022 PLUS ONE

Here I am one day after the purchase is complete.  It is a day to rest, reflect and play hockey before the insanity resumes tomorrow.  I don’t know if resting really covers it as I had another 4:30 AM wakeup today.  There is also a bit of a letdown feeling after all the excitement of the past few days.  I suppose it comes in part to the fact that the deal is now in place, I now own the townhouse, but I am still in the little basement and freezing my butt off.  It’s chilly this morning.

I think it is good to take this day to sit back, and reflect on what was and what will be.  It is also a time to just decompress a little bit before everything ramps up again tomorrow.  The packers move in here at 9:00 AM to get everything ready for the move.  I have done quite a bit by getting rid of junk and stacking stuff along my wall that is coming with me.

Once they are done and out of here, I have to be back at the townhouse to accept delivery of my beds from Sleep Country.  The Queen size for the master bedroom and the double for the guest room.  I know I need a new quilt cover for my Daniadown quilt, but trying to decide if I should get a new quilt or not.  This one is about 10 years old, so maybe it is time.

Two things that I noticed yesterday, and they are important things, both my electricity and my natural gas are both turned on.  Despite the problems I had, like TELUS, to convince them that my address did in fact exist.  Now, once I get together some cooking utensils, pots and pans etc. I will be able to start producing some good meals and cutting down the need to go out or order in.

I have ripped on TELUS quite a bit in the last few entries, but I got a phone call last night at 8:45 PM that made things right.  John from TELUS called to apologize for the screw up and he has a technician coming on Friday to install my phone and they have also given me the first month free to try and make up for the inconvenience caused me.  They even managed to rescue my assigned phone number which was on the verge of being given to someone else.  So if you are the one that thought they were getting this number, I apologize for your disappointment, but it’s mine!

So, through it all, I will only end up being offline for about 16 hours, but I can live with that.  I go the whole summer with intermittent, internet when I am at the lake.  The same with my cable TV, I will only be without it for one day, but I have lots of movies and TV shows on DVD’s to watch.  Just the same as I do at the cabin.

It is a strange feeling as I sit here writing this entry.  There are waves of joy and excitement washing over me.  On the flip side there are also waves of extreme sadness and a sense of loss as well.  It is the end of an era as well as the beginning of a whole new one.  Since 1945 a member of my family has lived in this house, but as of Friday that all comes to an end.  But there has to be an ending before you can begin a new beginning.  Onwards and upwards, to infinity and beyond.

021 THE BIG DAY - COUNTDOWN DAY 0

JENNIFER KNUCKLE BUMP

KEN GIVES ME THE KEYS

Here it is, the big day.  It literally felt like it was never going to come.  I was worried the whole time that something would go wrong and the deals would fall through, but everything was smooth sailing and it is all a done deal now.  I’m only a little excited as the 4:30 AM wakeup will attest to.  It isn’t that unusual though, as my sleep patterns over the last year and a bit have been all over the map and even 2:30 AM wake-ups are not unheard of.

We went through our usual morning routine of the dog park, then an early lunch and Starbucks.  Finally, it was time to head out and take possession of my new townhouse.  The deal was completed yesterday without a glitch at all.  I think it must be a sign from above though, because when I headed out on the highway, it was pissing rain and by the time I got to my place, the sun was shining.

TRUCK IN GARAGE
FIRST TIME
Every time I have visited it over the last 5 months, probably 12 times, the sun has been shining.  I have never seen my new place in the rain.  I’m thankful for that because I have had quite enough rain in Vancouver over the last 12 weeks.

UNWRAPPED GIFT

HOUSEWARMING GIFT

Once I arrived, I was greeted by Ken and Jennifer who had me sign the final documents and then the big moment when they handed me my keys.  I visited for a while longer and then it was time.  I walked across the street and into my new place as a full-fledged owner.  I took some time to drink it all in and just savor the moment.  My alarm company rep arrived minutes later so that is all done.

FRONT WINDOW

After he left, I pulled my truck into the garage for the first time.  Then I let Toby out to come and explore his new home as well.  He was very curious and wandered all over the garage sniffing at empty walls and the floor and then we went upstairs, where he went and checked everything out.  He walked to the front window, where he can stand and look out and watched the landscapers working on the yard.

FIRST MEAL IN NEW HOUSE

JUST CHILLIN

There is not a stick of furniture in the house yet but the first thing in the new fridge was a can of dog food as well as the first thing in the cupboard was a can of dogfood and a bag of treats.  Toby also became the first one to eat a meal in the new house.  I hung a few items of clothes in the closet and just wandered around as I waited for Shaw to arrive to hook up my cable and internet.

