This is my last free weekend until June 21.  The next three weekends are booked solid for Pathfinders.

It starts on Friday. We're getting on a bus and heading to Toronto for a province-wide rally all day Saturday. ("All day" means we leave the camp at 7 am and get back at 11 pm - it will be exhausting).

The next weekend is canoe training - 9-5 both Saturday and Sunday.

The weekend after that is canoe camp.

All of these are going to be good events, and I definitely want to  go to all of them, but man I wish there was a free weekend in there.

At one point, my manager was talking about us going to India on June 16 - i.e. the day after canoe camp - and I almost lost my mind. Luckily, that was moved to August.

I spent my last relaxing weekend finishing up the various house projects that I started before Easter. I hung blinds in the second bedroom, made another Roman blind, and put an empty bin downstairs. I even started getting organized for next weekend (although I'm not done by any means).

I also took apart a desk I made in high school.

I like it, but it takes up a lot of space. Wanda wanted the desk part, and it (finally) occurred to me that if I removed the sides, they could be used as separate book shelves.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Each of the two sides had 2 casters, not four, so they wouldn't stand up without the middle section.  Thirty seconds after I realized that, I was on my way to Rona to buy 4 more casters.

Except, of course, I made the desk 25 years ago, and I suspect the casters were scavenged from somewhere by my dad, so they were even older. Rona had nothing the same size, so I removed 2 casters from one side and put 4 new casters on that side, then moved the 2 from that side onto the other side. Simple to do, and now most of the desk is downstairs (and one side remains upstairs).

It wasn't a super busy day, but I got a lot done.

Wednesday Walk

 

As I've mentioned before, the gym at work has classes at noon. I usually do the classes, but I don't really like the Wednesday class. I used to go anyway, but I don't like it, so I stopped.

That doesn't mean I don't want a break, though, so now that it's (finally) nice, I've decided to start going for walks on Wednesdays.

Today I walked over to Dow's Lake to see the last of the tulips.

  

 

The pictures turned out better than expected, considering that I can hardly see my phone display in the sun. 

The saga continues

Remember the table saga? 

After I got the desk together, I realized that the black futon from the other bedroom would look good in that room. It made sense, too - the newly painted room is bigger than the other room.

Except ... my mom is bringing my nieces and my cousin's two girls this summer. It makes sense to put the three girls in the bigger bedroom. But if I moved the futon, there would be no bed in the smaller room. I'm fine with the girls sleeping on air mattresses, but is didn't think my mom would appreciate it.

Ok, move the futon, and get another bed for the small room.

But before I could put a new bed in that room, I had to paint.

Again.

I spent a couple of nights painting, and then I went back to IKEA. I came home with a day bed. Wanda and I spent a couple of days putting it together.

Next I had to figure out the windows. When I painted the smaller bedroom, I took down some white blinds. They could go back up, so I started hanging the brackets.

One broke.

Did you know Home Depot sells extra brackets? Neither did they, but they helped me find them, anyway. I came home and hung the blinds, then decided to make roman blinds to go over them. I found these instructions: http://jenduncan.typepad.com/whats_new/2008/11/roman-blind-tutorial-in-20-pictures-or-less.html.

I went out and bought fabric, and wood, and the rings for the back, but the fabric wasn't wide enough, so I decided to make a scalloped edge - something like this: http://www.coletterie.com/tutorials-tips-tricks/tutorial-scalloped-hem.

On Sunday, I started making the first set of blinds. At 6:30, I realized I didn't buy eyelet screws. Naturally, this was the day before the holiday.

Tonight I stopped on the way home to buy them, and I finished the first blind.

I can't decide if I like the soft look or if I want more structure on the next one.

A very productive weekend

There is a tree right beside my driveway. Over the years, it has gotten bigger, as trees do, until it reached a point where it was invading the driveway space. 

If I parked the car beside it, Wanda would complain that I parked her in a tree. It made mowing the lawn difficult as well.

Today I cut off the lower branches so that I can now walk under the tree.

 

Wanda came out and helped me cut up and bundle the branches for pickup. 

 

And as you can see, there's still a lot of tree left.

 

Something is afoot

A couple of weeks ago, I went to buy new runners. This is always a challenge. They need to be cross-trainers, not too heavy, with a relatively flat bottom. Oh, and they have to fit.

Let me back up a little.

When I was in grade seven, my mom bought me a pair of size eight runners so that I could grow into them. I never did. I remained size 7, and wore out those too big shoes. In fact, sometimes 6.5 worked just fine.

Anyway, when the salesperson asked what size I wore, I said 7. She suggested that she measure me, which she did. She came up with normal width, size 7.5.

Oddly, that's what happened last summer when I bought shoes for work, so when I ended up with 7.5s again, I actually started to wonder whether shoe companies had randomly changed their sizes.

And then I came home and put the new shoes beside the old ones. They are noticeably bigger.

I don't understand why they both fit.