oh the times they are a-changin’

“come gather round people wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown . . .”

Yup, our waters sure have grown. They now include a yard, a garage, a sidewalk, and the piece de resistance: an actual house. Here’s the beauty in the flesh:

Oh my, oh my. 

To make this adventure possible we had to sell our condo in Edmonton – a process that was both extremely easy and extremely difficult. You see, we apparently live in the “ghetto” of Edmonton. And like many “ghettos” the classification comes from many years of stereotyping an area as “dangerous” or  “sketchy” based on racial and class-based profiling, rather than on actual fact. Sigh.

Needless to say, it’s tough to sell a place in this area and we got wind of that difficulty by the fact that not one, but two realtors basically turned us down when we first decided to list the place. One of them even came over, was all enthusiastic and all “yeah, great, for sure! I’ll just check out the details of the area and then . . . I’ll call you . . . ” but we waited for the phone to ring like excited schoolchildren and         no        call          came.

After we realized we’d been had, we brushed ourselves off and called the next realtor on the list of possibilities. This guy didn’t even make an appointment, he just blew us off in an email: “oh, I forgot I was supposed to get back to you, I suspect you’ve found someone else already, bye.”

Really, what does it say when even the realtors don’t want you?!?!

Anyway, to bring this long drama to an end, we did end up finding someone who was willing to take the leap and the most satisfying part of the whole ordeal was that our place sold three weeks after it was listed!  Take THAT realtors 1 and 2!

The first person that came to see it snapped it up, but their purchase was dependent on the sale of their house, so we ended up waiting for half our lives until that deal went through. So, there you see it, both easy and hard. Hard mostly because I have the patience of a two-year-old and could just barely handle twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the buyer’s house to sell.

So, enough about the drama of our OLD house and back to the story of our NEW house. We couldn’t really finalize anything on a new purchase until the old one went through so although we found the house of our (home reno) dreams before Christmas, we had to make an offer that was conditional on the sale of our condo (see anxiety-induced thumb twiddling above).

But of course, it all worked out in the end (at the very last minute!) and all is well and dandy.

So here’s a kitchen tour of the new house of our (home reno) dreams. It’s got a suite in the back (with a purdy kitchen):

The downside of which is that the previous owners put all of their energy into this kitchen so that the main part of the house has an upstairs kitchen with a hodge-podge mixture of reject cabinets:

(not so purdy)

But this is where we plan to put in a NEW kitchen:

Down the road, of course, after we deal with some ‘a this:

And moving the stairs, and legalizing the suite, and swapping out the lead pipes in the basement, and putting more windows on the front of the house, and . . . well, you get the idea.

Yes, it’s a project house, so it looks like we will be taking less trips through the air this year, and more trips to Home Depot. Good times!

So that’s what we’ve been up to all month – but now that conditions are removed, and both deals have officially gone through it’s time to celebrate!

Moving day is on February 15th! Hint, hint ;)

Happy New Year Anniversary to us!

Now let me tell you a little story about two girls in love . . . one year ago today there were two gals, frolicking about, sleeveless in minus 30 weather.

“Were you following through on a dare?”  You ask.

“No, not a dare.”

“Were you under the influence of some unnamed substances?”

Oh no, oh no, this brush with frostbite took place with sound mind and body. In addition to January 31st of last year representing the momentous end to 2010 and the commencement of the new and exciting 2011, it was the day we got married!

Yup, after a looooooooooong (*ahem*) courtship and an even looooooooooonger (*cough, cough*) engagement we found our crazy-in-love selves surrounded by our dear friends and family and the lovely glow of a dusky New Year’s Eve.

Thinking back, I honestly can’t believe it’s been a whole year – it went by so so quickly! I s’pose we’ve had a lot on the go, but still. A blink of an eye. A BLINK.

But oh what a wonderful blink it has been :)

Happy New Year all! And happy anniversary to my dear sweet love . . . ♥

(all our wedding photos were taken by my very talented sister-in-law, whom you can find over here)

“Leavin’ Las Vegas . . .

. . . lights so bright. Palm sweat, blackjack on a Saturday night.”

