Second Hurtle

If the first hurtle for getting a new shower was to make sure the kiln worked, then the second was to get a waterproof floor in the sunroom to be able to have a studio space for extruding tiles. We're almost there. The grout needs to be put on, but that is really easy compared to all the bits that come before.




Peter put down ditra underlay on Monday with thinset. (It's the orange stuff.) While he did that, I selected tiles and laid them out out in the next room, then set them in place for a perfect fit.

Then Peter cut the edge tiles to fit. Notice how the tile cutter is set up in front of the oven, because where else would you put it? That was pretty much a full day.








Then we went to Mahone Bay for lunch with friends on Tuesday, and it was a good thing too. I could barely walk for two days after squatting and lifting 3/8th inch slate tiles for several hours on Monday. It was like I'd spent the weekend on a horse. (And before anyone asks, yes I HAVE spent a weekend on a horse) Even my glutimus maximus hurt and I had to walk bowlegged.
Wednesday it turns out, we had to make a trip to Burnside to pick up the bed we shipped from Newfoundland, so I was given an extra day to recover from Monday.
Today we mortared the floor in place. Beautiful.

Holistic Renovations

Peter says he wants to write a sequel of sorts to the Douglas Adams novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Here's why.
Peter would like our first house project of 2009 to be the shower. We have most of the stuff we need, we bought the tile and cement backer board years ago (literally, years ago) but I've decided it would be fun to make a border tile to trim the subway tile we bought. With my new ceramic skills I can do this, but it makes the process of installing a shower a little more time consuming. Yesterday, Peter researched and bought the required plugs and breakers for wiring up the kiln. Today we are firing the kiln empty to see what temperature it will achieve and whether it will set the garage on fire. So far so good. It reached 900 F, after 3 hours on low. Then I thought I set it up to medium, but I set it to off so it cooled down for an hour until we noticed. (I have the same problem with my slow cooker, it must be a left handed thing.)
To make ceramics you need a place to do it 'cause it can be messy. At the moment, in lieu of building a whole new studio, my best temporary place is the sun room; it's warm, close to water and has lots of natural light, but it still needs a waterproof floor which was on the house 'to do' list already. We have all the tile for that too (longer than we have had the shower tile actually) but we did need to buy underlay and thinset to put it in. That's looking like tomorrow's project.
Once that is complete, we will need to make a clay extruder from some old plumbing supplies and a motorized plunger. Peter has some ideas for that already. Then we will have to test the shrinkage of the clay during firing so it will end up the same size as the manufactured tiles we have already.
And then we can make the border tiles and install the shower.
Holistic renovations, you see?
And before anyone points out the obvious:
Yes, I know you can buy preformed plastic showers.
Yes, I know you can buy ready made border tiles.
Yes, I know you can just shower in the tub with curtains. But where is the fun in life if you take the easy route?
And you all wonder why it takes so long for us to renovate the house. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there Peter needs to finish his PhD.
If you think we're mad, you should meet my friend Guild.

Hitting is Allowed

After a too long absence of physical activity, I started back to curling last night. It was meant to be the night before but a storm of freezing rain made the roads too slippery to attempt on Wednesday. Last night the roads were snow covered but not too bad and so I ventured out to Wolfville to resume that most Canadian of winter activities. (More Canadian than Hockey because you can do it with a beer in your hand.)
I didn't curl in St. John's because the dues were very expensive and everyone at the St. John's curling club seemed to be a retired banker or insurance salesman. It would not be an exaggeration to say that their post game conversation was as interesting as you would expect it to be.
Surprisingly I don't hurt much today, a little stiff in the neck and shoulders from sweeping I think. How did I do? A team mate said I wasn't totally awful. And another noted that I didn't fall over as sometimes I am want to do. Personally I don't think I was any worse than before. I was tired though. I hit the wall after throwing my second rock of the second end, and worried that I wasn't going to be able to make it another 6 ends. Happily the game was mostly hitting (or in my case - attempted hitting) which didn't require a lot of sweeping and made the time go by fast. We lost, but it wasn't completely my fault, and the upside to losing is that you win a free drink.
Here's to losing.

