà!)


Chomsky dans les vagues from Marie-Pier on Vimeo.

C'était tellement le fun. Je ne comprends pas pourquoi je n'y vais pas plus souvent, au bord de la plage. C'est tellement apaisant. Et c'est littéralement juste à côté.

Si elle est fine, la prochaine fois, j'essaierai peut-être d'enlever la laisse.
J'apporterai mes souliers de course, juste au cas où.

Out of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

That's what Charlie kept saying, even before the ceremony began.

It all started when Kristy, Charlie and I went to pick up Allen and Michael to go to Wayne and Nat's wedding last saturday. The boys kept on saying that we were late, that we were cutting it close and that we better not miss the beginning of the ceremony. Of course, we had timed everything perfectly. Cause lets be honest, we were all dressed up and fabulous does not just happen. Especially not for me.

So we were driving down to the church. Found a park and started to walk. Other people were walking towards the church as well, so we knew we weren't late. We walked up the stairs, and a lady handed us the program as we entered the lovely church.

But then, something seemed weird. Everybody looked at us, and we looked at them realizing we didn't know anyone there. We looked down at our pamflets and it said:

Welcome to Chantelle and Jonathan's Wedding.

WHAT?!?!?!

We were at the wrong church!?!?!?

We ran down the stairs and Michael immidiately tried to call someone who could tell us where the other Sacred Heart Church was, while Charlie spoke to the priest of the church we were at to see if he could direct us. He told her that there were five Sacred Heart Churches in Adelaide.




Oh my God.

We then realized why they called Adelaide the city of Churches.
There are just so damn many!!

We ran back in the car and Michael finally got a hold of someone who told us we had a few minutes until the bridal car was meant to arrive.


Charlie kept saying that it could have been a scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral...Bugger! Bugger!!


Ouf.

We got to the other Sacred Heart Church in Glenelg just in time to see Nat and her bridesmaids (actually, two bridesmaids, and one brideman) walk down the aisle.





The ceremony was beautiful, she looked so pretty. This was a long time coming for those two.



Once the vows said and the register signed, we went to have a drink before the reception.




We ate beautiful food, drank lots and lots and danced... (sorry, no pics of that, camera battery died...)

We had so much fun. It was nice to get all dressed up and go out on the town for such a special occation.
It was so wonderful to see two of our friends finally tie the knot.
It was also nice to be at a wedding that wasn't our own...


They are leaving for their honeymoon today.
Lucky them.
I wish them all the best. x

Friday, October 12, 2007

White floors

Not so great when it's pouring rain outside and puppy won't let you dry her before running around in the house...

And she smells, too, when she's wet! Yuk!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

The weekend event.

Is Nat and Wayne's wedding.
It's pouring rain today, I hope they will have better weather in a few days...

I took the whole weekend off work. I never do that. Never.

But I think I deserve a nice two days to have some fun. Saturday we will get ready (Charlie's house is going to be hair and makeup central) get all dressed up, go off, see our friends get married, then go and have a blast at the reception. Eat and drink and dance and stay up all night.

And Sunday will be a day of recuperation. Probably greasy hangover food and a cosy movie.

Sounds good, doesn't it?


But I am torn about something. A part of me wants to take my camera bag and take loads of pictures, sort of like a practice for when I'll be photographer at Charlie's wedding. But another part of me wants to just go and forget about it and just have some fun. I don't know what I'll do yet. Wayne and Nat paid this photographer over three grand to take pics, so they really don't need me to take any. And do I really want to carry my camera around with me all night? But then if I did go for it I could compare my photos to the one of the super expensive professionnal and see how they measure up.

Ah, what to do.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Les planchers

Aujourd'hui, c'est le reste de la maison qui y passe.
Enfin. Le salon et le long passage.
Les gars ont commencé à arracher le tapis, et oh my god, je suis si contente de nous en débarasser, surtout quand je vois toute la merde qui en sort et toute la merde qu'il y a en dessous.

Si rien d'autre, installer des planchers aura été un grand ménage printanier.

Et j'ai l'impression que mes allergies vont diminuer d'un grand coup, comme par magie.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Diary of a Kitchen renovation, the days after

After the floors were put in, the guy's work was done. And mine really begun.

I had painted the crown molding and the ceiling the night before the renos began, and now, everything else was left. See, the guy who lived here before us never painted the ceiling or the walls. Go figure. He was fine living in a place where there was hand smudges around the light switches and tons of scuffs on the geeprock walls. (Is that how you spell geeprock? Ha...too tired to look it up)

So anyway, the place looked dirty and disgusting. You can't really see it on the pictures.

Once the floors were in, the guys finished it off with a molding on the bottom of the wall. A small one, to edge in with the existing one thats made in wood and varnished.
And there was no way I was going to sand for days in the new kitchen. So I had to buy this special paint to prime over it, and over the edges of the kithen cabinets made out of laminate. But that took me a whole day, because it needed about 5 coats. Shit.

The next day, I painted the walls. This is what the dining room looked like once painted and the bookcase back in it's place.



Then I had to seal the wooden counters, that took about five coats of oil as well...

And I am still not done yet. I need curtains on the window above the sink. I took the really ugly beige steel blinds off. And a new dining table.

So for now, diaries are finished. ( I can hear a sigh of relief...)

Final pictures to come.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Grey's Agony

I have been downloading for more than 3 days.

Still haven't got it yet.


And I just saw an interview with our communications minister who is being criticized about the crappy broadband internet service in this country.

I'll say.

Diary of a Kitchen renovation, Day 3

Monday morning.
Allen got up early to go to Bunnings to exchange the taps. We had carefully chosen the ones we had because its water savings rating was really high and that it had the faucet and the two taps on either side. We thought it would be complicated to convert the three seperate entries with one single one, you know, the kind of faucet that has one tap directly on it... But aparently, there is nothing Allen's dad cannot do.
So sigle tap it was.
And Allen has always been so scared of choosing anything on his own. He thinks that I am very choosy when it comes to house stuff and he's always afraid he'll pick something I won't like. But this time, he did really well. He came back from bunnings with the most beautiful single tap ever. Long and high, with a really nice curve to it, so that we could easily fill up bottles of water and whatnot. Very slick, very modern, even better looking than the ones we had in the first place.

By the time Allen's dad came around, I had to leave for work again.

That night, I came back to see that the sink and counters were fitted and detailed, that the faucet was in place and the water was running.


Also, the carpet and linoleum had been ripped out and the floors were being put in.



I was very impressed.

Especially with the floors, the place looked like it lost 20 years. Just like that. The space looked much bigger without the seperation between the carpet and the lino, therefore, making the kitchen and the dining room flow together. And the floors being light, it made the place that much brighter.

The floors were put in in no time. They looked really, really good.