FENCE UP, LANDSCAPING UNDERWAY

 I already knew that TELUS was not coming as they keep telling me my address doesn’t exist.  So I settled down to wait for Shaw.  I had bought Toby a brand new dog bed a few days ago and he won’t use it, so with it being the softest thing in the place, I settled down into it myself.  Here I am lying on a hardwood (laminate) floor, with my trusty sidekick lying beside me.  I’m just starting to drift off when the phone rings.  It’s then I find out that Shaw has mis-booked my appointment somehow and is coming on Saturday instead of today.

BACK YARD VIEW NOW

If these are the only two things that went wrong over the six months of this deal, I think I’m doing pretty good.  So at this point I gave up and we got back in the truck and headed “home”.  I’m pretty stiff and sore from lying on the floor, but what can you do.  I’m just glad it’s done.  The next stage is the packers coming on Thursday.  Then I have to be back at the new place for my beds to be delivered.  Friday morning the movers come and the transition will be complete.

SOMEONE IS COMFY IN NEW HOME

Just after I got back here, TELUS phoned to say they had finally straightened out the problem and my address now exists in their database and so they will be coming on Friday evening to install my new phone.  It took some finagling, but I managed to be able to keep the new phone number I was assigned two weeks ago.  Good thing, because I had already memorized it and I had also made a bunch of notifications of the new number.

IN TOBY'S NEW BED, TRYING TO REST

Next in line is The Brick delivering my furniture on Saturday and Shaw hooking up my cable and internet.  Sunday, after hockey we take the final item (my boat) from the old place, to the new place and I will cease to be a resident of Vancouver and escape the clutches of Mayor Moonbeam and his bike lanes.

020 IS IT OR ISN'T IT? - COUNTDOWN DAY 1

Here I sit in the afternoon of the last day, before “The Big Day” and I find myself in the position of waiting once more.  I signed all the documents on Friday and paid the balance owing on the house and then the waiting started…again.  My lawyer said he would phone me as soon as the deal was completed and I didn’t expect to hear on Friday.  I also didn’t expect any news on the weekend.  But, here it is Monday afternoon and I still haven’t heard.

I’m not normally a paranoid type, but one of the major reasons I have not made anything public at all on Facebook, is that I have found myself on numerous occasions throughout the ordeal, expecting something to go wrong.  Now that it’s so close I can taste it, those fears are popping up big time, the longer I wait for news.

Everything is set for me to go out there tomorrow and receive my keys at 12:30 PM.  Sometime after that during the afternoon, I am expecting visits from TELUS, Shaw Cable and my alarm company, so I will be spending the afternoon in my new house, with no furniture and nothing to do.  I will take my laptop and while I won’t be able to access the internet until it is installed, I can at least play games or watch a movie on it.  I’ll also be able to write a blog entry but not post it until later.

Not forgetting someone else important, it will be Toby’s first look at his new home as well.  I have a water bucket with me and I will bring his food and pill with me in case we do end up spending the entire afternoon there.  Not having any chairs to sit on, we will have to sit on the hardwood (laminate) floor and make the best of it.  I can already feel the sore butt and back from that endeavor.

The beds are being delivered Thursday, the moving company is bringing my stuff on Friday and the furniture arrives Saturday.  Renee also arrives on the Westcoast Express late on Friday and we will spend our first night in the new house.  We are going to have to come up with a whole new routine.

I spent the early afternoon today trying to contact TELUS and confirm their arrival tomorrow.  I also spent time on getting my computer room furniture ready to place the order.  I already know what I want, so I have it all saved to my shopping cart.  The stumbling block is that Staples will deliver it tomorrow but it would be anytime between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM.  Since I don’t get the keys until 12:30 PM, that won’t work.  I won’t be there Wednesday and Thursday and Friday are the same problem and they don’t deliver until Tuesday, so I will have to make the order on the weekend.

So quickly after leaving, we will be making a return to the old neighbourhood on Sunday.  After hockey, Karl will bring a buddy to help load the hide-a-bed into my truck.  Then we will hook up the boat and take it to the new house, where Karl and his friend can help me push it into the garage.  From there we will drive over to Karl’s new place in Langley and drop off the bed there.  Then it’s home to watch the new TV from the comfort of my new recliner.

UPDATE

Of course just as I finished typing and posting this entry in the blog, the update arrived.  The deal is now complete and I am now the proud owner of my brand new townhouse and everything can move forward as planned.  This is the first time in my life that I have owned a house, on my own and completely debt free.  It is such an awesome experience, even if it seemed like forever happening.  It is done, and moving day, moves forward.  YAY!!!!

