Corner of Bourbon & Division

It's grey out, and kind of cold and rainy. There's something to be said for sitting indoors with homemade spaghetti sauce (the spaghetti isn't homemade... yet), tea, and bright yellow curtains. The cats are all asleep or lounging about, and my new table is gleaming in the dining room (I just gave it a good polish). The Beatles are on in the background.

This morning I got up early and made breakfast for me and BorderCrossing. She was pleasantly surprised to get up and find hot chocolate and steaming sour cream biscuits awaiting. As much as all my relationships (or most of them) have been highly broken, she appears to have never had a relationship with someone who wanted to take care of her, so I'm having fun feeding her and offering a nice place to crash. I also made bacon and coffee for myself, since she doesn't like either of those things.

I've been good about keeping on top of the dishes, too, for the most part. toughlovemuse was telling me the other day that "a new broom sweeps clean," but I hope it's not just enthusiasm about the new place that is prompting me to be a better housekeeper. Having people over regularly, having my girlfriend over, and generally being in a better headspace ought to count for something, right? I just hope I can keep this up.

The best thing about nesting is having people with whom to share the nest. :)

Today is a good day. There is still sadness, but that can't prevent me from appreciating what I do have, and I think that's important.

I haven't found the mysterious Micheline Poirier. I'm a little frustrated, but once all my active leads didn't pan out, I didn't hold out much hope.

I saw my parents yesterday and had dinner with them. I actually had tea with my mother beforehand, and we had a productive if short conversation concerning our catastrophic phone conversation last Friday. To my great surprise, she brought it up first. I was expecting to have to be the bad guy, since that's usually how these things work: my mother conveniently "forgets" all our arguments as a rule, but this time she obviously realized that she'd hit on something that she couldn't make go away by wishing.

She apologized.

Yeah, I was pretty surprised too. Anyway, she apologized, listened to what I had to say, and promised to try harder in the future. I'm paraphrasing here. I think we probably would have gotten a lot further in the conversation, except that we were interrupted by my father coming home early from work with the flu, and thus my mother understandably stopped the conversation in order to fuss over him.

I had a great lunch today with toughlovemuse, fearsclave and his lovely wife, whom I hadn't seen in a dog's age. We went to a really nice sandwich place, had a decadent carrot cake for dessert, and toddled next door after lunch to a thrift shop where I fell in LOVE with a beautiful antique table. Eight chairs and two leaves to extend the table appropriately. It's gorgeous. Unfortunately, it's also really expensive. Less expensive than anything I can get new, obviously, but still a pretty decent chunk of money. So I am sleeping on it. If I still want it on Friday I will go back, and if it's still there I will buy it.

I stopped by Canadian Tire on my way back, and got some stuff for the bathroom, some silicon tape to fix the leaking spigot that connects to the washing machine, and a new cat tree to replace the one that the cats finally destroyed after six years. The new cat tree is a bit weird: I didn't realize when I purchased it that it was much taller than the average cat tree, and actually braces against the ceiling in order to prevent it from falling over. It's a big hit with George so far, but Gretzky and Pan-Pan seem dubious about their own ability to climb it.

I also can haz a Swiss Army Knife. It has twelve parts to it, and I am very pleased. I lost mine years ago, and have been meaning to replace it ever since. MacGyver would be so proud. :)

In other news, I appear to still be on my night shift schedule body-clock-wise, and I have been extremely tired and borderline sleepy since about 14:00 today. Bleah. I am going to go to bed early-ish, but not too early so that I can maintain my day schedule this week. Of course, I'm going on night shift again next week, and then going back on day shift the week after that, so I expect I will be a little bit all over the place in terms of my sleep patterns by then. Yeesh.

See you on the flip side!

( Artistic!Moi behind the cut, aka a Random Meme )

So today I have washed the bathroom, done a major load of groceries (though they're not unpacked yet) and bought a chest freezer. I looked seriously at the upright models, but they were way outside of my budget. Freezer is getting delivered next Thursday, at my request. They're getting in a new shipment today, and I was told that I could have it as soon as tomorrow, but they couldn't give me an exact time, and I have stuff to do tomorrow outside the home that means I might not be home to take delivery. So.

I bought a ton of groceries, mostly non-perishable, in an effort to re-stock my seriously depleted pantry. I had almost run out of every single kind of canned tomato there is, as well as all the beans I use to make chili, and I was perilously close to not having any pasta except elbow macaroni and linguine. Damn. I just realized that I forgot two things. This is what happens when I don't make a list. Buggery and damnation. I shall have to head out again this afternoon.

