Time for a new normal

This has probably been the busiest month I've ever had and although it was full of awesome, I'm glad it's coming to an end. Between my move at the beginning of the month, Megan's move this past weekend, unpacking, work, and shopping for the bits and pieces... I'm just exhausted.

This Friday, John is moving out of the house and Saturday afternoon we're all going to clean it out and wash it down to leave it tidy for the owner. The next day is June 1st, the first day of the next chapter in my life.

Megan got the place!

It's right across the street. I'm going to see her all the time. Were both very happy about this. :D That is all. 

Long weekend.

Megan, her mother Ann and I have been busy checking out apartments and otherwise I've been trying to give her space and time to get done what ever she needs to do but talking to Megan Thursday I found out she was much more stressed than I realized and she asked for help. I told her I'd come over Friday for superheroes and then kick her ass all Saturday to get stuff packed and a decision to be made by where to apply to by Monday.

Friday night after work we saw FOUR apartments in TWO hours, WALKING from place to place. Oh boy did our feet hurt. 1st=meh, 2nd=nice, 3rd=nice, 4th=oh-hell-no.  Superheroes and take-out went well as usual but the funniest bit was when I reminded Megan that it was 10:30 so we should turn in and both her mom and John laughed thinking that Megan "never goes to bed that early on a weekend". I reminded them that we had a big day ahead and that if either of them were interested, breakfast would be served at 7:30. They laughed even more at that but we just shook out heads and went to bed.
 - - -
Saturday I woke up early and got the coffee and breakfast ready then woke Megan and we enjoyed a nice quiet breakfast alone before Ann joined us for tea and we planned the day. When John came upstairs at 9:30, I was helping Ann sort out the shopping list. He asked "so where's this breakfast I heard about?', Ann told him "seems we missed it" and he seemed so shocked that we had actually got up at 7. lol

We started packing and I only had to poke Meg a few times to keep her on track. :) I had a schedule planned out for us, an hour and a half of work, half hour break, then another hour and a half of packing before lunch. Throughout the morning I was called evil, slave-driver, drill-sergeant, you get the point, but it was all in good humour and although we were tired and sweaty by lunch time, we had accomplished quite a bit of the pesky tiny stuff.

During lunch we discussed the apartments we'd seen and the pros and cons of each and Megan eventually narrowed it down by process of elimination to...... THE ONE ACROSS THE STREET FROM ME!!!!!!

Calling up the manager we made sure it was still available then came down to fill out the paperwork. Mom and sis were out for the evening so I had Meg and Ann over for dinner.
 - - -
Sunday, I just needed a day off. I did my laundry but didn't put it away, or do groceries, or anything.... we just watched Modern Family and I tried out my new food processor by making hummus. Yum.

 - - -
Tomorrow I'll be working on the holiday Monday so I'll be hanging out at work making the big bucks. :)

A Week After The Move

So it's been a long week. Moved Monday and been busy all week unpacking and getting ready for the housewarming party. We had a few friends over for the afternoon. 

Mmmmmm... Gluten-free Snacks!

Tonight I've come back to the old place to share pizza and super hero shows.  First thing I did when I got here was the weed the garden of course. :)

There's lots of the little keys sprouting around the edges but guess what! There's also plenty of stuff I actually plantedc growing too. 

Yay!

Monday's the big day!

I'm moving Monday which means I'm going to have to pack my computer very soon and I'm just writing to let you know I'll have limited access on my phone til the net gets hooked up in a few days.

Don't miss me too much. :)

Packing and Pixels

Thanks to some old electronics boxes from Megan's work and a bunch of wine store boxes, I got plenty of packing done on the weekend, and now there's just a few odds and ends that need taking care of. Been keeping busy with work and getting all the stuff surrounding the move organised. Today I brought home another box of boxes from the wine store because if I don't use them all, my housemates surely will.

I've also been messing around with MSPaint stick people as a new blog has started to emerge from my brain called Miss-Overheard. The basic premise being that I overhear(and likely mis-hear) many things day to day and I try to recreate the silly places my brain goes with those snippets of conversation. I use red text to indicate what I though tI heard. the rest is pure fantasy. An example:

I try to keep it flowing at a steady every-other-day for now. I may be able to do more after the move.

