Patricia

I haven't written in such a long time. I don't seem to have a lot of alone hours when I feel like writing. Alone hours at work don't count since I feel like I should be working.

It's not that noteworthy things haven't been happening, it's just that I'm either not in the mood for self-reflection or I'm too tired to document it or maybe I just don't care. I used to write a lot to work out how I felt about things and I suppose I don't have the same luxury of time to start sifting through my ideas like I used to. Or maybe I'm just too exhausted.

At the moment I feel queasy ill. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with waiting to find out about the outcome of Wayne's second interview today. It's for a job he wants, that he might be happy in. He was quite excited about this yesterday, but having talked to him afterwards and hearing it didn't go as well as he'd hoped I feel generally ill with anticipation. I don't want him to be let down. I hope he doesn't feel as deflated as he sounded. And I hope he doesn't feel that he has to take the other job he's been interviewing for if he doesn't really want it.

We spent a lot of time talking about the importance of enjoying life and that being happy at work is a big part of that. It's certainly more important than money or living a comfortable material life. I've always believed that, but it's incredibly scary having to literally put my money where my mouth is.

It was a relief to have talked about it before he handed in his resignation. I'm not sure how I would have handled the news if we hadn't discussed our feelings about it first or if I hadn't looked at our monthly budget and realised that "yes, I now know for certain that I can't support us on my income alone." At least I was sure about that and it makes the whole situation slightly less scary. It removes one element of the unknown at least. And it means acknowledging that there isn't an indefinite period of time for finding a worthwhile and enjoyable job.

But I do firmly believe that walking away from a job that was having such a negative impact is the right thing to do. It's just not having another job to go to that makes it so scary. And I'm not even the one looking for a new job.

I'm tired though. I want life to be easier than this. At least today. I want this ill feeling to go away. I want to be the sort of person who isn't just 'alright' with backing up principles with action. I want to have the sort of gung-ho approach that makes all the scariness and uncertainty go away.

Back breaking work this weekend. Almost literally back breaking in that it feels broken but I'm pretty sure none of the bones are cracked.

I spent much of Saturday and Sunday stooped over, crouching, bent or otherwise close to the ground sorting out the cobblestones around the side of the house. This project started the weekend before when I was putting stones down next to the rain barrel. Partly this was for drainage, partly it was for aesthetics, but mostly it was because the lilac stumps and roots were really bothering me, they needed to come out, and something should have replaced them.

The bulk of the work was from pulling out lilac roots and stumps. Behind our gate the roots had become so invasive that they pushed up the dirt and stones and we couldn't swing the gate back any more. So all those stones came out, the dirt was excavated and the roots and stumps were pulled, hacked at, sawed, and otherwise yanked out of the ground. I have a totally different opinion of lilacs now. Invasive fuckers.

Putting the stones back in their order-out-of-chaos puzzle was mildly fun in a real-life Tetris sort of way. But then I had to sit there and manually push moist dirt into every crack and crevice to make sure none of them move.

I'll admit that it looks really good now that it's finished and it's a small joy to be able to open the gate without the predictable annoyance of scraping and stopping. But my lower back and thighs have paid a heavy price.

Ok, so it has been over three months and I'm not going to even attempt to record highlights or low points from that time. I guess I just haven't felt like writing anything lately, but seeing a friend last weekend reminded me that some people do read this. I'm writing for myself, not them, but it's a reminder that sometimes things are worth writing down even if they don't seem like it at the time.

Things I'm excited about lately:
1. Windows. Getting a quote from a window professional and realising that fixing and upgrading our existing, historically accurate windows will NOT cost more than installing vinyl. The guy knows what he's talking about and Wayne was impressed with the design of his solution. Now we just have to budget and schedule the work.

2. Working in the garden. It's really satisfying working outside, even if pulling dandelion weeds by hand is tedious. It started with uncovering the stones on the path from the driveway to the walkway and will probably end some time around October. It helps that in the last week and a half all of the plants, trees and flowers have exploded. There's so much green around now! At first I was reluctant to buy annuals to fill in the flower bed at the front, but that feeling lasted for about 10 minutes before I realised spending a few dollars on plants won't bankrupt us.

