getting settled...

Well, it's official, and I can now come right out and announce to you all that I've moved from the dismal, depressing rainforests of coastal BC to the alternately frigid and scorching wastelands of central Alberta. Despite the vagaries of the climate here (mosquitoes, how I loathe you), and the fact that I now have to contend with actual traffic (where I was before, well, we didn't even have a four-way stop sign in town, and if there was a single car within sight on the highway, I was cursing about having to deal with jerks who don't know how to drive), I am so very pleased with the move, because:

1) my parents are here, and they're the most pitch-inny parents ever. They help with the kids, with the housework, with the shopping, with lugging heavy stuff, with reminding me to do important things (I'm a chronic forgetter). They offer to take the kids places like McDonalds or the mall. If I need someone to stay overnight with them, or pick them up from school because I'm delayed at work, well, all I need to do is phone. I have promised myself I will not abuse this privilege, but it's soooooo tempting. Plus, they love me and they're nice to me and they're the kind of parents you can actually talk to about stuff without feeling judged. Mom and dad, you are totally, totally blammo.

2) my sister is here. I don't see her as often as I see my parents, because she has her own blended family to take care of, but the two of us installed a new toilet in the downstairs bathroom the other day and it went perfectly. Go team! I'm renting a townhouse she owns, and she's letting me have it at a huge discount to help me out, because that's what sisters do. And it's just really nice to be able to hang with her and talk to her about...sister things. Sis, you're some serious awesome.

3) I'll get to see my other sister (and her awesome hubby and kids) more often. They live way the eff across the country, but they certainly come out here more often than they ever managed to make their way to the sopping, isolated reaches of Middleofnowhereland, BC. She's also totally blammo, IMO, but I expect she knows that, lol. Can't wait to see her!

4) Sunday family dinners. I often hear people bemoaning such obligations as the big weekly or monthly family get-together, and sure, my own family is far from perfect. But after 16 years away from "home", I now revel in the assorted kookiness (my uncle still asks me what I learned in school today when I walk in the door, heh) that is my extended family. In a couple of months, I hope to have my house sorted out enough to host a dinner of my own, yay!

5) my kids get to go to schools that offer things like actual computer graphics courses (with computers that run more recent versions of Windows than 98), IB programs, and advance placement. When they're done high school, they might even get to go to college, too, because there are several within public transit distance--had we stayed where we were, they'd have had to live on campus, which we'd never be able to afford.

6) there is fast food. One of my friends from back in Middleofnowhereland, BC told me once, "I would kill a thousand cows for one bucket of KFC," and well...yeah. But now I don't have to kill any cows, or drive two hours to get my fix of the Colonel's eleven herbs and spices, or the drugs he puts in it to make you "crave it fortnightly"*. I can just drive three minutes and I'm elbows-deep in a bucket of original recipe, yay! And if I have pizza delivered, it doesn't cost me the shirt on my back, either.

7) there is work. Oh, there is lots of it. And it's lucrative. Even when business is slow, I'm earning what I earned on a typical "good night" at my old job. When it's busy? Double that. Or triple it. And if, heaven forefend, I decide I don't like this job? There's another one just down the block.

8) there are big box stores. Walmart, Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Superstore, OMG Ikea. And freaking Costco. There are two Costcos I can shop at--one five minutes away from my home, and another just a few blocks from work. And malls with actual clothing stores, not just those crappy discount chains or the ubiquitous small town boutique where a pair of jeans will cost you your firstborn son.

9) dating options. In an isolated town of only 3000, well, the women hang onto their men because they know 99% of the local single guys of an appropriate age are likely gay (closeted or not), players, assholes, or weirdoes with more guns and dogs than teeth. Here, there are lots of single men, hence lots of women who think the grass is greener and ditch the good ones because they slurp their soup, or won't buy them a new flatscreen TV, or don't earn $100k/year or whatever. And yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of closeted gays, assholes, players and weirdoes, but hey, at least the pool is bigger.

10) I get to wear sunglasses. In fact, I have to wear sunglasses, because there is this thing in the sky (maybe you've heard of it? It's big and yellow and I've been told not to look directly at it) and it comes out more than every 15 days or so. Even in the winter!

11) no provincial sales tax (or more recently, the dreaded and much-maligned "BC Harmonized Sales Tax"). This makes everything from gas to shoes to light bulbs cheaper than they are where I used to live. And the fact that I'm now in an urban area instead of way the heck in the sticks, well, I didn't quite realize how much more we paid for things like milk and bread just because we lived so far from anywhere big. My grocery bills will likely be $2-300/month less just because of the move.

12) competition. From gas stations to cable/phone/internet providors to food stores to restaurants to schools, there are no monopolies here. That means better service for less money in almost every instance.