Anyway, I re-stocked my soup supplies a bit, and am still on the lookout for Scotch Broth, which for some reason I can't seem to find anywhere. I am feeling marginally better about the whole food situation now. My pantry was feeling terribly empty, and as a result I was worried that I might end up buying pre-made stuff, which is something I'd like to avoid as much as possible. At least now I'll be able to make my own stuff in advance and freeze it. I bought some extra Tupperware too, just in case. Huh. Spell-check insists that I capitalize "Tupperware" even though I was trying to go for the generic name. Anyway, tomorrow there will be soup, soup, chili, and macaroni and cheese, and something involving beets, because I just picked up a HUGE bag of beets for a song. I keep forgetting that I like beets, so it was nice to be reminded of the fact by a sale.

Anyone know of any good recipes for beets that I can make in bulk?

Now I have to bring back the car, unpack the groceries, and toss in a couple of loads of laundry. The laundry may have to wait until the floor people have been and gone.

This afternoon, IKEA. I may pick up a floor lamp while I'm at it, which will officially make today Very Expensive.

This whole moving into a new home and trying to live like a responsible grown-up costs more money than I originally thought it would. Yeesh.

Had a lovely time at sandman7 and pdaughter's birthday party yesterday. Caught up with a ton of people I hadn't seen in way too long, had M&Ms and chips and dip in industrial quantities, and generally had a great time.

toughlovemuse got me the bestest present! An autographed copy of Lynn Flewelling's newest book, Shadows Return! She got it specially signed, and told Lynn that it was for the person who had introduced her to the novels. Lynn's response? "I'm always happy to sign for my crack dealers." I love her with much love. :)

The unpacking has unfortunately stalled now that I've gone back to work. With any luck I'll get more of it done this week in the mornings when I'm not at work. I also need to screw up all my courage and hook up my washing machine, because I'm going to run out of clean clothes soon. I also have to check my bank account (to make sure I have enough money in there for both food *and* rent until my next paycheque after last week's spending extravaganza: been a while since I've actually had a legitimate reason to worry about my bank balance, and I'm not enjoying the déjà vu, let me tell you), and get some food in my new fridge so that I'm not just cooling off empty space.

I have a ton of paperwork to catch up on at work. I don't feel like doing it in the slightest, let me tell you. :P

Okay, back to work.

The cats continue to be insane.

Pan-Pan started yowling horribly from the basement. Given that the last time I moved he got so freaked out that he managed to wedge himself irretrievably behind the washing machine, I thought he'd gotten stuck. No such thing. He was fine. I was perplexed. No amount of patting or snuggling could get him to shut the hell up.

I thought he might be lonely. I tried to coax him up the stairs. Nope. The stairs were the enemy all of a sudden. I tried to carry him up, and he freaked out and took a chunk of flesh out of my finger.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what was different than the last time he'd been upstairs: I had turned on the air conditioner in order to be cooler while packing tonight.

*headdesk*

"OHMYGOD! The air conditioner is trying to KILL MEEEEEE!"

He stayed downstairs until he was desperate for the litter box, and now he's cowering behind the toilet. I think I will take pity on him now and switch the thing off.

I have unpacked 14 boxes. Now, to bed.

Many thanks to all who came out to help and to partake of beer and pizza. 'Twas a most excellent time. :)

Now I go die.

I may have the time to post tomorrow morning, I may not.

Be that as it may, Bell is switching over my service somewhere between 09:00 and 18:00, or so they claim. I am being cautiously optimistic, as the last time I moved the switch went off without a hitch.

If you don't hear from me, assume I'm either without phone/internet, or just really busy unpacking. :)


And now I go fall into bed. I am 95% done. The last 5% will wait until morning (well, later in the morning, since I see it's already 1:00). I'm aiming to be up for about 6:30, which will give me time for breakfast and last-minute packing/logistics until 9:00, when it's time to help with the Great Migration downstairs.

My own move starts at 15:00. There is beer in the fridge, and I am planning a pizza run at 17:00 if all goes well.

Good night, folks!

24 hours left!

*runs around in circles*

Signed my new lease last night. I have thirty boxes packed, and will probably pack 10-20 more before this whole thing is over.

Living room: all packed except for a couple of stray items

Dining room: not packed (but mostly empty anyway)

Kitchen: 50% packed

Bedroom: not packed (gah!)

Bathroom: 50% packed

The only downside to this move so far has been that I had to turn down a date tomorrow night. We've postponed until next Friday. Nonetheless, I am put out.

Okay, back to my boxes.

I totally forgot the administrative crap that goes along with moving. I just spent the better part of the morning changing my address around with various services, and now I must hie me to the Post Office to redirect my mail until I can get everything changed.

I must also go to the bank to change my address there as well.

It seems so silly, given that I'm changing all of one digit in my mailing address. On the plus side, when I called Bell the customer service guy was super friendly and actually saved me $12 on my current bill *and* made it retroactive! It almost makes up for the $20 service fee I'm being charged by Hydro.

I've changed my mailing information with the SAAQ and the Québec government, so now I just have to go double-check all my bills and such to make sure I'm not forgetting anything...