Last week I complained about the unfinished job on our front lawn. I will admit I honestly did not think that our walkway was going to be finished. We were the only ones on the street by last weekend who had not had their various walkway stones put back.

But then today I came home early (after a particularly brutal and stupid day) and saw this:

Good heavens! A WALKWAY! And with SHINY NEW PATIO STONES!

Now there’s a shock!

They are even all nicely lined up and solid when you walk on them (unlike our old ones that wobble to and fro).

I guess this waited so long because they had to order the stones? And they even replaced the two broken ones! And took the old ones from our lawn and carried them away!

So here we have the finished product! I highly doubt we’ll get new grass at this time of year. Never mind the fact that it’s currently 39C (103F) as I write this post – which is HIGHLY unnatural for this time of year. It’ll start dipping below zero soon enough (I hope!) so any new sod will just die out quickly.

My only complaint? This -

They left the – whatever the heck that thing is  - thingy really high up. This will be broken/knocked over/whatever once winter starts and the snow plow (or us with the shovel) removes the snow. I don’t know if they plan on coming back and hammering it into the ground a little more? I think it’s rather hazardous still and there’s no cone or anything to flag it. I’m not sure what I am supposed to do with this now. I know that *I* will likely drive over it if I attempt to drive any time soon.

(On that note – I have NOT been driving since this was paved because I STILL CAN’T SEE CLEARLY FROM MY LEFT EYE! Argh. Follow-up appointment for that on September 8th.)

So maybe this is done now? Maybe I will be safe from construction vehicles, holes in the ground and dirt and dust soon? Maybe we can finally wash our car for the FIRST TIME in 2010 since there was no point while the construction was going on because it coated out car in dirt every day?

I certainly hope so.

But I will say this – the construction crew that was working on this for 90% of the time (they’d come back and dig up more stuff as the streets were being repaved, etc) were exceptionally friendly, polite, clean and professional. I will sort of miss waving to them every morning. Especially Young Cousin John. I got used to seeing him on daily basis. This was the best construction experience I have ever had that was run by a city. So kudos to my city for a job well done – AND it ended BEFORE October. Impressive.

I am curious as to how long I will get to appreciate all the shiny new streets and sidewalks and driveways before the snow starts. I am very ready for all of this to be over now, please. It’s almost done, it has to be.

On Monday I was home sick but I did happen to get out of bed in time to see a man slice up our driveway with a very powerful handsaw.

I’m sort of glad I staggered out of bed when I did Monday afternoon because I was able to close the windows in the living room to keep out the huge amount of dust that thing kicked up. Also it was loud. Not the sort of thing one wants to hear with a migraine so bad it’s causing vertigo and nausea. Luckily most of the driveways had been done the week before – no idea why they waited until I was home sick. Oh! Maybe they wanted to be sure I could capture it on film for my chronicles! How nice of them!

Today we were woken up at the crack of dawn by the sounds of someone trying to tear down our house.

Or…

Perhaps it was this here tractor pulling up our asphalt and the men with pickaxes helping them. I tell you what, at 7AM, with your open window right above the driveway? It sure sounds like someone is trying to tear down your house, or at least break through the front walls. Yeesh. I leaped out of bed and woke up Shawn and said “I think we need to move the car NOW or we’ll be on the bus!”

And may I take a moment here to tell you all how ticked off I am that even with my earplugs in this wakes me up and yet Shawn sleeps through the whole bloody thing? REALLY! What the hell!? This is so unfair! Gah!

But I digress, or as a lovely blog friend of mine says, I’m tigressing.

Since the line was so close to where the car was the men had to help the tractor pull up some of the driveway. I am sort of baffled that they didn’t want us to move the car (Shawn ran out and asked them). How do you explain “A tractor dropped asphalt on it” to your insurance company?

Then it took about 5 men to figure out what to do with some tough roots and weeds under the patio stones. I kid you not.

They pondered this a while actually, it was funny to watch. Best was the two older men with big burly mustaches tried to poke at the weeds a little and seemed to have been thrown off by their toughness because the gestured at each other as if to say “Unh, huh, huh huh (french person noise) dis is impossible, eh? We cannot dig up dis weed!” Only in French. So they left them for the younger (Young Cousin John) guy to do and they walked away and smoked cigarettes. This is NOT a joke!

Then Young Cousin John used the “ba-dump-a-dump” machine (as I called it) to flatten down the gravel they raked into place. Then he left it behind our car and went on to the next driveway. They promised we’d be able to get the car out by 8:30 but then they sort of left their heavy (had to be moved by tractor) ba-dump-a-dump machine behind our car. *tsk* So I said to Shawn we should go back outside and start to get into the car to see if they’ll remember us.

They did.

