FINALLY, I can write to You!

Finally, I can post a post again!

Hello, my friends from the land of unpacked boxes.
I've missed You ever so much & have been agonizing
about not being able to write to You.
(It's been like living in an isolation chamber!)

We've been doing a lot of this:

Cat napping to get well.
(This is our new furry family member "Mouse")

So what on earth could have happened to keep me away from you so long?
Here's the long & short of it...

The "short" version:

Where was I? We were living without internet for much longer than expected. It's still not working properly at all, but at least I can drop you all a note now! I've been way too sick with some mystery bug to go out to get to a computer & keep in touch.

Blog-schedule in the near future: I'll be getting back to blogging again now (with around 3 or 4 posts a week.) I'm so sorry for the prolonged wait & for being out of touch and behind on email. I'm more thankful than I can say for your continued patience and your kind kind thoughts.

Here's what's been happening with us in the last little while, in case you're curious... we moved on March the 7th. We had hoped for mid-month to have the extra week, but our old landlords were on vacation then & wanted to get their condo listed (that's why we had to move suddenly.) They offered for us to stay & help them sell, but we're just not feeling well enough to be up to that again. We've done that before...So anyhow, we cleaned the old place a lot on the 8th & touched up paint etc on the 9th ...and so on... ...and so on...

Looking at the calendar (and sighing) I realize I've been missing here for so very long now, but it feels like yesterday because both Charles & I have been out cold with some nasty long-lasting bug.

C missed a week's worth of work (budget says "ouch!") and I've missed more commitments here on the blog than I can think about without crying. Whatever this shared bug we have is, Charles & I concur: it feels worse than H1N1 did, and can you get that twice? We've been seeing double with fever & our lungs feel like they're in a vice... sore constricted throat, difficulty breathing, body aches, sinus etc... strange bug. It tested negatively for strep throat & for mono (whew for the no mono!), so we'll see...

The long version:

I can honestly say this has been one of the hardest months of my life. The unexpected move was brutal. Mostly I suppose because of these things:

(This is such a miserable little list that it makes me giggle--at least in hindsight!)

A) Being ill for so long and being so out of shape that my muscles are nothing short of goo-like. (And needing to push myself well beyond my limits to do my fair share of all the work.)

B) Underestimating the sheer amount of stuff I have (hoarding is in my genes, and I battle it tooth and nail!)

C) Being a pair of bibliophiles with a double plethora of books (one of whom cannot give up any book at all no matter how strange it is--ummmm yes, that'd be moi.) It would not be exaggerating at all to say we have in the 2000 range: 2 lit majors(1 horadosaurus) =1000's of books

D) Not wanting to give up the 7/8 large boxes of "scrap" paper (Can you believe it? It's true. How do you bring yourself to waste all that good paper?) Granted, the scrap bits are mixed in with a few important personal papers or during the move they would have been fed to the paper recycling bin in a moment of weakness.

E) Not having time to sort the recycling from the "treasures" & having to lug it all to sort later.

F) Being WAY too broke to hire movers (and having to rely on the world's best friends & family) We are beyond blessed that they came to our rescue. Mid-move they were, however, heard to solemnly swear that if we move again anytime soon they are changing their phone numbers! (Can't blame 'em!)

G) Making 5/6 of our movers sick/injuring them: not sure if it was the air quality at our old place (very poor so I have my suspicions conspiracy theories...) but...

• One moving buddy got the most severe migraine she's ever had in her life (things that make you go hmmm, hey?)
• Another moving buddy was sick to his stomach and couldn't budge for several hours.
  
• One buddy had put out his back the day before & had a case of strep throat.
• Charles smashed his knee brutally & could barely walk (the pull-out couch bites!)
  
• and I had hurt my wrist in a major way (looks like carpal tunnel flared up from a lot of painting etc. but seems to be improving with rest.)

Luckily, Charles's amazing sister called in reinforcements and saved our hides. (Love you guys!!!)

H) Having only 2 hours to move into our new building (they charge $100.00 for the use of the elevator and you have to get it all in & up 20 0dd flights in an hour.) We were 5 minutes over.

I) Having a new kitty named mouse (YAY!) who is an angel--seriously perfect in every way imaginable--excepting only that she makes me feel like a Feline version of Florence Nightingale. (We've been nursing her non-stop!) Her Mom was a pregnant stray whom Charles's sister rescued. Mouse was the runt of the litter & C's sister saved her from Infanticide (Mom cat tried to sit on her to smother her & then wouldn't feed her. Denise taught Mouse to walk with kitty physiotherapy.) So... little Mouse has required many a trip to the vet already. She had lots of various Worms etc. (I could share some creepy worm stories, but I'll spare you...) ;o)

C snuggling our stretched-out Mouse:

Mouse also has a hypersensitivity to medicines: to her vaccines & to wormer. They sent her into anaphylaxis and made for several sleepless nights. Her lip swelled up, she had fever, and her breathing was raspy. Children's Liquid Benadryl & a shot of prednisone saved the day. (I still check her sometimes to make sure she's still breathing.)

Then there was the severely swollen paw & the abscess in her jaw. All of which are clearing up beautifully. (Clearly this kitten fur baby is in the right family! ;o) Now we just need to take her to the Naturopath & have food allergy testing done! (just kiddin') LOL

Well, after all this rambling or TMI (too much information)...

the extra positive notes...

The air is so clean and fresh here!
Our new place is lovely!
Our balcony is 4 times the size of our old teeny one!

We have an "ocean view" (the eastern-most tip of the Burrard Inlet
which is the North Pacific Ocean.) :o)

Here's a photo from our balcony with the tide mostly in:

and we can see the mountains:

and lots of trees and sky:

(Sure beats our old view which was a 6-lane
highway right outside our window)

We get to cook with a gas stove/oven for the first time too! And now we each have a room for a workspace. (C loves his new office that we "made" by sleeping in the living room.) The 2 bedrooms (turned offices) are about 8 foot by 8 foot, so we got rid of our king-sized bed & went for futons. Despite being a rather expensive replacement for our old king-sized bed (that got eaten by the evil mold) the mattress was not so hot, anyhow. :o)

Needless to say, my studio/stamproom is not set up yet. We're trying to find our pots & pans, clothes and toiletries etc. first. But as soon as it's set up I'll post photos for you to see.

Hope you are all doing very very well &
I can't wait to get back in touch with you all.
xox

(click to visit the blog from an email or reader)

P.S. Sorry, it may be a while until I'm caught up on email. We need to fix the internet still and are still so ill.