One More Thing

The Christmas list is done and dusted. No more trips to the mall, and maybe only one more to the grocery store. Hubby managed to escape the UK before all hell let loose and the snow totally snarled everything up. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the backlog will have subsided by next weekend, and hopefully less people will be traveling so we can catch our ferry to France without too much delay.

We now have to wrap all the presents, the turkey has started the defrosting process and I am beginning to feel on top of things - on the Christmas front that is. We do still have a little side trip to Home Depot to get supplies for France! We are assuming that all the stores will be closed for the best part of next week over there.

Hubby took some photos of our rendered wall when he was last in France and it is looking good. Hopefully I will have some exciting shots of freshly sandblasted beams when we return. I know try to contain your excitement.

The plan is to stay at the house until we are fed up of being cold and have at least ticked a few things off our to do list, hopefully hook up with our eldest son may if he can make it over from where he is working in the Alps in Tignes, before heading back to the UK for a day or two then back to Canada.

It seems more likely at the moment that we will have a whiter Christmas in France than we are having here in southern Ontario. It keeps falling out of the sky but thankfully not settling, just the way I like it - kind of virtual snow!

Anyway if you do drop by over the next few days, I wish you and your families safe and happy Christmas. Do leave a little note so that I know you were here.

Merry Christmas to One and All!

She's making a list....she's checking it twice!

I am a list-maker, it is how I organize my life. I find it tremendously satisfying to cross things off, and great sense that all is well with the world - is this normal.....sad.....scary....? I sometimes even add things, just so I can cross them off!

The Christmas/holiday to do list is coming together nicely. I have bought/ordered almost all the presents which are currently on the list, As you know there always others that have to be added last minute.

I did charity gifts to my nieces and nephews in the UK. I was thinking of sending cash, but didn't like how unthoughtful it would appear and then I remembered a gift my brother sent last year, a donation in my name to get vaccinations for children. I remember it being my favourite present, I loved the idea. So I searched around for some appropriate charities and that's what I did, for my nephews I donated money for footballs (soccer balls) to needy children and to my nieces, education and health donations. I think they are all old enough to appreciate that there are children worse off than them.

Also managed to arrange to get work done while we are in France. We arrive (after a two day trip) on the Monday after Christmas and the sandblasting guys will be there 9am on Tuesday (I know this is France ...on the week between Christmas and New Year but I have all my fingers and toes crossed). Hubby is buying himself a chain saw (hubby Christmas gift .....check) to reduce all the firewood to a manageable size, we will be usng that quite a bit. Also in the hope that the sandblasting proceeds, we have selected paint for him to purchase in the UKm having read all the blogs that say that French paint is not so good.

So apart from the stocking stuffers for youngest son (yep - the 17 yr old) and a few more items for granddaughter, it is just the food to be bought. How big a turkey does one get when having people to Christmas lunch but then flying away the next day. We usually buy large in order to enjoy cold turkey for several days (weeks) after.

When I was unpacking at this end I noticed that I didn't have many photos of my youngest son, that is probably because he lives with me and I see him all the time, unlike the other son, so I searched and found this lovely picture of my three great children on a wonderful day and I thought I would share.

Progress....

So I bit the bullet and put up the Christmas Tree, mainly because the boxes were cluttering up the living room and it was either do it or store them away and my conscience wouldn't let me store away the Christmas stuff in December! I have even bought and wrapped a few presents. Who knew!! And what do you know....it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

I took the photo above so you could see the tree in context but I must say I prefer it when it looks like this, with the lights dimmed, much more magical.

From this photo it looks like I put blue baubles all down one side, but that is just the light from the window doing that, all my baubles are silver. Then I have a few touches of red.

Hubby is in France this weekend. He drove over through the channel tunnel with his brother. He has to take the van back regularly to keep the insurance valid, but also of course to check on the house. It is a long drive from the UK so that part I am not looking forward to at Christmas, especially after a transatlantic flight! The end wall has been rendered and made watertight and he is pleased with the results, he has been instructed to take photos so I am sure some will follow. Surprise, surprise a lot of the weeds were back up in the front courtyard, but I guess that was inevitable but he did say the plants we put in in July have come on quite a bit, again photos have been demanded.

