red balloons and waterguns

(Above photo: Edna with housewarming gifts from friends... a silk scarf from Andrea, and a Balloon-o-gram from Scott & Amanda & Zoe.)

Thanks so Scott, Amanda and Zoe for the wonderful bouquet of a dozen red helium balloons tied to a bag of jellybeans; it was waiting at our front door when Jeff and I arrived on Saturday for our first night at the house.

We're officially (and finally) moved into our new house! The move isn't quite finished; we still have stuff in two small storage lockers downtown as well as my mom-in-law's condo, but our home base is now in our new house. We had our first breakfast out on the deck beside the garden, beneath the crabapple tree.

Yesterday was crazier than we expected and we didn't get time to start unloading the storage lockers containing most of our personal stuff (including office stuff and summer clothes). BUT my office now has a new desk, thanks to Jeff's expert IKEA-assembling skills. :-)

A ton of things still to do and when we make the mistake of thinking about it too much, it's easy to get overwhelmed. We still have no shower rod or curtain, for example. Our washer and dryer need to be hooked up, we have no high speed access yet and there's only one phone in the house. The solarium is filled to the ceiling with boxes to be unpacked, and we both know there are at least four times as many boxes waiting for us in the storage lockers. Thanks SO MUCH to Ginny and Ray for helping move furniture around yesterday.

I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday afternoon and unfairly took out some of my frustrations on Jeff, who was very patient; we've been taking turns supporting each other during these kinds of moments over recent months. Before we both got back to housestuff, he put on the new Riverfolk CD ("Meander") on our player; it's been our only CD in the house until just recently, and we've been playing it over and over again. It takes a lot of effort to feel stressed or unhappy while listening to this album. :-)

Jeff and I took a break from movingstuff on Saturday to attend Reid's and Luisa's annual watergun party. Great fun! Thanks so much to Luisa and Reid for hosting this. I'll upload some pics when we have high-speed access again. Luisa also lent me some small cans of green acrylic paint for more tree leaves for my office wall, yay!

I'll be going to my niece's birthday party on Wednesday night but those who are free should consider checking out the Heather Dale concert in Hugh's Room. You can find out more about Heather and hear soundclips here.

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STAYING AT OUR NEW HOUSE TONIGHT!

Looks like we've lost high-speed access at the condo during the move transition so I'm using dial-up, ugh. I'll post pics of the wonderful postcards from Casey, Riley, Helen and Alan when I can upload larger versions. Helen's postcard was from from New Zealand's South Island, which she says was the home of Rohan in LOTR as well as the major battleground scene in the upcoming Narnia movie. Thanks also to Peter Sheil (London) for his housewarming card.

The first part of the move went smoothly; we now have furniture, including our kitchen stuff! I'm embarrassed at how happy I was to see my wok again. :-) Felt like celebrating, so I went out last night with my friend Parki; we had sushi and then went to see The Island at the Varsity. Found it so-so (too derivative of Bladerunner and Logan's Run for my tastes) but loved Sean Bean and Steve Buscemi (sp?).

I missed Parki while he was away on his two-month trip overseas; good to be able to hang out with him again.

Other news: Rand's brother David recently received the New York State's Conspicuous Service Cross for his valor in combat. Thomas Woods posted an excellent entry on the topic.

I finally finished the Harry Potter last night! It's been a challenge, finding time to read during moving chaos. Very much enjoyed the book and now I can read Allison's review (LOTS of spoilers, so only click through if you've finished the book already).

WE STAY IN OUR NEW HOUSE TONIGHT! It's been seven months since we sold our condo; I can't believe it's finally happening, our final move. We'll be continuing to move the smaller stuff from our rented storage lockers and Ginny's condo today and next week, but from now on our home base will be at the new house.

We're both dead tired but very, very happy.

:-)

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move prep!

Dead tired. Busy. Very little online time these days while Jeff and I head into our final chaos/move.

The photo above is of my office tree. After I settle into my new office, I'll buy better brushes and add finishing touches: adding more leaves, texture and shading and other colours to leaves, interesting creatures on the branches, etc. Thanks so much to Beckett for her LJ comment re: tips using acrylics! I had no idea I could mix acrylics with water, for instance, and now I know what to do when my brush seems to gum up. I am SO inexperienced at this. Thanks also to Dankmadness for suggesting the falling leaf idea.

