Thursday, April 28, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Quote of the Moment:
"The stars are so aligned I only see 1 star!"
--Malcolm, in response to me saying the stars had aligned for us and our new home
--Malcolm, in response to me saying the stars had aligned for us and our new home
Monday, April 11, 2011
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Kinda dumb some (2000) times
So, remember that horoscope about myself that I posted oh so long ago? It has the comment about Libras being "kinda dumb sometimes?" Well, for a while now, I've been trying to find great examples about my "KDS" moments because I KNOW I've had them my whole life.
I remembered one today.
Malcolm and I had gone out to Elora and then out to St. Jacobs for a little getaway last year. We were in this huge barn FULL of all sorts of antiques and were making our way through them when we came across a case full of all kinds of pipes. We gawked at how many different kinds there were and all the different accessories that were packed into the case with them.
Off to the side of the case, I noticed a few packs of familiar craft items.
Upon seeing them, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, that's strange. I wonder why they would put pipe cleaners in the same case as the pipes?"
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
O. M. G.
THAT'S why they're called pipe cleaners!!!
See? Kinda dumb sometimes.
...
AAAAAAAAAnd, this is my 2000th post. :) At least I can count.
I remembered one today.
Malcolm and I had gone out to Elora and then out to St. Jacobs for a little getaway last year. We were in this huge barn FULL of all sorts of antiques and were making our way through them when we came across a case full of all kinds of pipes. We gawked at how many different kinds there were and all the different accessories that were packed into the case with them.
Off to the side of the case, I noticed a few packs of familiar craft items.
Upon seeing them, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, that's strange. I wonder why they would put pipe cleaners in the same case as the pipes?"
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
O. M. G.
THAT'S why they're called pipe cleaners!!!
See? Kinda dumb sometimes.
...
AAAAAAAAAnd, this is my 2000th post. :) At least I can count.
Friday, April 08, 2011
(Un)Commonly Mispronounced Words
Brodder and I like to purposely mispronounce: paté (as "payt") and lasagna ("la-sag").
Boo and I do Chipotlé as "chi-po-tl".
Malcolm and I mispronounce everything: got = gotted, learned = learnd-ed...the list really goes on...it's our own language, really.
Visitors to Toronto call Spadina "Spa-dee-na."
And then at work the topic (of "Ja-la-pen-o") came up and someone had a great one:
"My girl friend walked in with her kids to a fast food restaurant and seeing poutine on the menu, she said 'I'd like two orders of poontang, please.'"
They definitely do not serve that at our cafeteria.
Boo and I do Chipotlé as "chi-po-tl".
Malcolm and I mispronounce everything: got = gotted, learned = learnd-ed...the list really goes on...it's our own language, really.
Visitors to Toronto call Spadina "Spa-dee-na."
And then at work the topic (of "Ja-la-pen-o") came up and someone had a great one:
"My girl friend walked in with her kids to a fast food restaurant and seeing poutine on the menu, she said 'I'd like two orders of poontang, please.'"
They definitely do not serve that at our cafeteria.
If it was meant to be
For whatever reason, Malcolm and I knew this was the season to start our search for our house. We just knew. So, back at the beginning of March, we met with our real estate agent to talk about starting to look for a house.
"Where do you guys want to live?"
We had no idea. We gave him vague boundaries. From Elgin Mills to Lake Ontario, from Yonge to Whites Road...but really, we were really cool with anywhere. I worked centrally to all of those boundaries and Malcolm worked from home. I wanted TREES and a "real" neighbourhood, Malcolm wanted a garage and lots of space. Could we have any fewer requirements?
"Have you thought about out east? Like, Brooklin?"
At first, we made faces. "Isn't that really far?" But we listened. I think the tipping factor that persuaded us (me, mostly) was that Señorita (whom many of you will remember as my bestest gal from the beginning of time) just bought her place out that way.
"Tell you what. We'll go out and look at a neighbourhood at a time--if you don't like the neighbourhood, then we'll cross it off the list and narrow it down that way."
Fair enough. And so began our house hunting. Of all of the things I told myself when we set out that first day to start looking, I told myself "just don't love the first one, just don't love the first one." And of course the first house we walked into in Brooklin, I loved. :) BUT, we kept looking because it was the wise thing to do--it may have had a garage and felt like it was in a real neighbourhood, but there weren't enough trees, being a newer development. A few days out and a number of homes later, I still liked the first one. Over the next weekend, we scoured the listings to see what else was out there. I had my favourite, and Malcolm had his. We sent our picks to the realtor so we could see them on our next outing, optimistic we'd already narrowed it down to two or three already!
But then.
