I Got You Babe

All of our crap is now in the new place. I say crap because that's what it is. We have so. much. crap. I didn't realize how much crap we own until we had to move it all. Time constraints prevented us from sorting through the crap and getting rid of it, so we now have a nice shiny new condo full of crap. Crap that we don't need. Crap that we don't use. Want crap? We've got it.

Enough complaining - I am so happy to be out of our old apartment. I hated the transition of being in 2 places. It was too hard to keep track of the crap :)

My older sister and her boyfriend (partner? life-y? chosen one? Turtle, help me out here) are the lovely people who made our move successful. I did not realize how disorganized and behind we were until they swooped in with their magical moving powers and saved the day. It helps that they've moved about 50 times in the last 10 years. They are professionals. Usually I am the organized one (and by "organized" I mean "bossy") so it felt a bit strange to hand the reins over. I got over that quickly though, when I realized that someone else was doing all the work. It was fabulous. So T&T, thank you from the bottom of my disorganized, crap-collecting heart.

I Think You're Crazy, Just Like Me

I don't know why I thought I could handle buying a condo and planning a wedding at the same time. Oh, and work full-time and do correspondence classes part-time. My brain has turned to mush. I actually emailed our Realtor yesterday to ask her what I should do with the mail we're getting that's not ours. She gently suggested that I mark it "return to sender" and drop it in the mail. Duh. In real life, I am a fairly intelligent and capable person. My current reality? Not so intelligent. Definitely not so capable.

We need to be out of our apartment by Friday at 1pm. On Sunday, our landlord gave us a sheet of paper detailing everything that needs to be done by then. Things like shampoo the carpet, clean behind the fridge and stove ... things that we have never done. Ever. The sheet of doom also explained the "fines" we would be receiving if we don't clean up to standard. If we don't clean the blinds - $100 ($100?!!), shampoo the carpets - $75, etc. So now we're trying to quantify everything. How badly do we not want to shampoo the carpets? Is it worth $75 to not shampoo the carpets? It's not like we have a carpet cleaner. We'd have to rent a carpet cleaner, which means that we'd have to figure out where to rent a carpet cleaner. It's frustrating. The carpet is about a million year old. Shampooing it is not going to improve it whatsoever.

With all the moving shite we've been dealing with lately, planning the wedding has been put on hold. I've been fairly relaxed about the wedding planning process (other than my obsessive list-making - but hey, love me, love my lists.) I have never wanted the big fairytale wedding. I'm not big on poofy dresses or elaborate centrepieces or 19-course dinners. I don't think, though, that I've been neglecting the wedding plans. I don't think that it's cause for alarm that the menu isn't decided, 8 months before the wedding. I think we're ahead of the game - we know where the wedding is going to be, we have the date set, the guest list made and the cupcakes ordered. What is the rush? As soon as we got engaged, people were asking when the wedding was going to be. We set a date so people would leave us alone. Now people are asking what our colour scheme is (seriously? colour scheme?), what the menu is going to be, etc. It's exhausting. We're going to Vegas in a month and we are seriously considering doing this.

We're Lying in the Gutter, but We're Looking at the Stars, I Get Excited, You Get Excited Too

Update:
We have electricity! and hot water! in the same place! at the same time!
We no longer have to choose between having hot water or having electricity and this makes me excited beyond belief.

Passing By You Light Up My Darkest Skies

Last week I almost had a heart attack when I flipped the breaker for the hot water tank and the lights went out. S had gone to take the garbage out, so of course when he came back to a completely dark condo he blamed me. The conversation went a little like this:
Me: I didn't do it.
S: Well the lights were on when I left, so obviously you did something.
Me: Well all I did was flip the breaker, so obviously something is wrong with it.
S: *silently glowers*
Moving is not bringing out the best in us.
It was a stressful night - me trying to read the hot water tank manual by the light of my cellphone, S trying unsuccessfully to turn the lights back on by flipping the main breaker on and off about eleventy million times. After about twenty minutes of this I deduced that I had, in fact, done nothing wrong while S reckoned that I had broken the condo beyond repair.
After a frantic call to the developer, we managed to get an electrician to come out the next morning. Electrician determined that our hot water tank is a death trap, which is why when I turned it on the whole circuit shorted out. (I heart Electrician because he proved the hot water tank debacle is not my fault. I'm just sayin'.)
We don't know why the hot water tank is a deathtrap (faulty wiring, faulty element, faulty installation, etc.) We also don't know who is going to fix it. Developer has promised me hot water tonight but I have no hope.
The one (slightly) bright spot in this is that we're not actually living in the condo yet. We're doing the big move on Saturday so it's not like we're running around smelly and unwashed. Well, no more smelly than usual.

She's Electric, She's in a Family Full of Eccentrics

A haiku for the electrician who may or may not be my hero:

I want hot water
Electricity has gone
Fix it for me please

I've Seen Your Frown and it's Like Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun

Me: (realizing the water jug is leaking all over the fridge) wtf? S, did you know the water jug is leaking?

S: I tried to fix it.

Me: (noticing burn mark on said water jug) W.T.F.?

S: I tried to melt the plastic together because it was cracked.

Me: Well there’s water all over the fridge.

S: So throw the jug out.

Me: (noticing that there’s no filter in the jug) Why is there no filter in the jug?

S: I threw the filter out because the jug is broken.

Me: You threw the filter out because the jug is broken.

S: Yes.

Me: But you didn’t throw the jug out because …

Seriously. wtf?

Our House, in the Middle of Our Street

Getting the keys to our new place was a bizarre experience. Our Realtor handed everything over in the lobby and pointed us toward the elevator. We got up to our condo and didn't know what to do. It felt like we were trespassing. Everything is so shiny and new - it's hard to believe that it belongs to us. I can't accurately describe just how crappy our current apartment is, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Old Light Fixtures:

New Light Fixtures:














































































I do realize that it's not healthy to love light fixtures this much, but I can't help it. I luuurve my new light fixtures.

I love lamp.

So if you're crazy, I don't care you amaze me

I turned 25 almost a month ago and I still don't feel like a grownup. I'm doing grownup things and trying really hard to feel like I'm not a fraud, but I'm not succeeding. Today we met with the lawyers to sign our mortgage stuff (I don't even know what it's called. See? Not a grownup.) You'd think that buying our first home would make me feel a little like a grownup, but no. Not so much. Instead, I feel like a kid who's playing house. Already planning what furniture needs replacing and what goodies we're going to buy instead of worrying how we're going to pay the property tax bill we're going to be hit with in a few months. S is not helping matters, tempting me with visions of a new tv! in the bedroom! instead of figuring out what our monthly utility bill will be. Not that we could figure it out if we wanted to - we've never lived anywhere where you had to pay utilities; the landlord always took care of it and included it in the rent. Now we're our own landlords and it's scary. Who will we call when something breaks? Realistically, we'll be calling my dad but I'd like to think that we'll be okay on our own. We get the keys to our new place on Saturday. Maybe then I'll start to feel like a grownup.