Anne and I are starting to adjust, slowly, to our new roles as homeowners. This week we've got a shed going up in our back yard -- rather faster than we'd expected, actually, but it's going to be great -- and we've scheduled the closet organizer people to come in and install our closets on December 12th. By Christmas time we'll have everything hung up, the bikes, sports gear etc. in the shed, and a whole lot more free space in the house.

So that's all good. This morning we got some bad news... Anne spotted another drip leaking through another ceiling, this time the one above our second floor bathroom. It's not a serious leak, yet, but it could be much more damaging to the pocketbook than the last one, as it looks very much as though this one's coming from the third floor roof, under the deck. Getting access to that spot would require ripping up at least some of the deck. Ouch. And of course we have a relentless rain falling today...

This weekend we're scheduled to finally cut the ties to Wychwood, where Anne lived for eight years. We have to go up on Sunday and clean out the last remaining things. We were hoping to have Goodwill or another charity come and pick things up, but it looks like they don't do that any more, or at least not without two months' notice. So we'll just have to take the bookcases apart and truck them off to Goodwill ourselves.

Saturday we're heading up to Georgetown to see if we can buy a dining room table set. Anne's parents have graciously offered to pay for it as a wedding present to us. Then we have to get the basement fridge returned (doesn't fit the space) and buy a washer/dryer for the basement apartment, and that should be it for our major purchases for now... Except for the deck, of course! Thank goodness my Accenture stock is at a good price right now...
posted by Tom at 10:24 AM | link | (0) comments

Busy week, but we're continuing to see less of the house as a big pile of boxes, and more as a place to live. Oh yes, and there was a lot of work, too...

Tuesday I got flattened by a brief spell of the flu. I had a fever when I woke up in the morning and felt extremely woozy, so I stayed home, slept, and watched some TV. Anne picked up the Extended Edition of the Two Towers for me -- just out that day -- and we watched it that evening. Very good, though I have to admit I fell asleep for some of it.

By Wednesday I felt better enough to go back to work, which was good as there was lots to do. I felt successively better through the day.

Thursday night, Calvin choir recorded a few pieces for the CBC Choral Competition at St. Mary Magdalene's. (Steph decided that recording in a church without heat -- Calvin's boiler's been busted since September -- wouldn't work so well.) It was really weird to be back where I'd sung for ten years, but felt good to have the wonderful reverberating rich tone of the building again. Unfortunately it was a bit of a frustrating session as the tuning kept going flat. Very irritating. Still, we got through it and Steph sent an email raving about how well it went.

Yesterday was nothing but work, though Anne cooked a fabulous pork roast for dinner which was excellent. She's currently off having her hair done while I raked the leaves -- 5 big bags full and only halfway done -- and we're going shopping for blinds next. No rest for the wicked! Well, except Tuesday.
posted by Tom at 3:01 PM | link | (0) comments

Another busy and productive weekend!

Friday night, Mum and Dad came in from Guelph to see the new house and take us out to dinner. We had a nice meal up at Omonia on the Danforth, though Dad wasn't impressed with the greek style of serving meat with potatoes and rice but no vegetables. We resolved to take him to little Chinatown next time.

Saturday we had our first sleep in in the new house. After working on the crossword for a while, we gave up, got up, and went about our errands. First stop was the Home Despot to get the parts required to install the washer/dryer. After dropping off Anne at home, I took my new and unsatisfactory DVD player/recorder back to Future Shop to swap it for another unit. Saturday night we installed the washer/dryer, which required some athleticism on my part: the hoses didn't reach long enough for us to connect everything while it was out in the hallway, so Anne pushed it partway in with me stuck in the back of its closet. After completing the installation, I climbed out into the hallway over the top of the unit, pulling our new four-foot ladder out after me. We then pushed the washer/dryer all the way back in, completed the setup, and left it to think about itself while the glue on the drain pipe dried. Miraculously, it all seems to work!

Yesterday we had church in the morning. Craig Martin was a total star and agreed to help me move my TV from Steph and Bruce's to the new home. Little did he realize how heavy it was! We had a bit of a brutal move, which included getting the beast up their stairs from their basement, hauling it out to the car, driving it off to our place, and installing it -- up to the second floor! We ended up rolling the TV up the stairs -- not nearly as easy as it sounds -- but it seemed to survive the trip largely intact and it's now, mostly, installed and working fine. We inaugurated the new setup by watching two back-to-back episodes of the Simpsons. The second ended a bit strangely with the entire cast singing the Canadian national anthem. Very weird.

Anyway, so now I have my computer and my TV set up, it feels like home! While I was at Future Shop on Saturday I picked up Call of Duty, a great new WW2 action game. It's like watching Band of Brothers all over again... Fabulous!
posted by Tom at 9:39 AM | link | (0) comments

Wow, what a busy week we've had! The weekend was another whirlwind of boxes, this time involving cats as well. The week has been long and hard for me, and although Anne's taken the week off work, she's been working hard on the house for most of the week as well.

The house is great, though we've had a couple of minor teething issues. The first thing was that the boiler was turned down to the minimum setting so our showers were, shall we say, tepid. More importantly, yesterday we discovered that the second floor bathroom tub wasn't installed perfectly, when a leak started coming through the plaster ceiling into our kitchen. The plumber fixed that problem today (we've had extremely good service karma throughout this process, by the way) but now we have some holes in the drywall that need repairs.

Ah well... The cats are happy, and despite the minor issues, so are we. It's a beautiful house, and when we get it set up properly (whenever the heck that will be) we won't want to leave it.

Not much to comment on other than how happy it is not to have another house move on the horizon any time soon!
posted by Tom at 5:03 PM | link | (0) comments

Just two nights left at Wychwood before we move into the new house! Yay!!!
posted by Tom at 11:06 PM | link | (0) comments

Another Hallowe'en come and gone. We went out for this one, and saw the 1920 black & white movie Nosferatu at the ROM, accompanied by live music courtesy of the Toronto Sinfonietta. We got there early and got great seats. Not the world's best movie, but it had a couple of creepy bits. Our favourite part, not creepy at all, was when Nosferatu got to Bremen and walked through the town carrying his own coffin! You'd have thought the guy could rustle up a couple of undead servants, or something...

We moved all my stuff out of storage into the new house on Saturday, and my muscles are still a bit stiff. But it was Good... We slept over in the house on Saturday night and walked to the local coffee shop on the way to choir Sunday morning. It's going to be just great. This week we're in packing mode -- Anne's apartment is full of boxes, mostly full -- and Saturday the movers are coming for Round 2.
posted by Tom at 2:17 PM | link | (0) comments