Movin' to "The County"

Well like one of my favourite bloggers Farm Girl we are thinking of making the big plunge of selling this ridiculously expensive house and moving to "The County". Which is Prince Edward County in Ontario Canada. It is a beautiful island that is just starting to be discovered by tourists in search of antiques, good wine, (and Black River cheese) along with all the arts and crafts created by the artisans that live there.

I went there to visit my parents who both live in Belleville, which is just over the bridge from the County. I also went to check out some real estate. Tim was coming up by train late Friday night so I was supposed to qualify some of the places we had found on our MLS search during the week while I was there. I did some major running around and my Dad was good enough to come along and his girlfriend Pat babysat Quinn and Leah tagged along with us.

What a crazy busy time and trying to sleep at night was impossible. My brain wouldn't be quiet and Leah kept flopping on top of me all night and my mom snoring in the other room made for alot of lost hours of sleep. The excitement of finding a great place to live definitely kept me going though.

So by Saturday I had it down to 4 properties one of which I hadn't seen but was the property that started it all and then there was a big victorian with only a wee bit of land and a house with 2 outbuildings that all looked like it was about to fall down but it was in a prime location for tourist traffic. Then there was this Farm that I had seen the day before, sigh... it was so beautiful there, I fell in love before I knew what hit me. I didn't say much to Tim other than "you've got to see this place, it's really nice".

Our adventure started at the house on the river with two cute barns and a newer raised bungalow. The location was good, the house was in great shape and roomy and the views were spectacular. The odd thing was we both felt that the acre and 1/4 lot seemed too confining.

Next we went to The Farm. The owner, Sid, was waiting for us with raincoats and an ATV with a trailer to haul Tim, myself our real estate agent, the kids and my mom back to the back of the 80 acre farm. What a great ride we all had fun bumping along the trails and admiring the 400 trees planted in '76 and the 4000 trees that had been planted in '81 along with the 50 acres that his neighbour rented off of him to farm. Also behind the house is an evironmentally protected marsh.

It was a bit shocking how big 80 acres really is. The property reached back a mile and 1/4. We decided then and there that the ATV would have to be part of the purchase of this place.

I really thought Tim would like the place but lean more towards the riverfront property so I kept watching him to gauge his reaction. We ended up staying there and checking everything out for about an hour and a half. I think Sid and his wife Marg really liked us and the kids had them laughing with all their antics in the hay loft. Sid's daughter and her family live right next door, actually, come to think of it they are about the only neighbour you can actually see!

When Tim and I finally got a moment alone to talk I found that he had the exact same reaction to the place that I did, you just feel like you can really breath. Like you finally are able to take a huge deep breath after ages of breathing very shallow. I described it to Tim that it was like your chest just got opened up so that your soul can step out and take a real stretch.

Now we number crunch, which really means we make up numbers that we think it will cost to live there and then come up with numbers of what we think a business like what we want to create will make. Then we hope that the 2 match up! Ridiculous or what? We have been talking and planning and talking about doing this for 4 years (it was our 5 year plan) I say F**K it and we just do it and then work our butts off to stay afloat. I don't care if I have to work for minimum wage at a grocery store or hardware store I just want a chance to do what we have always wanted to do. Set up a studio create our creations, sell them from our studio/home and online and at craft/wholesale shows and just plain go for it.

We shall see, Tim's going to see it another time with his Dad in 2 weeks. I hate waiting!!!

A Meme About Me

I borrowed this from my brother-in-law for fun. All the bold ones are true for me.