"I'm so very sorry, guys, but my mother passed away this weekend and I will be taking a week off. If you would like to go out to see more homes, I'd be happy to set you up with a colleague of mine, but I hope you understand."
Man. We really liked our real estate agent and we really didn't want anyone else, so we decided that we'd wait for him. If any of those houses were mean to be ours, they'd still be there after the week.
So we waited.
Oh man. When we got back into it the next week, we were a little rattled: EVERY house on our list, right down to the 7th and 8th "meh" picks, were sold. We were a little frustrated. But hey, we'd both decided that we wanted to wait, so while we were bummed out (like SUPER bummed out), we kept our chins up and kept looking. If it was meant to be, it'd happen, right?
We saw nothing we liked on the first day out. We saw one house that was a strong "maybe" on the second night, but I vetoed it because it wasn't PERFECT and I strongly suspected we thought of it as a "maybe" because we were just so dejected at the time. Talk about stressful. It was a wonder if we were ever going to find something that we could afford that we BOTH liked and that had everything we BOTH wanted. Having poured over the mls website constantly for the last month as well as studying every listing that our realtor sent us each night, it felt like we were out of options already; it felt like we'd already seen all of the good ones.
Setting up for a Thursday outing, we'd come up with only 2 listings to see. Almost as a throwaway addition to just make the outing worth it, I asked Malcolm what he thought about seeing a listing that didn't have any pictures online except for an exterior photo. The description was "beautifully renovated throughout the house!" Yeah, sure--is that why you haven't posted any pictures of the inside? But hey, while we were in the neighbourhood... Our trip that day would start off up north in Brooklin, take us past the "throwaway house" in North Whitby, before landing us by the lake where our 3rd choice was.
The Brooklin house was unique, but not a wower. The North Whitby house was next. We pulled into the neighbourhood and started winding our way through the streets toward the house. The TREE lined streets. We found the house and pulled up into the driveway and parked in front of the DOUBLE CAR garage. And when we got inside, it was over. It WAS beautifully renovated. We wandered through the hardwood-ed main floor, the retro-y basement ("Honey, there's a SAUNA in here!") and the 4 bedrooms upstairs for quite sometime. We walked through the reno'ed kitchen and out onto the deck out in the big backyard. I even wandered past the answer machine in time to hear another real estate agent leaving a message to apologize that they were not going to be able to make it out that night to see the house.
This was it.
We hadn't even meant to REALLY look in Whitby, let alone at a house with ONE picture of it, but we were both in love. And having learned from the last time we waited, we weren't going to wait again. Malcolm told our realtor that we'd be back the very next day to see the house with my parents in the afternoon, and that we'd more than likely be making an offer right after. We were so excited! We'd finally found it! It was meant to be!
All the arrangements were made: our agent was making the appointment for the next afternoon, and I'd called my parents and they were ready to come out for a look. My phone rang the next day--Friday morning--with the real estate agent's number.
"Mel, I'm so sorry. You're not going to believe this, but the house was sold conditionally last night."
My heart sank. Apparently the house had been sold to a young couple whose only condition was not even upon financing but upon "their dad seeing it and approving it." Come on--whose parents WOULDN'T approve this house? If we'd known that was a legitimate condition, WE could have done that last night. Lame. But that didn't change the fact that they'd beat us to it and we'd lost not JUST another house, but THE house. OUR house. :(
I didn't want to do any work for the rest of the day. I could only imagine how Malcolm was feeling at home. We spoke briefly on the phone during work and I knew his outlook wasn't good. My co-workers heard the news and were consoling me. "It just wasn't meant to be then. If it was meant to be, then it will happen." When I got home that afternoon, Malcolm didn't want to talk about it. I'd managed to get over most of the disappointment and had already started through the listings again, but neither of us could agree on anything, and really, we didn't want to see anything else. After a spat about whether or not to change our agent, I called a girlfriend over for some wine, and Malcolm left to play poker with the guys. I tried to stay positive.
"Honey, if it was meant to be..."
"If I hear that line one more time..." I got it. Me too. We were not happy.
Before my girlfriend arrived, I called our agent to plan our next move. Should we have put in an offer that first night when we saw it? Should we just put conditional offers on everything we see from now on?
"It was just bad luck. Don't worry, Mel, if it was meant to be..."
Yeah, yeah, I know. I hung up the phone and started to get ready for a run to the LCBO. A serious run. Waiting by the door for my friend, my phone rang again. I frowned at the number--it was our agent.
"Mel, you're never going to guess what happened..."
THE HOUSE WAS BACK ON THE MARKET!!!
