Aleen and Michael’s Blog

With the winter months upon us, we’re missing the activity we had all summer long.  Last year Aleen kept mentioning that we should get a treadmill but we were hesitant thinking that we would not get good enough use out of it.

This year though, Aleen was really adamant and so we saw in some flyers some sales on different treadmills.  Canadian Tire had a really nice one, a Horizon 9.1, with a 2.5 hp motor and a lifetime warranty on the frame and motor.  It was reduced nearly 40% in price, so after doing some research and checking it out in the store, we finally decided to buy it.

They delivered it to our house and also built it and installed it.  We’re probably going to build a little gym in one of the rooms downstairs, so this works out well.  So far so good.

We’ve been in the house for a year and a half now and we wanted to start BBQ’ing and having people over in the summer.  But without a proper backyard setup that makes things a little difficult. 

This year we decided that we would build a patio.  We bought the BBQ a month or so ago, but now my Dad and brother-in-law are helping us build out the patio.  Because our grading in the back has quite the incline and is not very level, we have a bit of a chore ahead of us to create a level surface.

We spent the past weekend, digging out about a foot and a half of top soil and sod and replacing it with a proper stone/dirt foundation so we can eventually lay the paving stone.  It was unbelievable the amount of labour involved in that all.  We had to bring in a garbage bin that sat on the street and we actually filled it up.  Then we had two small dump trucks worth of stone dropped off on our drive way, it looked like a mini construction site. 

The weather on Saturday wasn’t the greatest either, as it constantly rained on and off which made everything a bit of a mess, but we needed the breaks.  I’ve never done so much shovelling in my life.  I was pretty sore on the Sunday.  We’re so fortunate that my Dad and brother-in-law know their business, they did a great job!  Now we just need to pick out the paving stone and arrange for a date to start laying them, can’t wait!

Before:

After:

Me working the plate compactor:

At the top of our house, at the peak, we have a fake semi-circle window made up of hard plastic.  Two weeks ago when we were leaving I mentioned to Aleen if it looked crooked.  Then yesterday when we came home around 5:30pm, the window had fallen forward 90 degrees and was hanging on by the flat edge.  Behind it, the weather tarp and wooden braces were exposed.

Not knowing how heavy this window was, we were worried that it may fall and do some damage to the roof or gutter, let alone maybe a strong wind picks it up and it falls all the way to the ground and does some damage to someone or something below.

I called Mattamy’s after hour service on Saturday, which closed at 5pm on weekends and left a message.  Sunday morning we got a call back and they were trying to figure out how they were going to get up there to fix it.  The window is about 30 feet up from the ground, but with 2 smaller roofs they could climb up roof by roof to get at it.

Anyhow, 2 guys came and tried to re-attach it but it wouldn’t stay, so they just took it down and on Monday someone will come back and re-attach it properly.  Thankfully, there is no precipitation in the forecast so we should be OK to have this exposed until then.  Lets hope the weather man is right this time.

Our first real Christmas in the new house and Aleen has been so excited to decorate.  She’s spent the last weeks gathering ornaments and decorations.  We bought a tree 2 weeks ago and she spent the last few days decorating the house and putting the tree together.  It’s a friggin’ light show in our house.   I’m going to put up the outside lights after our honeymoon.  But, I must say she did a great job, it really looks good.

After living at home all these years, I never have done anything to get into the Halloween spirit as my parents were not into that sort of thing.  The other day Aleen and I were at Costco as she so badly wanted to start looking for Christmas decorations go figure. 

Anyhow, while walking through the isles we noticed some orange lights and this big pumpkin that can also light up.  We want to give out candy this year too, so we thought we’d spruce up the porch a bit and we bought these items.  When we got home we set them up right away and they don’t look to bad, the photos don’t do them justice.  So if you are ever in the neighbourhood come have a look!

Last week my parents helped us plant our plants and flowers in the front.  For the past week we started to slowly collect stones to put around our flower garden to spruce it up.  Today, my Dad came back into town and helped us finish the flower garden.  It was boiling outside today too, but my Dad worked hard digging and finely laying all the stones ensuring that each block was perfectly level.

Aleen and I had to make a few more runs to the stone place just around the corner to pick up the remaining blocks as we slightly under-estimated.  Overall, we needed about 80 blocks to finish it off.

The corner pieces proved to be the most difficult but luckily my Dad brought the stone saw and with a little creativity we made it look pretty decent.  In the end, the stonewall looks great!  We already are getting compliments from the neighbours.  They want to hire my Dad to do their landscaping too, ha.

The picture doesn’t do it justice as the stones are still wet after a watering, but trust us, it looks good.  

Now we just need to add some more topsoil to fill it out and then add a few solar lights and then we should be good.  Now our place can have some curb appeal!

Finally, no more dust and dirt!  It’s been six months now since we moved in and last Friday we got grass in our backyard.  Today we got grass in the front and wow does it make a difference.  We actually have colour surrounding the house.  But, with that also comes more work as for new grass we’ve been out everyday making sure it gets the right amount of water.  You’re suppose to water in the mornings but in order to get it the right amount we’ve been waking up early, like 6am, to ensure that both the front and back get at least 1 hour of water.  We have then small patches of grass in between the houses that we do by hand, but otherwise the sprinkler and hose Mattamy gave us has been doing the trick.

Also, with the new grass, on Saturday Mattamy had a flower/plant day.  They gave us $150 to spend on whatever we wanted.  We ended up picking up like 5-7 plants and a few flowers.  My parents came by on the Sunday and we made a nice flower garden in the front of the house along the porch.  Then we put two plants in the backyard for now, where we also want to setup a flower garden eventually.  It really gives the house some personality now.  For the front we just need to find some stone to build around the garden.  Hope to do that in the next week.

We’re so happy that finally our house doesn’t look like a construction site anymore!

After over two months of haggling and damaged or incorrect parts, SEARS finally came for the last time yesterday and installed our new freezer door, which was in fine condition.  The installation took less than 10 minutes and now we can say we are done with SEARS.  Needless to say, you won’t see us buying anymore big ticket items from SEARS, way too painful.

So I woke up this morning ready to go.   Seeing I didn’t move since Friday night I knew I had a challenge ahead of me.  That was probably the most snow I have ever moved at one time, it was up to my waist nearly for the most part.  My piles are now taller than I am!  Anyhow, that’s done with and now I am resting the rest of the day seeing I can’t move anymore.  I tried to jump in the jacuzzi but that didn’t help the sore muscles.  I really hope that’s it now, no more snow please!

Will the snow ever stop?  This has to be one of the worst winters in years in terms of snow and the last 2 days sums it all up.  Like every other day pretty much I have been shovelling here, and without a paved driveway it makes things worse.  We’re lucky we have no one living next to us, so I can just dump some extra snow there, cause my piles are taller than I am now.

Looks like this year we will have the most snow in over 70 years in Toronto and this one storm since last night will break the total snowfall record for all of March!  Anyhow, just a couple of pics, which really don’t do the situation justice:

I haven’t shovelled yet today and I just looked out the window…looks like I got a fun morning ahead of me.