The Big Move

Well, not really so big…we moved just 15 minutes west of where we were. But, with all moves come lots and lots of details and, you know me: LISTS to get it all done!

We are now happily settled in our new home with a very short list of things left to do.

For a couple of weeks, we debated on whether it would make more sense to reno our existing house to meet the needs not currently being met (more like nice-to-haves) or should we look at moving to a house that already has those desired items. We decided we didn’t have the space to renovate and achieve what we wanted, so a move was in our future.

As soon as a decision is made, I typically shift into an organizational tyrant dictator diva extraordinaire to get things done as quickly and painlessly as possible. Hence all the lists and tendency towards military precision and flawless execution. I take no prisoners. 🙂

But, honestly, I thrive on projects like this and truly enjoy coordinating all the details and timing things perfectly.

And here we are! 🙂 Everything went fine with the packing, the pre-move renos, the actual move, the unpacking, all the move-related tasks, everything. We’re looking forward to making new memories in our new home, enjoying our new space, exploring our new neighborhood and learning about the differences between our old town (Mississauga, ON) and our new one (Oakville, ON). Crossed off a couple of life list items with this move too:

• Have my dream bedroom
• Have a walk-in shower

We’re planning on redoing the backyard in the spring to create our very own oasis with multi-level deck and outdoor living space – looking forward to that as well. 🙂

Good times!

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Move update!

I’ve been neglecting my blog lately and I apologize. 🙂 We’ve been busy getting ready for our move in early October. We’re almost packed, the only things left are the things we use on a regular basis. There are a few things we’re having done before moving into the new house which include removing the carpet from the upstairs floor and putting in hardwoods. We chose our wood last Monday evening and we’re going with the wide, dark wood – can’t recall the tree (we looked at so many :)). We’re also putting in crown molding in the living room and dining room and painting 2 bedrooms upstairs.

We’ve selected our movers and our contractor.

The list of vendors we have to notify of our change of address is done – we’ll contact them in September.

The list of things to prepare for the move is done – we’re working our way through. Not much left to do.

We’re looking forward to exploring our new house and neighborhood. 🙂

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TO: Oct 22, 2008

Went to Leons after work and after 45 minutes, finally got a delivery date of a new replacement washing machine for Nov 4th. It’ll have to do. The end is in sight!!!

Tomorrow the alarm guy is coming over to program the alarm. I’ll be cleaning the pool before vacation and swinging by the mall for a few last minute things.

Friday we’re dropping off the cat at the kitty motel and packing.

It’ll be nice to relax for a week after the past few hectic months… 🙂 Nothing a strawberry dacquiri or three won’t fix 😎

We’re not bringing a laptop with us so this is probably the last note til our return.

Have a good week everyone!

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TO: Oct 21, 2008

So we finally got a response from Leons – we have to go into the store and pick another washing machine of equal or greater value. The end is in sight! We’re going tomorrow morning.

Stopped by the vehicle registration place today and I have to get an emissions test done then go back. So not much progress on that front.

Impressions of the day:

Have you heard – Porter Airlines now flies to Chicago and Newark. Woot! http://www.flyporter.com

I’ll be praying to the Whirlpool washing machine gods tonight so that everything works out by Friday. Long live the front loader. All together now! Ohmmmmmmmm

4 days til Jamaica. All-inclusive beach resort mon!

5 days til my 34th birthday (yay – one more year of being in that 25-34 age bracket on surveys).

Gas is at 103.

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TO: Oct 19, 2008

Today was conquer the yard day.

Before we get to the gory details, let me bring you up to date on my lifetime yardwork skills to date.

Age 0-4: Living in Toronto, ON but too young to do yardwork.
Age 4-6: Living in Dartmouth, NS but too young to do yardwork.
Age 6-9ish: Living in Montreal (apartment) = no yardwork
Age 9ish-21: Living in Montreal apartment = no yardwork. Spent lots of holidays/weekend/summers at my dad’s, where there was lots of yardwork but all I ever really did was rake some leaves/pine needles off of grass…never took care of plants, gardens, or anything else alive.
Age 21-30: Moved out on my own, lived in 2 different Montreal apartments = no yardwork
Age 30: Moved into a condo-style townhouse where the landscapinng was under contract for the entire unit = no yardwork.
Conslusion: Val = City Gal

So – that being said, my yard skills are minimal at best, and figuring out what to do in a landscaped front yard was daunting. After lots of time researching on the internet, I learned that the best tools to deal with leaves in the fall are 1) a leaf blower that tend to be loud and could potentially blow the mulch away, 2) a leaf vacuum which again is loud, and could suck up things we don’t want it to and 3) a small rake that would allow raking in between the plants and shrubs in the garden.

