We are going to call it….. “You are on your own“. Because of an error in my calculations (something that I thought had been paid for in the summer and was not billed) and a change in my employment status…. again not necessarily a bad thing…. Our funds ran out this last month. WHICH technically is a good thing, because we have found out that you cannot pay a contractor to be creative in the way YOU want to be creative. So we are moving forward, basically on our own.

For instance, this railing. We needed this done for the occupancy permit, which we needed to be able to have regular house insurance. So we found this lovely beam floating in Adams Lake and have coveted it for 3 years and Ken has lightly sanded it and put several coats of finish on it. So for some reason the builder opted to get do this railing, instead of Ken (which I would have preferred). Neither Ken nor I are very good at stopping a builder who has a plan …….. (goodness sakes, big mistake). First of all, the builder went and had the Rebar powder coated Black ??? So Ken went down to hardware store and bought ordinary rebar and cut it to size. We wanted the railing at 36 inches, which is code, but the builder insisted on 42 inches which HE thought was code… Plus took 2.5 days to get this little job done. Ken could have done it MUCH quicker and the way we wanted it. Just a short example of where we are at with the builder. WE DO actually like our builder, but not necessarily all of the people who work FOR him. We still need to “wrap” the posts with older wood.

We have (as of a week ago) a functioning sink. Which we bought in Quartzsite a few. years ago. It is from Morocco and solid piece of rock. We were THRILLED to find a perfectly matching mirror at Habitat for Humanity (restore). Old sewing machine stand that someone had made into an “island”. Tile work behind sink not complete yet.

There WAS a tiny flaw in the mirror where someone had put a screw, and so I decided to cover the hole up with a shell. The shell looked too alone, so I decided to add some “friends”…. and then got carried away and now it looks like THIS. I MIGHT just have ruined a perfectly good mirror. Stay tuned.

Then I have been working on the back splash behind the sink it OUR bathroom. I think it ultimately needs a mirror that will tie in the sink. I should also say that I cannot seem to get a picture that does this justice. It is gorgeous to the naked eye, pictures not so much.

So this is where we are at with the siding. Almost done. corregated metal bottom and cement board shingles on top. Nothing flammable except the soffits under the roof just at the front.

We have WAY more snow now, lots has fallen over the holidays and Ken has been out plowing the road daily and some days more than once. The fellow who owns the rest of the lots up here has parked his truck with the blade here for the winter so we have no worries about having to get a machine to plow with.

So this is the starts of the shower in our bathroom. We are trying to achieve a “steampunk” look for the house, and so these are ceramic tiles that look like old boards. As I was doing this over Christmas, I figure that it looks more like “The Manger scene look” than the “steam punk look”.

This is the view from the shower, so we WILL have to put in glass. We may tend to use WAY too much water having showers and enjoying the view.

We did actually get a lot done over the Christmas holiday, we opted the hunker down given the number of covid cases in our area. Not nearly as high as other areas, but all it takes is the wrong contact and……

I got my vaccine on December 23rd, as did Josh, our son. Health care workers in long term care were the first to get the vaccine in our area. The facility that I work at had an “outbreak” 2 weeks before. It turned out to be a very small outbreak, only one staff member and no patients or other staff. It was scary going into the facility not knowing who might have contracted it from her. Fortunately our health authority allowed for several patients to be tested and all came back negative, which was reassuring. Should this happen again, I will be a bit more comfortable having been vaccinated. SUPERWOMAN!

So trim was a major project over Christmas. These boards we just stained with our solution of steel wool soaked in vinegar for 3 days and then diluted with water. We love the look. Sadly thought our living room HAD become more orderly, ….. almost normal, … and then….. they deposited all of the wood for trim in the living room, so now the impetus will be to keep working on the trim in order the tidy up the living room.

More tiling over the holiday to the right in this picture, tiles to match the ones on the left.

First the cement board, which Ken cuts for me.

SOME TILES………..

MORE TILES…. and look at the thin row of polished agates…..

AND THEN the mess of grout…..

The cabinet people HAD put in a tiny back splash of stainless steel but it was only a couple of inches and we thought……. “you call that a BACK SPLASH”….

Now THIS is a BACK SPLASH…..

So we are puttering along. Trying to maintain a bit of a trail up and around the area, sometimes in snowshoes and sometimes not. Tucker is quite funny, he LOVES the deep snow and he bounds along in the deep snow (but it is well up to his tummy) and then we he gets tired he follows in our steps for awhile..

It has been an odd year. I cannot honestly complain, certainly it has not been our worst. We tend to live our life in a rather isolated fashion, such that many of the restrictions affecting so many, has not affected us as much. I guess the hardest part of seeing the devastation happening to others. I can only begin to imagine the difficult year this is going to be for so many, given the losses of the past year.

Much love to all, from Janet Ken and Tucker (the snow dog)