3. Composters and rain barrels. We got up early last weekend to buy two city-subsidized rain barrels and a composter. At 8:20 a.m. there was already a line. Wayne installed the rain barrels the next day and this weekend we're ripping down the dog run to use the wood for building two compost bins for garden waste. We'll use the city bin for kitchen waste.

4. Fresh fruit and vegetables. Another sign of the season, but we've already had asparagus and rhubarb from my parents' garden. I'll start preserving the rhubarb this weekend and there might be another crumble or some kind of ice cream ripple dessert for Saturday or Sunday. I get the feeling we'll be overwhelmed with fresh fruits and vegetables this year, especially since we're splitting a community supported agriculture box with Rose and Adam.

Things I haven't been excited about:
1. Over $1000 in expenses related to an accidental car scrape that needed repairing and a car rental while the repairs were being done. I suppose that also includes the cost of the ticket that led to the scratches.

2. Realising how cracked our basement walls are. I know that it's an old house and it's to be expected, but maybe I've watched too many home improvement shows because I'm starting to feel anxious about the cost of repairing the walls properly. It's not like I think our house is going to fall down (although for 10 seconds here and there the thought does irrationally cross my mind), it's just that I don't want to go ahead and do major projects (like putting paving stones over the driveway, replacing the deck, planting along the side of the house) if what we really need to do is dig a trench around the whole damn thing and repair and waterproof it from the outside. I'm getting palpitations already.

3. The community association. I volunteered to help develop a constitution for formalizing our neighbourhood association and I'm starting to regret getting involved. While I succeeded in my ultimate aim, which was to make sure people don't have to pay to be a member of their own neighbourhood association (it's a democratic group that's meant to represent people in the area, it's not some kind of exclusive club), they're now trying to rope me into being a Director on the first committee and I'm not sure I want to commit that much time. I just know that if I get involved I'll struggle to not go overboard with project ideas.

Bill and Ritchie, our first UK guests, arrive tomorrow. It's very exciting being able to welcome people from "back home" (it's weird how I use that phrase to refer to two different countries now) and I know Wayne is really looking forward to them getting here. Their visit has also been a helpful deadline for us to get stuff done around the house. We've finished off the second guest room and although I wasn't too keen on having to spend money on furniture that otherwise isn't needed right now, at least the room is cleaned out and will be used for something other than ironing clothes and storing boxes of books. Their visit also prompted me to get through the pile of clothes mending that was sitting in that room and we deep cleaned the house last Sunday for probably only the second time since we bought the place.

We also got the quote in for the dining room built-in and it's a scary number. It's not as much as we thought it would be, but it will still take many months of saving up to purchase it. I'm torn between two options. The first being getting it NOW, so that we can finally unpack our boxes, move stuff out of the kitchen and laundry room, and generally de-clutter the living room. The second option is, of course, being responsible and saving up until we have the money to buy it outright. Option 1 involves raiding the little bit of savings we have left and paying bank fees on our accounts until we get the balances back up. Option 2 involves waiting and having the discipline to not spend that money on other things we want for the house (like the often talked about wrought iron hanging pot rack for the kitchen or a dresser for our bedroom).

Looking at all the things we need and want, I'll be surprised if we can afford to do more than put in this wall unit and replace the windows this year. Both of those things will have a major impact on the house and both of them need to be done properly if we're not going to curse ourselves a year or two later for taking the cheap way out. Both of those things done properly will add value to the house and make our day to day living significantly more enjoyable. And both of those things will be around for a very long time.