Yeah, it was hard saying goodbye to my friends (because they're some of the best people ever), and I was even saddened at the thought of never going back to sling chow mein at my old job (as thankless and frustrating as it often was). There were things about living in a small town that I absolutely adored. But I'm still so freaking happy with this move, and the kids seem to be settling in fine. There are things they miss about their old home, but there are things they love about where we are now, too, and the adjustment has gone even smoother than I could have hoped.

I just long for the day when the novelty of the escalator at the mall eventually wears off. I feel kind of like a tool taking Blammo up and down that thing several times just for fun whenever we go, even if I secretly find it kind of fun myself...

*from "So I Married an Axe Murderer", and still one of my favorite lines from any Mike Meyers movie. It's funny because it's true.

been a crazy couple of weeks...

My life, it has been a little....squirrely for the last bit, hence I haven't been around much. But lo and behold, the Purolator lady came with another box of books for me--for my May print release and sole foray into hot guy on guy on girl action, The Chancellor's Bride. I'd post a pic like usual, but I can't find my camera. At the moment, I can't put my hands on my toothbrush. I THINK I might know where it is, but we'll see...

Anyhow, if any of you would like to leave a comment here, I'll have my 7 y/o random number generator, Blammo, choose one lucky person to win a free copy.

And if you can come up with any suggestions as to where I might find my toothbrush (I've already looked in the deep freezer, heh), I'd be much obliged. And if you lead me to that elusive instrument of dental hygiene, you get a free copy, too!

Two bedrooms (sort of) down....

Wahoo! The master bedroom is finished. And I mean finished--not one more thing left to do in there. Despite some difficulty getting the queen boxspring upstairs (we had to take it outside, around back of the house, and haul it up onto the balcony and in through the balcony doors because our inside stairway has an inconvenient bend in it, grr...), the bed's now in there, plus two nice antiquey dressers, an old steamer trunk of my grandmother's for a night table, and a lovely bench for the foot of the bed. Blammo will bunk with me on a little mat on the floor until we move, and when it's time to show the house his blankets will go in my bench, and the mat will go in the closet.

Other than a handful of pink stains that won't go away, the carpet looks nice. It didn't smell too great in there at first--after sitting wet for a week, well, there was a swamp-like redolence even after it had mostly dried--but I bought some baking soda carpet stuff and it stinks real pretty now (overpowering wildflowers, oy, but better than the reek of a bog in early spring).

The downstairs bedroom ceiling is now repaired. We'd been suffering from drippy ceiling-butthole syndrome from a leak in the tub drain upstairs, and I had to cut a piece out so the plumber could work. I managed to apply spackle in roughly the same pattern as the godawful popcorn on the rest of the ceiling, and now we just need to paint it all. The walls are done, the furniture's in, and I've even stuck a stereo in there so it looks like a typical teenager's room (only without any posters of Megan Fox or Marilyn Manson or whoever, because the kid who puts even one hole in any of these walls is the kid who will find himself gruesomely murdered by multiple thumbtack stab-wounds and then buried under the astilbes in the yard).

The hole in my daughter's bedroom wall is now mostly fixed (one more pass with sandpaper and drywall compound and no one will ever suspect that the plumber broke half the pipes while trying to replace the tub faucet), and tomorrow we start sanding and priming over the big, colorful flowers she and I painted on her walls a few years back.

In addition, my mom spent much of today weeding my mess of a garden. Due to the lack of an actual "winter" here, the weeds grow year-round, and every spring you have to break the land from a wilderness state like a bloody pilgrim. She got maybe half of the job done during the five hours of sun we had this morning and early afternoon (we're back to rain again now, and for the next week, according to the Weather Channel).

Dad drove out onto a logging road to dump the yard waste (not the bags, though, of course), and tomorrow we'll borrow my friend's truck to haul all the recycling and old carpet and broken hoses and crappy old furniture and dry garbage that was cluttering up the carport to the dump/recycling depot.

Next on the agenda: finding curtain tracks for the closets (I'm not spending a fortune on doors for the kids' closets), and then hemming the $6 queen size sheets I bought into curtains for them. I also have to call the local guy who owns the little baby back-hoe that will fit through my gate, so he can deal with the drainage problem in the backyard, and send my papers into the nearest EI branch so they can start processing my claim.

Oh, and call my lawyer to find out what the eff is going on with the clusterfuck that is my divorce negotiation. Busy busy busy...

Augh!!!!

Okay, for someone who thought she'd removed one of the stressful things in her life (I've taken a doctor-recommended leave from my day job--my last day was Sunday), today is shaping up to be one of those days where my head goes all explodey and showers bits of skull and brain matter all over the place.