Sorry It's been a while

I'd like to say that I haven't been writing because I'm packing, or because my social life is blooming, or because I've been working on the garden... I won't though because those things haven't been checked off my to-do list either. Mostly I've been spinning my wheels and worrying.

I have however, written some poetry and made some very terrible MS Paint comics. The poetry I'll be posting on here bit by bit. The comics have their own blog and will be released every other day for now, maybe more or less as time goes on.

Physical Shopping Spree

(I just realized how this looks but I'm not an affiliate and I don't get paid for anything. I'm just showing you what I got.)

Yesterday I did a lot of walking, and got quite a bit done. Megan was headed the same direction as I was so we shared a cab to the south end of town and I walked my errands and bussed home.

The route I walked.

First stop was the bank. I wanted a separate account for household expenses and I needed to switch my savings account to a TFSA. With that out of the way I walked north east to Sears and ordered our appliances for delivery. We chose these ones for several reasons including maintenance and reviews.

Kenmore 5.1 cu. Ft.

Eureka AirSpeed One Pet

Hamilton Beach 10-Cup

After sears I headed east again and by the time I hit Wellington I was starving so I stopped into a place called Dick and Jane Eggs and Fruits. The food was absolutely delicious.

Recharged, I headed south to PetSmart to get the cats Feline Pine Cat Litter and a High Sided Corner Litter Box. Unfortunately they didn't have the small bag of Feline Pine so I hauled the big litter box and the 20lb bag of litter from the southern most blue dot on the map to the bus stop marked by the red pin (about 1 km)....and then the 1.5 km(one mile) from the other bus stop to home.  My shoulders are fairly upset with me today and I don't really blame them; I haven't done any heavy lifting in more than a year.

Today? I've done very little other than poke around on the internet and a load or two of laundry. 

How's your weekend going?  :)

Mental Shopping Spree

I'm really excited about living with my family and it's keeping my brain busy with ideas for the housewarming party and ideas for day to day life and ideas about shopping. Now the rest are harmless planning ideas that will be gauged against my mom and sister's interest levels...  The shopping daydreaming however tends to get carried away. 

I start thinking about how we've already planned on buying a freezer and vacuum, and how I'm going to need a new bed cause my current bed won't fit in my room, and then I realize I'm going to need new sheets for the bed, and if I can get them at the KingsMills sale then I might as well get some good bath and dish towels, and then I start thinking about getting a food processor because (at the very least) my blender just doesn't cut it for making hummus, then I start looking at pressure cooker/caners, and the idea of fresh herbs crosses my mind, and I start thinking about a table for in the front window and wondering if the light from that window's going to put glare on the TV and if it does we should get a pleated divider to block the light, and omg that would look so good if we had a painted fan hanging over the TV, and I think I have one in my box of nic-nacks, and speaking of nic-nacks, maybe I should get a glass display case so they don't sit in a box the whole time I live here like every other place I've lived in London...

 

Freezer, Vacuum, Bed, Sheets, Towels, Food Processor, Pressure Cooker, Potted Herbs, Table, Pleated Divider, Display Case...

 

Okay so you can see this is getting a bit out of hand. I know the first six on the list are the most important and even the towels are kind of superfluous, so the rest will have to sit in their own list of maybe-if-theres-leftover-money.

Went To Mom's For The Weekend

I decided that I really needed to talk to mom in the same room 'cause texting sucks and we had much to discuss so after making sure she didn't already have plans, I hopped a train last Friday and went to mom's house.

Mom and lil sis are currently in a tiny little place so I knew I'd be sleeping on the futon... I didn't realize how tired that would make me for the next few days.

Anyway, we got a lot of the room-mate stuff settled. We discussed what appliances we would like to buy for the household and looked over different models together. We discussed what we all consider to be healthy for our bodies and our minds (turns out we're all introverts!)

Our electricity rates on London vary by time of day, so we discussed using electricity wisely and leaving un-needed devices off during peak hours, as well as pre-cooking on the weekend to avoid too much cooking in the electric oven during peak times.

