Saturday we went to Canada to visit my BFF (Rx) from junior high. Rx, her hubby and their little girl rented a house for the weekend along with another couple they know in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Yes, that IS the name of the town. It's a cutesy winery region so there are lots of things to do. Since we were just up for the afternoon/ evening we just went out to dinner and hung out at the house drinking wine until we had to kick it on home. (rather, we all drank except the hubby as he had to drive us 3 hours home...)
Good times, good times.
Sunday we went to the hubby's Aunt and Uncle's "camp" on Lake Ontario. There were a million people there!! Family and friends galore! It was a good time - partly because we were able to bring the dogs so I didn't worry about them home alone nor did we have to leave early to get back to them. There were only two minor setbacks to the day. The hubby's cousin brought their 9 month-old baby boy. Needless to say my MIL kept jabbing kid comments my way all day. She even went so far as to say "you just have them and I'll raise them for you!" Um... if you want more kids that badly why don't you adopt??? Needless to say she still hasn't gotten the message to drop the child issue. But at least I'm to "a place" that I don't get as worked up about it anymore. But I still find it hard not to throw some snarky comment back at her about it. As all DIL's know - the MIL can dish it out but they can't take it. At least not without starting a huge fight. So I keep my mouth shut. And no, seeing a cute infant did not change my mind about my baby-making plans. So for all my friends out there that are still hoping I'll change my mind - sorry. Not happenin'.
The other setback was that Niki fell down the stairs. But not just any stairs... The house is built into a hill. To get down to the water you can walk down the side of the house, down the hill or you can take the very looong, steep stairs off the back deck. I'd been walking around with the dogs all day but apparently Niki decided she was going to give the stairs a try. I only saw her flop down the last 4 or 5 stairs to the ground but other people said she started her fall about one-third of the way down. Everyone ran over to her because she was just lying there. The hubby's 11 year-old cousin even started crying because she thought she was dead! (she wasn't the only one who thought that.) She laid there a bit with all of us around her as I was gently poking and prodding to see where she was injured. I couldn't find any tender spots. After a few minutes she got up and walked off like nothing had happened!!
Faker. She's such an attention hog!
In other news....
Have you heard the Northeast has been getting a heat wave?? The worst of it started Monday and I think should end today. So what did I do on Monday and Tuesday?? I did lots of hard, demanding outdoor physical labor! (of course...)
I'm hosting a cookout tonight for my office to celebrate the recent wedding of one of our staff. This event got me to finally do something about our deck that is slowly falling apart. Falling apart because 1) it's old and 2) the original owners didn't build it correctly and now it sags. I do not have the time, energy or money to rebuild the deck right now (which is what's going to have to eventually happen.) Our big "house project" this year was buying new windows so the deck is just going to have to wait. So to by myself some time I used a product called "Restore" from Lowes. It's not a stain and it's not necessarily a paint. It has the consistency of a grout slurry and comes with a special roller for application. It eventually will form a hard, non-skid surface over the deck wood. I wouldn't use it on a new deck or anything. But it's great as a "last resort". Which is where we currently are....
My goal was just to refinish the walking surface prior to the cookout. I figured we'd replace the railing (which needs to be replaced - can't wait on that one.) and paint the vertical surfaces in the next few weekends. So on Monday I went to work removing the existing paint with a power sprayer, etc and asked the hubby to start removing the lattice insert pieces that made up the "guts" of the railing since we'll be replacing those anyway. I looked up later and realized he removed ALL the railing. He said he did it because it would be easier to for me to paint. Wasn't that sweet??? It was. Except now I have to figure out what to do for railings for our cookout since I don't want anyone accidentally falling off the side of the deck....
So all day Tuesday (which I took as a vacation day. Some vacation.....) I painted. And painted more.
Did I mention we're in a heat wave??? Did I mention we have a HUGE deck??? (almost 500 sqft!!)
Yes I wore sunscreen (70+, no less) and a hat, shorts and a bathing suit top. My cheeks still got pink!! (yes, I reapplied throughout the day.) And Tuesday when the hubby went to put the sunscreen on me he noticed - well, it's kind of hard not to notice - that my back had broken out terribly from all the sweat and sunscreen the day before. When I say "broken out" I don't mean a few blocked pores here and there. It's like a rash! I'm covered!! It's quite disgusting, actually. I'm not burnt at all. But I think that was my body trying to tell me not to do physical outdoor labor in a HEAT WAVE!!! Needless to say I will not be wearing a tank top this evening at the cookout.
I'll try and take some pictures of the Par-tay this evening to share. And I'll try not to make it so long until my next post!!
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