Sunday, December 02, 2018

the last six weeks


















































































Staring down this intimidating project of the neglected blog and not blinking as I roll up my sleeves and start sifting through the photos of the last six weeks.
Let's go back to the last week of October when we still had leaves on the trees and life was being repacked into boxes. That week we met with our lawyer to review and sign the closing papers on our new build, celebrate Shane's birthday, complete a two-hour pre-delivery inspection on the new house and then officially close and move-in that weekend. I was also being asked to entertain ideas for Halloween costumes and confirming I wasn't doing anything about that until after we had moved. Thankfully I have a very creative nine year old who only asked for me to hand-sew a black cat's tail. A few basting stitches later on some furry fabric remnant I had been saving and we had two tails for two cats.
Back to Shane's birthday and his awkwardly wrapped gifts, we find him opening a proper broom for our first garage, a sizeable rubber mallet and some C-clamps. Perhaps when I went shopping at Home Depot, I was thinking of all the things I would like to use.
Over the summer Shane reintroduced the kids to a piece of Canadian television called The Littlest Hobo starring a German Shepherd dog who Laura thought made a great cake topper. And no one gets to blow out candles anymore without Kate insisting she helps.
Birthday celebrations complete, the real packing and disassembling began. Soon we were down to mattresses on the floor, clothes in bags, and lesson books in boxes. And because we were going to have several days without any major appliances delivered, baking up odds and ends from the freezer, mostly bananas and planning meal ideas that could be made with small counter-top appliances. More on that adventure in a bit.
On Friday after dinner, Shane rented a truck from just across the river so it was the easiest retrieval and before I knew it, he and Seth had emptied all the boxes and items we had stored all summer in our townhouse garage, taken them up to the new house and were back looking for another load or two before calling it quits for the night.
Saturday morning came sunny and not too cold and a friend from church, Peter was dropped off to help us move the rest of the household. Everything went really well and by 1:30 pm, we only had some carloads to manage while Shane took Peter home and I delivered Seth to his blade-smithing class with friends.
I stayed at the townhouse producing things ready to go into our cars and then late in the afternoon, I  headed up the hill with my Instant Pot and dinner plans to make dinner in my new kitchen.
Friends stopped by to bring Seth back from his class and brought us a chicken pot pie, homemade rolls and a bottle of wine. We visited while the Instant Pot cooked our dinner and then with the snow starting to fall, we bid them goodbye, Shane put our dining table together and we feasted together on a pot roast dinner in our new home. Kate tried to feast on a third roll with an ice cream scoop of butter on it but her plan was ruined. Bedtime for her came quickly after that.
Sunday morning brought more snow and with everything we owned in a horrendous state of disarray we decided to stay home from church, have a nice breakfast together and start sorting out our stuff. Flossy sorted herself out by jumping into boxes and by checking all the window sills to see what the new views were like.
She seemed to take to all this moving stuff with a curious but quite relaxed attitude. After all, the little hands picking her up a million times a day didn't change, sorry to say. Then Sunday afternoon, Shane and I went back to the townhouse and spent several hours cleaning it well for its next adventure, a model home for the next phase of building. It served us well and we will always be thankful for our time spent there.
We spent all week unpacking and then resumed our lessons the following week which was the allotted two weeks of break I had planned for our move.
Finding the best places to store things became the new game and thinking through logistics with so many more options and space occupied our time. And while half of our appliance order came within a week, the stove and dishwasher arrived a bit later, giving me more time to make my Instant Pot work creatively for me.
I worked out that the Saute function allowed me to bring canned soup to a boil, make gravy from a roux, and of course, make a bagged bean soup from our church's summer Kids Camp Soup Kitchen project. Laura assured me that they had used scoops to bag the ingredients so no one would be able to 'taste their fingerprints' on the soup.
Our toaster oven did the work of a real oven and the crock pot, waffle maker, microwave, and rice cooker all did their part in giving us hot food without our cooking range. On the day it arrived, I waited an hour or so after delivery as instructed to let it become room temperature, then I whipped up some grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch for the kids and I. Now we were cooking!
My parents came up for American Thanksgiving which proved to be equally cold on both sides of the border, but we just holed up in here with good food and a warm fireplace.
On some mornings when the clouds make the mornings even darker, we light our candles and drink from our hot mugs and enjoy the fire even longer in our pajamas. Then someone who is still learning about ambiance comes in and wants to know why it's still dark in here while he turns on all the light switches. We would boo him away but his job is to empty the dishwasher so we let him stay while we get showered and dressed for the day.
And now it's December and the calendar is fast filling up with Christmas-themed events so the baking and the decorating have begun and our lesson work is almost over for the term.

3 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your new (and beautiful!) home! I loved seeing pictures. I just kept thinking, "Suddenly Seth has gone from boy to man." Blessings to you all.

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  2. Good to catch up on your goungs-on. Enjoy your new home & have a great Christmas! X

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  3. Loved all the pics!

    I've been following links from my old blogroll, and it has been crazy to see how few people are still posting. Things have changed. Love getting the snippets of your life!

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