silence

It's early morning and I've just received some groceries through Grocery Gateway. Do you see the vans driving around your neighbourhood? Well, after running out of lunch things for Courtney and not being able to go out in the afternoon, I pulled the trigger and ordered for a 6 to 7:30 AM window. Yep. That's pretty early for me. Now, I am sitting in the morning darkness, listening to the rain outside and enjoying a bit of silence.

Seems like the weather may finally have figured out that it's near winter and with less than 30 days to Christmas. We've had some flurrries here a few times, some cold gusts of wind, a bit of rain, but otherwise it has been mild, warm even. Time enough to rake up leaves, get x-mas lights up ( paid someone - ha), and move summery type stuff into storage. I've not started to decorate the house yet, the pile of boxes stacked in the basement. I'm looking forward to December and am hoping that it will snow...a bit, just a bit so that I won't have to shovel.

We feel settled in this old house. Still getting used to it's quirks. Still unpacking and decluttering and finding a home for all of our things. The kids are enjoying school. Grade 3 and pre-school. In a couple of years, it will just be me and cat at home. Likely by then, she will no longer be so crazy and will be a normal cat and hide somewhere warm and dark and sleep the day away.

Here are some pics from a the Santa Claus parade a few weeks ago.






Look how big they are getting!

filling up the backyard

The kids have been playing outside this summer. Our playset finally came. It's huge. Maybe, they won't be in the neighbour's yard so much now. We will have to install some kind of walky talky system so I can hear what is going on down there. It's full size, so if you are full size and feel like playing on it too - come on down...

Getting ready for our trip to Cape Cod. Lots to do before we leave bright and early on Friday. We will do as last year and split the drive going down. Except this time, I am shopping at my first ever LL Bean store, and doing some outlet shopping on the way ( to kill time) before we get our rental. We are by the ocean again, and apparently the blackout curtains will black out the beam that shines from the lighthouse. Better be the case, or we will all be in trouble. We are checking out the lovely spot of Chatham this year....and if we are so daring...will try to get over to Martha's Vineyard.

Still working on moving out of the old house. Will miss my deadline to have the house cleaned out and clean before we leave for our holiday.

And then it will be back to school...it is sneaking up ever so fast.

Moved in

Well...pretty much.

Never mind that we still have a whole floor filled with stuff at my brother in law's garage/loft. And, there are still boxes in the old house and a basement that needs to be packed up. Goodness, do we ever have a lot of stuff.

Still, it's nice to be getting settled. Junk everywhere. And, not have to worry about tidying because someone is coming to view your house. Just your stuff everywhere. Though, after almost 4 months of the house being on the market I kind of got used to a tidy house. It is nice to have things put away, to live with less, and to start and and end the day with tidiness. So, it's funny for me to write that it's a bit stressful having stuff everywhere. Boxes. Stuff. Finding new homes for everyday things, and trying to cull and discard or recycle things that we really don't need. It's hard.

Our new place is coming along. Ja's been hacking away at the trees, cleaning them and pruning - if once can call sawing off branches. The garden is a mess, and after such a long dry spell and heat, it will likely be next year that we make an attempt to landscape.

For now, we are enjoying being close to downtown. The kids playset should hopefully get installed tomorrow, which will keep them busy having fun in our yard and not always the neighbours.

I can't believe summer is almost over. How quickly is has passed, I feel like I missed it a bit with all the house business. Back to school is just around the corner.

Anyways, here are some pics.

Guess who is 3 today!

Happy Birthday to my Jeremy!

We are having a party on Sat, but I think I might just adopt birthday week from a friend this one time, as I don't have anything really ready for the lad.

We got the new house last week, and it's been busy going to and fro. Still having open houses and showings almost daily, so non-stop action. Yesterday, Beautie the cat escaped from the new house and that was very exciting for everyone. We found her eventually under the car - I guess when it's a scorching 30plus weather, even a cat will seek out some shade.

Today, we will drive into Toronto to hang out with Ja and maybe indulge in some sushi!

Hope everyone is staying cool somehow.

Desperately seeking St. Joseph

So, our house has been on the market for over 6 weeks and to be honest between you and me, I didn't think it would take this long to sell. I love our house and the smaller yard has worked for us, if it weren't for the wanting to put a big pool in, we would stay here forever. Our realtor tells us that feedback has been good, and no haters. Some folks saying its not what they are looking for, fair enough. The market has been quiet and with the sun finally out to stay ( fingers crossed), I am hopeful that we will have a SOLD sign up soon. Sold.Sold.Sold - there I've put it out in the universe.

It't interesting putting your house up for sale. For me, it makes me a bit more stressed, anxious, and fixated on the desire to sell the house. I troll online regularly to see what has come up on the market, what has sold recently, what hasn't. It probably just adds to the stress. Ja tells me to not think about it and to not worry, but how can I not?

It's lucky that we packed up so much, and have trained the kids to mostly tidy up after themselves, so keeping the house tidy and clean hasn't been too bad. Just before we put the house up, I bought the new dyson slim vacuum and I love it. It has made cleaning the house so much easier and for once, the floors are clean of bits of debris, which I have to say the swiffer products just don't handle well.

We have until the summer to sell, but I'd like to stop cleaning, so if someone can please locate a St. Joseph's statue, I would sure appreciate it. It's told that burying one on ones property and can help speed up a sale of a house. I'm not supersticious, but anything to help suits me just fine.

But until then, we'll just keep watering the lawn to keep it green, buy pretty flowers for the rooms, and clean clean clean. Oh, throw in a bit of wishing and hoping too.

Happy Easter

Hope you guys had a great Easter. Mixed weather here from rain, to sleet, to overcast, sunny and cold.

No confusion on what to do with chocolate eggs though.

House is so clean, can eat off the floor these days.

Spring Cleaning

This year, we have started spring cleaning a bit early. Yesterday, we tidied up the yard, and this morning before it started to drop big fat snowflakes, Ja was up on the roof cleaning the eaves. All this we did selfishly to primp and preen to get the house ready for sale. Yes, we are selling and moving. The last couple of weeks, we have been de-cluttering, packing up, throwing things away, doing renos, painting, getting things fixed and corrected all to lead up to this week. We list tomorrow and have an agent open house on Tuesday. I have never monitored the weather more in my life, as a nice sunny week would be great, though, Ja thinks a rainy week would be all right too as they wouldn't be thinking of our the yard that needs a bit more tlc. Still, I think we will be ready. Tomorrow, Beautie, the cat, gets a little vacation at the Cat's Castle which Jeremy and I visited on Friday, and it's nice for a cat kennel. Only cats too. It will help make our cleanup easier during the first week, which everyone tells me can be unpredictable. Nice weather will mean that Jemmy and I can be outdoors and play at the park. Something which he really enjoys at the moment. He's all into big slides and can't wait to wear his wet pants.

Otherwise, life here in our little corner keeps puttering along. It's a round of Spring activities and we've switched up some of the days that Courtney does her activities. I have a few more car pools in place, so it's not as much driving around which is nice. I'm looking forward to summer when we will not have something to do every day after school and we can just enjoy the outdoors.

Wish us luck with the house thingy. It will be nice not to be cleaning all the time, and to get back to cooking in the kitchen.

I'll try and post some pictures of the kids this week. Jeremy is talking a lot more these days. You can almost understand him 50% of the time, he's got a great sense of humour, and Courtney, she has long long hair, claims that dark blue is her favourite colour now and has now read book 3 of Harry Potter. They are both growing up so quickly.