So, off we went to Rona’s to pick up some supplies (i.e. a broom to sweep the driveway and front step and a small rake) and ended up getting a bunch of other stuff too (2 toilet brushes, a long lighter for the fireplace, a CO and natural gas detector). It’s funny how many things we need now that we’re in a detached house. Anyhow, back at the house.

Out we go, armed with the broom, rake and a paper yard waste bag. And it went surprisingly well! It took about a half hour whlie I raked between the plants and Chris did the driveway and we filled the bag, then dumped it by the curb for the city to come by and vacuum them up. Apparently, in Mississauga, in neighborhoods older than 30 years old and the likelihood of large, mature tress is greater, they have a leaf vacuum servcie, which runs one week every month (Oct, Nov and Dec).

Impressions of the day:
I learned how to clean a pool.
I learned how to deal with leaves.
I draw the line at snow removal and am waiting for quotes from 3-4 places.
Almost every bank has a drive thru – so weird.
I tried on the dress I’ll be wearing to the wedding in Jamaica next week – still fits. 🙂
I still have to get my car registration – I’ll try to get that done one evening this week…
Hopefully we’ll have the washing machine situation figured out early this week.
Gas is back up to 100.6 today

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TO Oct 14th..lost count of the days

So Thanksgiving weekend was great. We had family come down for the long weekend to see the turkey — I mean *us*. 🙂 You know who you are. lol

We spent a fun weekend chilling in the new house, playing the Wii fit and other games, eating, exploring the nearby parks. All in all a very enjoyable weekend with the fam!

Update on the washing machine: when the technician came by on Friday, it was about 2pm, and turns out he didnt’ have the part with him. Sigh. So he said he’d write up a report (seeing as it was brand new and never used) and that if the part was in stock, great, but if not, they would probably exchange the machine. That being said, when we got home from work today, there was a message on the answering machine from the service dept saying they’ll just exchange the machine and to call them back to schedule that. so, we’re making some frm of progress I suppose… Quite annoying but it’ll get done eventually.

On a happier note, we finally received the other 2 pieces (other end table and mirror for dresser) so the bedroom is complete. Only thing o/s is the washer. Some dark suspicious place in my mind thinks that someone up there is punishing me for my brazen “we have SOOOOO many clothes” comments from past notes, and is doing this to mock me. :-\ Well whoever that is, I’ll have you know I haven’t even gone through 1/20th of my wardrobe, so THERE! I can outwait you anytime! Sucka!!!
Ahem…

We have an appt tomorrow evening at 6:15pm for our new health cards – goodbye Medicare, hello OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan). Hopefully it won’t be too long of a wait…we’ll see.

The turkey was successful in the new oven – even used convection cooking! I need to get a better meat thermometer to gauge the internal temperature but other than that it turned out very nicely. I’m relieved – made it past the hurdle of all hurdles – The Thanksgiving Turkey. It’s downhill from here!

Over the weekend we took a walk through the various parks near our place. It’s really beautiful around here…lots of green space. And those black squirrels are the cutest things ever.

Impressions of the weekend/day:
– Gas is at 101 (got down to 100.5 on the weekend but up a bit today)

– We’re not voting today – wouldn’t know where to go and too lazy to find out… Someone said it’ll be at the closest public school. Ya, that’s helpful to us who are new to the neighborhood. They probably work at Leons.

– Cleaned the pool skimmer again yesterday – my “rubber glove strategy” works like a charm. I find that if I don’t look directly at the bugs in there, I don’t get grossed out. So just imagine me, kneeling down beside the pool, blue rubber glove on, looking away (and practically crossing her eyes to make the view blurry in case I happen to accidentally look down), reaching in to grab the skimmer basket, then shaking it empty in the earth at the back of the yard. The neighbors must think I’m whacked…a crazy Quebecer who locks herself out of her house and is afraid of leaves in the pool filter. 😀 But I get the job done, right? It doesn’t matter how it’s done, as long as it’s done. Maybe I should send Mr. Leons a t-shirt with my new motto… “GET IT DONE”. It has a nice ring to it….it’s almost inspirational, don’t you think? 🙂

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Toronto Day 14: Oct 9, 2008

Another work-filled day ended in a quiet evening. I got home and cleaned the pool (grosser than the last time due to leaves and a big ass bug doing the backstroke in the skimmer.. I swear he winked at me). It was so gross, I had to put on a rubber glove or there was NO WAY my hand was goin’ in there… Our pool closing is scheduled for Nov 3rd so I still have a few more cleanings to do before it’s closed for the winter.