The food thing took up a lot of talking and we settled on these ideas:

• Eating only those foods which are good to us, meaning no gluten and no pork.
• Eating beans, quinoa, chickpeas, peanuts, lentils, and other plant sources of protein more often and meats less often.
• Eating a variety of vegetables daily, including "weird" ones.
• Buying dry goods(rice, beans, toilet paper, etc) in bulk and store them carefully.
• Going to the farmers markets every Saturday (or every other Saturday depending on needs) getting deals where they can be found and storing what won't be eaten that week in the freezer or as canned foods.
• Spending Sundays together pre-cooking and doing general prep work for the week ahead. This may involve making a large batch of pasta sauce of which only one jar gets used that week and the rest put away for later, or even just cutting the veggies for snack packs.
• Doing this prep work with a glad heart knowing it will help us eat healthy foods in reasonable amounts.(avoiding traps like popcorn-for-dinner-cause-I-don't-want-to-cook, or wow-I-haven't-eaten-all-day-and-that-whole-12"-cheesecake-looks-snack-sized).

We're also going to have a house warming party the first weekend so we can have everyone over at once and then not have to deal with social calls the next week or two while unpacking. :) No that's not really the reason, but it is a nice side effect. We've found these past few years that we all think fairly similarly and we not only enjoy each other's company, but also enjoy quiet time with the others around (reading, surfing, playing a video game) so I'm certain that living together is an excellent choice for us.

~ ~ ~

We will encourage each other to stretch and grow stronger physically

We will allow each other to grow spiritually in our own ways

We will clean our home enough to be healthy

We will relax in our home enough to be sane

We will honour our commitments

We will cherish each other

We will have fun

~ ~ ~

Lease Signed

We went last night to sign the lease. It is now officially ours starting April 28th. I have to sign for the keys on moving day but other than that, it's ours!

Now to arrange for electricity and internet. Hopefully with this much notice we won't have the usual annoying can't-fit-you-in-til-a-week-later the internet companies love to do.

We brought a tape measure and it's final.... I won't be able to keep my queen size bed. I'm going to miss it but there's just no room in my bedroom for something that big. There is however room in the kitchen for the chest freezer we want to get, so it balances out.

We Got The Place!

We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place! We Got The Place!

Moving in beginning of May. So happy! Happy Dance!

Nothing left but waiting

We've met with the building manager, filled out all the paperwork, and brought copies of all the important proof things... All that's left it to wait for them to call on Tuesday and tell us which way the wind is blowing.

I like this place and I'm anxious to get the lease signed so I can just relax and pack instead of all this running around.

Rich people just don't get it.

So Tuesday night I got an email from the awesome place saying that they didn't like the fact that mom couldn't sign up for school til summer because there was no way in their mind that I could support everyone if something went wrong. They wanted a co-signer to cover their butts in case mom not only didn't get in her program, but then proceed to sit on her butt and not work or get OW(welfare) or anything.

We flat out told them we don't have a co-signer and thanks for your time and good luck.

Wednesday night after work I found I had a new email from them saying that they really want this to work and would I please look over their numbers to see if they made a mistake somewhere.

Attached was this:

So among the laughable assumptions were:
Cable - $45/month (we don't use cable)
Credit card - $50/month (we don't have credit cards)
Phone/mobile - $150/month (try $60 for both of us on talk/text only)
Misc - $250/month (really? maybe if we had it to spare that month and it was christmas or something)

Also, instead of using the actual net from my pay-stubs they took an estimated gross and used 20% to decide what the net is (my last pay the difference was 10.4%, the one before it was 14.4%). They didn't account for the months that I get an extra pay check due to the long month and didn't include ANY income from mom including child support, tax credits or anything.  So basically, they just don't get how poor people live.

Mom and I decided we were done jumping through hoops for someone who wouldn't understand and are instead persuing the one we saw before it. The manager was much more likeable and we can deal with carpet. Paperwork is getting handed in to them this Friday. 

Another Long Day

So Mom's train arrived late, again. So we hustled into a cab and made it to the first appointment on time.