A couple weeks ago we took a mid-week trip to Las Vegas for Joc’s birthday. (And to get all of our christmas shopping done in one day, well two days).  Now, before Joc started waxing on about going to Vegas, I had NEVER wanted to go. Never. Seriously. No interest in the famous city of lights and gambling and partying and crazy-times. I thought it was just a bunch of hype, not that I’m a big skeptic or anything – but . . . well, here’s a little backstory. In September, when Joc and I went to a friend’s wedding in Los Angeles, we zipped over to Hollywood Boulevard so I could rub shoulders with the glitz and glam of the centre of the movie universe.  AND, let me TELL you.  It was a letdown.  Seriously!  The ‘famous’ Hollywood sign was not lit up, so it was invisible, the walk of fame was far from impressive, the street itself was just a regular street and worst of all, I saw NO FAMOUS PEOPLE whatsoever. Lame.

Anyway, back to Vegas, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I was expecting the famous sin city to be as anti-climactic as Hollywood.

Well, I am happy to eat my own words. Big time. Because I loved it, I really did. When we landed we rented a car and went straight out to the outlets (for the aforementioned christmas shopping), so by the time we turned ourselves around and headed to check in to our hotel, it was just getting dark.  Now, I think Joc has this on camera, but basically the drive up Tropicana Boulevard, towards the strip, with me behind the wheel, consisted of a bunch of screaming (mine), gasps of astonishment (mine), and laughter (Joc’s). Seriously, those hotels are SO BIG!  It is surreal!  It was overwhelming.

We stayed at Planet Hollywood, and although the room’s bathroom was bigger than our bedroom at home, there were some creepy parts. Namely that we were sharing our room with a faceless mock-up of Charlie Sheen.  Yes, it seems we were in the “Major Leagues” movie room. CREEPY!

Other than that, our room was pretty gorgeous:

(yes, that is a picture of good ol’ Charlie overlooking our bathtub . . . )

Aside from the most efficient and successful Christmas shopping trip of my life, my favourite parts were the volcano show at the Mirage:

The Lion King (sadly we couldn’t take pictures inside – one woman got seriously chastised for using her cellphone to take pictures during the show – it was kind-of awesome):

And of course these two ancient figures, dressed up for all festive-ly in front of Ceaser’s palace:

(don’t you love [hate] how David is all “yeah, that’s my junk” and Aphrodite is all “I’m shy”)

We did not partake in any of the “buffets” and instead had nearly all of our meals at “Earl of Sandwich” a hot sandwich joint on the edge of Planet Hollywood’s casino. In addition to sandwiches they  made the MOST amazing ice-cream sandwiches which consisted of two big brownies squashed around some vanilla ice cream.  I think we ate one of these every day:

We also had lobster. yum. my does the desert ever make goooooooood Lobster :)

The only thing I could have done without was the major smoke everywhere – (it feels so crazy to be in a place that still allows smoking indoors, I can’t believe that used to be the norm!) Other than some blackened lung, the trip was a blast and we now refer to Vegas lovingly as “Santa Vegas” for all the presents it will soon bestow upon our friends and family :) and for the glizty, glammy good times it bestowed upon us. AND I am proud to say that we won more than we gambled!  (As in, we put in a total of five dollars each and Joc won twenty bucks at the airport as we were using up our leftover change.  Yup, we’re high rollers for sure . . . )

tally-ho!

So we’re getting a bit backed up with trip posts around here (maybe one day Joci will grace us with her presence and finally post about our trip to LA waaaaaaay back in September . . . right?), but my last undertaking took me on my first adventure to the queen mother land.  Yup, although I spent four hours in the heathrow airport last June during the Copenhagen flight disaster, I have not yet been to England, so I jumped at the chance to attend the SWIP (Society for Women in Philosophy) UK conference at Kingston University. Well, I didn’t really jump, per se, more like I hummed and hawed about it for weeks before officially deciding the day before. Luckily somewhere in amidst that indeciciveness I did happen to book a hotel, so at least there was a bed available for my 48 hours in England (49 on land plus 17 in the air). Here is a picture of my bed at the cute, but a little too quaint, Antoinette hotel:

Now, I get that single beds are economical and such and that you can save on space by putting itsy bitsy beds in itsy bitsy rooms, but WHY do the blankets have to be so itsy bitsy as well?!?! Every time I moved an inch, a whole limb would be uncovered and exposed, and any attempt to readjust just left other extremities out in the cold.

Ah well.  Other than small blankets, I really loved Kingston. Everything about it was old and brick-y, and adorably accented with red:

And of course the Brits look and sound so much more fashionable than I’m used to so my bumbling self tried to look suave as I walked around in circles (literally in circles trying to find my hotel one night. I knew I was in trouble when I passed the same cat on someone’s porch THREE times!). It’s just so tough to figure out directions when there are NO street signs and every street is shaped like a ‘u’.