I’m working from home tomorrow since the Leons guy is passing by (at some point during the day) to fix the washer door latch. Finally…we’ll be able to use our new washer/dryer – yippee!

We’re still waiting to receive our drivers licenses in the mail – using the temporary ones in the meantime.. wonder what that picture will look like…lol

Looking fwd to a night watching So you think you can dance Canada (hate the host, love the show), Survivor and Grey’s, with some hot chocolate!!

Gas is at 105

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Toronto Day 12: Oct 7, 2008

Ha ha haaaaaa

So guess who locked themselves outside of their house yesterday. Yep – that was us!!! Didn’t take long – moved in and 4 days later – POOF – access denied!!! Read on for the gory details. There’s a happy ending. 🙂

We stopped by Best Buy on the way home, got home, ate supper. Tuesday is garbage/recycling day in our neighborhood and we wanted to put our bins/bags out the night before not to miss the pickup the following morning (because who knows what time they pass by). So far so good. So, we went into the garage (where the bags and bins were) and proceeded to bring themto the curb through the garage door. We forgot that the door that links the house and the garage locks behind you when you close it. So there we were, standing in our garage, staring at the locked door, in our “house clothes” (i.e. sweat pants and fleece tops, me in sneakers and Chris in socks), no cell phone, no BB, no keys. LOL Can you imagine!!!!! Chris was pissed and freaked out. I just laughed and told him to calm down and I’d go see our neighbors and ask them if they either have a spare key or if we could borrow their phone to call a locksmith. Chris stayed in the garage in his socks while I went next door. So this was about 7pm at that point.

No answer at neighbor #1 (romanians on the left). Better luck at neighbor #2 (indian family). The mom was home with the sons and she felt so bad for us, ushered me inside and went on the internet to the yellow pages site to get some #s for locksmiths in the area. She told her son to go get Chris, they lent him slippers and so that’s how we spent over an hour chatting with our new neighbors and their cute pet beagle Skippy. Such a nice family. So we called one place, they said they’d page the tech and they would call us. 20 minutes later, they call but they said they were closed. Call #2 was more successful – he said he’d be there in 30-45 minutes and not to leave until he called back. We gave him the neighbor’s phone # and address and waited some more. At this point, the dad came home (he was already aware of the fiasco since his wife called to ask him if he knew a locksmith). The mom had to drive the son to his hockey practice so they left and we spent a half hour chatting with the dad. 🙂 SUCH NICE PEOPLE. It was actually a nice opportunity to get to know our neighbors. So friendly!

So the locksmith finally shows up (about 40 minutes), we thank the neighbor profusely, then show the locksmith our problem. The locksmith was Russian (name was Stas). Imagine a tall guy like 6’3″, 200 lbs, short black hair, pretty buff with a russian accent. And again, so nice!!! We chatted the whole time he was there (he had to drill the lock in the garage and replace that lock and while we were at it, figured we’d rekey the front door so he was there for like 1.5 to 2 hours doing all this). He usually has 2 siberian husky dogs (brother and sister) with him in his truck but his wife was home and he left them there for protection. 🙂 He says no matter what kind of locks you have, the best protection was a dog (a serious dog, not a purse dog – he specified..lol). We know half his life story at this point… hehehe We actually had a blast even though it was a stressful situation.

Anyway, all done at 11:30pm (which is why I didn’t have time to post my blog last night – straight to bed!). The happy ending is that we got to know our neighbors who turned out to be amazing people, we met yet another nice person (Stas the locksmith), our house is more secure. It’s all good. At the end of the whole ordeal, we were in good spirits. 🙂

So that was yesterday.

Today was somewhat uneventful (thankfully!!). Although, we tried to get from Union Station to work using the Path (underground passageways) and took a wrong turn…had to backtrack above ground to make it to the office. It was quite funny…

Work day was good. Got a lot done. Came home with no problems… Made supper. Called Leons about the broken washing machine latch and the tech can only come by Mon-Fri during business hours. So guess who’s working from home on Friday. Yours truly.

