Blah.

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

Two Saturdays ago we held our open house / house warming party. The weather cooperated with us which was awesome because I don’t know how we would have housed all those people just inside. Though the party was a success and we received some very adorable gifts, I have felt like a bag of poo ever since. I guess you could say I was quite stressed out on Saturday and realized on Sunday that I barely ate or drank anything, leaving my stomach in a horrible state. Not to mention the pleasant migraine that showed up Sunday afternoon.

I have been in an extreme state of laziness every since. Mostly because I like being lazy and mostly because the destruction of the outside of our house has also started. That’s right, its drain tile time. I don’t want to deal with it so I have been hiding under the covers on the couch, every day, for 2 weeks. Because of this Chad had gone ahead and calculated that I have most likely spent 14 years of my life laying down. I think he is pretty accurate given the fact that I lay down every damn chance I get. I was not meant to be vertical.

So, I will probably continue to hide in my couch fort for the next little while as I try to avoid all the responsibilities and events coming up in my life. I’m usually not an avoid-er, but right now I can’t think of anything else I would rather do.

EXTREME INTROVERT ENGAGE!

Summer Weather

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

The past four days have been like a dream. The weather has been mind blowing and spending almost every day outside has made it feel like we were on vacation somewhere out of town. I am obsessed with how amazing its been.

I bought four packs of BC Hot House tomatoes just so I could have a decorative bowl full of them. Plus they are so damn tasty.

Yay for bowls full of tasty produce!

My weekend realization was that the kitchen and dining room don’t get as much sunlight as I originally thought they would. Perfect for moss, not perfect for succulents.

Last weeks wind storm provided us with a GIANT pile of twigs and baby pine cones.

Fully stocked for camping and crafting.

I think Mr. Snail and his buddies have been eating some of my plants. I tried to get him to move but he was too stubborn. Then, when I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, I accidentally killed him. Woops!

Saturday afternoon chores.

So, I have become obsessed. Plant research is my new favorite hobby.

Patio Beers

Freshly cut grass and a some what clean garden

First Patio Dinner!!!

The fixins

Spears

Holy taste explosion of an amazing dinner alert.

Saturday was spent running errands in the morning and gardening in the afternoon. Then after dinner we started on our weekend project of refinishing the dinning room table, a process we still aren’t quite finished with. Its amazing what a little bit of sun and warmth does to a city. Sensational.

Bye Bye Tree

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

The tree came down today.

Last week the city came by to hook up our drain to the sewer. They had to go around the tree (since the connection was right under it) and in doing so, they had to chop through a bunch of roots. The city arborist then came by and took a look at the tree and determined that it was too unstable to stay, so today they chopped it down.

In looking at this whole drain tile nightmare, we must look at the tree coming down as a positive thing (despite my love of trees and not wanting to chop them down).

We did not have to pay to get said tree chopped down
We no longer have to worry about the power going out due to branch + wire dance routines
We will not have to sweep the driveway as much because there were be a lot less needles on our side
We get a crap load of free wood to craft with!

Right now I am forcing Chad to watch the wood pile like a hawk to make sure I get first dibs on the woody goodness. I want to keep everything. I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS. I just need some heavy duty saws. Thankfully I have Uncles with those.

I need to stay home every day and become a crazy craft lady.

When Water Is Not Your Friend

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

Last week it rained like nobodies business in the city of Vancouver. This was nothing new to most Vancouverites, but it brought many surprises to Chad and I.

Friday morning after leaving for work I received a message from Chad informing me that we had water in our basement. Woot Woot!

Turns out we have an issue with our drain tile which lead to our surprise Friday morning flood alert.

Drain tile; one of those fun things you know nothing about until you become a home owner. Oddly enough, Chad had actually made some inquiries to get our drain tile looked at based on the suggestion of our home inspector, when all of a sudden we were faced with an emergency situation on Friday.

Apparently Chad has developed a sixth sense when it comes to flooding because he got up Friday morning and immediately went down to the basement to discover our new carpet soaked with water.

