A Lovely Visit, a Finished House and Some Laughing

A lovely visit, a finished house and some laughing, the week 48 stories from the Carr family are now committed to the forever of the Internet.

Visit
Because of the party weekend, we got to be on the receiving end of a cross border visit from our good friend Patricia and her two boys for the last 3 days. It was a short visit, but SO nice to see them, and it only reminds me that great friends are ones you don’t have to see or even talk to every day to be great, but when you do see them, you are right back where you once were. Often, the people in your life that contributed to making you who you are, are sometimes people who might not know how much they have made a difference in your life. And sometimes, you forget to say thank you to those people, so it seems like a good time to say thank you to Pat!

Laughing
There is an expression, or short form that is so popularly adapted by society today, that it makes me laugh when I think about it. When I first heard it, I hated it, and although I don’t often actually “laugh out loud”, I still use it everyday, and this week I did finally LOL! The back-story is that Nathalie’s car has been in and out of service for the last couple of weeks. Not necessarily a laughing matter, but each time it goes in, Nathalie gets a rental. We are getting closer to what is funny, so stick with me. ALL the repairs are under warranty, so that is funny, but not what made me laugh out loud.

You see, while driving with Nathalie in her little sleek black Pontiac G6, we witnessed one of those scary driving moments. A little old lady, who looked like she should have stopped driving a couple of years ago, reeking havoc right out there in the public. We counted 2 or 3 moving violations in just a couple of minutes, certainly scary enough from a distance but when she got directly behind us, Nathalie started screaming. I was trying to figure out what the problem was, and said, “what are you worried about, it’s a rental!” when Nathalie starts laughing and almost crying and says, “I waved the insurance!” Well that was enough, I started laughing, and we started watching in the mirrors, trying to get away from driving miss Daisy.

House
We had some crazy last minute spit and polish on the house, in preparation for the big party yesterday for Julia’s first communion, and by all accounts we did a good job. The truth is, that this last 2 or 3 days were a little more then spit and polish, with the backsplash in the kitchen now done, and we also finished so many other projects that had been at different stages of completion.

It would seem that there is a truth to the statement “where there is a will, there is a way”, because we certainly had the will to finish before the party, and now that the driveway is clear, and most of the dishes are done, as we look around at what we have been able to accomplish in just 8 months, I am so proud of US. Thanks to so many that have chipped in along the way, and thanks to Nathalie for sticking with me, sleeves up and on her knees all the way.

Communion
A little white dress, a hairpiece with beaded lace and shinny white dress shoes with the fancy high heels, helped our little girl reach another milestone in her journey as a good Catholic girl. Julia has now had her First Communion and she looked so grown up in her little white dress that both Nathalie and I had a hard time holding the tears back. We have been looking forward to this day for a while now, so the fact that it is now over, seems in a way a little odd, but I am sure happy that the day went off without a hitch and the little lady of the hour seemed to have a good day. She was not a big fan of all the attention, and often refused to smile for long periods of time, but when the dust was settled she said thank you to us for a wonderful day.

Tell two friends
The best marketing is the word of mouth kind, and in that light, I need to tell you about some great help we have had with the house over the last couple of weeks, and since my voice is my blog, I am writing about it now! The first is our carpet guy. It started with the old house, when we needed someone to fix some worn areas were Bentley had showed he was upset that he was not allowed in the bedrooms while we weren’t home. We did a search on Google for “Carpet repair Mississauga” and found Louie at A1 Carpet Repair. He did such a thorough job, inexpensively and well above our expectations, we said then and there if we ever needed to get carpet we have our guy.

Well, we needed to either repair or replace the carpet on the stairs in the new house, so we called our guy, and again he exceeded our expectations. Not only our expectations, but also expectations we did not even know we had. When we did not know how we where going to do with the seam left, where the edge of the laminated floor and the stair banisters meet, it was Louie that said, “why not just cover it with carpet”. So that’s what we did. The carpet looks so great and we are so happy to recommend A1 Carpet to anyone.

The second recommendation we need to make is the company we used to install the stacked stone as our backsplash. They did such a wonderful job, that I have to take a minute and recommend Wilkinson fireplace who sold us the stone, and did the installation and we are so happy with the outcome. If you need stacked stone, or beautiful fireplace, or millwork, this is the company you should use!

In closing
In true “confession” fashion, I need to confess that this week, I am lacking the brilliant conclusion to this weeks Carr family blog. There where a couple of excellent conversations with the girls, and because I was driving, I was unable to email or txt the info to myself so as a result, I can’t remember what it was that was said. I guess a true sign of age? I am sure it will pop back into my mind, and when id does, I will be witting it down, so that I may be able to commit it to the World Wide Web in future weeks, but for now I will just say…

As I continue to look for the missing stories, I thank you for reading and wish you a happy and safe week.
Jim