In Transition

Lying in bed the evening of January 30 I couldn't help but think of that night's sleep as a "new year's eve" of sorts as January 31st was to be a day of irreversible change. It was that day, the last day of January 2014 that we would take possession of our second home as a married couple.

While waiting for the call from the lawyer's office Friday morning, Hubby and I went to pick up the elements of our new walk-in closet and kitchen pantry.

We then returned home to find my Mother-in-law who was almost as excited as we were for the day's exciting events.  After a bite of lunch and more waiting, the call came in at 2:21pm.  "Congratulations on your new house" the law clerk said.  "Your keys are ready to be picked up".  I told her we'd be right there and we all jumped in the car and drove the 15 minutes to the lawyer's office.  We were SO ready to check out our new place!

Our weekend was spent first ripping out the old original carpet before painting our master bedroom, taking it from a dark dramatic blue to our tropical oasis of bright "green grape" and gentle "quiet blue" like in our present home.  

Before (taken before possession)

After (pre-carpeting)

We also ripped apart the closet and assembled our new closet organizer pieces:

Taking down the closet bars

New Closet elements

We also painted our new ensuite but I don't have the pictures for that yet… stay tuned for that ;-)

Monday morning the contractors came in and ripped up the old carpet from the main floor and ripped out the original kitchen.  They cut a new kitchen doorway and prepped the original doorway for drywalling later in the reno.  They screwed down the floors in preparation for today's big task which was placing the tiles in the hallway, powder room and kitchen.  I can't wait until tomorrow to check it out.

I wasn't planning to do any other painting for awhile but yesterday I decided to repaint the guest bedroom, freshening it up and taking it from the girly bedroom feel.  I had mistakenly bought more "quiet blue" than I needed for our room so that was the colour I decided to go with for the guest room.  It really is a gorgeous blue.  In some light it almost looks periwinkle.  I did the first coat and trim yesterday afternoon and this morning I got over to the house at 8am to paint the second coat before the tile guys showed up.

Guest Room (before we took possession)

Fresh new look
(this is much brighter in this picture than in person)

Tomorrow I will finish up packing while the tile guys finish up their work on the hallway floors.  Grout day is Thursday and then Friday our carpet installers arrive and the kitchen cabinets get assembled.  Woot Woot!  Every day is feeling like Christmas as we "unwrap" a new phase of our reno!  Exciting days!!

I'll keep you posted as we go!  Until next time...

New Home High

The countdown is on… two weeks tomorrow we get possession of our new home… not "new" new, but new to us.  They say that moving is one of the top 10 stressors of life.  I would totally agree with that, especially when doing a big renovation the first few weeks of owning the new home (and moving in half way through that) and also during the busiest season of work.  Phew… I'm exhausted.  Well, actually, most days I'm exhausted but not tonight.  Nope… tonight I'm on a HIGH.  A New Home High!

Tonight I met with my real estate agent, my plumber (brother-in-law), a carpet-guy and the selling agent over at the new place.  I have to tell you… every time I step inside our "almost" house I get SO excited.  I never want to leave… even though tonight the selling agent wasn't thrilled to be there and made me feel rushed to get everything done in record time.

Tonight's agenda was looking at plumbing in the basement to move the laundry tub to a more functional spot (and figure out the water rental company so we can get a better/bigger unit), measuring the bedrooms for new carpet (instead of the 28 year old present carpet)  measuring the closet on the main floor so I can order the organizer to make a pantry, and measuring the powder room for a vanity (instead of the pedestal sink).  By the time we're done I think we will have a "new" home.

It amazes me how all the stress of this week, juggling all my clients/house/reno/ and packing balls, has melted away from one little 30 minute visit up the street.  I feel like a kid Christmas morning.

I can't wait to show you all the before and after pictures, but you'll just have to wait… like me… until we get into our place.

Until next time...

Bitter Cold

As I sit in my office after a long evening of work, booking my first cruise of 2014 for friends from church, the temperature outside is 1F, feeling like -22F.  It is a BITTER COLD day here in Southern Ontario!  Brrr.  (Can you hear my teeth chattering).

Despite the cool temperature in my office though, I am profoundly aware that I have it good tonight. There are many who are literally freezing to death in North America tonight because they can't escape this arctic blast from Old Man Winter… who by the way can go back to wherever he came from!

I heard on the news tonight about an escaped convict in Kentucky today who actually asked to be arrested, just so he could head back to prison.  Guess escaping in winter wasn't the smartest move, huh?

I wish I were anywhere warm tonight, but I'm not.  Instead I am here, in Canada, being super productive today, both vocationally as a travel agent, and as a homemaker, packing up her house for moving soon.

Today I worked on the storage closet under the stairs.  I packed up the kitchen appliances that we store down there, plus some other stuff that makes it's home hidden from the naked eye.  I suffer from "packratitis" and haven't thrown out hardly anything yet, but I am making a nice 'donation' pile of some things I don't want anymore.

Now that January is in full swing and the holidays are behind us, balance is going to be more necessary as in the travel agent world we enter "Wave" season… the busiest time of the year for agents.  This bitter cold weather can only help business but with packing looming overhead I will need to guard my time closely so I am able to handle both major "jobs" I have right now.

I realize in my need for balancing these two contrasting worlds that my time with God is even more important.  Through staying balanced in Him, I will be able to juggle the balls of packing and planning vacations.  Without Him I will crumble to the ground in a lump and neither job will be done well.  Can you relate or are you someone who juggles well?

Tomorrow I'm off for a much needed chiropractor appointment before heading out to help other friends plan vacation time.  Have I told you lately how much I love my job?!  When all my hard work develops results and I help people make their vacation dreams a reality, my heart sings.  La la la!