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE

I knew things were going too well and now we have hit a major snag.  I don’t really know what made me do it, but I phoned TELUS twice today, just to confirm the appointment for the install tomorrow.  The morning session resulted in me sitting on the phone for two hours and giving up.  The afternoon session was a 45-minute wait.  It’s a good thing that I persisted, because it turns out there is no appointment booked for tomorrow.  The reason being is that according to TELUS, my address does not exist.  I thought we had this all worked out last week, but apparently not.  So we were looking at an installation date of late Friday afternoon, but even that may not happen.  They have to wait until the address database is refreshed between TELUS and the city.  This guy was very helpful though, promising to call me as soon as he knows something, not only that I get my first month free.

019 SHOPPING DAY - COUNTDOWN DAY 3

It was a big day today, in more ways than one.  First off the day started off with gorgeous warm sunshine.  It was so warm in fact I was wandering around the dog park for an hour with my jacket off.  In addition, we have had a chance no over the past week to say goodbyes to the last remaining of our regular friends at the dog park.  What used to be a collection of 14 dogs at the park is down to 5 or 6 and now we are leaving as well.

After the dog park we did our regular routine of brunch and then Starbucks.  From there we decided to go looking for furniture for the house.  First stop was La-Z-Boy where we found a couch and a recliner that we really liked, but, to get them in leather, which is what I am insisting on, it is a 12 week wait.  Well, that will never do.  I cannot function in the house with nothing to sit on for 3 months.

So we thanked them and left and headed over to The Brick to look at the dining room table we have decided on.  We spotted it after some looking and ended up buying it and six dining room chairs.  We both like the medieval look of the table and the chairs are comfy.  We got a good deal on it too.

THE RECLINER AT LA-Z-BOY
12 WEEK WAIT

THE COUCH AT LA-Z-BOY
12 WEEK WAIT

After some looking around, we spotted a real leather couch and a recliner.  The couch was chocolate brown, but the recliner was cream white.  Once we asked though, we were assured that it was available in chocolate brown as well, so that was two more pieces of furniture for the house and it won’t look so empty now once we move in.  Well, it will be sort of empty for one night as the furniture gets delivered on Saturday.  I could have had it on Friday, but things will be so busy on Friday, we thought it was better to wait one day.

THE TABLE AND 6 CHAIRS

THE TABLE AND 6 CHAIRS SIDE VIEW

Well, now that we have a couch and recliner for the living room, there had to be something to sit and watch.  My old 44-inch TV is destined for the upstairs room and I had my heart set on a 70-inch TV for the living room.  So across the warehouse we went to the electronics.  I was dead set on a standard HD TV because there is no 4K programming yet and the Ultra HD TV’s are so much more expensive, almost double.

65 INCH LG ULTRA HD 4K TV

Well it turns out that 70-inch TV’s are not readily available and are basically a special order in 4K.  The price on that was about $7,000 and I was not prepared to pay that much for a TV.  There was a 65-inch TV right next to it and the size difference was negligible.  After much discussion, I ended up with a 65 inch, LG Ultra HD 4K TV.  It was only $200 more than the standard HD TV so I figured why not.  I got it with a sound bar and woofer plus an articulating wall mount as well.

FAROOK, OUR HELPFUL SALESMAN

TJ THE MANAGER AND FAROOK
WORKING THE DEALS

The people at The Brick were awesome.  No pressure to buy anything and very helpful in answering questions.  They even threw in a leather care kit and a couple of memory foam pillows.  I can’t say enough about how well we were treated by our sales person “Farook Thobani”.  If you want to be treated well, go see him at the Coquitlam Brick, but only on the weekend as he only works Saturday and Sunday.  As an aside, talk about a small world, he turns out to be the brother-in-law of a former co-worker of mine, John Lavoi.  He was an awesome dog handler when he was in the dog squad.

THE RECLINER BUT IN CHOCOLATE
LEATHER

THE COUCH ALSO IN LEATHER

So what started out as a day without furniture, turned into a house full of furniture, which will help turn the house into a home almost immediately.  It was a completely unexpected turn of events.  Just like we ended up with a bed last weekend.  Both times we just went out to look at stuff and ended up getting it.  Things actually worked out better by not being able to get the couch and recliner at La-Z-Boy, because we got all that stuff for what it would have cost for the two pieces of furniture.  Things are looking rosy to start the new adventure next week.

