house inspection

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS to my friend Julie ("jwordsmith" in Blatherchat) on the birth of her son! See this LJ entry.

As I mentioned in my last Blathering, Jeff and I bought a house on Friday night, conditional on a house inspection.

The house inspection is this afternoon. Even though I'm sure everything will be basically fine, I'm still nervous. We both want this house so badly. Thanks so much for the good wishes, everyone!

Speaking of The House, we saw it several times on the weekend. Ok, maybe more than several times. Dropped by on Saturday with Parki after brunch. Then yesterday, I decided to go explore the area and time my walk to various destinations. As a result, I ended up in front of the house THREE (3) more times over the next couple of hours. I'm surprised none of the neighbours called the police.

"Er...I'd like to report a strange Asian woman loitering on our street, just staring at my neighbour's house with an intense, yearning expression on her face..."

Bizarre-looking chocolate drink mix that my friends Bryan and Elizabeth brought me from Montreal. What were the marketing people thinking?!?

Found out it took me exactly 20 minutes to walk from the subway station; if I had opted to take the bus, it would have taken me far less, but I always prefer walking whenever possible. We live a few minutes' walk away from a 24-hour big grocery store as well as a street of interesting little shops which included a CHOCOLATE STORE and a TEA STORE! I bought some loose leaf Mate Chino, which is supposedly a traditional tea from Latin America and made from Toasted Mate with cocoa, sunflower petals, almond bits, cactus flowers and cornflower blossoms. YUM.

We live a short walk and a ridiculously short drive from my sister's place. I'm also a very short walk, run and bike ride away from a network of city parks and trails. Yay, no more running through diesel fumes from under the Gardiner Expressway!

I've just realized that I've been writing "we live" instead of "we will live" as if Jeff and I have already moved in. Guess I'm really counting on this happening.

I'm sure the house inspection this afternoon will go fine.

It will.

March 2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

house!!

WE HAVE A HOUSE! Or at least almost. We saw the house around noon yesterday. Signed the papers that evening.

I still haven't quite absorbed this fact. I keep feeling as if something's going to go wrong and we'll find out it was all a big mistake. Then again, the sale is conditional on a home inspection on Monday, so there's always that chance, isn't there? No, I won't even entertain that possibility. Everything will be fine.

Dear lord, I'm rambling. Blathering, rather.

The minute we walked inside, we knew it was our house. Lots of interesting nooks and crannies and unusual angles. As Jeff says, it looks as if a (small) giant sat inside the house and pushed out with his elbows and knees in odd places. It has a spiral staircase (a spiral staircase!!) leading up to the library. Lots of light. I loveLOVE the kitchen. Easy access to the TTC.



The house is small, with just one bedroom. We don't have a guest room. There's an office alcove which will be Jeff's office, a small solarium where I plan to grow some potted herbs to use in my cooking. No garage, just a parking pad. We're renovating part of the unfinished basement to be my office. No grass, but there's a small wooden deck out back as well a crab apple tree, and we've been told there are some perennials out there under all the snow.

Closing date is late May. I have no idea how I'm going to be able to stand the waiting. I love that house; I want to move in NOW.

Jeff and I were anxiously waiting at my sister's place when the call came from our real estate agent that the buyer had accepted our offer. We cheered and jumped up and down, and then I started crying and we all hugged each other.

I still can't believe it...

We. Have. A. House.

March 2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

househunting and cool sisters

Picture to the right: house listings that Jeff and I are going to see today and tomorrow. Wish us luck.

I feel as if we've been househunting forever. It's nothing compared to stories of those who have been searching for their perfect house for years, of course, but sometimes it seems as long to me.

We've seen detached houses, semi-detached houses, townhouses. Both small ("cozy" in the listing) and spacious, in perfect condition and "needing loving care." Houses which have obviously been staged, where the owners filled the house with someone else's furniture and accessories. Houses that have been on the market for a long while and where the owners have clearly gotten tired of always keeping the place in pristine condition.

I always feel a bit strange, walking into someone else's home and knowing that (like us several months ago) the inhabitants are probably sitting in a coffeeshop around the corner or pretending to browse a nearby street shop, fervently hoping that we'll be the ones who buy their place so they can get on with their lives.

How far I've "walked" across the U.S. since mid-January. Fitnessjournal.org.

I've also become familiar with many different types of neighbourhoods around Toronto. As someone who does a lot of walking, running and travelling via the TTC (Toronto transit), I know I'll be using the immediate neighbourhood much more than Jeff. For any potential house, therefore, I've usually done a pre-visit exploration, checking out TTC access, how far the house is from coffeeshops and bookstores, whether the main street DOES have things like coffeeshops and bookstores.

According to my pedometer, I walked about 12 km yesterday and used the subway system about near a dozen times (I bought a day pass).

Here are a few online tools I've found useful in our househunting search in Toronto:

TTC schedules/map

MLS.ca: a bit out-of-date compared to the database that real estate agents use, but useful because I can search for houses within different areas, streets, by price range, etc.

Toronto area MapIt: Found out about this from my brother-in-law Kaarel. Especially cool because I can view pretty much any house from a real aerial photograph.

On a completely different topic, I now have a copy of my cool sister's new book, Me and My Sister:



...and a copy of the Newfoundland/Labrador Easter Seal campaign package (helps children with disabilities), for which she did the artwork:



Less than four weeks until FilKONtario!

March 2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

looking up

Parki, Craig and Jeff. I love technonerdboys!

E-mail woes continue. Haven't been able to pick up e-mail at ALL this morning. :-( Perhaps it's for the best; part of me is convinced that by the time my e-mail does come through, it'll be 99% spam.

Househunting also continues. We keep finding houses that are nearly perfect for us except for One Thing. Eventually, I'm sure, we'll start to get desperate enough that we'll be more willing to compromise, but right now we cling to the feeble hope that our Holy Grail of houses is still out there, cruelly beckoning.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to experience some of the disadvantages of living in limbo. I recently ran out of my temporary office supply stash and had to go buy more, for example; frustrating since I can mentally picture the big box in our storage locker full of the same supplies. I'm also running out of places to put things so am starting to dump stuff in a Miscellaneous Drawer in the corner of the living room I use as my temporary home office. Not sure what I'm going to do when the drawer is full.

On a brighter note, however, my arm seems to have fully recovered from the fall on the ice, it's gorgeous outside, and I'm typing again. I still use ViaVoice sometimes to help extend my "daily arm points", but things are definitely looking up again. I'm able to write more every day, and have also started songwriting again. Might even try resume playing harp and guitar soon. I've had to miss the past few Tranzac Irish sessions because of babysitting, but I plan to get back to my whistlestuff soon. My German studies have been newly inspired by a gift from Gary McGath: a gorgeous hardcopy German version of "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende (thanks, Gary!).

FilKONtario is next month! And yay, Rand's girlfriend Erin says she's going to be attending, so it looks like we're going to meet in person at last. :-)

February 2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

healing vibes needed

Leaving for Boston tomorrow! Hence the lack of Blatherings and the brevity of this post...too many things to do between now and tomorrow, too little time.

I've also been helping out at my sister's place; she has pneumonia. :-( And I'm learning a new appreciation for you work-at-home parents out there who juggle work, shopping, cleaning, dropping off and picking up the kids at school and helping them with their homework, cooking dinner, and I'm sure a zillion other daily essential tasks.

If any of you have a spare moment over the next while, I'd appreciate you thinking healing vibes at my sister. Thanks. :-)

Have a good weekend, everyone!

February 2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments