battening down

There's nothing like a nice snowfall to make you realize that you don't own a shovel.


Also, that nice rake that I bought yesterday is now completely useless. Hopefully we'll have a couple of warm days and the snow will melt so I can rake the yard. Either that or I'm hoping the leaves will rot really quickly come spring.

Let me tell you, there are certain disadvantages to moving into a neglected house just before winter hits. I spent last evening and most of the day today caulking the large ancient windows, and we need to purchase a ladder quickly so that we can install the storm windows on the outside. Until then, there is A SINGLE pane of glass in the windows keeping us safe from the snow, and Oliver the Min Pin has told me that that's not good enough. About half of these windows are so old that they are wavy - they're beautiful to look at. If I were sentimental I might feel bad about the new, energy-efficient windows we plan to install in the spring.

So besides installing the storm windows, there is one badly cracked pane of glass in the mudroom that needs to be replaced, and how can we forget that part of the bathroom window is completely missing its glass, and is instead blocked off from the elements right now by an old floor tile, two toilet paper rolls, and a tiny box that has been squished into the remaining gap?


Then there's the old front door that blew open in a stiff breeze last night, and some piping from the bathroom that's exposed in a cold storage area of the house and needs to be insulated. I could do something about that right now, but I'm too drunk from caulking fumes. Mark says the house smells like airplane glue.

He's right.

In the interest of showing you our new house, here are before-and-after shots of our living room. It's not done - no curtains, half-unpacked mess everywhere, but you get the idea:



The dog are settling in. Arlo LOVES LOVES LOVES the windows in this house. He pretty much just goes from one window to the next, staring out at the world. He likes watching all the activity at the school across the road, but it really makes his day when he sees a squirrel. There's a window just before the bottom of our staircase, and when he goes down the stairs in the morning he stops at that window, with all his legs on different stairs, and stares. We have to remind him that he wants to go for a walk.


I can't mislead you - that pic was not taken in our new house. Those modern, double-paned, well insulated vinyl windows are not mine.

the hardware stores

Today I went on a mission to get a whole pile of stuff at the hardware store. There seem to be three Home Hardware stores in Bridgetown, located directly across the road from each other. On closer inspection we discovered that they're sorta different departments of the same store. One has building supplies, one has appliances and seasonal stuff, and one has everything else. I opted to go to the "everything else" Home Hardware and got almost all of what I was looking for. When I asked the cashier where the rakes were, she told me to leave the rest of my stuff by the cash, go across the road for a rake, and bring it back so I could pay for everything.

So I go across the road. I find a rake and tell the clerk in that store that I'm going to go pay for it at the other Home Hardware. I leave the store with un-paid-for merchandise. SHE'S COOL WITH THAT.

Bridgetown is an awesome, awesome town.

So I went trundling back home with my rake in hand, lugging my big new rolling garbage can full of new stuff along behind me. The skies were ominous and a very cold wind was blowing. We're getting the first snow of the season now!

relocation: successful!

Hi y'all!

We're back online, and living in our very own home in the Annapolis Valley!!

Every day since my last post has gone well and felt mostly under control, but thinking back over the entire past five days all at once is a bit overwhelming. There were no major mishaps and I can't even think of any minor ones - yay!

Remember how I made some predictions about the state that the former owner would likely leave the house in when she left? They were mostly accurate. The storm windows are still sitting in the basement. The yard is a mess, with shaggy un-mown lawn and fallen leaves everywhere. Although the house did not stink of cats, I did find lots of kitty litter scattered across the floor where the litter box used to be. Windows, baseboards, kitchen cupboards, and floors were all in dire need of cleaning. The former owner DID clean out the fridge very well, and the bathrooms also seem to have been cleaned (although I cleaned them again anyway). So she didn't break a sweat on our behalf, but she could have left the place a lot worse.

One interesting thing: I caught the listing agent sneaking onto our lawn to take down her "sold" sign, and she said something about the little girl who used to live here getting her foot cut off or something. So I guess the former owner had other things on her mind. It was a strange thing to hear, don't ya think?

We were lucky enough to have heaps of help from family and friends over the weekend. In addition to driving our vehicles here for us, my parents brought their own air mattress and blankets, stayed for a couple of days, and helped us move in, clean up, and assemble things. My friend Kim drove for four hours to come and help us scrub this house - she has DEFINITELY passed the "good friend" test! She loves our mudroom and now her husband is going to be mad at us because he's going to have to build her a mudroom.

Mark's mother has been storing furniture and dishes and stuff for us for like forever, and suddenly we have a house full of furniture thanks to her! I'm not talking Walmart crap either - we have some honest-to-gosh family heirloom antiques now. It's pretty awesome.

Oh, I forgot to mention one old piece of business. Remember how we contacted the Real Estate Commission to help us get our deposit back from the other place that we didn't end up buying? The Commission laid down the law, and our money was returned! I then wrote a big long angry email to the real estate office that had had our money for so long, never sent it, and then deleted it a few days later. This is how I stay sane people. Or not. Maybe that's why I'm crazy, I don't know.

Moving Moving Moving!

Mostly everything is packed - but I must admit that mostly everything has been packed for months.

Things have, strangely, been falling into place. The lawyer, who waited until the VERY LAST MINUTE to tell us what amount of money to send, got our urgently couriered bank draft earlier than expected, rather than too late. Our new extra-special high-efficiency washer and dryer actually arrived in the store on time, so we can get it on the way past with our big rental truck.

