Calgon couldn't even touch this

I feel like there is a lot I need to write here but I'm not sure where to begin. I expect this post will be all over the place with no real plot line, no thesis, no conclusion. A sure D paper.

The house is mostly put together. There are still a few stray boxes - some winter clothes, one box of toys, a box of DVDs, but mostly everything is unpacked. As we've been really living here the last few days we've made a few discoveries, mostly appliance-related; the oven was 200 degrees off (running way too cool); the washing machine doesn't work; the fridge has a broken gasket; the toilet on the main floor runs; many, many windows don't open; many, many screens on the windows are missing or torn; and there are a few other, smaller things.

It sounds like the place is a money pit (which I guess it is for the owner) and it was a bad decision to live here. But actually, I love this house. It has a ton of character, lots and lots and lots of yard space, huge windows. And the property manager is on top of all the things that have to be fixed (the stove is already fixed). I think we're going to love it here.

What I'm not loving so much right now is Emily's behaviour. In a couple of words, she's totally brutal. I actually can't stand to be around her right now. I know that she's having some trouble adjusting to our change but her level of anger, frustration and downright sourpuss-ness is becoming intolerable. If there were a circus going through town, I might be lining up to sign her up for world's shortest woman.

On a brighter note, we went strawberry picking this morning at a great farm in Wilmot, where I've bought produce before (really, they're known for their corn). It was lovely and I plan to spend tonight making jam. The girls were great during picking and had lots of fun. I won't get into the events that followed but it did almost push me to have an 11:00 glass of wine.

On an even brighter note, my great friend Tamara (she and Greg are our close friends - along with Paul and Marnie - here in town) had her second baby on July 4. Her name is Aisha and she's lovely (of course). We're very excited that we're here to help out.

John is out right now buying us an iPhone. I'm pretty excited about exploring the iPhone Apps. It will put my little Kyocera to much shame.

My next project for tomorrow, aside from having the handyman in to fix all the remaing house issues, is to dig garden beds, weed the existing ones and then go to the garden centre. For my own sanity, I might do that during an evening when I don't have to take any children with me.

This afternoon will end, hopefully, with me sitting near Greg and Tamara's kid pool, sipping wine, while the girls play in the pool, watched by their father and ignored by me.

We're here and we're tired

It's been an exhausting couple of days but the house is actually starting to come together. Eventually I'll post some photos once we acquire a bit more furniture (we're going to Generations this afternoon to look for some used stuff - Generations is the Mennonite equivalent to Salvation Army stores).

Hope is taking this all in a stride, as long as someone is there to give her hugs and play with her once in a while. Emily, the older, isn't dealing with it so well, which is what I expected to happen eventually. She's perpetually grumpy. She's told me a few times that she doesn't like the house, doesn't like Kitchener, wants to go home. Totally normal but I still feel bad that she's unhappy. I know that she'll get to like it and it will just take time. I think tomorrow I'll have to find something fun and unrelated to packing to do together. Perhaps a trip to Waterloo Park to see the animals and play at the multiple playgrounds will do the trick.

And of course, I need a shower. No joke, I wore the same shirt for more than 24 hours straight. And proud of it.

I'll check back in later now that we have access.

The fat lady is getting on the stage

It's almost over, folks. The big move, also known around here as the big headache, is reaching it's peak and I can see the other side.

The house is packed up. Tomorrow morning, we're dropping the kids at Pam and Jim's and going to pick up the Uhaul truck. Then we load. Okay, the guys load while I clean. Nothing like fulfilling gender stereotypes, eh?

We unsure if all our stuff will fit in the size of truck we booked. We have a lot of stuff. Too much. How did we get so much stuff. The reality is that we're moving more furniture than we intended because we're going into a completely unfurnished house. Most likely we'll be making some decisions in the driveway about leaving some things behind that we intended to take. We've already given away our really terrible dining room chairs and it's possible we'll leave the table at the side of the road as well. We may be eating picnic-style for a while.

Postings for the next two days will be sporadic but I should be up and running again by Thursday.