* I miss somebody right now.
* I don't watch much TV these days.
* I own lots of books.
* I wear glasses or contact lenses.
* I love to play video games.
* I've tried marijuana.
* I've watched porn movies.
* I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.
* I believe honesty is usually always the best policy.
* I curse sometimes...
* I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.
* I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.
* I have broken someone's bones.
* I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal.
* I hate the rain.
* I'm paranoid at times.
* I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free.
* I love sushi.
* I talk really, really fast.
* I have fresh breath in the morning.
* I have long hair.
* I have lost money in Las Vegas.
* I have at least one sibling.
* I was born in a country outside of the U.S.
* I have worn fake hair/fingernails/eyelashes in the past.
* I couldn't survive without Caller I.D.
* I like the way that I look.
* I have lied to a good friend in the last 6 months.
* I am usually pessimistic.
* I have a lot of mood swings.
* I think prostitution should be legalized.
* I slept with a roommate.* I have a hidden talent.
* I'm always hyper no matter how much sugar I have.
* I have a lot of friends.
* I have pecked someone of the same sex.
* I enjoy talking on the phone.
* I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants.
* I love to shop and/or window shop.
* I'm obsessed with my Xanga or Livejournal.
* I'm completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother.
* I have a cell phone.
* I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months.
* I've rejected someone before
* I currently like/love someone.
* I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.
* I want to have children in the future.
* I have changed a diaper before.
* I've called the cops on a friend before.
* I'm not allergic to anything.
* I have a lot to learn.
* I am shy around the opposite sex.
* I'm online 24/7, even as an away message.
* I have at least 5 away messages saved.
* I have tried alcohol or drugs before.
* I have made a move on a friend's significant other or crush in the past.
* I own the "South Park" movie.
* I have avoided assignments at work/school to be on Xanga or Livejournal
* I enjoy some country music.
* I would die for my best friends.
* I'm obsessive, and often a perfectionist.
* I have used my sexuality to advance my career.
* Halloween is awesome because you get free candy.
* I have dated a close friend's ex.
* I am happy at this moment.
* I'm obsessed with guys.
* Democrat.
* Republican.
* I am punk rockish.
* I go for older guys/girls, not younger.
* I study for tests most of the time.
* I tie my shoelaces differently from anyone I've ever met.
* I can work on a car.
* I love my job(s), most of the time.
* I am comfortable with who I am right now.
* I have more than just my ears pierced.
* I walk barefoot wherever I can.
* I have jumped off a bridge.
* I love sea turtles.
* I spend ridiculous amounts of money on makeup.
* I plan on achieving a major goal/dream.
* I am proficient on a musical instrument.
* I hate office jobs.
* I went to college out of state.
* I am adopted.
* I am a pyro.
* I have thrown up from crying too much.
* I have been intentionally hurt by people that I loved.
* I fall for the worst people.
* I adore bright colors.
* I usually like covers better than originals.
* I hate chain theme restaurants
* I can pick up things with my toes.
* I can't whistle.
* I have ridden/owned a horse.
* I still have every journal I've ever written in.
* I talk in my sleep.
* I've often thought that I was born in the wrong century
* I try to forget things by drowning them out with loads of distractions.
* I wear a toe ring.
* I have a tattoo.
* I can't stand at LEAST one person that I work with.
* I am a caffeine junkie.
* I am completely tree-huggy spiritual, and I'm not ashamed at all.
* If I knew I would get away with it, I would commit at least one murder.
* I will collect anything, and the more nonsensical, the better.
* I enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner.
* I'm an artist.
* I am ambidextrous.
* I sleep with so many stuffed animals, I can hardly fit on my bed.
* If it weren't for having to see other people naked, I'd live in a nudist colony.
* I have terrible teeth.
* I hate my toes.
* I did this Meme even though I wasn't tagged by the person who took it before me.
* I have more friends on the internet than in real life.
* I have lived in either three different states or countries or provinces.
* I am extremely flexible.
* I love hugs more than kisses.
* I want to own my own business.
* I smoke.
* I spend way too much time on the computer than on anything else.
* Nobody has ever said I'm normal.
* Sad movies, games, and the like can cause a trickle of tears every now and then.
* I am proficient in the use of many types firearms and combat weapons.
* I like the way women look in stylized men's suits.
* I don't like it when people are displeased or seem displeased with me.
* I have been described as a dreamer or likely to have my head up in the clouds.
* I have played strip poker with someone else before.
* I have had emotional problems for which I have sought professional help.
* I believe in ghosts and the paranormal.
* I can't stand being alone.
* I have at least one obsession at any given time.
* I weigh myself, pee/poo, and then weigh myself again.
* I consistently spend way too much money on obsessions-of-the-moment.
* I'm a judgmental asshole.
* I'm a HUGE drama-queen.
* I have traveled on more than one continent.
* I sometimes wish my father would just disappear.
* I need people to tell me I'm good at something in order to feel that I am.
* I am a Libertarian.
* I can speak more than one language.
* I can fall asleep even if the whole room is as noisy as it can be.
* I would rather read than watch TV.
* I like reading fact more than fiction.
* I have pulled an all-nighter on an assignment I was given a month to do.
* I have no piercings.
* I have spent the night in a train station or other public place.
* I have been so upset over my physical gender that I cried.
* I've been married and am now divorced.
* There have been times when I have wondered "Why was I born?"
* I like most animals better than most people.
* I own a collection of retro game consoles.
* The thought of physical exercise makes me shiver.
* I have hit someone with a dead fish.
* I have written/read erotic stories.
* I am compulsively honest.
* I was born with a congenital birth defect that has never been repaired.
* I have danced topless in front of dozens of complete strangers.
* I have gone from wishing I was a boy to revelling in being a girl to feeling like a boy again in the span of five minutes, and not cared a whit for my actual sex.
* I am unashamedly bisexual, and have different motivations for my desires for different genders.
* I sometimes won't sleep a whole night or eat a whole day because I forget to.
* I obsessively wash my hands.* I always carry something significant around with me.
* Sometimes I'd rather wear a wig in day-to-day life than use my own hair
* I've pushed myself to become more self-aware and thereby more aware of others.
* Even though I live on my own I still cry sometimes because I miss my mother.
* I hand wrote all the HTML tags in this document.
* I've liked something which a majority of people claimed was either bad or weird.
* I have been clinically dead for a brief period of time.
* Instead of feeling sympathy/empathy with people and their problems, I simply become annoyed.
* I participate/have participated in auto drag races and won.
* I do not 'get' most comedy acts.
* Seriously. I do think larry david, and roseanne are funny.
* I don't think strippers are money-greedy or slutty for dancing.
* I don't like to chew gum.
* I am obsessed with history/historical things and can't wait for someone to build a time machine so I can be the first to use it.
* I can never remember for the life of me where I parked the car.
* Had the TEEN ANGST thing going for at least 2-3 years.
* I wish people would be more empathic and honest with each other.
* I play Dungeons and Dragons weekly.
* I love to sing.
* I want to live in my mother's basement when I grow up.
* I have a custom-built computer. And I built it.
* I want to create a certain someone's babies, even though there's a 0% possiblity of ever achieving it.
* I would be in a relationship with one of my pets if they were human.
* I've gone skinny-dipping.
* I've performed in three plays, all of them Shakespeare.
* I enjoy burritos.
* I'm Irish and lovin' it.
* I have a thing for redheads.
* I am a twin.
* Most times, I'd rather do something intellectual instead of doing something generically 'fun'.
* Once I set out to finish something, I always stay at it until it is completed before I move on to something else.
* I wish there were a way to erase past mistakes.
* I wish I could do High School all over again.
* I have big interest swings every year.
* I have loved Pokemon since the beginning and continue to do so.
* There's no genre of music I dislike.
* I've read every work written by my favorite author(s).
* No matter how much I sleep, I'm always tired.
* I'd rather eat out than cook.
* I am obsessed with actors that are older than I am.
* I can move my little toes independently.
* I enjoy purchasing and wearing articles of clothing and/or accessories that have skulls on them.
* I can play most woodwind instruments, particularly the clarinet.
* I have appeared nude in a film.
* I have attempted to rob a store using a replica weapon.
* My hair has been every colour of the rainbow at least once.
* I think its entirely possible to just like Marmite when you feel like it, without having to love or hate it.
* I have half siblings who I've never met.
* I auditioned to join the circus.
*I have had sex with someone of a different race.
*I can do tricks with my tongue.

