brain mutations, gardening, books and no tv

Thanks to Judith and Dave for the housewarming card (and the first piece of mail I've received in my new P.O. box.)!

So the part of my brain that was always somewhat bored by gardening talk has suddenly mutated. I find myself inexplicably excited by conversations about hostas, soil acidity and mulch. I'm suddenly noticing what everyone has in their gardens, the tulips in the park, the hanging flower baskets in restaurants and street corners.

To put things into context: I am not a good gardener. I once spent an hour and a half transplanting seedlings which turned out to be weeds. I killed the first meaningful gift that Jeff ever gave me, a spider plant. Yes, I know spider plants are impossible to kill. Jeff won't let me near any of the houseplants with good reason.

Yet I find myself drawn to our garden first whenever we visit our new house. I'm still not used to the fact that we'll have our own private space outdoors we don't have to share with anyone else; in our condo, whenever we wanted to sit outside, we either had to get in the car and drive somewhere or we had to find a public park. I would have loved to have a balcony oasis space like Allison's.

My partly insulated basement office.

Going to the house today! Jeff's doing some indoor stuff; I'm going to work outdoors. Unfortunately my grubby clothes and shoes are all still in the storage locker. I did find ONE pair of shorts; I remember throwing this into my "to keep out of locker" pile at the last minute just in case we hadn't found a place by spring. HAHAHAHAHA. Shows you how naive I was about the amount of time involved in the whole househunting and buying process. Until we finally move and unpack, I'll be wearing and washing these shorts quite a bit, I suspect.

Have I mentioned how much I'm looking forward to getting my things out of the locker?

We've decided not to get cable tv in our new house; we've already been four months without tv and haven't missed it. When we feel like watching something, we rent it. Doing a lot more reading as a result, as well as walking outdoors, cooking from scratch, playing music, etc. And actually talking to each other instead of staring at the screen! :-)

We'll probably subscribe to cable again eventually, but so far it's been an educational experience, seeing the ways we've each been filling the time we used to spend in front of the tv. I used to rely on tv for entertainment sometimes when I didn't have energy for anything else, but I'm realizing that watching tv often made me feel more tired.

Books I've read recently:

The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton (adult)

- Love Hamilton's writing style, her characterization. Depressing story, but I still felt compelled to start reading her next book.

Insulated walls and ceiling. Next: floor.

No Small Thing by Natalie Ghent (juvenile)

- YA fiction. I was never into the whole horse thing like all the other little girls, but still quite enjoyed this book. Again, for me it's the characterization that's vital to hook me into a story. And I was definitely hooked.

Naomi's Road by Joy Kogawa (juvenile)

- The story was so engrossing that I wasn't even distracted by the fact that my sister illustrated this book. Not surprisingly, of course, it was a pretty depressing context (Japanese internment during the war) but Kogawa manages to tell the story from the young protagonist's point of view without heavy-handedness or dwelling on gruesome details.

Black Rain by Masuiji Ibuse (adult)

Speaking of gruesome details...I bought this in on our Japan trip but never managed to finish it. I tried again recently. The story focuses on one young woman who was caught in the radioactive rain that fell after the bombing of Hiroshima, and is drawn from real-life diaries and interviews with victims of the atomic holocaust. Couldn't get through this again...the explicit descriptions literally made me nauseous.

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman (adult)

Read this collection of short stories a little at a time, finally finished it. Some of the pieces are definitely in the horror genre. Quite enjoyed this.

Going to the Erasure concert with Craig, Derek, Luisa, Andy, Christine and others tonight!

Photo I took at the cottage several years ago. (Later note:
Chris Conway used it for one of his CDs.)

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renovations and Writer's Digest and raccoons

I had an article published in the Writer's Digest 2005 Yearbook but had forgotten to pick up a copy because we were in the middle of packing up and selling our condo. I recently ordered a copy of the magazine for my clippings file; the latter is somewhat out of date, so I'm revamping it right now.

Renovations going well at the house. Jeff and I are keeping out of the way, but we went by the house late yesterday afternoon after the renovators had left for the day. Our friends Jeff and Alison came by with their young son to check out the house, and it was also fun to find a card from Kate P. in our mailbox.

Walter and Jeff removing old carpet.

I did some weeding and pruning in the garden (using the pruning shears Allison gave me). OUR garden. I was worried about the Corkscrew Hazel leaves looking so wilted, but found out online today that the leaves are supposed to be that way! The two clematis plants were sprawling across the ground, so I reattached the vines to the trellis. Took out two dead plants (they were dead BEFORE we got the house, really!).

Spent way too much time sniffing the white lilac tree. LOVE the scent of lilacs. Found myself wistfully wishing I could take a blossom home with me and then realized, WAITSEC THIS IS *MY* TREE! I CAN TAKE WHATEVER I WANT! Jeff was highly amused.

As we packed up to go back to the condo, I noticed movement out the front window. Investigating, I saw a raccoon casually sauntering down the path to the back garden. He was startled when we went outside to check him out, climbed the fence and fled. Other wildlife I've seen in our yard so far: black and red squirrels, cardinals, yellow finches (they seem to quite like our tamarisk tree), numerous unidentifiable other birds. We're thinking about putting up a feeder.

Quite the change, hearing birdsong and children playing outside instead of the sound of nightclubs and Gardiner Expressway traffic.

I'm sure I'll get used to it, though.