I made an appointment for a pro carpet cleaner to come do these hideous carpets this morning. Last night, Firstborn and I lugged all the dressers, desks and assorted stuff out of the upstairs bedrooms, and this morning I finished up by removing my daughter's bed. All this stuff (more furniture than should reasonably even be in two bedrooms, really) is now piled in the middle of my living room, (and kitchen and dining room), which is also full of assorted toys (legos and bionicles everywhere, OMG). It's quarter past ten and I'm wondering where the guy is, so I phone. He's fucking sick in bed. Can't even get up. But couldn't call last night to let me know he was really sick and had to cancel, apparently. Aughhhhh!!!!!

There is no other pro carpet cleaning outfit in town, and the people in the next town aren't answering their phone. "We're probably out cleaning someone's carpet" the message says.

To add insult to injury, my parents arrive tonight. Yes, tonight. And Firstborn has been sleeping on the sofabed downstairs (where my parents sleep when they visit), and Blammo has been sleeping on the couch in the living room. The couch is now buried under a mound of bedroom stuff, and the boys' beds are stacked in the family room, which leaves no floorspace for "camping out" there and so basically, there's only two usable beds in the house--the sofabed and my bed. And two extra people looking to sleep here tonight.

I suppose I could leave a message at the other place, but I have a feeling I'll be waiting all day to hear back, only to be told no, they can't come out. So now I'm stuck renting a Rug Doctor and hoping beyond hope that it works 100x better than the home-model Bissell my friend loaned me.

I swear, I could kill something right now. Like, kill, kill, kill.

On top of that, my ex's lawyer has missed yet another deadline (Monday), and MY lawyer, courteous, non-litigious guy that he is, is going to phone his office to double-check that no response is forthcoming before he sets a date for a case conference. Dude, am I going to be married to this guy forever, or what?

I think I need a drink. It's gotta be past noon somewhere in the world, right? I mean, screw the whole 5 o'clock saying--as long as it's afternoon, it's fine, right? Right?

ETA: Okay, so I rented a Rug Doctor, and yeah, they're a LOT better than the home-model I was using. Way more suction, and the brushes? Holy cow, you can hardly hold onto the thing, those babies are shaking so hard. I'm 1/3 of the way done the big, huge room, and it looks good so far, and the carpet doesn't go "squoosh" when I walk on it, either. So I'm hoping that the blammo suction that's pulled all that moisture out, well, maybe it's pulling more crap out too, and I won't end up with ugly brown patches as it dries. I may go over it twice, just to be sure. Oh, and it might even be dry enough to put some of the stuff back by tomorrow.

AND, I had some bacon-wrapped chestnuts (my toaster still works since the power surge, it just doesn't get quite as hot as it did), and I'm having a glass of wine, too. Just a little one.

AND my mom phoned to say they'll be here early--like dinner time--and did I want her to get me a bucket of KFC on the way up? Holy hell, yeah! Nice, salty, greasy, KFC smothered in a gallon of KFC gravy? And that way, dinner's taken care of too! So I'm feeling better. Yay!

ETA II: So I'm 2/3 done the big room, and the brushes stop brushing. Ack! I felt the top of the machine, and it's really hot, so maybe it just needs a rest? I hope? If not, I'll have to return it and get another one. Bluh.

you know you should shampoo your carpets more often when...

...it's the fourth pass on the "heavy traffic" setting and the waste water you're pouring down the drain is still dark brown sludge. Bluh.

I borrowed my friend's Bissel to do the former boys' bedroom, which is really the master bedroom, and I'm absolutely amazed (and revolted) at how much crud can build up in a carpet in a kid's bedroom, even when you vacuum fairly regularly. The more I think about it, the more disgusting wall to wall carpet seems to me. I suppose it might get cleaner faster if I was using some harsh, heavy duty, stinky chemical solution, but I went with an all-natural product because I don't need to spend the next few weeks in a VOC-induced stupor, thanks.

Thanking my lucky stars the carpet is a glue-down--no underlay to collect mud during the shampooing process, only to reimpregnate the carpet with filth as the fibers dry and wick the dirty moisture up. Before I installed laminate in the living room, I made the mistake of shampooing the carpet before my inlaws came to visit. There was one patch I went to town on every day for over a week--kept looking clean, then ten minutes later I'd turn around and holy crap, the dirt's back. I eventually gave up, and had to deal with having them judge my housekeeping skills by the ugly brown stain on the floor in front of the sofa.

If, when I move, there is any amount of wall to wall in my new place, I'm totally investing in a steam cleaner. I'll do the whole floor every month or two, just to not have to look at the filth in the waste reservoir.