Well I think I'll close off for tonight.  My eyes are buggy from staring at this screen for two days and I need to take some much needed… balanced… rest.

Until next time...

New Beginnings… New Blog Name

Happy New Year, fellow Bloggers!

2013 was a crazy year for me… getting my business off the ground, travelling, family weddings, etc… it has really challenged my blogging mojo, hasn't it?  Well I am back in 2014 with a renewed desire to blog and a new name!

New Beginnings is the theme for my new blog and our life beginning in 2014.  I am so grateful to God for allowing me the ability to "make lemonade" of the circumstances of infertility but that all feels miles behind on life's highway.   Not only do I feel like I've turned a page on that chapter of life, Hubby and I are about to embark on turning the page on a new chapter… moving to our second home (finally!).

In November, life was plugging along as usual, nary a thought of moving on the horizon… until a 2 car garage, 3 bedroom, end unit town home in our complex (on the same side of the street as our current home… with no neighbours behind except the police station) came up for sale.  I had always been keeping an eye out for a 2 car garage unit so I was interested in taking a peek when they held an Open House one weekend in early-November.  Hubby and I took a look around the place and were intrigued by the possibility of purchasing this slightly larger unit, without having to take a large mortgage again.  The day after we toured the home, Hubby was off on a business trip to California.  His union was contemplating a strike at the time so house-hunting wasn't maybe the best idea at that time of uncertainty but Hubby and I both felt the prodding to move forward with considering this house.  I decided to visit the Open House the following day, with tape measure in hand, to see if logistically our furniture and things would fit and we could truly make this "home".  On the following Tuesday I visited Ridgeway Kitchens, to speak with my brother-in-law's, nephew-in-law who owns the renovation company to see if reworking the kitchen at the new town home would be a possibility as the current kitchen as is was a deal breaker in moving forward.   Marcus needed to measure to see what options we might have and miraculously (thank you Jesus!) our real estate agent was going to be in my neighbourhood right around that time and was able to get us into the house to measure.

I won't bore you with each detail but that week while Hubby was in California, we prayed about God opening and closing doors.  There were huge hurdles to jump over (like the union strike) and we kept asking God to show us His will for this house by moving such hurdles.  By Thursday, God had answered prayers as the strike was being averted and ratification was scheduled for Sunday.  We had decided with this news that we would go look at the house again at the coming weekend's Open House before putting in an offer.

Sometimes God puts obstacles in our way to test our faith and that Friday we encountered one such obstacle.  I got a call from our agent, Linda, telling me that someone was coming to put an offer on the townhouse that evening at 7pm.  Hubby was literally unreachable as he was in the airplane heading home from California.  We would have to forego putting in an offer too and we would have to let the house go.  It was strange as this was happening though.  Similar to 20 years ago how I felt after my first date with Hubby, I had such a strong sense that this house was "ours" but I trusted God and held it loosely.  Our agent told us that sometimes deals don't go through and that she would contact me the following Friday to update me on the status of the sale.  "Okay God… I will trust in Your will!"

Fast forward to the next Friday.  I was out shopping when I got a call from our agent.  "The buyer's financing fell through.  You can put in an offer if you're still interested".  Hubby again was preparing to board an airplane home from his business trip to Massachusetts so again I had to tell Linda that we were on hold.  Saturday morning, after a myriad of questions, we began the process of moving towards an offer by visiting the bank for a deposit draft and later that evening meeting with our agent to "get the job done!"  After a few pass backs between us and the sellers, at 10pm on Nov 23, 2013, we purchased our second home (conditional on home inspection).

SOLD… TO US!!

Now came the crazy process of preparing our current home and getting it listed for sale.  God miraculously gave me supernatural energy and endurance and I was able to get the house ready within the week.  In that week another townhome in our complex came up for sale… a unit similar to ours with 2 bedrooms and 1-1/2 car garage.  This home was refinished to the max and ended up with a bidding war, making it the highest selling unit in our complex.  Again, I saw God's timing in this because in the time frame between us purchasing Unit #8 and getting our unit on the market, the "value" of our home was able to be increased by $10K due to the sale of that similar unit.

On Wednesday, Dec 4 our unit was listed and officially on the market!  I was leaving for a Seminar at Sea aboard the Norwegian Breakaway cruise line out of NYC on Dec 7 (Sat) and Hubby was leaving for Connecticut on the 8th (Sunday) so fortunately we weren't inconvenienced too much with showings and the Open House held on the Saturday.  By mid-week, while we were both away, two offers came into our agent with one offer sticking around.  There I was on the high seas off the coast of NC on Friday, Dec 13 signing a copy of offer to be faxed back to our agent.  Our house was sold conditionally!  Only God can move things this quickly I believe!  By the following Friday the SOLD sign was on our front lawn and we could relax over the Christmas break before starting the massive job of packing up by our January 31st closing date.

Our First House SOLD!

So… we come to the meaning of the new blog theme which comes from our new home.  When I told Hubby's twin sister the unit # of our new place, she mentioned to me the spiritual significance of the number 8… "New Beginnings".  I got chills when she told me because not only is moving into our second home a "new beginning", closing the chapter on this home with it's reminders of broken dreams and hopes that never came to be (and leaving our Noah's Ark "nursery" behind), it is also the year Hubby and I both reach the milestones of turning 50 and celebrating 20 years of marriage.  New Beginnings… absolutely!!  So join me as we pack up the past (with both good and not so good memories) and move up the street to our new place and our New Beginnings!!