House Improvement

So if this is a Home show blog, what are we doing on the home?
Not much, as our pocketbook and previous educational commitments allow. Though he reads less, Study boy still has school work to attend to. I am still enjoying Christmas holidays, even though Twelfth Night came and went.
It has not all been leisure though since we arrived home. Our first week was spent getting a new hot water tank because the old one was leaking onto the basement floor. That took one day to settle on a quote for the work, and another whole day to have the work done, plus a day in between waiting for the workmen to come do the work, and a half day after to finish up some tedious something or other.
Understand that we do not take house improvement lightly, and in that respect I can assure you that we bought the most fashionable (read expensive) hot water tank we could find. We justified the expense the way we always justify our expenses; that is to say by congratulating ourselves that it is a quality hot water tank, and we (hopefully) won't have to replace it ever again. Plus, it is an extremely energy efficient model, so much so that we anticipate getting a $500 rebate from the provincial government for it, so that was our one big act of green for 2008.
We took advantage of the Energuide Audit a few years ago, getting our application in just before the Federal Tories axed the program. We raised the rating of the house from a 42 to a 70, and timed it well enough to also qualify for some money from the Nova Scotia provincial government, who created their own provincial Energuide program through Conserve Nova Scotia. It pays to be green. If you live in NS and don't know about the grants you may be eligible for, check out the link above.
Our other home improvement efforts since we arrived back have not been so laudable.
Just before we left, we moved the kitchen to it's new location, but like everything else in the house it is not finished, so we arrived home to wonder where our tenants had been storing their dishes all this time. In very short order, we decided that two shelving units that were bought in St. John's for the bathroom, would go very nicely in the kitchen as a temporary cupboard. Peter had his doubts as to whether they were attached to the wall well enough, but so far they have not fallen off. Keeping the fingers crossed.
We found the septic pump alarm went off soon after we got back, but we were fairly lucky on that account. Lucky because the weather had been warm and the ground was not yet frozen when we had to dig it up. (Unlucky though that we had to dig it up at all.) Also lucky because even though we didn't know exactly where the pump was buried, and the marker had disappeared, we hit the chamber dead on with our first try. There was some debate as to where it was located before we started the hole. Peter thought it was in line with the corner of the garden shed, I felt it was 45 degrees more toward the driveway. In the end we both compromised to keep the other happy and were rewarded for our felicity with a bulls eye. We did a little septic dance to celebrate. (I took a picture, but unfortunately blogger seems unable to read it.) Continuing lucky, we found the pump actually was still working, but it was tripping out the GFI. The temporary Red Green fix was to bypass the GFI until the weather is warmer and we can replace the pump before it really, truly stops working. Keeping fingers crossed.

Happy Ho Ho

We're off to see the Parrsboro parental units tomorrow. It was meant to be today but the weather threw a spanner into that plan.
Here's a pic of us torturing the cat in front of the fire. (Well at least he's not wearing a silly hat)

Hello, my name is...

Meet New Cat.
New Cat was spotted in a shelter a couple months ago and deemed to be the right animal for our house, so he was adopted by his foster mom in anticipation of our return to NS. When he went to live with his foster mom and family, we tried to name him, but couldn't really decide on anything that stuck or fit.
Thus far, he has tried on Bear, and Boris.
His shelter name was Pharaoh, so we tried some Egyptian monikers for a while, which included Siris (for Osiris) but I felt that was too close to Sirius, which is the dog star and completely inappropriate.
He was found in a kennel full of dogs, so as a nod to his penchant for 'keeping bad company' I wanted to call him Mr. Wickham. Peter felt we would shorten it to Wiki, and then everyone would ask why we named our cat after an internet encyclopedia.
It also led to his foster neighbours to call him Mr Rogers. Apparently they aren't Jane Austen fans.
Wickham's first name is George, so we tried that, but Peter worried that our friend George would wonder why we named the cat after him.
His foster mom thought Hector was good, but Peter had an uncle Hector, so he vetoed that.
We left it for a while and his foster mom just continued to call him New Cat. We started calling him New Cat too, and wondered if we should just call him Newkie, and say it is short for Newcastle Brown Ale. But once we met him, we realised he needed a better name.
I also realised he didn't look like a Wickham so I gave that up. In fact he didn't look English at all, but American. So we started trying to think of American literary characters, and realised that we must only read Brit Lit because the only American characters that came to mind were Huckleberry and Hawkeye. Neither seemed appropriate.
Then, being a true Canadian I decided it should be a Canadian character, but could only think of Gilbert from Anne of Green Gables. So I call him Gilbert all day Wednesday, but Peter didn't seem keen.
How do people ever manage to name their children I wonder?
We went back to the idea of mythology, and as New Cat's favourite position seems to be in front of the fire, we thought perhaps Prometheus, or Phaeton, but I didn't really like either of those. Apollo was too Battlestar Galactica.
Eventually we googled 'cat names' and found the website 2000 Cat Names. The world is a sick sad place. Peter thought we should try something botanical as a nod to my profession, so we tried Nepeta (for catnip) and Felino (which is Latin for cat.) Then we googled 'Latin Cat Names" and found a website that lists cat names by language. The world is truly a sick sad place.
We went back to literary characters by googling "American Literary Characters" and found Atticus, for Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird. It has the advantage of sounding Latin, and therefore classical, plus I've always thought Gregory Peck was rather dishy so I think we've settled on Atticus the Catticus. Peter has already started to make up rhymes about him.