Father's Day Climbin'

Well for a father's day treat we surprised Tim with a rock climbing adventure at our local rock climbing club. Of course the kids had to go first and did really well then Tim got a turn. We soon understood why it's a pay one price and stay as long as you want. It should be a pay one price and stay until you drop which seems to be about 2 hours into the climbing!! Tim managed to go up 3 times and was completely done with numb sore fingers and toes from griping.
The kids had an absolute blast and are completely hooked. Of course they did great scrambling up until they looked down and then they would just let go and hang there with one of us holding their ropes at the bottom and just yell "I'm done, Get me down, NOW!" Quinn managed to get about 20 feet or possibly more by the end, Leah was closer to 15 and Tim got to the top once, which would have been about 40 feet or so.

The photos of Quinn climbing is about 6 or so feet short of where he managed to actually get to. I have a feeling we will all be back fairly soon and Tim is already trying to think of people he can drag along to climb with him after work next week.

I have to say it was a really great thing for the kids and not that bad in the price department. They had a bunch of different areas to practice with many different skill levels plus the caving area where there were some people practically hanging upside down!

It sure burned up some energy with both Leah and Quinn and they both sure fell asleep fast!

Gorilla Gardening

Two years ago I took out all the grass of our tiny 12 foot by 17 foot front lot and with a tonne of work and digging and adding in a truckload of triple mix. With the help of donations of many plants by my Mom and a friendly stranger who just came and dropped off an entire box of perennials my front garden looks fantastic! The tulips created a fun path for the kids though I can see now that I missed a section that I need to put bulbs in this fall. I better mark it now so I can find the area come October!