FLAKED OUT FROM A 3:00 AM WAKEUP
AND A DAY FURNITURE SHOPPING

018 LAWYER DAY - COUNTDOWN DAY 4

Today, everything inches closer.  Today is lawyer day.  I have to go to the bank and get a bank draft to give to the lawyer and then sign the documents to complete the purchase of the house.  These are essentially the last documents to sign before completion on Monday, although there will be a few last papers to sign on Tuesday when I get handed the keys to my new place.

HARD AT WORK

Yesterday I entered in the beginning of the final days of prep work.  I had the 1-800-GOT-JUNK people bank in and they took away another full truckload of stuff.  There is still a bit more left, but I don’t know if there is enough to warrant another trip by them.  We shall see.  It’s amazing how much junk was in this house.  I have had the GOT JUNK people in twice and they have taken away two small dump truck loads and this doesn’t even take into account the loads and loads of stuff my sister and her family hauled out of here in the first half of 2015.

YESTERDAY'S CREW.
GUY ON RIGHT WAS HERE
LAST TIME TOO

I suppose it is understandable when you take into account that the family has been in the house since 1945 and we found stuff in the attic from the 1930’s.  This is absolutely in no way to suggest that this was a hoarder situation, because it was nowhere near that, it was just the standard accumulation of stuff.  My parents and grandparents went through The Great Depression and through WWII so anything that could be saved and reused later, was.

I had a lot of stuff here to that I just couldn’t bear to throw away, even though I knew they would never be used again.  For example, there were 26 pairs of ice skates some mine, some my Mom’s.  There were 7 sets of golf clubs, one set mine, the rest my Dad’s.  It’s nice to know though that the golf clubs and skates are being donated.

After yesterday’s cleanout, I actually saw the back porch empty.  I have never, ever seen that before, not even as a little kid.  The rooms upstairs are completely empty now except for stuff that will be coming to the new place.  It amounts to a few boxes and the attic amounts to a small room full of stuff.  The biggest chore will be the garage which contains my old pool table and a whole lot of tools as it was Dad’s workshop.

NEVER BEFORE SEEN
EMPTY BACK PORCH

My living room area is looking decidedly empty now with the 4 huge speakers, 3 smaller ones and a large sub-woofer having been taken to my daughter’s place a couple of weeks back.  Yesterday I got rid of several small pieces of cast-off furniture that I had used to hold junk.  Stuff is stacked up against one wall ready to be moved.

EMPTY KITCHEN

As mentioned yesterday, the “fear factor” has kicked in and I am getting more nervous as time marches on.  I’m hoping that will be replaced by euphoria when the extremely busy week next week is completed.  There will still be the running around required to get furniture and cooking gear for the new place, but that could be fun as well.  I can research online, but I need to physically see and test the furniture before purchase.  It needs no fit the décor that is being planned, not to mention physically fit the dimensions of the room.

EMPTY UPSTAIRS LIVING ROOM

EMPTY KITCHEN REVERSE VIEW

For example, we have an awesome dining room set picked out, but it is a fairly lengthy table and we need to know if it will actually fit into the dining room.  It is called a “Harvest Table” and it is designed for a family gathering at harvest time.  This will be a dining room table, but it will be a general use table as well, so it is not a typical “shiny” wood table.  It has a textured surface to make it appear to be made of roughly hewn wood.

ONE OF THE CHAIRS
CAN'T GET A TABLE PHOTO

Anyway, the excitement is ramping up and so is the busy factor.  Next week will be insane, especially with all the shuttling back and forth between the two places.  On Tuesday alone I have to be there to sign the paper and get my keys.  Then I have TELUS, Shaw and my alarm system all being installed in the afternoon.  Sometime in between I have to find and attend the post office to complete my redirection of mail, get assigned a box in our “Superbox” and pick up the keys for that as well.

017 FEAR FACTOR - COUNTDOWN DAY 5

The fear factor is now setting in just a little bit.  It’s not something I can really define but, it isn’t excitement and it isn’t anticipation or even impatience.  There is just a little bit of fear over whether the move will go smoothly, or whether my utilities will get activated at the right time, or whether my new bed will be delivered as promised.  There is the fear of getting everything done in the extremely busy next 10 days to follow.

Let me say unequivocally though, I have no regrets over selling the old house or in buying the new one.  It was time, it just was.  Twenty years of living in this tiny, cold and yes dirty basement have come to an end and rightly so.  It is time that I have a life.

Some people have made the suggestion that I should simply move upstairs.  But, I have found for me it is not even a viable option.  First off 14 months after Dad’s passing, I still don’t feel comfortable with the thought of moving upstairs.  Renting it out was not an option because I have no shower or cooking facilities.  I made do when Dad was alive, but I couldn’t do that with strangers in the house.  Not to mention the horror stories I have read about bad tenants.

