Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday dear me
Happy Birthday to me.

So today I am 30. What does that mean, hopefully not a whole heck of a lot. So far birthday is going well.

First the weekend. Saturday night was Heidi's wedding. Even though I had not seen Heidi in about 2 years, she is still a great true friend. We had a fantastic time at the wedding, thanks to the crazy bunch of people we sat with. I don’t think we have laughed so much in a while...

All the best Heidi - you looked gorgeous.


Next on Monday my MIL took us out for a lovely Korean dinner for my birthday. I got spoilt, as usual with many a gift, including a beautiful necklace that I had been eyeing when we had been window shopping together several months ago. She is so sweet! Also, they made me a swift! No more winding yarn form back of chairs. Here it is in action:


A minor fire department involved scare requiring a new Carbon Monoxide detector later and the weekend was over. Today (happy birthday to me) I got birthday cards with birthday money (more yarn!) and call from Atlanta (mom and dad) and Czech Republic (sis). And of course, Markham with the much anticipated Bill Heron rendition of Happy Birthday to you.

On my needles right now are two tanks. The green one is using Butterfly mercerized cotton and is my first attempt at creating a pattern 100% myself. Now that I have wound the second ball of yarn with my new swift, I can finish it.



The second tank is a variation of one I saw somewhere with some minor tweeks. The straps are taking forever which is driving me crazy but it should be done soon. The yarn is (believe it or not) Bernat handicrafter which I got on sale at Zellers for a dollar a ball. The tank is going to cost about $5 when done. Awesome. The colour is rosewood, and it reminds me of Neapolitan ice cream. mmm...ice cream.


Tonight we are going out for dinner. I cross my fingers that muffin will be well behaved...I hope so.

Ciao!

So we took the plunge, so to speak. We have invested time, money, and 3 days worth of backbreaking labour to replace the nasty overgrown brown grass in the backyard with a stone block patio. our tiny (17x17) backyard now is mostly patio, with a little grass here and there as accent.
Here is the (ugly) backyard before:



Notice the strange floating stones in the middle of the yard that the previous owner believed to be a patio.

In our infinate wsdom, Tony and I picked the hotest day of the year to start the project. We started this past Monday and finished yesterday. Although we still have a lot of work to do in the yard, the majority of the patio is done. And gosh darnnit, I'm glad its done!

We started on Monday by digging. and more digging. And then we dug up some more. We had to dig up the old patio, then dig up the grass and then just dig. Thankfully we had a bit of help (Thanks Glenn) but was still hard work. I was starting to rethink the idea of doing this ourselves. Did I mention it was 34 degrees with a humidex of 46?

After digging we poured in limestone gravel. All that digging and we just filled in the hole. Seemed like a waste. That bought us to the end of monday. We had sore everythings and were very tired, we called it a night.

Tuesday I woke up sore and with a hand so swollen, I thought I might not be able to knit! the humanity! I was again rethinking this project...Then I imagined myself knitting on my new patio and all pain was forgotton.

After pouring more limestone and going nuts trying to ensure they were level, we started laying the stones. With each stone being 22 pounds, and with having to lift 150 of them into the backyard, Ii was realising why men should do heavy lifting. Unfourtunately, I really couln't handel the awfull noice when I was laying the stones (sounded like: 'its not level! you have to tamp it more, Slacker, they are wobbly, you're gap is too big' etc) so I let Tony do the precision stone laying and I carried the stones into the backyard for him. Harder on my sore muscles, yes, but much less streesfull.


By the end of Tuesday we were almost done with the stones. Wednesday we finished laying the stones, poured on some sand, brushy brushy and by 2:30 we were done. We moved the furniture back and drank beer. Mmm....beer on new patio. here is how we look now. we staill have alot of cleaning and work to do in the backyard, but the bigest job is done. and we LOVE it. Even Khalil said last night, "nice patio mommy"

Now enough of this construtction stuff...now I can concentrate on work, knitting and how to spend my last 4 days of my twenties....