Wrapping Up

This week was all about finishing up some projects before leaving to Switzerland and France. This will be our first vacation in Europe since the girls were born. They are almost four! It has been a while. We will leave tomorrow, Sunday, to visit Claire. I hope we can manage the long car ride...

Today we need to get packed up and wrap up a few more things, including finishing the bedside tables. I also wrapped up the cracked coffee table, made a new top for it, and finally finished the video of the cabinets upstairs. Managed to get everything finished up at school too. The weather has been crummy, so it was good to be productive inside.

Sure is nice to be able to time things so well! The feeling of having everything wrapped up before leaving is a good one. Yesterday was King's day, so the girls had some fun in town while I was busy working.

A King's day waffle.

April Summer

All of the sudden, summer has arrived. Unfortunately it is supposed to leave us today with a few thunderstorms this afternoon. It has been in the 70s and 80s this week and sunny! The trees suddenly have leaves. The sandbox has been well-used. The girls have had more fun playing in the garden than anything else lately. They even wanted to do that instead of watching TV!

We also got a lot done. Yesterday we even cleaned off the roof and gutter. Naomi wore her flip flops, and wiped out when she walked on a slippery wet patch. Didn't get a chance to wash the car, but maybe the thunderstorms will do that for us. This week we will have to get all ready to go to Switzerland as we are leaving on Saturday!

I should be able to finish up both projects I am currently doing in the woodshop - the bedside tables and re-doing the cracked up coffee table before we leave. The drawers in the bedside table are going together better than I expected although the finger joint detail didn't turn out so well. The interesting bits are hidden by the drawer slides, but the mistakes are a bit obvious. Oh well. It is still pretty cool that I don't need handles - they open by pushing them in.

The new top for the cracked up coffee table.

It was so good, I made this meal twice this week!

A bit of mountain biking.

Cleaning off the roof.

One Week

We have only had a week of nice weather, but it seems like it has been nice for a month now. Just feels normal. This coming week it is supposed to get up to around 80! What a pleasure. The gardens are happy - and Naomi has been happy to be working in them.

Our neighbor's garden is a different story though. We were all very sad on Friday when they cut down the tree in their front yard. Our house feels really exposed now! These people definitely don't belong in this neighborhood.

School has finally calmed down for me. I have a bit more time now to talk with colleagues and relax a bit during the day. I am curious to see how far the school is willing to go next year with their plans for a new kind of education - less traditional and more project based. Seems like not much will change next year...

I transformed an antique crib from Switzerland into a couch this week.

70 Degrees!

We finally got a break. Warm, sunny weather! Yesterday we got ice cream, fired up the grill, and ate outside! What a relief. The gardens are happy too. Lots of little buds getting opening up on the trees. Naomi also put a lot of work into making things look a lot nicer, and with our neighbors tearing all the plants out of their side we keep appreciating what we have even more!

I picked up a small new project this week. It is an antique baby bed from Switzerland that someone wants turned into a big chair/loveseat. Kind of fun. Also great to be able to use the new tools, although the drill is making a funny noise...

School was much more relaxing this week. Partly because of the nice weather on the way, and partly because my projects have been started, so all that prep work is out of the way. Fun to be setting an example for the direction the school wants to go.

Easter celebration with the twin boys.

New drill - the 90 degree attachment is great.

New torx bits.

Progress on the bedside tables.

A Grumpy Easter

This morning I woke up feeling tired and a bit homesick. The weather outside is pure gloom, so that doesn't help. The girls got some fun new toys from the neighbor that they are playing with, and we will paint some easter eggs later on. Sure would be nice to do something outside!

One annoying thing about being self-employed is that if I take time off for holidays, I just have to make it up at some other point. With teaching, I just get the time off! Hopefully next year I will be scheduled for a Monday or a Friday.

Now that I have made a bit of profit with my business, I have some money to spend. I spent a lot of time this week figuring out how to do so. Time to invest in the best. A second drill and some special bits. We shall see if it is worth the money...I am excited to try it out!!

Yesterday we went to the greenhouse to get some plants and mulch for the garden. Naomi has been working a lot on it, and things are starting to look a lot better! Nice that she has been able to enjoy the weather. Tomorrow we will celebrate Easter with our friends in town who have the twin boys. That seems to be the start of a new tradition.

Amélie found something just her size at the greenhouse!

Week One

Naomi's first week away from work was far from relaxing. On Wednesday, I had a work conference followed up by a dinner that ended up being a 16 hour day, including 4.5 hours of driving. Good thing we have a nice car. Thursday was a recovery day and I worked for my business Friday (when Naomi could barely get out of bed) and Saturday.

Friday I was busy with attaching the legs of the bedside table. I decided to make the switch to torx screws, so now I will need to get some new screwdriver and bit sets. I got tired of stripping out the screws and not having enough torque. On Saturday I installed some shelves to help organize the shed of Naomi's cousin. Finally a bit of warm weather for that project! The pieces have been taking up space in my workshop since before Christmas, so it is nice to have the space back.

This morning the time changed, so I hope I am able to continue waking myself up without an alarm. I really wish they would stop changing the time - I think it is annoying. We also stopped locking the girls room, but it will take a little while before they are used to the extra freedom. Good to get used to it before the big vacations though!

Figuring out how to attach the legs.

Organizing the weights.

Naomi has been busy cleaning up the garden.

Back to Winter

Just as we were getting used to the warm weather - even the frogs and the fish were waking up in the pond - we get hit with another blast of winter. Completely uncalled for. I am really in need of the warm weather!!

It was tricky to stay motivated to work for my business this week. I started making some bedside tables for upstairs and the design is not easy to execute. There were also some distractions. On Monday morning we visited a primary school with the girls. They will start after the summer holiday, so we need to choose one of the two schools that are right around the corner. Our minds were already pretty much made up, but this visit exceeded my expectations. Beautiful building, positive atmosphere, and some room to let the girls do something different from the rest of the group when needed. Afterwards we took them to daycare, but they didn't want to go! They really wanted to stay at school!! Something to look forward to.

The school where I teach is mixing things up. They are transitioning from a traditional way of doing things to something that is more project-based and subject-integrated. I am really interested in moving in this direction, so I have become an overnight expert. Next year I will probably have some kind of coaching/consulting role in the transition. Nice to be in the right place at the right time!

In other news, Naomi has decided to stop working entirely this week. She will go back eventually, but this is a sort of indefinite, paid furlough. The system allows for that here. If you get stressed you can just stop working until you get the rest needed, and you keep your full salary. This is really perfect for Naomi, because she really needs the time, but there are a lot of people who abuse the system.

Our car needed a couple new tires, so I had to drive this oversized go-cart to work!

I figured out how to make finger joints with a regular table saw.