There is some nervousness about what my new community will be like and the people who will surround me.  I hope I end up with a great neighbour.  So far my experience with Maple Ridge has been nothing short of amazing.  Everyone I have met or had business dealings with has been so friendly and helpful, it’s kind of scary.  In Vancouver, the business dealings alone with the bureaucrats has been a scary proposition at best.  I guess it’s the difference between big city and small town.

Now, Maple Ridge is not exactly a small town with 100,000 residents, but it is certainly much smaller than Vancouver.  City council in Vancouver has become nothing short of a dictatorship with head spaceman Mayor Moonbeam ramming through proposals to suit the needs of him and his friends.  I find Maple Ridge city council, in my dealings so far, to be helpful and attentive to the needs of their residents.  Sure, that may change in time, but for now the difference is night and day.

I don’t mean to get on a soapbox or to get going on a rant as I am trying to leave all that behind.  But, it is my blog and I can take it in any direction I choose.  It’s been suggested that I don’t have enough photos in my latest entries, and there is a good reason for that.  I don’t have any to include right now.  For example, I don’t have any photos of the new bed.  I did try to get some off of the Sleep Country website, but there were none there either.  I will update previous articles with photos as they come available.

I intend to document the whole move with words and photos.  As I stated before though, the blog is my outlet.  The writing helps to calm me down and to get out the frustrations and anxiety that builds up.  It allows me to document my feelings as this is a huge change of lifestyle.  It’s easy to bounce around when you are in your twenties and changing places every couple of years.  It’s a whole ‘nother thing to do it in your sixties when you have been in the same place for twenty years and for 46 years overall.

016 TIME MARCHES ON - COUNTDOWN DAY 7

Time is on my side, yes it is.  Well, it is and it isn’t.  Time is inexorably marching on wards.  Here it is March 1, 2016 and the long awaited move is now just a week away.  When I first started this process time seemed to speed right up and then after the sale it seemed to slow right down while waiting for closing.  Once that happened it started racing forward again until before I knew it, we were into the new year.  Things seemed to start moving at a more normal pace for a while and then as we hit February, time slowed right to a crawl where it remains.

Even though time seems to be standing still while waiting to move, it is at the same time racing by when I’m trying to get everything done and ready to go.  Sometimes it feels like there are not enough hours in the day to get it all done.  In the next three days I have to get 1-800-GOT-JUNK back in here to take away all the stuff I don’t need or want anymore, but in order to do that I need to move some stuff around first.

Speaking of time flying by, Renee was watching the Academy Awards on Sunday night.  I don’t watch them, but that’s another story for another time.  Imagine my surprise when I walked past the TV and glanced up to see an old squad mate of mine sitting in the audience, with all of the V.I.P.’s It seems that a movie which his son starred in (ROOM) was up for Best Picture.   So there was Jason Tremblay and his son Jacob in the audience.  I’ve been retired ten years and Jacob is 9.  So he was born a year after I retired.  Jason just had two daughters when I left.  So there is another case when time has just flown by.

The march of time and all the stresses involved are playing hell with my sleeping patterns though.  Prior to retiring I hated dayshift because I hated getting up early.  Since I retired, for most of those years I was waking up at 6:00 every morning and then it worked its way back to 5:00 in the morning.  In the year since Dad died, I’m all over the map with when I wake up.

The last few days though have been hell.  Friday night I fell asleep about 10:30 PM and I was wide awake at 2:30 AM.  Saturday night I fell asleep around 11:30 PM and was wide awake at 1:30 AM.  I got up and worked on the computer until 3:00 AM and then went back to bed, but sleep would not come.  I watched the clock click over to 4:00 AM and by then it became the law of diminishing returns.  If by some miracle I happened to get back to sleep, I knew I would sleep in and miss hockey, so I got up.

Sunday night, I was so exhausted from lack of sleep and hockey I fell asleep at 9:30 PM and slept right through until 5:30 AM.  It felt good initially, but later on in the evening I was feeling it big time.  So again, I fell asleep about 10:30 PM and was again wide awake by 2:30 AM and I have been up since.  I’m already tired but I have to do the morning routine and get Toby out for his walk.

So if you have the time, make good use of it.  Look out for those cycles of slow/fast time and just remember, no matter how slow time appears to be moving, it is actually flying past and there is no getting it back.  Make the best use of all your time and never take it for granted, because it can change in a heartbeat.