There won't even be any snow (probably).

Wish us luck!

Remember

I don't like war. I don't think it's usually the best solution for the problem at hand. It might surprise some of you to know that Remembrance Day is a holiday that I have a lot of respect for, though.

Remembrance Day is there - every year - to remind us that once, people were brave and selfless for what they believed in. Some of them died. Some of them got horribly hurt and felt more pain than most of us can imagine. Some of them bled to death alone in the mud and cold. They didn't do it to be selfish.

Whatever my political or philosophical beliefs are, I don't think it's fair to begrudge the actions of those who were asked to be brave and make sacrifices for the benefit of future generations. I hate war, but war happened anyway and nobody's ever going to be able to change that fact. What we can do is remember that it was an awful thing that showed both the best and worst sides of humanity.

Remember this the next time your barista gets your Starbucks order wrong, or the next time you have to sit in traffic: you and I were not asked to make great sacrifices, but we have pretty damned good lives here in Canada.

Remember, and be thankful.

family love

We're renting a Budget truck on Thursday to MOVE, yeah! Here's a conversation about that:


MY MOM: What time are you leaving on Thursday?

ME: I dunno. We're renting the truck at 9am, gonna come back here and pack our stuff onto it, and leave whenever we're done.

MY MOM: It's going to take longer than you think it will.

ME: How do you know how long I think it will take? I didn't give you a time.

MY MOM: It will just take longer than you think, that's all.

ME: ... so you're telling me I'm... wrong?

At this point Mark, who loves accuracy, chimes in.

MARK: She didn't say that you're wrong, just that you're stupid.

Then he smirked gleefully.

THANKS GUYS.

politics & a farmhouse

Well, the Americans voted Obama into office and everyone seems so incredibly excited about politics and the presidency this week. I have to say that I was very satisfied to see that my old home state, Virginia, backed Obama. Virginia almost NEVER votes liberal so it's significant that they did this time.

Here's a nice picture of Virginia:


Good job, Virginia! (and all you other states, too. Except for you, Idaho. I saw what you did there.)

I also got some pictures from the weekend we spent in Gunning Cove with close family friends in an ancient yet glorious old farmhouse. All of the below pictures are courtesy of Kristie, and this is her with Oliver:


And some close-up shots of old farmhouse glory:




The farmhouse is like a grand damme who is not ashamed to revel in the beauty of her age. Kristie's sister seems to be in love with the place and has started to slowly restore it. I think she hopes to one day live in the place full-time. That would be awesome.

Kristie's mom made her famous seafood chowder while we were there. That lady doesn't skimp on ingredients. I've never seen so much lobster in anything except a lobster shell before, and Mark claims that he found his first piece of potato halfway through his second bowl. There was THAT MUCH feesh in it. I ate as much as I could and then some.


We went walking around Gunning Cove with the dogs and had lots of adventures. Arlo was really excited about somebody's yard one evening, but as it was dark we had no idea what he was getting excited about. The next day we walked by the same yard and there was a big fat porcupine in it. Arlo really really wanted to go play, but I didn't think that would work out very well for him. The porcupine completely ignored us and snuffled around the yard in an unconcerned way.

Nine more days and I will own my own yard, and I too will snuffle around it in an unconcerned way. It's gonna be great!

dead gypsies

First things first: Mark feels strongly that I should have pictures in this post, but I don't have any pictures of what I'm writing about, so here are two "Mangatar avatars" of me and Mark from the Face Your Manga website.



That's done. On with the stuff I was gonna talk about.

So my lawyer called me this afternoon to discuss the only outstanding issue with our house purchase. We're trying to get a "location certificate", which seems to be one step down from a survey, done on the lot. There's a chance the neighbouring house encroaches on the property. We don't much care but would like to know exactly what is going on, and we might just try to negotiate some more on the price if it's true.

I heard a phrase from my lawyer that I thought we were done with. She started out by saying "well, I've never heard of this before" - UGH - I'm sick of hearing that. Apparently they can't produce the normal kind of survey documents because the property has roads on two sides of it and public land on the third. I'm guessing they need to measure from other properties that have already been measured?

WHATEVER.

So they apparently can't show us a sketch of the property, but they can give us a block of text that describes it... ?? .... and this is abnormal in some way and nobody knows what exactly should be done in this case... ??... brain... exploding...

Mark asked me if we ran over a gypsy on our road trip. Darn, she must have lived long enough to curse us. I can hear it now: "MAY THEIR HOUSE PURCHASES FROM THIS DAY FORWARD BE FROUGHT WITH PERIL AND UNPRECEDENTED PERSNICKITYNESS!"

Eeeek!

Change of subject. This past weekend we went to stay in an old farmhouse owned by family friends. There was power but no heat, and a toilet but no running water. Well, there was a woodstove in one part of the house, so there was some heat. It was Fun! No, that's not sarcasm, it was seriously fun. The dogs came along and Oliver wrapped EVERYONE around his little paw in about three and a half seconds. People were looking for excuses to pick him up the entire time, and getting mad at him when he skittered away from them, and then immediately forgiving him. Arlo had tons of fun too - he LOVES new people and noise and activity.

I'll put up some pictures of our weekend away as soon as I can steal them from our friend who, unlike me, actually used her camera over the weekend.