What I've been up to

Hello :-) 

Maybe you wondered where the big me have disappear. Well, nowhere at all, I've been ill, much, and I've put all my efforts into finishing (almost) the lower balcony. 

Here is a quick overview of what has been done

at the very beginning, when I discovered my ex piled-up here a bunch of my memories/things, mostly destroyed by the rain and such... A lot of things, and trash too...

I had to clear all the rubbles, what wasn't easy, the recycling center is 5km from home only, but without a car.... ouch

when it was empty, I discovered the walls were falling apart, and were made of whatever they had avalaible like concrete, rocks, wood, bricks, etc

this wall has no window, but is made of 2 weak walls with a space between...and the ouside one was not even finished. The roughcast (??) was falling into pieces

metal here and there, holes, big enough for I loose a arm inside...

I started thinking that all I can do is "blocking" the troubles

François helped me placing big heavy rocks there, rocks that I found on my yard. It's all I could use, no money to get something else

It was better but...I finally repaired all the walls, coated them with a heavy roughcast (concrete type), and painted it

I planned to stop there, because I was exausted, but as I had leftover tiles from the other balcony (my ex always said there was more than enough for the 2), I decided to settle them, because they were taking a lot of space inside. That's how I discovered there was not enough of those. I can't buy new ones, I can't buy some of the same kind (no more produced)... I first thought about creating a motive in the middle, with something else, or buy a smaller one to make a kind of frame all around. But nothing was in my budget (I don't know for other countries, but here everything is expensive, and if you don't live near one of the 10 biggest towns, you find absolutely nothing when you need it). I decided to put all the tiles in the middle, letting a large space all around. That's how I discovered the tiles are not all the exact same size, some are distort, etc. Nothing could stop me. I did it.

see the huge gap on the sides !

Then I filled all the spaces with sealing, making a lage one all around.

I didn't care anymore, I was too tired and ill to fight with my obsession to do things well

Weights here and there, and that's it !

almost finished, only the door and window to repair

I finished at night, but I'm so happy it's done. It's been my project for this year, I now try to work on the other balcony. I was supposed to find a solution for the shutters falling apart, for the stairway outside and inside, repair the plumbing and power troubles... but I have no leftover energy or money.

Let's say it's just one thing almost done, but it's yet ONE from the huge list done !

Some news (Sylvanian related & not)

Hello !

I just come to give some news, and the very first is that I am SO happy to tell that Bois Joli's post office is going to be totally efficient now, because a little guy is flying to me. Yes, I found a Samuel postman, it was a bit overpriced (because of the silly shipping cost, 1.5 time the price of the item itself huh). François said it's going to be my gift to reward me for all the hard job I did at home, and the gift for my "feast". I'm not sure it's something celebrated in other countries, but here we have a catholic Saint for each day of the year, so on the day it's the Saint matching your name, you are kind of celebrating it. I believe it's a tradition that's getting lost because now people name their kids with foreign names, or even invent some... So I guess I'm now belonging to the dinosaurs team, having a name that's matching one LOL. Mine is July 27.
We usually don't celebrate much more than wishing people a happy-you-day, but some get flowers, or chocolates, or a little gift. Most of the time only a card. I've always been celebrating ALL the people's "day", but hardly celebrated mine as nobody cared. That's great to have "my day", finally :-) And mostly when there's Samuel Stamp involved hehe

So, for anything else, not much to tell beside that I've been working awfully hard at home, trying to prevent it from falling apart, I still have no clue if I'll be able to keep it, I wish so. Until then, I'm working as hard as I can. I no nothing about all those big home jobs, I'm learning by myself, and using tutorials on youtube (!)
My last big project is to finish the balcony that is on the 1rst floor, and it was NO fun at all. Huge holes in the walls, etc
I'm almost done with the major problems, now I need some finishing and doing a kind of concrete ground before I can try to glue the tiles... Wish me luck
I'm suffering much, I hardly sleep more than 30mn in a row. ALL my body is hurting, and if I know what the problem is (diagnosed by a foreign doc), here they just consider it's not interesting, they don't care. As I have no money to run from a doc to another until I find one that has knowledge about all those things, I just do nothing at all. I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrom, and endometriosis, plus a large amount of tumors here and there, and a weird other orphan illness. It's getting harder each day.

But I still work. Nobody wants to employ me, I get no social help (because I refuse to go living in one of those dangerous building in the middle of drug traffic and other wonders). Working at home is keeping me kind of alive. In a certain way...