He also managed to speak to Steve, one of our many contacts there, regarding the next phase on the inside work, making an opening for the staircase, and renovating the floor/ceiling to the main living room so that we can start the framing for the bedrooms. I doubt much will be done before we arrive in December, in fact I don't really want an opening in the ceiling as hubby says it is pretty cold right now. His brother and him are both sleeping in their clothes. Doesn't that sound appealing, roll on December 26th.

It's a Done Deal!

So we are all moved and the deals all closed today. The closing was a bit of an anticlimax as we are already moved in but thank goodness we didn't have to wait to close to move, because it didn't get confirmed until 4.55pm this afternoon. Apparently today has been a manically busy day for real estate lawyers here in Ontario, a result of the very hot market I mentioned over the last couple of months.

Anyway it is getting quite cosy and organized around here. We don't have as many walls so there are many mirrors and pictures leaning up against the walls with nowhere to go. All the boxes I can be bothered to empty are empty, everything is functioning well, so I am wondering if I actually need what is in the unpacked boxes!

Daughter and son-in-law have already put up their tree and decorated for Christmas. They were laughing wondering what the neighbours thought of them being so organized having only moved in on Friday. Little do they know the decorations are the only boxes that have been unpacked!

Connected Again

So we are in, daughter and son-in-law are in - the brain is fried and the knees and back are complaining but we can finally see the wood for the trees - or should that be the floor for the boxes...?! Anyway the boxes are slowly disappearing and things are getting a little more organized.

I have had my traditional Bell moving experience, whereby I don't have internet, then I do, everything is great, Bell knock on my door, I don't have internet .....aarrgh! We won't even mention wireless connection - I am terrified of trying to add that into the loop for fear of losing everything again. The new house is actually quite cosy, mostly because we have too much, too large furniture! But as winter draws in (and temperatures have definitely dipped over the last few days) it is nice to be cosy.

So now I suppose I should start thinking about the big "C" which is tough because I would rather think about France. The Christmas tree and decorations have not quite made it into the basement so I guess I will have to bite the bullet and get into the spirit but not until we are are safely into December.

I am off to play house a bit more and look at my new rooms....see ya next time.

On the road again!

I have spent the last few days moving boxes from one house to another, but it's getting old. Having moved many, many times I have it down to a fine art, but even so, it is always at this point when I am in the thick of it, I ask myself "why oh why?". Poor daughter is also sick of it, in a way she is doing two moves, her stuff from her house to here, unload, then load up with my stuff to move over to our new place as she is helping me to get all the small stuff shifted. Anyway we are finally on the eve of moving day, almost everything that can be is in a box, tomorrow we will load up all the furniture and my move will be done!

Then Friday we will move daughter and son-in-law's furniture, most of their small stuff is already clogging up my basement. We will all be very glad to get to the weekend and have it all behind us.

On the bright side, we have booked flights for hubby and I to go to France!! Whooppee! We fly on Boxing Day and I return to Canada on January 4th while hubby returns to work in the UK. It is probably going to be cold and damp in the house but it will still be great to catch up with friends, share some festive cheer with everyone and hopefully get to talk to some builders to plan the next step in the project.

Ok that's it, I need to stop procrastinating and get back to it. I will report again once I am settled in the new place, think of me and send me happy, energetic thoughts......

Packing......etc.

Just picked up the keys to the new house so I can finally start moving some of the boxes that are liberally stacked around the home. Daughter and son-in-law have been bringing over their boxes on a daily basis so when it actually comes to their moving day, a week on Saturday, all they will have to move is the furniture. However this does mean my house is getting a bit crowded. For a newly married couple they have an awful lot of "stuff". My basement and garage are currently half full with their belongings.

I am looking forward to getting settled in the next house so that I can finally starting thinking about Christmas, yes I know it is just one month away but I am in denial!! I just don't have the brain cells to spare for that right now. There is also talk of us (hubby and I) heading off to France for a week or so between Christmas and the new year which is very exciting. Not that I think we will achieve much while we are there but we need a regular fix to keep us motivated. There is a little pressure to make some serious progress as daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter are planning a trip over next summer, so somewhere out of all the mess over there we have to come up with some "accommodation". But you know us, we like a challenge.

The lovely Annika seems to have turned the corner and is finally sleeping through the night, and taking good naps during the day, which has quite transformed daughter's life, she now has a gorgeous chatty little girl to look after rather than a screaming tiger cub to tame!! Check out the boxes in the background!

I will report back when I have managed to clear a little floorspace.