We had a custom cabinetry guy over last Friday to discuss what we need for the wall in the dining room. It was both exciting and daunting. It's a massive 12 foot by 9 foot piece of furniture, so I'm not expecting it to be inexpensive. Plus, we want it to last a lifetime and quality costs money. He went away with our ideas and requirements and will come back with a design and a quote. From there we need to decide how much we're actually willing to pay to have exactly what we want. I don't think we're quite in the "stack Billy bookcases floor to ceiling" situation just yet, but considering we just spent $1000 on a second guest bed I'm starting to question our commitment to quality furniture. That was $1000 on an Ikea bed and mattress set. Ikea. Not handmade, antique, or high quality stuff. At least it was real wood.

The long-delayed second supporting bar for our king size bed is also due to be delivered this week. It's pretty discouraging when it takes two months for the delivery company to get the replacement and then they call up to say Pottery Barn has redesigned the bed to only have one support bar and they're not sure if it will fit our old design bed. Nice. If it doesn't fit then it still needs to be replaced and we're that much closer to getting some form of compensation for this debacle. In the mean time Wayne is still sleeping on books. Books that will eventually go into the dining room custom cabinetry. At least they're not in boxes in the basement because the new guestroom bed has taken up our storage space.

The electrician is coming over on Tuesday. Last week two ceiling lights inexplicably stopped working. I flicked the switch in our bedroom, saw a brief flash and heard a pop, and then the light was out. I thought it was just the bulb that had blown, until I discovered that the light in the second guest room (the one that now has the new bed) also wasn't working. An evening spent with Wayne flipping fuse box switches and me running from room to room turned up the interesting tidbit that everything on the top floor of our house runs from the same breaker switch. EVERYTHING. What sort of lazy electrician runs one wire to the top floor and then separates everything from there? We can't even have a lamp plugged into the wall to light the ceiling for fixes because the breaker needs to be switched off. Dumbasses.

In other news, I'm sore. Hauling the Ikea bed components into the house and up the stairs was hard work, even though I was only doing half the job. I did shovel some very heavy, damp snow prior to that, but I can't really complain since Wayne carried all of the very heavy boxes of books from that second guestroom down to the basement. We went snowboarding yesterday, which contributed to the sore muscles. I'm sure I'll be fine when I stop acting like a baby, although I'm not so sure about the sore neck. I'd usually go to a chiropractor to fix that, but I don't have one here yet.

I have spent almost all my time since I've been home looking through cooking magazines, recipe collections, and books. I'm not planning my own meals. Instead, I'm going to teach a friend what I know and help her become more confident in the kitchen.

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. It was a passing comment in a conversation last Sunday that got me to thinking. "I should really learn how to cook" was in my head when I woke up on Monday and I spent most of the day thinking "why couldn't I?".

For quite a few years I've had cooking classes on my list of self-employment options. I don't know whether it's because I really appreciate having learned how to cook and I realise many people didn't grow up in the same sort of house I did (I was cooking eggs and grilled cheese and making pancakes from scratch when I started elementary school), or whether it was one of those Jamie Oliver series with people who can't identify celery and don't know where chicken breasts come from, or whether it's just because I like teaching ... whatever it is teaching cooking seems like a good fit for me.

I'm not really sure how I'm going to approach this. I proposed the idea of teaching once a week as a way to test out if I like it and if I could make it work as a business. It will give me a chance to think about what skills are needed and how to teach them and which recipes to use to demonstrate different techniques and flavour combinations.

One thing I'm committed to is customizing my "service" to the individual's needs. Some people can't boil water and just want basic skills. Other people can cook basics but struggle with flavours. Others need to understand food, so they can cook quickly and cheaply. And sometimes all people need is a mentor they can ask questions when they're unsure along the way.

I put together a list of questions I'd ask a complete stranger, sort of a 'getting to know you' questionnaire, and it was incredibly helpful. I've known Rose for over a decade, we lived together for years, and yet there were things I didn't really know until she wrote them down. And I guess it was helpful for her too.

The one thing I've never really been sure of is if this can be run as a profitable business. Providing a customized service requires time and time cuts down profits. And many people who really need help learning how to cook can't afford to pay a private instructor. I could just standardize my offering, but I wouldn't feel very good about that. I could consider doing group classes, but those require a big enough kitchen with enough counter space and multiple cooktops so that everyone gets to practice. There are also practicalities around who buys the food and students having their own tools and and and ...