THANK YOU to Andrea for the absolutely gorgeous silk scarf to hang up in my office! A long while back I described my Perfect Office, and colourful fabrics was in my list. I immediately took the scarf downstairs and held it up against the white (or rather Invisible Rose In Winter ;-)) and it looks amazing. I'll take a photo once I've moved in and decided where to put it.

The movers are coming to the house this morning to deliver the furniture from our old place. After that, we also have to empty our smaller storage locker as well as move our stuff out of Ginny's place. Lots of moving and unpacking in the next days and weeks. I spent most of yesterday at the house while the carpet guys finished their installation.

TWO more days until we actually start sleeping at our new house!

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office tree, Amazon.ca reply

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother-in-law Kaarel today!

Got home at 10 pm last night, have to leave 8 am this morning to be at the house for the carpet installer (he didn't get quite finished last week), little time to Blather. I am also behind in e-mail; thanks for your patience. I wanted to thank those who sent cards and postcards to my P.O. Box, however: more on this soon, as well as pics. And YAY, my copy of Riverfolk's new Meander CD has arrived! Excited about listening to it.

Worked on my office tree yesterday while two guys from Cleanol were cleaning our ducts at the new house. After the experiment on my door, I'm getting a tad better at brushwork. But wow, I am definitely going to have to get higher quality brushes. My cheapo bristle brushes were falling apart by the end of yesterday afternoon, little hairs sticking out at annoying angles and refusing to be straightened out, ugh.

Anyway, finished the trunk and branches, working on leaves next. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, considering how little experience I have in this medium and with drawing trees. I used Burnt Sienna for the initial tree outline and shape, then Burnt Umber and a bit of Cadmium Yellow to add some texture and shading; I also experimented with dabbing and rolling the brush for different effects.

And an Amazon.ca / Harry Potter delivery update! Looks like someone at Amazon.ca does read those feedback forms after all. I received an e-mail containing an apology AND letting me know that my full payment will be refunded.

My disappointment in getting the book two days late and faith in their customer service has been much mellowed. Instead of feeling bitter about the whole experience, I'm walking away thinking more highly of the company. They could have ignored the problem (as so many companies do) or pointed fingers ("It was Canada Post's fault!"), but they didn't.

Kudos to Amazon for turning a messy situation into good PR for the company.

THREE DAYS until we spend our first night in our new house.

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doodles on my door

So my Harry Potter book DID arrive yesterday. The Canada Post guy said that the late arrival was due to the fact they had too much mail to deliver, so not all the packages got sent on time. So it turns out the fellow I talked to yesterday wasn't kidding when he said there weren't enough trucks to deliver all those Harry Potter books!

My frustration yesterday, by the way, wasn't so much to do with not getting the book on time (though I was disappointed, of course) but more to do with the overall decline of customer service these days. Mistakes happen, but many companies don't seem to realize that how they handle damage control is just as important as trying to prevent those mistakes.

As soon as they knew some deliveries were going to be late, Amazon should have sent out a notice letting customers know and apologizing for the inconvenience. Throwing some extra shopping credit would have been nice, but just the acknowledgement that something had screwed up would have made a world of difference to me.

Canada Post should have warned its employees what had happened and coached them on how to handle calls like mine. Tip #1 should have been: "DON'T gloat over the fact that you've read the book already."

But moving on...FOUR DAYS until we spend our first night in our new house! Jeff and I were at the house until nearly 1 am last night. I'm going there again today, and I also need to check my P.O. box. Here are some pics...

I painted the outside of my office door:



And inside:



It was the first time I had used acrylics. I was surprised at how goopy and thick the paint was, but perhaps the texture was because I was using cheap acrylics; I had to thin out the paint with the Retarder liquid which was recommended by a store clerk in Curry's. I'm also using super-cheap brushes (8 for $10) but since I lack experience with expensive brushes, I don't really know how much of a difference this is making in the process.

Tough at first to overcome my childhood-trained instinct NOT TO DRAW ON THE WALL, but once I overcame that inhibition, I started having way too much fun.

:-)

I'm going to turn one part of my office into a magnetic wall:



Jeff cleaning the kitchen:



Black-eyed Susans are starting to bloom:



And our daylilies are in full bloom:



New tub and tiles:



Jeff chose the sink below. I thought it looked too shallow to be practical, but it actually does work (i.e. water doesn't splash out). The bathroom vanity was custom-made by Sean Robson, our wonderful contractor guy. The counter is poured concrete!

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