Good thing there was lots to look at while I was lost:

As for the conference itself, it was really fantastic to have the opportunity to attend. I heard many interesting talks and had some astonishing lunchtime chats about the differences between British and Canadian PhD programs (very different!). I was also able to attend a seminar by a scholar whose work I am particularly interested in right now. Last weekend I was trying to explain to my family how exciting it is for me to meet, or to attend the talks of those scholars whose work I really love, and my dad piped up “oh, it would be like the way I’d feel if I got to meet Chad Krueger!”  What?!  My dad comes out as a Nickleback fan and Joci buys a Beiber album all in one week?!   Too much information. Anyway, yes dad, it feels just like that :)

On my last morning in Kingston I forewent the taxi and trundled my luggage with me through the streets to catch the main bus back to Heathrow so I could enjoy the heavy fog and poke my camera in at the dewy spider webs:

Can’t wait to spend some time in big-city London next time I’m in the land of the queen mother, crooked streets, and tiny cars!

two sinks and no house

Well, it’s official.  We did NOT buy the house with the cracky basement.  We just got the engineer’s report back, and although it was fixable, the price tag was pretty high. So even though Joc and I have been ooohing and aaaaahing and dreaming and wishing about this house for three weeks now, a welcome wash of reason came over me while reading the report and I instantly let it go.

All of the images of the new kitchen we wanted to put in, and the bathroom that we wanted to enlarge by pushing into the bedroom closet, and the fireplace/office/den that was going to be so cozy, turned into an image of a backyard full of backhoes and piles of dirt, and huge lines pumping concrete down the stairs, and months of mess and spending and mess that not only would be the biggest hassle imaginable, but would not even touch all of the other work the house needed before we could live in it.

Take, for example, this weird get-up:

And this big hole:

and let’s not forget . . . um, what is even going on here?

Really, these are all things that are fixable, with a little elbow grease (read: help from our families) but there really was no end to stuff that needed work with this place. And I think we realized it was time to say “uncle!”

So goodbye maybe house!  Sure woulda been nice to live across from the adult lawn bowling association! (The one major thing that the house had going for it was its grade-A location, right  in the heart of Caswell, facing a park).

The good thing is, when we made the decision to call our realtor and cancel the deal, we both felt absolute relief!  So much relief that we called our tied-for-favourite pizza place and ordered some tasty pizza pies to celebrate (restaurant is called Santo’s, pizza is bruschetta pizza, by the way). It wasn’t that we were happy not to have the house, we were just happy to both be clear about what constituted a great project and what constituted a sinkhole, and about being able to save ourselves from a nightmare before it was too late.

And so, about those sinks.  Well, we seem to be amassing a bit of a collection . . . the first one found its way into our arms awhile back, before we even started looking at houses. It’s this cute little number – found for the cost of peanuts at LW (that’s fancy-speak for liquidation world, their words, not mine):

We figured it could easily pop into a basement bathroom or a powder room.

And then, this next one is a vanity base that I have been coveting (yes, I covet things such as vanity bases . . . does that make me lame?) from Ikea for a looooong time.  And lo and behold last week when we happened to have some good friends in town (along with their nice big SUV) we found said vanity base in the “as is” section. Again, for peanuts, really, peanuts. And by peanuts I mean forty bucks:

It looks pretty mini in the picture, but really it’s quite huge. In fact, so big that it likely would have not even fit into the bathroom of the maybe house – hence the need to smash out the bathroom into the bedroom closet . . .

Anyway, now we have two sinks and no house, so it’s probably time we cool it on the sink purchasing.  But we’re definitely going to keep looking for a house and next time we see this in the basement (just to refresh your memory):

we’ll make sure NOT to get an engineer’s report so that we can fix it on the el’ cheapo without there being a paper trail.  JUST KIDDING!  Sorta . . . no, really, kidding.  Sorta.

When will it end????

Well we’re still twiddling our thumbs around here at the home of twogrrrlsinlove waiting to hear from the engineer about that deep deep slice in our maybe home.  Yes, it’s still a “maybe” home, we both want it (some more than others, I’m not pointing any fingers . . . !) but we’re trying to be smart and not to get oh so carried away with redecorating in our hearts and minds (and scrapbooks and corkboards) before we know for sure that it’s not going to collapse around us.