The city came along and spoiled my plan to no longer have to drag a lawnmower out the front by adding in a grass boulevard with a tree...sigh. I don't want to drag the damn lawnmower out and the neighbours to one side are renters and never do any lawn care. The neighbours on the right side are very clear that they will only mow up to and never over the property line. Sooooo that leaves me dragging out the lawnmower or making a new garden and ditching that grass too!! I think I'll start that little project soon...heheh. I can't resist the urge to expand the garden, maybe I'll even spread it into the renter house area since they obviously will never cut their's either.

Quinn is 6 Today!

Happy birthday to my sweet boy! I can't believe you're six already, where did the time go? I think because you are the youngest it seems more final, all that baby stuff you are leaving behind.

I always had that time frame of the September when you would go off to Grade 1 for full days of school and Leah would be in Grade 4. It always seems so far in the distant future and yet here it is only a short summer vacation away!

You and your sister are growing so fast that I find myself looking at and you both and wondering some days how I got here and where did all that time go? You both are really great kids and I love you to pieces and love to hang out with you, it's always a fun time. I was once told that our children are our greatest Zen Masters and will teach us our toughest lessons because they are the one person on the earth that we have to listen to and can't avoid the lesson being taught. So always remember you have as much to teach me as I have to teach you and we have a life of learning ahead of us both.
Love you my wee boy.

Bathroom Limbo

Well the bathroom reno is temporarily on hold. Tim is back at work and once again crazy busy and coming home late and exhausted. Weekends are crazy busy like this weekend with it being Quinn's 6th birthday party and nothing prepared for it. So between the mountain of homework Leah always brings home and a party to shop for and organize along with a function at the kid's Boys and Girls Club that they desperately want to attend, I'm already tired. Not even mentioning Leah's social calendar of her friends that want to get together with her to play.

Now that I'm working from the store and not at home during the week all the household chores are piling up. I used to break up my work with grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning while I was home. Now I'm too whipped to do it in the evenings after rushing through a meal and homework. What is up with the homework anyways! Leah is in grade 3 and there is always an hour to 2 hours of homework. She has trouble doing class work in class because of her APD but even still. Last weekend she came home with 13 pages of math work that was over and above what they are doing in class and the homework that came from that. Crazy! Math is a real struggle for Leah especially at the end of a day when she is tired.

So back to the bathroom, well no news is bad news in this case. I think we are going to have to hire someone to get us to the next stage. This is going into week 4 with no upstairs toilet and I really need a toilet up there! I guess I'll make some calls to see what it will cost me... sigh. It's actually cheaper to hire someone and keep Tim at work since taking off work for Tim means no pay whatsoever. Definitely cheaper to hire someone than loose Tim's income.

All Quiet...

Well Tim went back to work today after taking 2 weeks off to do the bathroom. Those kind of holidays suck, all work and no play. We did manage to get some major destruction, rebuilding, organizing, purging of the house and garage done which is great.
We are going to have a big yardsale soon!
So the kids are now out of the house to school and Quinn will go to daycare for the afternoon and Tim is at work so we can finally get a paycheque again. It's very quiet and pretty damn clean in this house, yeah!
Now I'm supposed to get my work done of making final changes to the children's book I've illustrated and designed for the author. Of course I'm avoiding as usual. I keep telling myself it won't take long and then I can burn the CD's and ship it this week and it will be done! Unfortunately I'm not really believing that because there always seems to be one more change...sigh.
I've moved onto other projects and jobs and illustrating a whole book may sound great but it's a really long project for me and I never can do it quick enough to actually make any money. I'm lucky if it pays my daycare expenses for the time I'm working on it. I've decided that I'm not a book illustrator, I'm much better at the short creative jobs so I'm going to turn down the ones that I'm not good at so I can concentrate of the jobs I am good at. Less stress this way for everyone involved.
The author that is paying me has been awesome about the whole project and the 2 books we did previous to this. I think though she is taking it a bit personally that I don't want to do a 4th book or any other book in the future. I couldn't have asked for a better person to do the project with but I need to realize my limitations and step back to allow for someone truly talented in this capacity step in. I know lots of illustrators so when she is ready I'll help her find the right person to step in and develop anymore books that she wants to plan for.
Book website www.grahamcrackerkids.com

The Tub is IN!

The plumber arrived early Saturday and we got the tub in by evening and it's really, really deep! YEAH! A good soaker/bubble bathtub at last!!!
The kids decided to christen it for us and there is tonnes of room for them both and Leah can even completely submerge herself and she says practice for swimming class. We stuck up plastic everywhere and hopefully we will get the floor in and the toilet and sink by the end of next weekend.