The Grande Finale

We started packing in earnest on Tuesday afternoon. Pack pack pack pack pack. You get the picture.We were mostly packed by Thursday evening. Except the things we were still using. We unpacked the household furnishings that came with the place on Thursday so we could use those and pack our own.
Filled up with gas and windshield juice and checked all fluids on Thursday night.
Friday morning Peter (no longer Studyboy) started putting things in the truck, while I did last minute errands like buying road food and returning the cable modem. We decided to buy walkie talkies for the road trip so we would know when and where to stop. Very useful (and fun.) Friday afternoon Peter packed the car and I cleaned the house until about 9pm.
Neither of us slept well Friday night. The bed was picked up Friday afternoon by the moving company so we were on the blow-up camping mattress, on the floor. Plus we were concerned that someone would break into the vehicles to steal our stuff. At this point I think Peter wouldn't have minded losing anything, as there were still last minute items to go in and no room to put them. (Also, too excited/freaked out to sleep)
Saturday morning up at 6am to leave at 7am. Our plan was to hit a Tim's at Churchill Square for coffee (coffee maker packed) and a breakfast thing, then go straight up Alandale Road to the TCH. Tim's at Churchill Square is not open at 6:45am. Used the walkie talkies to make new plan, BONUS! Alternate plan: there is a Tim's on Portugal Cove Road just beside the TCH.
One the TCH heading east by 7:10. Windy, wet, dark and 16 degrees. The first 90 minutes we are both a little freaked out, because we realize that neither of us has driven on a highway for 17 months. The road is up and down and up and down ( I mean really steep) and curvy and the wind keeps trying to blow us sideways.
We hit Clarenville about 9am. Both of us are calmer now. First pit stop for a pee and a tea. Grey skies but less wind.
Next stop Gander. More pee, more tea.
Got lost in Grand Fall Windsor looking for a rest stop, so just kept on to Badger for a fill up. It was after noon but decided not to eat, just kept going and eating road food. Temperature dropped to zero degrees and we got some snow flurries.
Thought we'd stop in Corner Brook next, but the sign said 4 exits and I only counted 3 and then Corner Brook was gone, so we thought maybe Stephenville. But Stephenville is miles from the highway so we kept on to Stephenville Crossing. Which is also miles from the highway. It was about 4:30 and getting dark, so we stopped for dinner at a little gas station diner.
Back on the road for the last leg in the dark. There was very little traffic and it felt like you were driving to the end of the earth. No Wreckhouse winds to fear and we arrived in Port Aux Basques about 7pm.
Was the drive pretty? If by pretty you mean in a barren, rocky unforgiving godforsaken kind of way... I'm not sure, it was foggy.
The ferries had been backed up all week due to wind and a broken ramp, and we were plenty early for our scheduled sailing time of 11:30pm. There was a restricted sailing due to leave at 9:30 which we thought we might get on, but no joy. The 11:30 ferry was delayed departing until 3am. The wait was long and uncomfortable. We stayed in the terminal until about 12:30, but then hoping the boat would depart early (ha) we went to the vehicles. The wait was worse because we couldn't wait together. No room in either vehicle for more than the driver.
Peter in the truck. Me in the car. Good thing we bought those walkie talkies!
Finally we boarded, and found our cabin. Proper sleep at last!
The ferry docked in North Sydney at 11am, and we stopped for our third tank of gas just off the boat. Gas is 10 cents a litre cheaper on this side of the gulf. Yay!
This side, Peter was lead dog. There was this strange ball of fire in the sky all the way home that we hadn't seen for weeks. Clear road and -3 all they way. Travelling behind the truck means I could see just how splayed out the back wheels were from the weight. Somewhere in Cape Breton.

A mere five and a half hours later and we were home.

The alternative title to this post could be Ka-Ching!
How expensive it is to move you ask? Here are some numbers.
Drive 2 vehicles 1400 kms in 2 days. Equals 4.5 fillups. $250
2 Ferry passes and 1 cabin with 4 berths. $400
1 bed shipped. $200
1 new water tank. $1500. (but it is a really nice one)
1 empty oil tank $350
1 new septic pump (maybe) $?
1 Cable Modem hookup and cable reconnection fee $100
1 power reconnection fee $22
Replacing the food tossed out or given away $200
Finally being home - Priceless.