But even if it turns out that I can't make this a business, I'm really going to enjoy the teaching. And I'm so happy that I've found something I'm excited about!

I felt physically ill. I nearly cried. I'd had a headache since 2 p.m. and hearing Wayne say over the phone that the delivery guys arrived and it didn't look like they'd be able to get the headboard up the stairs was not what I needed at the end of the work day. Agreeing to stop at Lowe's on the way home to get a power bar and two snow shovels was not what I had in mind, but it was the excuse I needed to not be there dealing with the situation. After a day of picking through thick east Asian accents and helping people to register for events, I just didn't have the energy to deal with the prospect of a $2000 bed frame being sent back.

I took a while to pick out a couple of shovels and by the time I got home there were two men standing in my living room holding up the massive, King-size headboard and Wayne was on the basement stairs unscrewing the corner pole from our stair railing. I knew right away I didn't want to be involved. I asked if I could help in any way, but I didn't want to be there. Despite saying something to the effect of "oh right, this looks interesting ..." I'm pretty sure the look on my face said "fucking hell, this is going to end in disaster or death".

The delivery guys, having arrived in the last 15 minutes of their delivery time window, had been standing around for about half an hour while Wayne unscrewed things, but the bannister wasn't close to being out yet. Having realised that our two options were either to take down the stair railing and assemble the bed ourselves or send the very expensive bed back with no guarantee that we'd get back all the money we spent on delivery, we finally let the delivery guys go at 6:25 (almost an hour after they arrived) and kept the bed. Dammit we were going to make a half-hearted attempt to correct our very expensive and stupid mistake.

How could we not have thought to check if the headboard would fit up the stairs? We checked if it would fit in the room, but not up the stairs. I felt physically ill. My nausea and lack of appetite might have been caused by the bitter taste of choked-back anger or the literally gut wrenching realisation that we had no one to blame but ourselves. Or it could have been the migraine that had been coming on since 2 p.m. (which I didn't mention to Wayne because it really wouldn't have helped to complain).

I spent my evening sullenly moving back and forth between the kitchen (distracting myself with making curry and rice), the basement stairs (occassionally holding the flashlight for Wayne and pointing out when he was breaking the wood or offering a suggestion to remove the corner beading first), and the upstairs hallway (tape measure in hand, fretting over whether we'd even be able to get it through the door once we got it up the stairs). I didn't feel particularly useful and I just kept worrying that we wouldn't even get it in the room. A couple of times I thought this was the sort of crazy story that couples laugh about and tell their kids and I was slightly amused by all the effort Wayne was putting into taking apart the stairs. Those moments were fleeting. Then my thoughts turned to "are they going to charge us to take this thing back?" Then I realised the delivery guys had forgotten one of the cross bars and they'd have to come back anyway.

Wayne was getting ready to put the bannister back in place when I made him wait. I asked him to come upstairs with me and we took the tape measure and we started manouvering an imaginary headboard around the top of the stairs, into the hallway, into the bedroom. We still weren't sure it was going to fit, but there wasn't much point putting the stairs back together if what we actually needed to do was take more of the railing down. So he took it down. I didn't force him to. We just looked at the situation and he took it down.

If he'd put the railing back together I probably would have sent the bed frame back and wanted to forget about the whole expensive mess of it. But without arguing and without blaming, he took it down and I helped him man handle the headboard up the stairs.

It's a fucking heavy headboard. It's 7 feet by 40 inches of solid wood with feet on the bottom. Wayne took the weight at the bottom and I manouvered the top up through the gap in the stairs and then vertical so that Wayne could get the bottom end around the first corner. It was nearly vertical when we got it to the top of the stairs and then it was a matter of leaning and twisting around into the hallway. From there we stood it on the top (longer) side and slid it into the office and then across to the bedroom.