I first tried to just fill the holes, gaps, etc

but it wasn't working well. So I started covering it all with a heavy coat of cement/resin/sand

There are a bunch of ugly junctions, but it was too painful, I had to do it over many days...

walls weren't finished, no corners, etc

can you see the gap I had to fill ?

I used a kind of rail made of metal, and started filling the missing corner with rocks and a kind of very sturdy concrete mix

it started to get better

after

I still need to change a part of the glass (broken), repair all the wood of the window, and the door is not better... argh

*

and then I coated the walls too. Why not ? LOL

before/after

I start to enjoy cement and concrete more than stitching LOL

Ok, so I'll be back soon I hope, to show you my last creative finds, I tried to order a couple of things online with the last money I had on my paypal account (we are talking about 12 euros, don't expect wonders LOL), I tried a couple of asian sellers for scrapbooking dies, ink for my stamping, etc. I have more trust in asian sellers than french ones, and I believe I'm true about it. Most french sellers are *** ***** like the one that is living 25km from home. I bought from her a used stamp set from Stampin'up, and after 2 weeks nothing came... Ah ?! I asked her. It took her 3 more days to tell me she had been busy but she'll try have it done this next week... HUH ?! "TRY" ???? No, do not try, DO IT ! And maybe telling me instead of having me wondering and waiting for nothing ? Or maybe telling "I'm sorry" ??? No ???? I sometimes wonder if those people were raised by wild boars. Or salmons maybe. Gosh, I had the ugliest parents in the world, they taught me nothing, but still I am telling things like "thank you", "I apologize", or ....Argh.....

 I'm going to let her know the bottom of my thoughts when (if) she finally sends it. No matter it's a 5€ thing. And if I don't get it by the end of next week, I'll start a paypal dispute. Grrrrrrrr. So ok, lesson learnt, I've been ordering several times in my own country and it always was a problem. People are just not serious. That's why now I'll get anything from elsewhere.

That was my "venting" moment, sorry so LOL

Toy room improvement

As you know I still have no clue about the future, maybe I'll loose my house and end being kind of homeless, but nevermind, I keep on working, just because this house deserves more than what my ex husband did for it.

So, my current "recreative" activity is to do something for the ceiling. Every other option was way too expensive and complicate : finding someone who is willing to work (and actually comes to do it) is quite hard, someone who is going to work well is harder to find, working well without asking for 10 times what it's worth is yet a dream, and work well on something complicate it's just impossible). After thinking high and low about all the options, I went for the simplest and cheapest one, even if it's something I HATE to work with. Kind of styrofoam thing. I chose one with a girly style, just because it was the cheapest in the heaviest material. It's great that it's this design that was matching my needs, because all the others were totally ugly !
The ceiling being distort all ways, with a bunch of holes, things attached, pipes all kind, electrical links and such, it's going to be a nightmare. But all my life has been a nightmare, so... more or less...

Let's go. I think it's going to take me a couple of weeks to achieve it.

It's what it looks like at the beginning

what a disaster !

I don't know yet how I'm going to fill this big hole

I can't hide or untie all those pipes, I'll have to make creative silly cuttings

that's a bunch, but according to my calculating I need 84 of those plaques

ouch

The ceiling is a parallelogram, the walls are too, and they have all the curves you can imagine

 

and here I am, standing in precarious balance between the top of my scale and my village... yes, I am walking on my seaside corner... no choice

Wish me luck for I don't fall straight in the middle of it LOL

Et du gros bricolage aussi....

Ma maison ne ressemble à rien, s'écroule partout, donc cette année j'essaie de réparer (entre autres) le balcon... y'a du boulot ! Un maçon m'a ri au nez, les autres ont fait des devis de malades... donc... y'a qu'à trouver petit à petit des sacs de matériaux, trouver un moyen de les rapatrier chez moi (aucun magasin ne propose de livraison à moins de 120€, youpi, pas possible), et surtout puiser dans le peu de forces que j'ai pour essayer de faire quelque chose

pour le moment, l'idée était déjà de traîner de lourdes pierres pour boucher le trou, profitant des murs extérieurs effondrés suite aux inondations pour récupérer de quoi faire... boucher tout ce que je pouvais avec le 1er sac, et François m'a aidée en portant les pierres, bien trop lourdes pour moi (ça n'a pas l'air, comme ça, mais y'a environ 350kg pour boucher le trou !)

Souhaitez-moi bonne chance.... bon courage... ou simplement de trouver un bon enduit moins cher que celui que j'ai trouvé qui adhérerait sur tous ces matériaux parfois bien pourris....