All Moved In!

It's said that moving house is one of the most stressful experiences in life, right up there with birth, marriage and death, and it's true.
The actual move went very smoothly, with the moving truck and a posse of beefy men arriving on time, the loading and unloading was a breeze with only two trips from the old house to the new.
But from the next day on, I was incommunicado!
The phone company installed the phone, but no internet.
So I had a phone for a couple of days.
But then I was accidently disconnected while they tried to connect the internet.
Which affected the security system, so every time I opened the front door, the alarm went off.
WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH for 5 minutes.
I don't think my new neighbours appreciated this very much. Especially at 6:00am when I went off to my babysitting duties.
And to top it off, the doorknob between the house and the garage broke, so I was forced to use the front door if I wanted to go outside.

I was in seclusion.

But all is repaired now.... new doorknob mechanism, phone and internet are working, but now my monitor screen has died, so I am working with a borrowed screen, which will have to be returned very soon, so I'll be a non-blogger again for a while! So if you don't see me commenting on your blogs, you know why. sigh....

Meanwhile, I'm 90% unpacked, and I'll have to start preparing for Christmas. It snowed last week so we are going to have a White Christmas for sure.

Time Out.....

I'm on the move, will be blogging from my new house in a few days, see you then!
Meanwhile, back to the packing...... now, where the heck did I leave that sticky tape.....

Shadow

My living room window used to look out on an empty lot overgrown with wild cherry trees... so pretty in the spring.... but the land was sold for a new house to be built about six years ago, and since then, this has been my view.

Another reason to be glad I am moving.

What I've Been Up To

I haven't been a very good blogger over the past couple of months.
And I have a really good excuse.
I've been house hunting. I've looked at big, small, old, new, detached, semi-detached, town houses, condos.
But I've finally got myself a new home and I move in a couple of weeks.
So now I'm doing this.

And this.

And since I last posted, this happened. Yes, I had a birthday. A significant one too. I can't imagine how I got to be this old (not telling just HOW old) but it's better than the alternative!

So the whole family got together and we went for a birthday dinner at the Mandarin Chinese Buffet. Mmmm... buffet style Chinese food, and if that doesn't suit you, there's pizza, or roast beef, or spare ribs or sushi.... I love the baked salmon and the spicy shrimp, and the hot and sour soup, and the mango salad... it's all so good!
And then home for a cuppa and fancy birthday cupcakes.
And finally both my grandboys. It's hard to get a picture of them both at the same time, they move so fast.

We've had a couple of new family additions in UK recently. William (baby brother to Oliver) arrived 4 weeks ago and baby Charlie arrived last week, cousins to each other and new second cousins for Callum and Isaac. That makes 5 little boys born in the last 3 years in our family.
And in The Bride's family there are 4 more little boys all under 4 years old.

We're aiming for our very own football team!

Garage Sale

We had a "Man Stuff Garage Sale" today, getting the garage and workshop cleared out of old tools, automotive stuff, camping equipment, electrical wiring, nuts, bolts, nails, you name it, we had it for sale!

Isaac was our official greeter. As soon as a potential customer arrived, he beamed at them from his stroller and said "HI!"

When they left he said "BYE!" and waved.

At times there were so many people coming and going, he got his "HI"s and his "BYE"s all mixed up.

Most people who shop at garage sales are pretty honest, but one person slipped us some Chinese money with a handful of coins. Oh well. It'll come in handy if I ever go on a trip to China I suppose.

And there's always the guy who wants something for nothing.

YoungerSon was helping a man with some drill bits and electrical parts. The guy was giving YoungerSon a lot of bad attitude, arguing the price down, and rolling his eyes in a very nasty manner at every price suggestion. They finally came to a sort of grumpy agreement, and YoungerSon even carried the guy's purchases to his car.

Then the guy turned to YoungerSon and said "Hey, can I take a p*ss in your back yard?"

NOOOOOOOOOO!

It takes all sorts to make a world.

SOLD!

My house is SOLD!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

The good part is that I won't have to put up with critical strangers tramping through my house every weekend, complaining about the lack of A/C, and what? No central vac? And no powder room on the main floor?? Well, what do they expect in an 115 year old house?

I've lived here for more than 30 years. My children grew up here. I have a lot of both happy and sad memories tucked into these four walls.
I have delightful neighbours, and we live on a pleasant tree-lined street where everyone knows everyone else, and I am very sad to leave this lovely old neighbourhood.
But the house is too big now, and it needs a young family to move in and look after it, which is exactly what is going to happen.

So now comes the hard work of getting ready to move.

First priority.... find somewhere to move to! I've been looking at houses, both resales and new but haven't found anything that really grabs me yet. I'll keep looking. A tent in YoungerSon's back yard might be a bit chilly during a Canadian winter.

Second priority.... Clear out the garage and workshop. There are 30 years worth of "man stuff" stored here. Tools. Spare parts for cars we haven't owned for years. Tires. Lumber. Poles for a tent we don't have any more. Scrap metal. Paint. Motor oil. Bricks. Garden equipment. Nuts. Bolts. Nails. Electric wire.

A lot of the stuff has been tossed into a rented bin in the driveway.
I had a garage sale back in July and we'll have another in September.
I've taken 6 boxes full of paint, motor oil, various automotive liquids and polishes etc to the Hazardous Waste Depot.
The local charity shop has been given boxes of kitchen equipment.
The Diabetes Association Clothesline truck has picked up 5 bags of gently used clothing.
I gave numerous boxes of books to the Library Sale last spring. And there's more destined for the sale in 2011.
I bought a new shredder and have filled 4 bags with shredded paperwork so far. I love shredding!
The scrap metal man is picking up next week.

It's really liberating to be getting rid of all this stuff.