Good morning and welcome to Friday...yes...the second last Friday of the summer vacation for the kids and the Friday before I begin my last vacation for a little while..I wish I could say I was travelling to exotic locales for my week off but unfortunately...there's too much to do on the homefront....

I am still in desperate need of a pub style dining room table...I've found plenty of them but have yet to find one with a table AND chairs that I like...I just want a plain dark wood circular table with four to six plain plain wood chairs...sounds simple right? Apparently not! I've found tables I liked but hated the chairs and vice versa...so it's more furniture shopping while I'm off...

I am also on the hunt for my own handyman...every girl should have one...someone they can call when things break down at home and you have no idea how to fix them..I do have some guy friends and friend's husbands who are always willing to help and my dad of course but I always think it's a good idea to have an expert on your rolodex...I may have to move quickly on this though one as I'm going to have to make my first home repair...something in my toilet in one the washrooms is squirting water out of the top of the toilet...I googled it ( I put in "why is my toilet squirting water?") and as luck would have it...turns out I'm going to have to head out to Rona and ask someone with a straight face if I can get a part for my toilet that rhymes with "wall sock"..yup...really looking forward to that...and to writing a nasty letter to the person who came up with that name...musta been a guy...just sayin:)

I'm also trying to paint two rooms while I'm off...the one will be a do-over in the master bedroom where I unwittingly smeared my walls with a butterscotch pudding hue a few months back...and the other will be a room I'm calling my "reflection room"...a room that is quickly becoming my favorite room in the house...it contains my grandfather's old recliner...an old flagstone fireplace and eventually will house all of my favorite books..pictures...and other sentimental pieces I've gathered over the years...the room was an accident but a wonderful accident...and I;m loving curling up in my grandfather's old chair and reading every night before I go to bed...remarkably...I could swear it still smells like him...so many years later...whatever the case...I get immense comfort of having a few minutes in it every night...to reflect...hence the name of the room:)

So...will it be the most exciting vacation I've ever had...likely not...I'll be taking it easy and getting things done...throw in a little bit of socializing and it's shaping up to be a great week...the ones without alot of exciting plans tend to turn out to be the best ones...bring it on:)