And when we got home today -

WOOHOO! Paved driveway! Half of it anyhow. Was really hoping for the entire thing since there wasn’t much left to add to it.

But they did do this…

Not entirely sure why. I mean, they didn’t fill the grooves in all the way and the car wasn’t even in the driveway today! Not sure what this deal is but they did it on my neighbour’s driveway, too. Maybe there was a gap between the new pavement and where the grooves were in the old? Maybe it levels it out? But it still drops down at the end.

And it LOOKS STUPID. I am way too OCD to have my driveway look like this. ARGH!

Not to mention they didn’t put our patio stones back either. So it’s sort of hazardous right now.

We don’t even have a cone this time to note the hazard.  You’d think we would. And it’s not a very straight line now is it? I mean, even if we put our own stones back (which I refuse to do, they took them up, they can put them back, yo!) it won’t line up very well. Plus we’re down two full squares that they broke and took away with the trash. So we’re OWED two patio stones. Hmm.

And we have this pipe/drain THING sticking up and in our way. Yet another hazard! And there’s this gap thing now and a drop and I could break something! Knowing me it’s more than possible!

But I am trying to focus on the GOOD things, like,

• our street is paved
• we’re getting mail at the house (and today I got a boxalope from Penguin Canada! It’s not quite an envelope or a box, it’s a BOXALOPE!)
• our driveway is paved
• it’s the weekend and I shouldn’t be woken up by trucks and tractors beeping at 7 in the morning
• our street and driveway are paved
• I AM GETTING MAIL AT MY HOUSE!

These are all very important and happy things. I can almost see the end… of course even when we think we see the end it just keeps on going and going and going. Sort of like some really long and born English literature book you were forced to read in high school for 90% of your final mark.

This is a photo-less post but it’s a happy update – sure my drive still isn’t paved, but my street is and that means…

I’m getting mail at my house!

This is the most wonderful feeling! I feel like the mail system was just invented and I am experiencing the miracle of mail delivery!

The first bit of mail we got yesterday wasn’t even bills (which really would have sucked). I got bills today, but that’s fine because I also got our new cheques. It’s like a present in the mail, even though they are used to give other people our hard-earned money. Heh.

Many of the driveways on our street have been paved and they stopped a driveway away this evening. I guess we’re up next. So far no one has asked us about doing the entire driveway so I am slightly concerned about that. Looks like a couple of people on the other street had their entire driveways done and they didn’t even have more than half of it dug up like we did.

Hopefully we’ll get asked tomorrow. I won’t hold my breath but it would be nice.

I love my husband. He happened to be home yesterday (looking after a puking Jinx – who is better now!) and emailed me to say “Our street is being paved!” I was so excited I yelled out “they are paving my street!!” in the office as everyone there has of course been suffering along with me as I detailed every single aspect of this stupid destruction since April.

When I got home I quickly changed into non-work clothes, grabbed my camera and started to head out the front door to snap some photos when Shawn said, “Oh, I took photos for you today.”

I LOVE my husband! He’s so sweet and thoughtful! And now I have chronicles of paving!

Look at the entourage the man on the paving machine has! I’ll bet those other guys have to protect him from rampant fans as he finally paves their street after MONTHS of gravel and holes! He’s like a God!

It almost looks like they just put down a tarp! But that’s the first layer of asphalt being smoothed out on the street. Hallelujah!

I’ll bet that man is standing there in bright orange to make sure the machine guy knows which side has the asphalt on it already so they don’t make a mistake!

I sort of wish I was home to see this. Looks like the asphalt gets put down in a similar fashion to the cement curbs from mid-July. It would have been really interesting to watch.

When I got home last night there was still a 3 inch drop from our curb to the layer of asphalt. I was sure they would have to come back and level that out. Just in case they started early in the morning we parked our car on another street last night so we could get out ok this morning.

When we got home tonight – FULLY PAVED STREET!

Look! Even nature is happy! Sunshine! Green leaves on my tree! (Although not as full as it was before it died.) Just a half an inch drop off the curb.

I AM SO HAPPY!

What’s left is half of our driveway & walkway. We believe an independent contractor will be hired to do the driveways as many are much smaller jobs than ours and our neighbours’. What we’re hoping for is a deal to have the entire driveway redone at once. I know my neighbour on the left is hoping for that!

Also left is the paving of the street that ours intersects with. The street that the bus normally travels on. I’ll be looking forward to a completely finished street and section in a couple of weeks.

I can’t believe this is almost done. Just on  Monday I was moaning to my coworker (who lives on that other street) that I didn’t think they were EVER going  to pave our streets. They were just going to continuously dig up and put back all the sewers over and over and over again.

I feel like this is a small miracle. I should have bought a lotto ticket for tonight. Drat!