Thankful...

Today I am feeling so thankful! NICO, Jacques cousin came over to help us 'cord' wood - in preparation for our first winter using a wood furnace. To me, this process seems pretty 'primitive' but to many around us SWEAR by heating with wood. I don't know, the luxury of turning the heat up and it being there without having to be adding wood to the furnace to fuel the fire and thus heat the house - seems nice too me! We'll wait and see after we experience our first winter with wood heat. Many people say that once you heat with a wood furnace, you'll never go back.

There has been so many preparations with our house, to prepare for our delivered wood to be 'corded' (cleaning the shed for stuff from the garage, cleaning the garage for wood to be stored, cleaning & preparing under the deck -where the remainder of the wood is stored- so the wood will dry). It's been alot of physical work! I have to admit - right now I'm not feeling too positive about heating with wood. But feeling THANKFUL that Nico has taken so much of his time to help us learn the 'in's and out's' about heating with wood - is something I DO feel!

I am also feeling particularly grateful that our counter tops (that we ordered and paid for 6 weeks ago) will finally be installed. It's been a 'comedy of errors' - taking so long, the wrong counter tops coming in & some not coming in at all, the next ones coming in and being cut the wrong size, etc. Let's just say I am SO thankful (even though I am dreading the work on Wednesday) that we will finally have the FACE LIFT on our kitchen and en suite (the main bathroom's counter top needed to be re-ordered to be cut the correct size - then this will complete the bathroom renovations) that I have so much looked forward to having!!

The only renovations that remain to be completed are all new doors (14 in all - painted and installed - which I am doing myself but need the counters in the garage out of the way to make room to paint), the concrete front step needs to be fixed (which we still can't find anyone to do for us) and the 2 PVC windows in the basement. I also need to do some minor buffing & refinishing of cupboards in the bathrooms (I may decided to do this for all the hardwood as well - we'll see how energetic I feel)! I can't wait for EVERYTHING to be DONE, DONE, DONE - then life can resume to normal - and I can feel like we are not always spend, spend, spending!!!

So, today I am feeling pretty darn thankful that things are gettin' done and especially for Nico coming to help so much!