Questions and Answers & Basement AFTER Pics!!!

Question: What do you do with left over party food?

Answer: Why, you devour it of course!

Hence my snack last night. I ate half and shared the other half with the hubby:



You will be seeing a LOT more party food in my future. Hubby and I froze some stuff, and will be snacking on it happily until it is gone!

Question: What is the definition of genius?

Answer: Having done 185 blog posts, and realizing only now that I can upload multiple pictures at a time. Wow. My parents must be proud.

I got to upload all my food pics in 1 shot today! My breakfast was some Hawaiian Oats:


(1 cup almond breeze, 1/2 cup quick oats, 1 banana, 4 T pineapple, 1 T shredded coconut).

Lunch was this:



Question: Who wants to go out and get groceries when it is -32 C outside.

Answer: Not me!!

And so dinner tonight was all that the hubby and I could scrounge up in our pretty bare fridge ... eggs and toast! Hubby made cheese and tomato omelettes:



We ate really early because we both came home from work HANGRY! Later on I snacked on some crab dip (just imitation crab with helluva dip from Costco) and crackers:



Question: When are you going to get to the "AFTER" pics?????

Answer: Right now!

I shall give you the grand tour of our new basement :-) You walk down the staircase:

And turn the corner to see this hallway:

The first door in the hallway leads you to our 3 piece bathroom:

It is hard to tell from the pics, but when you first walk in there is the sink, and then beside it is the shower, and then beside that (hidden from the view from the sink) is the toilet.

If you continue to the second door in the hallway you get to the laundry room ... but that is boring, so we will move past that.

And enter in to the "living room" area:

Across from the couches you will see this lovely tree with black, white and red ornaments. Once the tree is gone we plan to put a fireplace and TV in its place:

Beside the couches (in the other half of the living room) is this buffet we bought for $20 and then painted, and put new legs and handles on:

Across from the buffet we have some bookshelves:

I love the cute little drawer at the bottom of the tall one!

If you go around the corner again (the basement is like a big square with the laundry room in the middle) you will see our office nook:

And if you keep walking through the door, you will be in the spare bedroom (which has no bed or anything yet):

Here is the view as you walk out of the bedroom back into the main area:

And there you have it! Our newly finished basement. It took WAY longer than expected, and resulted in more tears than it should have.

Speaking of tears ...

This has been probably THE HARDEST year of my life.

1) This basement reno was an absolute nightmare.

2) I went to school for two classes, plus ran participants for my experiment and wrote my thesis - all while working full time with TONNES of overtime and coaching volleyball.

3) I studied for and wrote my GRE test

4) All of these things led to NUMEROUS mental breakdowns. I cannot count the many times I cried, and felt like I wanted to do ANYTHING else other than study etc..

Question: Why is today one of the best days EVER?

Answer: Because as of today, I am DONE my last class of my BA Honours. I submitted the FINAL draft of my thesis after work, and you have no idea how good it felt to hit that send button! So good in fact that I hit it so quickly I forgot to attach my thesis, and had to send another email! Again, my parents would be so proud. Genius move Jolene.

I have been in University every single semester for the last 10 years. This winter semester will be my first semester off, and I seriously could not be more excited.

Usually a second degree is 10 classes beyond your first degree ... I did 23.

Once my marks are in, and I see the degree conferred on my transcripts, then I will celebrate ... but for tonight, the hubby and I just chilled on the couch and watched movies and TV, with not a care in the world.

It was perfect.

Question: What is something that you have done or gone through this year - good or bad?