I’m now sitting on the couch, watching a House rerun, Facebooking and glad nothing else could possibly happen. 🙂

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Toronto Day 10: Oct 5, 2008

Can’t believe we’ve been here for 10 days already!! Time flew.

Finally got a good night’s sleep last night too.

Today began with some unpacking (I know, broken record…), then Chris made breakfast and we ate while watching TV and read the paper.

Followed by more unpacking / finalizing / decorating…. We picked up our train tickets for the next 3 weeks. It comes out cheaper to get 3 weeks’ worth of 10-ride tickets than getting the monthly pass since we’re starting on the 6th and are in Jamaica the last week… On the way home from the train station, we swung by Taco Bell. 🙂

Once back home, you guessed it – we finished the rest of the unpacking so I’m happy to say WE’RE DONE!!!! Our house is setup, wall art is up, closets and drawers are full, pillows are fluffed and there are no more boxes to unpack (other than stuff we’re leaving in boxes like xmas decor and storage items). Woohoooo!!!!

My feet are sore but it feels really good to be settled in and ready to go!

Impressions of the day:
Gas is still at 109.
Used the oven today to cook pizza. I guess it’s not going to explode anytime soon. 🙂
Still can’t figure out how the tap works in the ensuite shower. Luckily we have the other bathroom upstairs. LOL
Turning right on red is awwwesooooome.
I love our new house. :)))

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Toronto Day 9: Oct 4, 2008

Didn’t sleep very well again… New bed? Probably… The new bed is cool – it’s so high that even MY feet don’t touch the ground when I sit on the edge!!! LOL So comfy.

Today began with unpacking, then breakfast at home (woohoo) and some shopping (Home Depot and Home Outfitters) for odds and ends (rug for family room to hide home theater cables, garbage bin, pillows/sheets, shower curtain/liner/hooks for second bathroom, etc.). Does anyone know where we can buy a fireplace screen? Home Depot doesn’t carry them… We had lunch at Jack Astor’s, then got back home and met our other neighbors (Mariette and Oliver and their two sons. They’re indian. They’re on our right. The other neighbors are Romanian on our left). They were really nice and said if we needed anything to let them know, especially with navigation and getting around/finding things. So sweet.

So we got home and did a lot more unpacking / adjusting. Finished the second bathroom, the office/bookcases/filing cabinet, hung up lots of paintings, Chris finalized the TV/Rogers stuff and programmed the remotes and screwed in our tall cabinet in the living room and put away the DVDs. Called Leons re: the second delivery and the wasker latch issue. We have to call the service dept on Monday to schedule a technician to come by. So I guess having a lot of clothes is a good thing after all since I wont be doing any laundry until this latch gets fixed! Anyhoo.

It was a fairly uneventful day, tidying up, preparing the recycling, more unpacking and finalizing. I’ve had a headache off and on all day today so I’m not 100% but still got a lot done. The attached pic is of the moving truck. Quite intimidating when it’s parked in front of *your* house…lol Talk about arriving into the neighborhood unnoticed… Ha!

Interesting thing: In Mississauga there’s apparently a leaf vacuuming service that’s provided by the city in the fall – there are 3 weeks (spaced out throughout oct-nov) dedicated to leaf pickup and all we have to do is rake them into a neat pile by the curb and the city will pass by and vacuum them up. Coooool! Maybe we had that in Mtl but since we didn’t live on a street with trees, I never saw the process…so who knows.

I cooked supper on the stove – used 2 burners this time and one was even on high – woohoo blue flaaaames!!! No adverse effects so that’s a good thing. Made pasta with meat sauce. Next test will be the oven. I was reading through the user manual (I know…geekorama) and feel good about cooking the turkey next weekend. We’re having our first visitors from Montreal down for Thanksgiving. Yippee!

Impressions of the day:
Gas is at 109
Happy about our painting placement in the house…It’s starting to feel homey and lived in.
The light fixture in the basement is hideous but we’re too lazy to do anything about it. It has crystal things dangling from it, à la hotel lobby. Not cool. Do I look like a crystal-dangling type of girl? I think not. Not even Hildi (TLC) would approve…
We have about 20 or so boxes left to do, mostly non-critical stuff like art supplies and xmas decor.
Can’t believe we’re starting work in 2 days! Then it’ll definitely start feeling normal.

I’m pooped – off to shower and bed!

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