Apparently the couple that had beat us to the punch was hoping to be able to put an apartment into the basement to help finance the home that was otherwise too expensive for them. Their dad was coming in to inspect the house to see if a separate entrance could be put in. Malcolm and I had been thinking the same thing--just for extra income--but when we looked at the house and saw the layout, we knew it wasn't possible, but of course we loved the house anyway and we didn't need tenants, so we didn't care. But when their dad saw it couldn't be done, it broke their deal and we were IN!
The agent asked me if we were still interested. I told him YES, but that I'd check with Malcolm and where he was and get back to him. I called Malcolm and he answered from his car.
"Hey honey."
"Hey."
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay. I feel better."
"Okay. Well, I just spoke to the agent--the deal fell through and the house is back on the market. He wants to know if we want to put an offer on it still."
Before I'd even finished my sentence, I swear I could hear the tires squealing as Malcolm pulled a u-turn wherever he was.
"I'm on my way home!"
Malcolm got home seconds before the real estate agent arrived and off we went to sign the deal. That was at 10:00 pm. Before the day was done, we were homeowners!
"Honey, it was meant to be."
"It was."
"Where do you guys want to live?"
We had no idea. We gave him vague boundaries. From Elgin Mills to Lake Ontario, from Yonge to Whites Road...but really, we were really cool with anywhere. I worked centrally to all of those boundaries and Malcolm worked from home. I wanted TREES and a "real" neighbourhood, Malcolm wanted a garage and lots of space. Could we have any fewer requirements?
"Have you thought about out east? Like, Brooklin?"
At first, we made faces. "Isn't that really far?" But we listened. I think the tipping factor that persuaded us (me, mostly) was that Señorita (whom many of you will remember as my bestest gal from the beginning of time) just bought her place out that way.
"Tell you what. We'll go out and look at a neighbourhood at a time--if you don't like the neighbourhood, then we'll cross it off the list and narrow it down that way."
Fair enough. And so began our house hunting. Of all of the things I told myself when we set out that first day to start looking, I told myself "just don't love the first one, just don't love the first one." And of course the first house we walked into in Brooklin, I loved. :) BUT, we kept looking because it was the wise thing to do--it may have had a garage and felt like it was in a real neighbourhood, but there weren't enough trees, being a newer development. A few days out and a number of homes later, I still liked the first one. Over the next weekend, we scoured the listings to see what else was out there. I had my favourite, and Malcolm had his. We sent our picks to the realtor so we could see them on our next outing, optimistic we'd already narrowed it down to two or three already!
But then.
"I'm so very sorry, guys, but my mother passed away this weekend and I will be taking a week off. If you would like to go out to see more homes, I'd be happy to set you up with a colleague of mine, but I hope you understand."
Man. We really liked our real estate agent and we really didn't want anyone else, so we decided that we'd wait for him. If any of those houses were mean to be ours, they'd still be there after the week.
So we waited.
Oh man. When we got back into it the next week, we were a little rattled: EVERY house on our list, right down to the 7th and 8th "meh" picks, were sold. We were a little frustrated. But hey, we'd both decided that we wanted to wait, so while we were bummed out (like SUPER bummed out), we kept our chins up and kept looking. If it was meant to be, it'd happen, right?
We saw nothing we liked on the first day out. We saw one house that was a strong "maybe" on the second night, but I vetoed it because it wasn't PERFECT and I strongly suspected we thought of it as a "maybe" because we were just so dejected at the time. Talk about stressful. It was a wonder if we were ever going to find something that we could afford that we BOTH liked and that had everything we BOTH wanted. Having poured over the mls website constantly for the last month as well as studying every listing that our realtor sent us each night, it felt like we were out of options already; it felt like we'd already seen all of the good ones.
Setting up for a Thursday outing, we'd come up with only 2 listings to see. Almost as a throwaway addition to just make the outing worth it, I asked Malcolm what he thought about seeing a listing that didn't have any pictures online except for an exterior photo. The description was "beautifully renovated throughout the house!" Yeah, sure--is that why you haven't posted any pictures of the inside? But hey, while we were in the neighbourhood... Our trip that day would start off up north in Brooklin, take us past the "throwaway house" in North Whitby, before landing us by the lake where our 3rd choice was.
The Brooklin house was unique, but not a wower. The North Whitby house was next. We pulled into the neighbourhood and started winding our way through the streets toward the house. The TREE lined streets. We found the house and pulled up into the driveway and parked in front of the DOUBLE CAR garage. And when we got inside, it was over. It WAS beautifully renovated. We wandered through the hardwood-ed main floor, the retro-y basement ("Honey, there's a SAUNA in here!") and the 4 bedrooms upstairs for quite sometime. We walked through the reno'ed kitchen and out onto the deck out in the big backyard. I even wandered past the answer machine in time to hear another real estate agent leaving a message to apologize that they were not going to be able to make it out that night to see the house.