Oh, and as an aside, I had my MRI tonight or what I like to call my entry into the giant donut. That really is what it feels like; like you are entering the donut hole except there is much louder noises than at the standard Tim Hortons. All in all, it was fine and I don't really expect them to find anything which in my opinion is a good thing when it comes to MRIs of the head and neck.

Night all. I need some quality sleep before the big move tomorrow. Think of us and pray that our marriage comes out intact! (So far, so good.)

The medical system must read my blog

because after I wrote my post yesterday, I called the Queensway-Carleton Hospital to ask about getting a quick MRI (not expecting it to happen, of course). But they did it! I have an MRI at 11:00 pm on Monday night! I was flabbergasted. I'm beginning to think wait times are long for those who don't complain a lot.

Anyway, so that will be done before we go. Now I just hope that it doesn't show anything and we can move onto another test. I'll be having the Celiac blood test at the end of August. I could have it anytime but I have to have had gluten back in my system for two months for it to be accurate.

Yesterday, my good friend Pam came over with her kids. The kids all entertained each other while Pam and I did some packing and cleaning. After lunch we headed over to our nearest city pool. The kids tolerated the bit of rain and had a great time splashing around. I'm going to take my girls back today after I get some more packing done.

Last night Julie also came over to help me pack. I had great plans that we would tackle the remaining storage area. Unfortunately, about 40 minutes before she was due to arrive, the power went out in our area. Julie still came expecting it to be back on shortly. No such luck. It remained out until John and I went to bed around 10:00 or so. I actually have no idea what time it was since all our clocks are reliant on electricity. John did wander over to the corner where the Hyrdo guys were working on.... stuff. They told him the thunderstorm had caused the damage to a box in our area and they were trying to figure out where the problem was. It was the longest power outage we've had in this house. Bad timing for packing in the basement, but I do love me a blackout.

Time for some coffee, a shower and some serious packing. The basement, scary as it is, is calling me.

Phase One of The Move

Today a truck arrives around 12:00 to pick up the stuff we want to put in storage. This move thing is for real! You'd think that the house would look more organized or at least packed.

Actually, the stuff for storage is pretty well packed. This morning I still want to go through the laundry room/tool area and organize that but if I don't get to it and there is a box or two to go into storage I can always take that over another time.

The house really does look like it has been ransacked. I'm learning to live with it though. And so are the kids. In fact, they're finding treasures long forgotten that are migrating around the house adding to the chaos. My motto now is Embrace It!

Well, given what's going on today, I better get this day started!

It's ours! (although really I hesitate to say that until the signed lease is in hand)

I got a call yesterday afternoon from Joan, the property manager of the house we so desperately wanted. The owner was "very happy" with our application and asked Joan to draw up a lease for us. So barring anything unforeseen (and I'm always expecting something unforeseen) we should be living in this house as of July 1:


The house has five bedrooms. Five! And it's not because a previous owner split normal-sized bedrooms into tiny bedrooms. These are five regular sized bedrooms (for an older house). That means John will have an office, the girls will have a dedicated playroom, they'll share a bedroom (Emily is thrilled with the idea of a bunkbed), we'll have our room and we'll have a guest room. We've never had a guest room before! Living the high life I tell you.

Aside from all the space inside, the best part of this house is the location. It is a 10-minute walk to Emily's school, a 15-minute walk to Tamara and Greg's house, a 15-minute walk to Uptown Waterloo, a fairly short walk to my friend Marnie's house, and a good nursery school is only about 10 minutes away.

And there is a small fenced yard. A yard begging for a climber, a water table and a sand box. And some tomato plants, lettuce and beans. Hurrah!

And now just to have the lease in hand.

The house of yesterday

I found a house.  It's huge.  Not just huge.  It has five bedrooms.  Five normal sized bedrooms.  It's a brick house, from about the 1920s.  Amazing location - a 10 minute walk to Emily's school, a grocery store, 15 minutes to Greg and Tamara's, 10 minutes to another friend's.  I've put in an application with the property manager, a friend of Greg's luckily.

Unfortunately, the owner has to be faxed the application and then decide if she want us and that won't even start until tomorrow, Monday.  I want to have a house before I leave here.  Otherwise I could be royally screwed.