So, while we wait I have:

1. scrubbed every single tile in our subway-tiled bathroom, and then polished them with lemon oil (oh yes, I need distractions that bad). But look how gleamy mcgleamerson they are!

[Okay, I confess, I put the flash on to make them look that shiny – the lemon oil didn’t really shine them up the way I thought it would, BUT it does protect against future soap scum so I won’t have to endure scrubbing      each         individual        tile       again for a while]

2. been one-hundred percent addicted to this glorious blog (thanks Michelle!)

3. watched the cats make out some more (yay for gratuitous pictures of the cats!)

[love love love, but before long love always turns to this:]

4. And made the soup that ensures Joc will love me forever and ever – Summa Borscht (yup those are delicious chunks of mennonite farmer’s sausage)

Luckily I came home one day to find our fridge stocked with summa this:

[now THAT is a nice-looking ice cream supply – good work Joci – somehow Ben & Jerry’s makes the wait more bearable]

before and after extravaganza!

A long time ago (all the way back in 2009) I did a crazy wild thing and bought a condo.  Now, this was not just any condo, it was a beat-up foreclosure that had been full of garbage for months. The only thing going for it was that it was in a nice building full of friendly neighbours, and  it . . . was . . . cheap.

So, without even seeing the joint, I decided to become an adult and enter the world of home ownership. The buying process was a mess of a time, during which I  badgered everyone around me for advice, sent away all the money I had to my name to a mystery realtor, and then frantically waited for an undetermined court date during which I was to *maybe* be awarded my new home.

It ended up working out alright, and a month after it was officially decreed mine, I hopped a plane to see my new condo!  This is what it looked like:

Oh how beautiful!  

There was honestly not one wall that didn’t need patching, not one door that didn’t have a hole in it, and not one surface that wasn’t grimy mcgrimerson!  So I did what any other new homeowner would do, I smashed everything.

The first thing to go was the carpet and the tile – the carpet was easy, the tile not so easy.  It took hours and hours of work on hands and knees, with hammers and chisels in hand.  Luckily I had a posse of tile smashers to help me out, because even worse than smashing all of the tile out was the process of carrying out buckets full of sharp tile pieces to the garbage bins out back. So heavy, so loud.

After the demolition phase it was time to put the pieces back together – so I called in my professional painter of a mom to help me patch the nicks (and holes) in the walls, scrub off the weird sticky parts, and coat them in luscious benjamin moore paint.  Oh my, oh my does paint ever make a hell of a difference. The tile smashing horror also proved to be well worth it as it enabled my brother and I to put in gorgeous dark laminate flooring throughout the whole place:

The bathroom also got a major overhaul – to the point where my dad and I had to turn off the water to the ENTIRE APARTMENT building in order to redo some of the shower plumbing.  After installing the tub, he and I made a pact that neither of us would ever buy a property that needed a tub replacement (my only near-breakdown during the reno’s was at the mercy of the tub – it’s a long story that involves a crazy neighbour who luckily moved out very soon after I moved in).

Now that’s a before and after!

The kitchen took the longest to come together, I ended up leaving the existing cabinets, but putting in new counters, a new sink, and new hardware. Again, helpful friends came to the rescue and a pal who happened to work at a granite shop graciously allowed me to trample through the reject pieces until I found one that was the right colour and the right fit. He came up to Edmonton to install the counter, sink, and a matching base for my fireplace, and the finished product . . . was . . . awesome.  Joc and I finished up the project by tiling the kitchen backsplash, along with the fireplace surround, and ta da it was an all new place!

And of course, just as I was finishing up this post, we heard word that an offer we made on a house in Saskatoon was accepted!  Yippee!

So here we go again :)

 

 

this is not a travel post . . .

. . . just in case you’re expecting Niagara Falls, or us climbing Kilimanjaro, or photos of erupting volcanoes (none of which constitute trips that we actually plan to take . . . although I do plead for a volcano trip more often then I should). It’s actually just me, awake at 3am playing internets and wanting to share some of my favourite virtual landing spots. Why am I up at 3am playing internets you may ask?  Well, it’s a long story, that’s not actually that long: Joc doesn’t get home from work until 3:20am, and although most nights I’m fast asleep by the time she shows up, at least once during her four day cycle, I find myself sleepless, and once I reach the 2am mark I generally feel as though I may as well just stay up. Makes sense, right?