We moved the doorway so it opens on Leah's side of the hallway and will have a sliding pocket door. The door will be in the wall when open right at the end of the tub.


Century homes are such a joy and full of surprises!! We did find some old newspaper from 1937 and old wallpaper and the old, probably original flooring which was about 5 inches lower than the other old floor that had probably been installed in the 60's with the yellow tub and toilet. We also found a nice piece of baseboard still attached to the wall under the old tub from the days of a freestanding tub. The bathroom is only about 8 feet wide and the original floor where it attached on the side of the room where the toilet was to across the room to where the tub was the drop in the floor was about 5 inches. The angle was crazy! The old floor ontop of it was sloped as well, even where they tried to correct it. We had to rip up the hallway section as well since it wasn't level either. Now Leah's floor in her room is again lower than the hallway and a small step down into her room.

The angle of the walls is pretty scary. I think if we intend to stay in this house for much longer we are going to have to underpin the kitchen so it will stop sinking!!!

Movie Night!

I help organize a movie night fundraiser at our kid's school and it's tonight. We are watching Nanny McPhee.
We usually raise close to and sometimes more than $300 so it's a great evening. THis time I'm sneaking a thermos of some lovely chilled wine for myself and another mom (best girlfriend) to celebrate the end of another school year. This is the excuse I came up with anyways.
Hopefully I won't get caught with the goods!

Backsplash

I was at my Mom's during the xmas holidays and created this backsplash for her kitchen. It was a small area that ended up taking a surprising amount of time to do.
I used 4 x 4 inch white tiles with 1/2 inch glass mosiac tiles in about 4 different colours of blue and 1/2 inch mirror tiles. The mirror tiles were all silver but the glass was etched with different designs like a raised wavy pattern, swirls, a fern-like leaf pattern and also just clear glass. The mirror added a really nice sparkle.

Renovation Time...AGAIN!!

So we are once again renovating this house of ours...sigh. This time it's the upstairs bathroom. So far we've discovered the original floor is sloping about 5 inches from one end of the 7 foot room to the other. Someone raised the floor over it in the 60's but now that floor is slopping too. So now we are raising it up so it's level which meant now we had to raise the hallway up too. Which means we had to rip out the top layer of laminate flooring, the middle layer of oak strip flooring and the subflooring and then start over. We've gone to the dump alot! Our poor old van is going to have a heart attack with all this abuse.

This is the 3rd bathroom reno Tim and I have attempted and none have been much fun. This picture is before we took the lovely gold tub out and found the old flooring underneath it with the old baseboard still there.

The basement bathroom we reno'd back in September and only finished it last month. That reno entailed digging up a large portion of the basement floor to get the plumbing set up properly. Before we fixed it the toilet used to get flushed out a pipe and sent through the floor drain in the basement out to the street rainwater run off. The smell was nasty in the basement because of that floor drain. So we dug up trenches of dirt through the basement back to the upstairs sewer pipes to discover that it was up too high so we had to buy a "poop shooter" which takes the waste water and shoots it upwards into the sewer pipes. This "poop shooter" needed another hole dug about 3 feet wide and 4 feet deep. You would not believe the amount of dirt that we dragged by the bucket upstairs thru the kitchen and the livingroom and out the front door to the dumpster. We filled the dumpster with dirt!

We've lived in the house for 3 years and we have done some major work to it; made the house back into a single family dwelling and put in a new kitchen, ripped out the walls in the livingroom/dining/hall area so it's open concept, new hardwood, new electrical, insulated, removed the upstairs kitchen and put it back to a bedroom and painted and sanded every square inch of the house. Plus fenced the backyard with a wooden privacy fence and put in gorgeous perennial gardens in the back and the front yard and even planted a tree.

Maybe someday soon we can just live in it without a project that has to be done to it.

And So It Begins

So I bought a motorcycle a month ago and have managed to drive it in the streets of Toronto and lived to tell about it. Yeah! I got my license about 12 yrs ago and haven't really driven since. There was the problem of no bike, no money, college, marriage and children that slowed me down a bit.
My husband became hooked on bikes last year and got his license and Honda 550 1977 last spring and then convinced me this year to get my own. I bought a 1971 Honda CB350 which is a a bit smaller and much less daunting to handle. Though I have discovered that I need to hold on and excelerate slowly because it is so light it practically does a wheelly sometimes!

I was very nervous about riding since we live downtown Toronto with all the traffic but I stuck with just our few neighbourhood streets and then cautiously ventured onto the bigger streets. So far so good and I'm driving it to work and here and there. I do need to get some saddlebags because after all I'm still a mom that needs to pick up milk on occasion! Vroom, vroom