I didn't think we'd be able to do it, but we did. And we did it without yelling at each other or getting snipey or blamey!

We assembled the damn thing and ended up using stacks of books in place of the missing cross beam and got to sleep off of the floor for the first time in months.

Success!

So I dislocated my toe on Tuesday. This is how it happened.

I was in the office alone because Chris, Tina and Rod were all at the course in Mississauga. It was coming up to 11 a.m. and I had been sufficiently busy all morning, so I finally rushed off to the bathroom to take a much needed break. I wasn't paying attention and as I round the corner to turn the light on I caught my left foot on the door. It was the hinge edge of the door rather than the side or the frame.

It hurt like a son of a bitch and I thought I had just stubbed it. I had to rush back into the office to answer the phone, all the while rubbing my toe and internally cursing. A couple of phone calls and event registrations later and my foot still hurt. I decided to take my sock off to see if it was bleeding.

And that's when I saw that my fourth toe was bent to the left. I knew it wasn't right, but I was in the office alone and didn't know what to do at first. I sort of looked at it and thought "I don't have a car and there's no one to cover the office."

I went online to find the location of the nearest hospital emergency department and came across a very helpful message saying, basically, 'if you're not sure if it's actually an emergency then call this number.' Convinced I'd broken my toe, I called Telehealth Ontario and after about 10 minutes on the phone giving my details and answering questions through clenched teeth and frequent heavy breathing I was told that yes, I should go to the hospital and no, it can't wait until the end of the day.

The nearest urgent care centre was a short drive away and after updating Wayne by emailing and phoning my sister/boss I took her car and drove myself to the clinic. I was pretty lucky it wasn't my driving foot that was broken because I couldn't get my boot on (I wore a slipper instead) and it hurt like hell. I hobbled into the clinic and was told it would be over an hour to see a doctor. So I waited.

An hour or so later I was in the nearest examination stall with someone taking a few notes. A little while later a doctor came in and said he was going to pop my toe back into place. Nice. It will hurt for about five seconds, he said. Are you ok, he said. And then he did it and I literally wailed and then I did that thing where I had to force my eyes to stay open as they watered up lest I start crying and acting like a complete baby. He filled in a form and sent me on my way to get x-rays just in case and as I hobbled down the hallway I cried a bit because I couldn't help it. Then I pulled myself together.

It was more waiting around for foot x-rays, although I was impressed by how quickly they were developed. Apparently, I was the second of three foot injuries that lunchtime. Turns out there were no breaks and my toe popping out of the joint didn't chip the bone.

The doctor was incredibly non-chalant when he taped up my toe and told me it would hurt for a few days and I should keep it taped for a couple of weeks. Can I walk on it? Yeah. Should I put ice on it? Yeah, if you want, and I guess take some Tylenol if you need it. Is there anything I should keep an eye out for? Not really; you'll be fine in a couple weeks.

Right.

So the last couple of days have been me limping around. I awkwardly stepped on a rock on the driveway yesterday morning and it hurt like hell. Today a large portion of the front of my foot is starting to bruise and the whole foot is a bit puffy. The toenail is going half black and every now and then my foot feels a bit tingly.

And that's the story of dislocating my toe.

This home ownership, car ownership, adult thing costs a lot of money. I remember now the upside to renting and having a company car and living in a city where I could take public transportation to do most things.

It's not as if I came to Canada expecting not to spend any money. And it's not as if I was ignorant about the costs and responsibilities of owning a home. I'm not naive. I know things, especially essential home and car things, cost a lot of money.

What I wasn't really prepared for is the endless onslaught of costs and talking in thousands of dollars. Winter tires: $1200. Updating the old windows in the house: $5000. Putting a shed in the back yard: $2000-2500. And I realise that the projects we're taking on that don't need to be done can be accomplished cheaply. But what's the point in doing something cheaply and then having to live with it for the next 10 years when we can spend a bit more and do it right? So $1400 for putting cupboards into the laundry room to match the kitchen is going to turn into a lot more money when we move the vent to accommodate a stackable washer/dryer combo and update the flooring to something that doesn't scuff and rip when we move appliances. It will likely be another $1500-$2000 for a proper wardrobe solution in the master bedroom, but that's without the costs of taking out the existing closet partitions and repairing and re-painting the walls. And I don't even know how much it will cost to replace the deck (thousands I'm guessing) or design and build the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves/sideboard in the dining room but I'm guessing it will be in the thousands as well.