So, most of these are likely familiar to you folks, as they’re pretty popular in the land of the world wide web, but just in case you need some reminders of internet goodness, these sites have the privilege of being part of my “bookmarks bar” – which basically means that when I am bored, I just position my cursor at the top of the page and flip – flip – flip through them until my eyes burn out.

1) one of my all-time faves is this site mainly because it makes me laugh till it hurts and as a bonus, it’s updated almost every day

2) this site keeps me up to snuff on topics of concern to feminist philosophers and interested parties everywhere

3) the cooking blog that I return to again and again is 101 cookbooks. I love it not only because the recipes are SO DELICIOUS, but because it’s full of  beautiful photos and the recipe search function is awesome (and it’s all vegetarian!)

4) I am still, after many many years, daily addicted to etsy, and for all of you who I have told about etsy, but who have forgotten what I was rambling on about, here it is: www.etsy.com

5) this is a blog I have only recently discovered, and so am going through the honeymoon period of reading post after post of her archives and wondering how in the world one woman can be so brilliantly funny. She is aptly called The Bloggess and thankfully writes for multiple sites

6) and this is where I watch my new favourite show: The New Girl – although they got me hooked and then disappeared with no new episodes for three weeks.  Rude.

To close, here’s a picture of the crack in the basement of the house that Joc and I want to buy – I know, we’re a bit crazy pants:

And just for good measure, here’s Hamlet and Lucy making out – Joc generally feels uncomfortable when they do this:

Nighty night!

 

 

 

 

What is this place?!?!?

. . . . is the first thing I said upon landing at the lovely little Victoria airport, and the first thing I said when I reached the magical and bizarre world of the University of Victoria, and my exclamation as I got off the bus into Victoria’s quaint downtown . . .

I had never been to Victoria, and hadn’t really even thought about what to expect, and I have to say, I adored it. Everything about it.

I spent most of time up at the beautiful University of Victoria campus, conferencing away amidst forests and waterfalls, as well as a lively student body playing a huge game of zombies versus humans (huh? is what I said), and another collection of young men clad only in togas. Uvic remains a mystery to me.

Luckily I was planning to take a late flight home, so on the last day I bee-lined it for downtown Victoria with a new conference pal to take in as much fresh seafood as we could (we ate lunch at Joe’s Seafood Bar – SO DELICIOUS!), and to wander around dumbfounded at the cuteness that is Victoria.

In the early afternoon I met up with my dear friends at the Bard & Banker (a bank-turned-scottish pub) and they took me out for MORE FRESH SEAFOOD in my all-time favourite form: Sushi. So an extra-special thank you to these sweet faces, for hosting me over the weekend, and for some superb catching up!

Oh dear Victoria, I hope to be back soon . . . (I mean, come on, even the AIRPORT is lovely)

The week we traded the sun for the rain . . . .

Last week we were set to join some very dear friends of ours for a delightful week in the sun of Northern Florida.  It was to be nothing but lying around in the sun and drinking wine. But alas, our plans careened off in another direction as the night before our departure Joci got seriously clocked on the head by an airplane door.  Yes, you read correctly, a 300 POUND AIRPLANE DOOR!  The emergency room doctor did not exactly understand the magnitude of the situation as Joc, in her near-delirious state, tried to explain what had happened. She was completely shaken and I was having mini panic attacks at every bizzarro move she made, but somehow we made it through the night of pokes, prods, and scans, and made our way home – with a quick zip through McDonald’s drive through for ice-cream cones, ’cause that’s what you get when you’re sick in this house :)

Needless to stay, we decided to stay put. And then it rained. And rained. And the skies drear-i-fied themselves some more. And I stayed home for the week (just to make sure Joc was properly resting her noggin) and I’m sure we both got cabin fever, but we did manage to fill our time with some little projects.

So instead of a photo tour of the beautiful beaches of florida here’s a glimpse into a little self-imposed house arrest that included baking our favourite cookies and cooking some tasty dinners; endless edits to a paper for an upcoming conference; some new sewing projects; an escape out of the house for a tea date at STEEPS, our favourite study spot, and home of the most delicious tea that ever was made (so aptly called creativity); following the cats around with a camera, as usual; and surprise get-well flowers from a friend and neighbour that brought some sunshine to our week afterall.

To J &J and R & K, we hope you had (and are still having) such a lovely time in Florida and we promise we’ll make it next time, and to the rest of you Happy Thanksgiving!