This was it.
We hadn't even meant to REALLY look in Whitby, let alone at a house with ONE picture of it, but we were both in love. And having learned from the last time we waited, we weren't going to wait again. Malcolm told our realtor that we'd be back the very next day to see the house with my parents in the afternoon, and that we'd more than likely be making an offer right after. We were so excited! We'd finally found it! It was meant to be!
All the arrangements were made: our agent was making the appointment for the next afternoon, and I'd called my parents and they were ready to come out for a look. My phone rang the next day--Friday morning--with the real estate agent's number.
"Mel, I'm so sorry. You're not going to believe this, but the house was sold conditionally last night."
My heart sank. Apparently the house had been sold to a young couple whose only condition was not even upon financing but upon "their dad seeing it and approving it." Come on--whose parents WOULDN'T approve this house? If we'd known that was a legitimate condition, WE could have done that last night. Lame. But that didn't change the fact that they'd beat us to it and we'd lost not JUST another house, but THE house. OUR house. :(
I didn't want to do any work for the rest of the day. I could only imagine how Malcolm was feeling at home. We spoke briefly on the phone during work and I knew his outlook wasn't good. My co-workers heard the news and were consoling me. "It just wasn't meant to be then. If it was meant to be, then it will happen." When I got home that afternoon, Malcolm didn't want to talk about it. I'd managed to get over most of the disappointment and had already started through the listings again, but neither of us could agree on anything, and really, we didn't want to see anything else. After a spat about whether or not to change our agent, I called a girlfriend over for some wine, and Malcolm left to play poker with the guys. I tried to stay positive.
"Honey, if it was meant to be..."
"If I hear that line one more time..." I got it. Me too. We were not happy.
Before my girlfriend arrived, I called our agent to plan our next move. Should we have put in an offer that first night when we saw it? Should we just put conditional offers on everything we see from now on?
"It was just bad luck. Don't worry, Mel, if it was meant to be..."
Yeah, yeah, I know. I hung up the phone and started to get ready for a run to the LCBO. A serious run. Waiting by the door for my friend, my phone rang again. I frowned at the number--it was our agent.
"Mel, you're never going to guess what happened..."
THE HOUSE WAS BACK ON THE MARKET!!!
Apparently the couple that had beat us to the punch was hoping to be able to put an apartment into the basement to help finance the home that was otherwise too expensive for them. Their dad was coming in to inspect the house to see if a separate entrance could be put in. Malcolm and I had been thinking the same thing--just for extra income--but when we looked at the house and saw the layout, we knew it wasn't possible, but of course we loved the house anyway and we didn't need tenants, so we didn't care. But when their dad saw it couldn't be done, it broke their deal and we were IN!
The agent asked me if we were still interested. I told him YES, but that I'd check with Malcolm and where he was and get back to him. I called Malcolm and he answered from his car.
"Hey honey."
"Hey."
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay. I feel better."
"Okay. Well, I just spoke to the agent--the deal fell through and the house is back on the market. He wants to know if we want to put an offer on it still."
Before I'd even finished my sentence, I swear I could hear the tires squealing as Malcolm pulled a u-turn wherever he was.
"I'm on my way home!"
Malcolm got home seconds before the real estate agent arrived and off we went to sign the deal. That was at 10:00 pm. Before the day was done, we were homeowners!
"Honey, it was meant to be."
"It was."
Monday, April 04, 2011
Pushing on full throttle
When the tsunami hit Japan, I didn't blog. I had feelings about it, but I guess I just didn't have time. I watched a few videos that made my stomach turn and I anxiously awaited for email updates from friends who were in and around Tokyo. After everyone rang in safely, all there was to do was to watch the news and stay posted until the initial hysteria calmed.
And now it's calm.
In the calmness, it's easy to forget that the aftermath is still going on. That the towns are still in ruins, that people are still without homes, that communities are isolated from each other without food or water.
And then stories like this surface and remind you of all of that. But at the same time, it lifts your heart to the spirit of human survival, to the love of a long life and fond memories.
And now it's calm.
In the calmness, it's easy to forget that the aftermath is still going on. That the towns are still in ruins, that people are still without homes, that communities are isolated from each other without food or water.
And then stories like this surface and remind you of all of that. But at the same time, it lifts your heart to the spirit of human survival, to the love of a long life and fond memories.
"My feeling at this moment is indescribable," he says with glistening eyes. "I talked to my boat and said you've been with me 42 years. If we live or die, then we'll be together, then I pushed on full throttle."
Quote of the Moment:
"I'm doing fine just like my hair, thank you."
-- A client's response to my inquiry of how he was doing today.
-- A client's response to my inquiry of how he was doing today.
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