So far so good...

I cooked for the first time in my new place tonight with groceries I picked up on the way home in Chinatown and it felt good. I opened up a bottle of wine, half-listened to the news and made rigatoni.

I haven't been spending much time here with my sister visiting with Piglet, but since she left today, I'll be able to give settling in my focused attention. The last couple trips home to my mother's I've loaded up my car with bags and boxes of stuff. A good half of my wardrobe is still uptown, including just about all my shoes, my bag collection and all of my fall/winter wardrobe. It's a long weekend thought and I fully expect to have most of my wardrobe moved down.

My pantry is also rather sad but I figure I can see to that this weekend too. Soon...very soon...I will be done and then my mind will quiet down and I'll have fewer things to add to my running list of to-dos. :)

Finally, the dressers

My dressers were delivered this evening and I was so looking forward to spending the night unpacking my clothes and feeling more settled but it wasn't to be. The paint job still isn't as perfect as I would like it to be and I can accept the explanation about the pores of the wood being very open and the curves of the drawers making it difficult to paint with the spray gun. But what's unacceptable is the mess of paint specks and drips that is the inside of the drawers because they obviously didn't cover the open drawers. GRRR!

Instead of just lining the drawers, as I had originally intended, I now have to thoroughly clean them...From the looks of some of the drawers, I may have to scour some of them. Double GRRRRR!

Converted

I'm not a bath person but after taking a shower last night and making an awful mess because I don't yet have a shower curtain rod and therefore no shower curtain, I decided tonight was the perfect time to give my deep soaker tub a try....and you know what? I think I may just be a convert to baths...maybe at least once a week - particularly after I get myself one of those little bath pillows to rest my head against!

Still feeling warm and perhaps a little drowsy...time for bed!

Feels like home

I don't know what I would do without my family. Despite the grumbling from my siblings - actually, just my brother - and a bit of stress and frustration on my part and my Uncle's because I didn't have everything on hand for installation this afternoon (he's the tool guy with the mad skillz) everyone pulled together: My sister and brother put together the last couple Malms which are now lined up across from my bookcases, my mother finished putting my kitchen in order and saw to organizing the cardboard and packing materials, and I helped my Uncle install the hotel towel rack in my bathroom and one of the Rubbermaid Customizable Closet kits (the pre-installed hardware in the closet is beyond crappy.)

What's missing now are my dressers. I moved my summer wardrobe down today and until my dressers arrive (hopefully tomorrow!) I will be living out of bags.

Pictures to come...

Family Wedding

My cousin C, who is my father's oldest brother's middle child got married today and we attended the wedding reception. Since my father's death, we haven't been close with my father's side...to say we're estranged seems rather strong...we just don't keep in touch.

Anyway, I wasn't exactly dreading the reception tonight, but I wasn't looking forward to it either. Despite the indifference, I had a really good time: my sister, brother, Piglet and I sat with my cousins TM, D, TH and their spouses and children. We caught up and I met an Uncle, my father's cousin's husband from Maryland who I don't recall ever meeting. He is retired from the Library of Congress and is working on a family tree, which I think is the coolest thing ever. I've always wanted to know more about my family but have never made any moves towards that end...I gave Uncle R. my email address and look forward to hearing from him soon about the work in progress. :)

Connected!

I'm getting settled in very slowly. My couch was delivered Thursday and it's so comfortable! I spent much of that day cleaning - lined my cupboards and put away my dishes and swept and mopped. With construction still ongoing through to October, I suspect I'll be cleaning just about every day if I want to avoid dust building up.

My appointment to hook-up my cable, phone and internet was early yesterday morning so I slept in my place for the first time Thursday night. I overlook a gas station (for now anyway) that fronts onto a busy street and could hear the sounds of the city all around, which is something I'll have to get used to again after living in the quiet suburbs the last 20+ years.

Now that I'm connected again, I feel less isolated. I'm presently sitting on my couch half-watching the US play Spain in Olympic basketball thinking I should head out to pick up some lunch since my fridge is depressingly empty...

Moving Day

Today was the day and we got off to a late start. I was still packing this morning since Piglet and watching the Olympics last night were quite the distraction. We picked up the truck around 10:30 and headed back home to pack some more. After a quick lunch, we began loading up the truck which only took an hour - good thing since we had to make a stop to pick up my dressers at the refinishers, which didn't move in with me today because the paint job wasn't acceptable.

There were obvious drip spots and I was given a reasonable explanation about the fact that the dressers were going from a dark finish with a reddish undertone to the extreme of a stark white, so, as a result they had to put multiple layers on because the red bled through, blah blah blah. Keeping my fingers crossed that when next I see them, they'll be as near perfect as possible.

We got to my place around 3pm and the building manager who had my key was nowhere to be found. We waited around for at least half an hour before he decided to show himself so by the time we moved everything in, it was nearly dinner time. None of the items identified on my pre-delivery inspection were attended to and I wonder if they will be within the 30 days since 11 of the 14 units on my floor appear to be incomplete.

The one bright spot is that I met the neighbour to my right and he is cute! AND he has an accent. :)

2 sleeps and counting...

My sister and the Piglet have arrived and needless to say there was no packing tonight. Since I'm moving from my mother's house into my own place, I have the luxury of moving over in phases...and while it's a bit inconvenient because I'll likely be running back and forth with things over the next little while, it's also less stressful because I don't have to move everything in one fell swoop...for some reason, the image of the slow peeling off of a bandage comes to mind...oh well.