I didn’t quite realize the severity of what had happened until I got home and saw the basement torn apart. Chad has spent all day calling people, running around and trying to dry the carpet as best he could. We had fans and heaters going full blast to try and remove the water from the carpet. I can’t even tell you how many towels we went through.

He was able to get a friend of my uncles to come by on Friday to assess the situation. He got to digging and discovered a few things.

1) Our drain tile is super old (which we kind of figured) and had deteriorated in a few places.

2) Our connection to the city sewer happens right under/around the giant tree in our front yard. Said tree has large roots which has moved and damaged the super old drain tile.

3) Some genius (possible the old owner) thought they would do some work on the old drain tile and disconnected it from the city positioning the pipe to just aimlessly run into the ground. UM WHAT!? So then, when the ground is overly saturated with water and you add your stupid disconnected drain tile, guess what you get. A FLOOD!

When I found out #3 I was pissed. It’s one thing to have an older home and know that your drain tile is probably ghetto and will probably need to be replaced but it is a whole other thing to find out that the reason your basement is flooded is NOT because your drain tile is old and ghetto but because SOMEONE thought it would be a good idea to DISCONNECT your pipe from the cities pipe. Are you kidding me!?!?!

Blair, our drain tile guy, was able to dig a trench where the ghetto drain tile was to alleviate the water backup while we wait to repair everything. This whole thing is going to be quite the process.

1) We have put in a call to the city about the problem. They are coming by this week to dig up the yard to find out exactly where the connection is supposed to be

2) We have to wait for the city to decided what to do with this tree. Ideally they should chop it down since it is directly affecting our drain tile, but they may want us to go around it.

3) Once these two things are figured out we need to install a new connection from our house to the city, which is not going to be cheap.

Ideally we also need to replace all the drain tile around our house, which we were told is a $10,000 – $15,000 job. Clearly we do not have that kind of money right now considering what we’ve spent on purchasing this house and renovating it. However, Papa Rossi seems to think with a few strong friends we may be able to do the job ourselves, but we need to find out some more info first.

The giant tree in the way of our drain.

The connection to the house.

The trench.

The location.

So, for now we wait to find out what happens. Chad is going to put in a call to our Realtor to tell him about this disastrous ’repair’ the previous owner may have done. It boggles my mind that they did not have this same issue last year considering the sate of drain tile. I feel like they did, they just didn’t tell us. But then, who knows.

Hopefully the city of Coquitlam will come through for us and we can get this fixed as soon as possible. There is never a dull moment when owning a house!

Diced Pineapples

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

I went to Matt’s for dinner last night. I cooked him two types of pasta; Amatriciana (tomatoes with onions and pancetta) and a pesto made with walnuts and ricotta. It was all so good and so damn filling. Look at how classy our dinner set up was. Ugh. I want to steal everything that Matt owns. He has the most amazing design eye. I know I always say that but it is always true. The man is a GENIUS. Sometimes I just can not handle it. Every time I need to be inspired I should just go to his place.

We spent the rest of the evening watching the Nanny, because its the best show of all time and watching rap videos. I discovered the formula for creating a rap video, which I am sure most of you have. Ciroc, dudes in chains, mostly naked woman shaking there ass, and a lot of talk about cats, but not actual cats. We also watched Drakes newest video, because we are that predictable. It’s filmed inside a Shoppers Drug Mart which is hands down the most amazing thing of all time. Really!? Shoppers!? LOVE.

The great thing about staying late in the city is that driving home is so much easier then during rush hour, that is unless a Canucks game has just let out, the hwy was previously closed because of an accident, there is construction on said hwy, and it is raining like a mother trucker. I encountered all 4 of these things last night. Sweet Mother of Mercy. There was a point in time where there was so much rain and so much construction I could not tell where my lane was, you know, because they like to move the lanes every other day and there are no proper lines on the actual road. Worst ever.

Also, Rick Ross is really unattractive.