Even the little things seem to cost a lot. Seriously, how did we spend $120 on storage boxes for magazines, CDs and DVDs and still not have enough boxes? We spent close to $100 just on boxes for shoes! What the fuck! Maybe $100 isn't a lot, and it's worth it to not have shoes in bags under the bed where we'll forget about them, but it seems like more money than it should be. I guess they're quite versatile plastic boxes and if we ever change to some sort of shelving we can use the boxes elsewhere, but that's not the point. My point is what the fuck. I wouldn't have spent that much money on shoes boxes when we were renting a house.

Actually, I take that back because I used to fantasize about nicely designed shoe boxes with little plastic windows to replace those awful hanging fabric shoe holders we had. But that's not the point.

The point is it all costs a lot of money. I suppose we're living in a much bigger house than we used to, so it's reasonable to expect it to cost more. And we always talked about what we'd do to fix up our rental houses but never spent the money because they weren't ours to fix. And I guess we did pay for the company car, but we never saw the money go out and we weren't the ones responsible for fixing it when things needed fixing.

And I guess that's really the point. We're responsible for all of this stuff now and we could choose not to get the winter tires or replace the old windows or put in a shed, but then we have to live with the consequences.

It's just so exhausting and I haven't lost sight of why we're here or the fact that we're both happy in our own place. I guess I'm just impatient and want it all sorted and paid for now so that we can enjoy it and go back to planning weekend trips and vacations rather than picking the colour of storage boxes and agonizing over the style of built-in units.

So we have this Hallowe'en Housewarming party coming up on the 30th and I've turned my attention to sorting out the food. In the middle of flipping through October/November food magazines and the appetizer sections of cookbooks I picked up my little black book of recipe scraps. This is an old calendar holder my sister had as a kid/teenager (some time around then) that she abandoned and that I thought could be useful for ... something. It's got a pocket in the front and a velcro strap to hold it shut, so it became useful for holding little recipe cards, recipe suggestions on food labels, tiny recipe booklets from kitchen gadgets I no longer own, and all those little recipe leaflets that either come through the mail or in newspapers.

On this particular day I picked up a book with seasonal and party suggestions for kids and in the boys' birthdays pages there was a swamp jelly. It was both cute and exciting to look at. A layer of chocolately milk powder mixed with gelatine on the bottom, a layer of green jelly on the top, and then bits of angelica and candied flowers stuck in it to resemble a swamp.

The thing on its own wasn't what excited me. What I was really picturing was that swamp sitting in front of around partly wrapped around a haunted house cake. Woop woop!

I'm not sure how I'm going to pull this off. I've been thinking for a couple of weeks now about the logistics of it and how I'm going to have the time to do a designer cake considering my first and only attempt was my wedding cake and that took me the best part of a week to bake and put together. However, if I keep the house simple then I think I can do this.

I'm guessing I'll stack up a couple slabs of cake and carve them into a bit of a hill shape. On top of that I'll put a house made out of square stacks of chocolate cake glued together with orange buttercream and some kind of triangular piece of cake that I can then make into the roof. I'm thinking chocolate buttons for roof shingles. I'm thinking of piping chocolate into the shape of a bare tree and then sticking it 2-D style into the hill. I'm thinking fruit leather for a pathway leading down to and around the swamp. I'm thinking some kind of jelly candies for rocks and thick black licorice for stumps or porch supporting posts.

My problem is there's all sorts of other food and snacks to choose and make for the day. And I want it to be festive. So it's a trip to the grocery store tonight to get ideas and pick up random supplies.