A council estate raised British city girl trying to make it in rural Canada

wrapping up loose ends

I think i've finally found my body type - after 40 something goddam years. It happened when I bought a dress which for once I tried on in a shop. I don't normally do that because I can't stand people that dither.

I go shopping with friends and they spend hours in the changing rooms while I sit outside picking my nose and making the appropriate noises when they come out with the 57th oufit.

The normal appropriate noise is "f**k this i'm off outside for a fag, text me when you're done".

So I had this wedding reception to go to and thought i'd try out this new fangled idea of test running a dress in the changing rooms. Holy shit it works.

Although it now looks as though everything in my wardrobe has been bought because I thought it made me look like a vision of me I had in my head (which is nothing like me tbh).

Which is a result because NOW it means I can go shopping when hubby gets his tax refund for new stuff - he can go and buy some new guns and I can buy clothes. Aren't we just a match made in heaven.

The last of my paperwork was sent off to Buffalo for the spousal sponsorship FINALLY, although in the desperate hope that someone from CIC may stumble across this blog - SHOUTOUT FOR THE GUYS AT CIC BUFFALO - WUFF WUFF WUFF - YOU GUYS ROCK YEAH (it's a long shot isn't it -  hmmm - well bugger you gotta try)

I said to Darcy that "when it's finally all done and I do my landing I'm totally gonna kiss the border officer" (well unless its a woman with a hairy chin or something) though do you think that could get you arrested? It probably could right - the other ones might think he/she was being attacked and I could get tackled to the floor by a group of burley men in uniform.

hold on .............................. ;)

The plumbing got fixed FINALLY (thanks babe - luv u) and the basement renos - although taking 500% longer than if we had got someone in to do them for us - look cool. Well we think so, we wanted to do everything ourselves cos we like arguing  creating / building things together. My job was the mudding and taping and painting and finishing (and fetching and carrying) but so far, because I totally fucked up the mudding, I keep having to redo corners and joints because I can see imperfections. I reckon each corner has about 6 coats on by now and we've probably lost a good foot all round of space due to the extra mud!

Darcy framed all the doors himself and put up the baseboards, so Ive been sanding, caulking, staining wood (I know staining should be done first normally - but shall we say hubbys cuts aren't that accurate sometimes, so some strategic filling has to take place - which means you have to do this prior to putting on the final finish, hence staining whilst they are on the walls.

We layed black slate tiles on the walls and floor around where the wood burning stove and that looks cool, slate is tough to lay cos its all wobbly and different, but thats a bonus when you don't know what you're doing cos you can say "oh yeah well we had no choice the slate is all different thicknesses".

Lastly we have new windows ordered and being delivered in a couple of weeks. Darcy has organised a gang of buddies to help install them - in the middle of fucking winter - are you kidding me - oh yes winter in Alberta is EXACTLY the time of year you need to be installing windows.

Thankfully the house doesn't have that many of them so we should be good.

But wait.

He decided that we should change the siding too - oh hell lets do fascia, soffit and everything else too. So we had to quickly pick a colour and get that ordered ready for when the windows come.

COS WE'RE DOING THAT AT THE SAME TIME.

Oh well, Canadian guys are made of strong stuff. They must be to attempt a retarded project like that in March.

Lastly the dogs - getting on great rumble has for the most part stopped jumping. I've found that if you go outside and totally ignore him for about 30 seconds it takes the edge off of his excitement and you don't get laid.

Just spoke to hubby - all is going well at the rig, he had a new roughneck start who is experienced and came from another rig, which totally takes away a headache from him because untrained roughnecks are the most likely to do someting which will get either them or a work colleague killed - mainly because they are young / inexperienced (read - think they know it all even with training and a watchful eye at all times) / think its easy work for the money / don't really get what its like to be part of a team yet.

Awesome - so now i'm chilling out while my babe is about to start his night shift.

Time for a shot of some wobbly pop :)