The manager was nice and personable, she had two apartments to show us. The building had 24h key access laundry room that ran off Smartcards. Both apartments were mostly carpeted with in unit storage closets and large-ish living rooms.None of us are fans of carpet because it means buying and using and maintaining a vacuum. The one on the first floor was $15 more because it was recently updated to have new cupboards and a range hood, but because it was literally beside the lobby, part of the living room eaten by that (and it's probably going to be noisy). The un-renovated one on the third floor also had one less lower cupboard which would be a good spot for a small chest freezer. After some discussion with the friendly manager we took an application with us and went for lunch.

A few blocks away is a nice Chinese restaurant. It had a Dim-sum menu and in their normal menu they have the lists of dishes of course but also "meal for #" type orders (like you'd get from any take out place) and a separate list of  "traditional meal for #" that listed some foods I didn't immediately recognise.

We ate slowly but still had tons of time til the next showing because the one between them cancelled so we went to Tim Horton's and relaxed for a bit.

The second showing was the one with the pretty pictures. It was at the top end of our be Online it looked so big and had hardwood floors and gorgeous kitchens and bathrooms.... In person, carpet. This one was definitely larger bedrooms, and a beautiful kitchen and bathroom, but there was really no storage except the single small damp looking "locker" assigned to each apartment in the laundry room. The laundry room was only accessible from 8am-10pm and the machines run on coins. She offered to show us a second unit as well but that was out of our range. That was probably the one they took the pictures from.  The final issue was that there was NO on site management at all. If anything went wrong you had to call a number and wait for someone to drive in from wherever they are. Since this past winter has been awful for so many people with pipes bursting and such, that's not a risk I'm willing to take. We thanked her for her time and left.

Before mom left last night we filled out the paperwork and this morning I called to tell her we want the one that hasn't been renovated and that I'd be bringing the paperwork by tomorrow after work.

**fingers crossed**

Phone-Tag Champion

So after two and a half days of research and phone tag we now have three places to see on Saturday.

First is a high-rise complex that has 3 different buildings. The 2br well be looking at is $750 +hydro (electric to those not in Ontario). It is about 30 min walk to downtown and has card based laundry room (no quarters needed yay!)

The second is the first floor of a house right off the main strip downtown. It's a 2br as well for $850 including all utilities and even including laundry. Ideally placed for me to get to work, and also for mom to easily get to everything downtown as well as all the buses even in the winter. It's in a student neighbourhood so it may be the noisier place but noise isn't a big deal to us.

The third one we're seeing is in a low rise about 30 min walk from downtown. This 2br is $825 +hydro and it has laundry on site but I don't know if it's coin or card. It's on the high end of our budget but the pics were so pretty we put it on the list just to see if it was as awesome as it seemed.

Mom's got the train tickets and Eric's going to join us as an extra set of eyes. Haven't had much time with him lately so that will be nice.

Wish us luck. :)

Arg

So we weren't approved.... and of course they don' t give a reason... Arg. Back to the drawing board.

Spent my whole evening researching with Eric and mom. I now have a list of 5 places I'm gonna try to get appointments with for Saturday and we'll start the whole thing over again. I'm tired.  Found this pretty place though.

Application Submitted

It took a whole day longer than promised but the deposit finally got to the apartment manager.

I texted her to make sure it had actually arrived and she confirmed that as well as letting me know our application was sent to the main office. According to the paperwork, we should hear back "within two business days" so that's by the end of the week. I'm super excited and mom's nervous because if we aren't accepted for any reason then we still have a lot of work ahead of us trying to find something that good and that cheap.

Prayers, thoughts, well wishes, positive vibes all appreciated.

Can the Snow Just... Not?

So when we filled out the application for the apartment on Saturday there were a few bits and pieces we needed to include that we didn't have with us. Mom said she'd send the last month's rent by Priority Post on Monday and I said I'd get my "proof of employment" to them a.s.a.p. this week. The idea was that if they had all the bits by Tuesday, they'd have an answer for us by the end of week

I went after work today to drop off my pay stubs and the manager said the deposit hadn't arrived yet. I texted mom for the tracking number....

Okay, so it's been delayed a day or two due to the nasty weather. Delightful. 

I really am hating this winter.

It Has Begun

Not bad for the first little stint of packing. 

Three boxes ready to go and one box for donations that's about a third full.