On the bright side, with the exception of two small stains (from strawberry-flavored fruit roll-ups, I think), the spots are coming out. I pre-treated them with a spot remover--Folex--which comes in a very lacklustre spray bottle that was virtually invisible next to all the TV-familiar brands on the shelf. But reading the label--no petro-chemicals, no VOCs, no obnoxious scents--won me over. And it worked really well. Smells like...well, like nothing, which is good for someone with chemical sensitivities.

And if you all are as grossed out as I am by the thought of kids playing legos on a floor completely saturated with filth, all I gotta say is moderately unsanitary conditions build healthy immune systems. My kids? Their immune systems must be super-human--but then I figured as much when the Swine Flu visited our house and didn't even cramp their styles. My coworker, who practically lives in rubber gloves and bleaches her whole house weekly? She and her kids were down for three weeks.

Yup, it's Sophistry, but it works for me.

what the...

Okay, so I just brushed my hideously shedding dog, and the pile of hair I got was bigger than the dog. And yet she still has hair on her body. In fact, she looks no smaller and no less fluffy than she did before I brushed her. WTF? How is this possible?

In other news, due to two power surges yesterday, my toaster oven is...uh, toast. Wonder if I can find an el-cheapo one at the local bargain store? If not, that's the end of my bacon-wrapped chestnut addiction for a while. But at least the fridge (my beautiful new fridge, OMG), which issued some seriously disgruntled noises when the lights flickered, seems to have recovered and is chugging along nicely.

In other other news, next Sunday is my last night of work at the local Chinese joint--doctor's orders. And strangely enough, a lot of old, favorite customers, some of whom hadn't been in in over a year, came in to eat last night. It was like revisiting my past or something. Surreal, and kind of sad, but at least with one less thing to angst and stress and obsess about, I won't end up committed anytime soon. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully... Heh.

I've been plodding along on the upgrades to the house, while at the same time trying to tame the heinous mess my kids leave in their wake--which is all the more heinous because it's migrated from the bedrooms I'm working on right into the middle of my living room.

Oh, and I posted a new story on my website. It's been on my hard drive for a few months, but I was feeling lazy and unmotivated and signing into my webhost is just SUCH a bother, lol. Standard disclaimer applies: it's dirty (like you all didn't already know that). And Mom? Don't look.

argh...

Okay, the little, teeny-tiny cracks forming in the paint on my bedroom walls? Well, they were everywhere, scattered patches of little hairline cracks all over the place. So I tried touching them up, and nope. Still there. Shitty, crappy, cheap builder's paint--three damn coats to cover the blue in the room, and then it's all for nothing anyway.

So today I went and bought a 5 gallon bucket of Sico paint (hang the expense), tinted to a really nice buff off-white. I primed over the worst patches, and then threw one coat of the new stuff on and yay! Looks damn fine. Just one more wall to do tomorrow, and then I can shampoo the carpet and start moving my furniture in there (it's the master, but Firstborn and Blammo were sharing it). Then, while there's no furniture in the downstairs bedroom, I'll patch the ceiling, paint that sucker, and then finish the walls.

I'm going to grab one of my daughter's dressers to put in the master bedroom, move her computer and desk downstairs, and then I'll have enough free space to paint in her room too. Then the stairwell, kitchen, living room and bathroom (including the bathroom ceiling).

Then I have closet doors to install, baseboards to nail in, tiles to grout, light fixtures to change, laminate flooring to trim out, toilet seats to replace...

Oy. Every time I think I'm almost done, I realize how much I have left to do. Bloody hell.

And I haven't even begun to think about dealing with the yard--which is in an advanced state of "naturalization" and if something isn't done about the drainage problem soon the government will declare it a protected bogland and I'll be screwed. Where's a big strong man with a back-hoe when you need him?

Think I'll leave the gardening to my mom when she comes. She lurrrrrves weeding. Really, she does. It gives her the warm fuzzies. Fresh air and sunshine and back to nature and all that. Honest. And ever since she moved into a condo, she hasn't been able to slake her demented garden-lust. So I'm doing her a favor, really, when you think about it.

And I think my dad has been jonesing to try out that power washer he bought me a couple years ago. 3000 psi? Subaru engine? A nozzle that can cut through solid granite? Boo-yah! Gotta keep an eye on him, though, or he'll start taking pot-shots at passing teenagers just for giggles. Not that I'd mind...dang whippersnappers always throwing their Slushie cups and Red Bull cans on my lawn.

Yup. Busy as heck and stressed out of my mind, but at least I'm accomplishing things. I'll post pictures as the rooms get done, just so you all can see how awesome I am.