girly weekend

I am sorry to say that I have neglected my blog this week. I could have shared photos of our Christmas tree that we put up, of the sparkely decorations that Ella and I made, of Ella's snowglobe collection that we have put out, but ALAS, I have also been negligent in taking photos. Somehow the week flew by...Ella had shortened days at school this week, Oscar and Remi were at school until 6pm with wrestling practice, and life just slipped by....

Hopefully I'll find a chance to take photos this week.

This weekend, though, Matt and the boys wanted to stay down in CT (Connecticut for Aunty Liz), while Ella and I went up to VT (Vermont) as I wanted to try and paint her bedroom. The contractors were supposed to come in during the week and skim coat the damaged walls, but to their own detriment they hadn't. I was really mad, as I would have liked to stay down this weekend and go to the rugby function that Matt was going to. To begin with I thought I'd just paint 2 of the walls that didn't need skim coating, but as I started, I realised that they were so old and rough anyway that I may as well have a go at skim coating the other walls myself. Which I did. I didn't do it with plaster as that seemed too messy and complicated- I used joint compound which is used to cover small holes in walls. They're not perfect by any means, but they're done and they actually match the other walls and I probably saved us a couple of hundred dollars, so who can complain!!!! Ella and I worked really hard all weekend and this is how far we got- still need to paint the ceiling and all the trim/bookcase shelves white instead of cream, but for now it's fine. She's having her best friend up next weekend and she wanted to be able to "show off" her room. I asked her to take photos of it this afternoon before we left, so this is all totally from her perspective...

I adore the colour...it's called "cornflower bouquet" (Glidden, satin), but it looks more blue in this than it is. It's one of those colours (like most of the colours I've chosen for the house) which changes in different light, but it's right between blue and purple. And it's actually covered all those beat up walls quite well. You can see that we haven't put the crown moulding back up (another thing that the contractors were supposed to do), but at least she will be able to enjoy it next weekend. But it will be a beautiful room when it's finished.

And in the mean time, we had a lovely weekend together- just the two of us. She slept in my bed and we told stories and giggled, we got a Christmas tree and decorated it - our VT tree (the camera battery died when she went to take a photo), we got some delicious pasteries and had afternoon tea, we went out to dinner with friends. We listened to Doctor Who and How to train your Dragon audio tapes in the car and while painting and generally had a really special time together.