Old House Problems

My house in Hintonburg is a little over 100 years old, which is pretty old for Canadian standards. It has lots of quirks...and more than a few problems to go along with them.

Oddly enough, if I was living in a new home every little problem would annoy me - a new home should be perfect. But this home literally has no completely straight walls or floors. Everywhere you look you can see some slight imperfection. Nothing is catastrophic but because there are so many little issues I don't mind any of them.

That said, there is a difference between problems affecting aesthetics and those affecting functionality. The former is no big deal but the latter can be downright annoying. And the worst is when it feels like everything is breaking at the same time. Just this week, for example, my garage door started jamming up, my kitchen sink stopped working and my freezer started leaking! Argh, there's only so much a man can take! Amazingly enough though, I was able to fix all three issues without too much fuss.

First, the sink. It turns out the screw in the middle of the sink was just loose. I tightened that up and now the sink drains fine.

Second, the garage door. Again, all it required was for me to tighten some bolts in the door. It's now back to its pre-jamming-but-rickety-old self.

Marshmallow keeping an eye on my work

Finally, the leaky freezer (which is part of the fridge). For weeks now my freezer has been occasionally leaking water and I had no idea why. It turns out there's a hole in the back of the fridge where water drains into and that was frozen over. So that had to be de-thawed and a little rubber piece that allows the water to drain had to be cleaned out.

A blow dryer is a legitimate tool

My hands have the scars to show for all this work but still it feels good that I was able to fix all these problems myself.* Who knew I could become such a handyman?!

Band-aids - proof of battle damage

* I can't take full credit for fixing the freezer issue. My good friend D noticed the problem and sent me a youtube video that showed me how to fix the problem.

Serendipitous Brownies

Do you ever wonder in awe at some of the serendipitous moments that pop up in life now and again?

One moment you may be attending a Brownie sing-along with your daughter and a few hundred other eager little girls on Parliament Hill and then, before you know it, you realize that your Brownie event has been crashed by a motley crew of pop and rock fans singing an impromptu memorial to Gord Downie, the late lead singer of the Tragically Hip!

Don't miss that sing-along Margot!

It wasn't supposed to happen this way but poor ol' Gord just happened to die the day that the sing-along was scheduled. Fortunately (for the Hip groupies as it's hard to compete with hundreds of little girls singing campfire songs) the two events didn't quite overlap. The Brownie event ended at 7:30 pm, which is just when the Tragically Hip tribute started to get rolling.

"Down by the bay where the watermelons grow...."

The nice thing about the whole experience was that the two groups actually merged for one song, a rousing rendition of "Oh Canada".

Singing Oh Canada on Parliament Hill as a tribute to Gord Downie - it doesn't get much more Canadian than that!

Just your typical Wednesday night in the nation's capital!

Gatineau Park by the Back Door

Glosette Girl and I used to go for walks in Gatineau Park all the time when we lived on the Quebec side of the border. The park is huge (361 square kilometeres) with many day use and over night trails.

I made it my mission to try all the day-use ones. Some are gentle. Some are rough and tumble. And some have historical plaques or sites. Personally, I just like walking in the woods. It's so peaceful!

Paradoxically, around this time of year, when the leaves are changing colour and many would say the park is at its most beautiful, accessing the park can be a bit of a pain it the butt. There are just too many tourists descending on the same few trails and lookouts hoping to snap their photo of "Canadiana".

The standard tourist route is to take the main road through the park, the Champlain Parkway, and stop at a few of the lookouts and maybe do a short hike (probably Pink lake) on the way up to the Champlain lookout, which overlooks Ottawa. It's a nice route but again the swarms of tourists take away from the experience.

Recently though, I discovered a new trail on the  north eastern edge of the park: Brown Cabin Trail.

Orange + yellow leaves = fall. Actually its been so mild there's still a lot of green...

Think of the park as a wedge. Most people drive up the middle to the lookout. To access the Brown Cabin trail you have to drive around the wedge, up Highway 5, and stop just before you get to the pretty village of Wakefield (side note - if Glosette Girl and I hadn't decided to become urbanistas we probably would have ended up here. Haha I probably would be walking around in mud splattered overalls after a day of harvesting up my organic crops right about now).

It's only just over 30 minutes from our house to get to the trail head, which is amazingly short amount of time to get to an a trail in an almost wild trail like this one. Plus, we were practically all alone! 

Showing off the latest in wood walking styles

Singing about Star Wars in the woods

The hike itself was two hours (6 km) roundtrip at Margot-speed. And there is a 4-season cabin with a wood burning fireplace you can rent in the middle to boot! Hmmm I may have to try that this winter...

Thankgiving Thanks

Things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving:

1. The local population of monkeys

They did this like 10 times

 2. Star Wars aficionados

A new generation of fandom is born!

3. mmmmm....Thanksgiving meat! (with apologies to all the vegetarians out there)

4. Playgrounds with turrets. Actually anything with turrets is pretty cool in my books. 

Unfortunately this playground is in Toronto. Boo! So far!

 5. Finding time for family

Piano Man

Here at Tough Cookies Hintonburg Style we don't rest on our laurels. No siree Bob!

If Margot does after school activities, the parents have to do do something too. So what does that mean exactly? Well it means that every Monday from 6:30-7 pm I now have Piano lessons.

Yes, stay tuned friends because a new virtuso is coming into the world!

Soon, soon I promise you, I will make hearts soar like an eagle and eyes water like Niagara Falls as I play the most dashing, most daring, most tricked out version of "Merry Had a Little Lamb" that has ever graced this fair and gentle land. "Simon Glen Parham Gould" - has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

Actually I just thought it would be fun to pick up a new hobby. Margot is at Brownies every Monday and it's the perfect time to skip across the street to where my piano teacher lives and grab half-an-hour for a quick lesson before scooting home for some practice on my bad boy:

OK, maybe that's not my normal piano (snapped this photo at a super cool event over the weekend). It's still fun to pick up something new though. The last hobby I took up was bird watching and that was...7 years ago maybe? I even blogged about it at the time. This feels different though. It's one thing to snap photos of birds now and again. It's another thing to pick up something that requires daily practice, discipline and finesse.

Its fun though. My job is very stressful and always in the back of my mind. But when I'm playing piano I have to be in the moment so I forget all about that. If nothing else it's worth it just for that!