Spending QT

It's my last weekend at home and since the reprise of the opening ceremonies on Friday night, I've been spending a lot of time in front of the TV with my family watching the Olympics. With 2 TVs per person in our household, it's safe to say that it's a pretty rare occasion for us to share a couch but the Beijing Olympics has brought us together....though I could probably do with less of my mother's constant commentary. :)

Aside from watching lots of Olympics, I spent yesterday playing personal shopper for my brother who's looking for a suit, and spent part of the afternoon with my mother picking up the new TV I bought and a trio of 4-drawer Malm dressers at Ikea which will flank one side of my dining area.

I didn't get as much packing done as I would have liked this weekend and with my sister and Piglet arriving tomorrow afternoon, I'm not sure how much more I'll get done over the next 2 evenings, but it's not the end of the world. It just means that things will be transitioning over in waves.

Consequences and Every Eye

I'm late posting about the 2 latest Persephone Books to be added to my 2008 list: Consequences by EM Delafield (No. 13) and Every Eye by Isobel English (No. 18).

Consequences was rather frustrating to read because I found the heroine, Alex, so awkward and neurotic, but at the same time, much as I hate to admit it, there was a part of me that identified with her because, like me, she's the eldest of 3 with a younger sister and brother. And, like me, she feels that she knows best - but I suppose that's true of any older sibling.

There were many cringe-worthy moments because Alex so desperately wanted to be liked...and she reminded me a bit of Muriel in Muriel's Wedding...which was such a hit and touted as a hopeful "feel-good" movie but I felt was annoyance because Muriel struck me as pathetic.

From the website:

EM Delafield is best-known as the author of The Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930). But her favourite among her books was Consequences (1919), the deeply-felt novel she wrote about the plight of girls given no opportunities apart from marriage.

Alex Clare is awkward and oversensitive and gets everything wrong; she refuses to marry the only young man who 'offers' and believes there is nothing left for her but to enter a convent. But that is not quite the end of her tragic story. Nor was it for EM Delafield, who also entered a convent for a year; but in her case she was able to find freedom through working as a VAD in an army hospital, 'which was emancipation of the most delirious kind. It was occupation, it was self-respect.'

Every Eye was short and sweet, though I can't say it's a story that will stay with me, and for that reason I will leave you with the description from Persephone's site:

Isobel English, the pseudonym of June Braybrooke (1920-94), wrote little but what she published was of outstanding quality. 'Sometimes, but not often, a novel comes along which makes the rest of what one has to review seem commonplace. Such a novel is Every Eye,' John Betjeman said in the Daily Telegraph on its first publication.

This 1956 novel is about a girl growing up to what could have been unhappiness but for her marriage to a carefree young(er) man. As she travels south by train to Ibiza she surveys her past life and unravels a mystery. Hence The Tablet's comment: 'This novel is a marvellous discovery. You will want to reread it immediately in the light of its astonishing final paragraph.' Muriel Spark wrote: 'The late Isobel English was an exceptionally talented young novelist of the mid-1950s. Every Eye is one of her most successful and sensitively written books, a romantic yet unsentimental story of a young woman's intricate relationships of family and love, intensely evocative of the period, remarkable in its observations of place and character.' And Anita Brookner called Every Eye 'a lucidly written account of various kinds of confusion and a valuable lesson in where to look for freedom.'

There's something about him....

Our 2009 Ikea catalog was delivered this weekend and I've been flipping through it pretty much non-stop ever since. The new collection is supported by a quirky television ad and I was wondering why the male dancer looked so familiar to me. And after searching YouTube posts of So You Think You Can Dance (I'm a HUGE fan!) tonight, I found my answer! His name is Robert Muraine and he was on the show!!



And here he is in the full-length commercial:

Buggy Simcoe Day

I went for a hike on this lovely Simcoe Day with a few mandarin classmates and their families at Glen Major Forest and Walker Woods in Uxbridge and was eaten alive by mosquitoes - at one point, all I could hear was the constant buzzing around my head....which in hindsight, makes me wonder if it's the hairspray my stylist put in my hair to hold the curls she gave me for the wedding. I hadn't yet washed my hair and that explains a lot because I have 5 bites and they're all above my shoulders!

On the plus side, to avoid the bugs, I picked up the pace in the middle of our 3 hour hike and got quite the cardio work-out.


Plus, we snacked on wild raspberries we happened upon along the trail and crossed paths with teeny-tiny frogs.

Keep Calm & Eat Cake in the kitchen

I was browsing through my etsy favourites last night and bought a couple of prints from BluLima's shop. I'd had my eye on these two prints for a little while now - Keep Calm is produced by several other sellers but I like Sharon's colours and the dimensions of her prints.

I think Eat Cake is perfect for a bright pop of colour in my kitchen...but looking at the photo above, I wonder if the wall by the microwave is wide enough...hmm...maybe framed atop the counter?


Sharon is super-nice and is throwing a Buy One Get One sale on through to the end of the week, so pop on over for a look.

View from my balcony

My pre-delivery inspection was yesterday and for the most part, it went well, if you call well the fact that all the doors were banged up a bit along the edges so I wonder how "touching up" will make them good as new again.

The bigger issue is the floors. The hardwood looked off...it didn't at all resemble the Walnut that I had upgraded too...in fact...it looked like cheap laminate. So I'm waiting for confirmation about whether or not the floor that was installed was what I had paid for...I was supposed to get a call back today, and when I didn't hear from them this morning, I called in the afternoon to follow-up and got the voicemail. I suppose they'd taken off for the long weekend. So now I wait until Tuesday - rather impatiently. Grrr.

Oh. And I confirmed as well that the new development currently on sale just south of me will be blocking my view above come 2012...so once they hit the 60% sales target, they can break ground and I'm guessing I won't be enjoying my balcony very much since it'll be dusty and loud out there. Lovely. Feeling a bit bummed about moving now. sigh.