I'm seeing one other place today which looks really nice from the photos but the location isn't nearly as good as the other.  I'll have a decision to make later.  Ugh.  I hate this.

On a house hunt

I'm in Kitchener.  I drove down yesterday, arrived around 4:00 after a largely uneventful drive.  The only thing to report is that the rental car smells like a hair salon: a toxic mixture of chemicals and cigarette smoke.  I played with Elias, Tamara and Greg's 2-year old son, for a while in the backyard, we all went out to Ben Than for supper (great Vietnamese) and then Tamara treated me and herself to pedicures at Medispa.  It was lovely.  And I have bright purple toenails to show for it.  Emily will love them.

I was supposed to view a house last night but cancelled the appointment after I saw where it was located - a very busy intersection.  

This morning we got up early and headed to New Hamburg for Ontario's Mennonite event of the year: the New Hamburg Relief Sale.  It's essentially a huge fundraiser for Mennonite Central Committee - every penny raised there goes to MCC.  For attendees, it is a day of no regrets eating wise because hey, every penny goes to MCC.  Where can the guilt be in that?  Yeah, so maybe some people eat an entire strawberry pie in a sitting.  Perhaps I ate my weight in Laotian spring rolls (yes, there are Laotian Mennonites).  We also got fresh donuts although I couldn't eat them.  If I was eating wheat right now however, I would have eaten cream buns and rollkuchen.

On our way home we drove around looking for anything else promising for housing and actually found something.  I'm viewing it at 2:30 and have high hopes!  Greg will be doing the negotiating so even if it doesn't work out, it will at least be extremely entertaining.  Greg loves to negotiate.  He lives for a bit of conflict.  He really should have been a Turkish market vendor or something similar.

More later.

Some stuff

I was looking at my calendar the other day and was shocked and appalled by how full it is getting between now and the end of June.  Some events are fun (trip to NYC for our 10th anniversary!), some are not-so-fun (yearly check-up at the dermatologist).  When you are planning a biggish move, time gets eaten up rather quickly.

In order to get all this packing business underway, I'm having a garage sale tomorrow (please, hold off rain!).  I've gathered up all our junk, er, treasures and will be perched in my front yard with a steaming mug of ginger tea yelling at those blasted neighbourhood kids to get off me dang lawn!  And of course nicely bargaining with the passers-by.  After that is all done and I've deposited the leftovers at the Salvation Army I'll be ready/forced to really start packing.

Two other updates:  (1) toilet training still kind of the same.  Yesterday wasn't great.  Today is way better.  The usual ups and downs.  I'm starting to realize (I'm a bit slow sometimes) that toilet training is truly a multi-week if not multi-month project of reminding and rewarding and cleaning up.  I've also realized something else:  it's my least favourite part of parenting.  (2) I think I might have Celiac Disease.  More on that later.  For now let's just say that wheat is ass-kicking me all over the place.

Like sands in the hourglass....

The days are ticking away until we have to vacate our house.  June 30 is looming large and to walk into our house you would have no idea we weren't planning on being here for the next year.  The house looks very, um, lived in.

It's been hard to be motivated to work through the usual clutter and start packing when your body doesn't cooperate by feeling well.  But this week I have to start in earnest.  The first step will be to decide on a good and well-priced storage unit nearby.  Any recommendations?

The next step will be to start to go through things to get rid of (if ever there was an opportunity to de-clutter, it's now) and prepare for either a garage sale or a big donation to Salvation Army.  In particular need of attention is our garage and storage areas in the house.  

I'm also going to sell a toy or two.  The first thing to be put up, sadly, will be the beautiful doll house I got for Emily's birthday last year.  She hasn't played with it once.  Hope occasionally walks around the house dragging pieces from it but that's pretty much all the action it has seen.  If anyone is interested in a (almost) fully equipped Plan Toys First Dollhouse, send me an email.  So sad.

And after that I have to get boxes and actually start packing.  Since the weather has beautified our weekends have started to fill up and time seems to be speeding by.  We have to fit a visit to Kitchener in to look for a house/apartment.  June 30 will be here (ack!) before we know it.