;-)

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new house!

Photo by my friend Walter.

(Today's Blatherpics were all taken at our new house. Click on any image for a larger version as well as comments. )

So the house is officially ours!

As petals from the crab apple tree branches above fell softly all around us, we had our last meeting with the previous owner on the back deck of the house, chatting about last-minute details.

And then she gave us the key.

Jeff sweeping our front walk.

While Jeff drove her to where she was staying with a friend, I found myself alone in our new house for the first time. I wandered from room to room, ecstatic in the luxury of being able to explore as much as I wanted to and for as long as I desired. When Jeff got back, it felt so strange (and wonderful) to greet him at the front door.

Jeff's dad and my sister and her family came to visit later in the day. we told our nieces that they were allowed to explore anywhere in the house, open any drawer and closet, and they didn't have to take their shoes off since messy renovations start Monday anyway. They were quite delighted.

On our back deck(!). Photo by Walter.

We ended up meeting almost ALL of our neighbors that first day because several happened to be around when we dropped off our note (introducing ourselves, letting them know about the upcoming renovations), or they came to visit us in our new house to welcome us, or saw us chatting on the street with other neighbours and came over to say hi. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming.

Jeff and I slept over on an air mattress in our new bedroom that first evening, hanging some blankets over the window to block out the light. It was pretty comfy, at least until the air leaked out through a small hole sometime during the night and we found ourselves sleeping on the hard floor. We were too excited to care.

Forgot to mention: Jeff carried me across the threshold of our new house. It's the very first house we've owned, after all.

:-)

Walter and Jeff.

Quite a few friends came to visit on Saturday to offer their congrats, check out our new place, help out with some of the reno prep. It was heartwarming to see Walter start to hammer stuff down in my office right away, and also helped Jeff carry our washer and dryer from an upstairs cupboard to the basement. We're going to turn that upstairs space into a closet instead.

Seeing so many friends and family in our house made it seem far less empty. :-) Received some phonecalls and text messages of congrats from family and friends including my Dad, Dave Clement and Mark Osier (from Marcon). And we got our first piece of snailmail (!), a card from my mom-in-law.

Went out for dinner with Luisa and Reid.

Going back today, just for the day. Jeff's pulling up carpet (possibly with Walter's help) and I want to water some of the plants. Found out yesterday that we have a white lilac tree! (Karin told me) And lily of the valley! (Luisa told me, and warned me they spread like crazy)

I suspect the first year is going to be a year of discovery in the garden for me.

:-)

It's going to be SOOOOOO hard, not being able to move in right away, I can tell already. But at least it's ours, and we can drop by whenever we'd like. I plan on going at least several times a week, to check on mail and on the garden.

More new house pics and blather next week. You can see photos from this weekend in this Flickr photo set; I'll be adding to it later today, I'm sure.


YAY, WE HAVE A HOUSE!!!


Photo by Jeff.

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WE GET OUR HOUSE TODAY!

So the countdown is over ... we get our house TODAY.

Jeff and I met with our lawyer yesterday afternoon to sign the final papers. I asked him when the house would be legally ours, exactly. Midnight last night? Tonight? He told me it would depend when the seller's lawyer received and processed our payment, which would be couriered this morning. He said he would to call our cell phones when it was official.

And he promised to call my cell phone first. :-)

But even if he doesn't call yet, Jeff and I are meeting the current owner at noon today to get the key and say good-bye. Seemed too impersonal to do the final exchange through our lawyers, especially after we've gotten to know (and quite like) the owner over the past months; we plan to keep in touch.

Jeff and I have decided to sleep over tonight in the empty house, just because we have to. We've borrowed an air mattress and will also bring some bedding and other essentials. Like toilet paper! Champagne! Chocolate! No DSL or phone lines yet, so I will likely not be posting again until Sunday or early next week.

Renovations start on Monday morning and are expected to last about six weeks; Jeff and I will probably end up moving in somewhere around the middle of July. We'll be visiting the house pretty regularly before then, of course, to check on renovations, mail, the garden, etc.

Speaking of mail, I've opened up a P.O. Box. for several reasons, not the least of which is security (e.g. public domain WHOIS info, etc.). Anyway, I'm also going to start a Flickr postcard set as well as putting some postcards up in my New Office...so if you find yourself near a postcard rack sometime in the future, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd consider sending one my way:

Debbie Ridpath Ohi
34 Eglinton Ave. West
PO Box 189
Toronto, ON M4R 2H6
Canada

Only four and a half hours until we get the key to our new house! I had trouble sleeping last night; I was too hyped.

We get our house TODAY, woohoo!

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one day more!

The photo above was taken back in March, posted in a Blatherings entry one day before we found The House. The papers are all printouts of listings that Jeff and I were going to be looking at that weekend with our immensely patient real estate agent goddess, Kathy Gordon. As you can read in the above entry, I was starting to get a bit down about how long the process seemed to be taking. The experience was so worth the stress and hassle, though.

The house we ended up with was the first house that Jeff and I both fell in love with right away, and I liked the location more than any of the houses we had seen so far (including the ones we looked at several years ago).

I can't believe we get our house tomorrow.

TOMORROW.

I'm seeing Jodi and Allison tonight; I am going to try very very hard not to talk about the house too much.

Recently received a fun housewarming gift in e-mail from Gary McGath, which I'm posting below with Gary's permission: