This weekend we celebrated our ten year anniversary.
Just as we sat down to order our food at the restaurant our wedding song started playing completely randomly (Chris swears he did not arrange it). How neat is that!
Category: General
A project planned for a decade
We’ve been living in Ottawa for over twelve years now and over this time we have accumulated a huge mess of things. A first we did not have much furniture, then we moved houses, then I just did not have time to do anything about it. I was working and going to grad school, then I was working, going to grad school and had small children. Generally, I was so busy sorting and organising those three things I had no time for the mass of things accumulating in the basement, the bedrooms, closets, corners and finally passageways.
This summer, when we came back from our three month vacation, we walked into a clean house. During the summer, Chris was the only one around and the cleaning lady has been able to clean all the bits that she can’t get to every week. However, as soon as we started to live in the house, it became utter chaos. Things were perched precariously and as soon as we started to look for, move and use things, all the clutter fell in. I have officially been putting the sort and purge project off for too long. I have some vacation left until the end of the year so I have been taking a day or two every week to decrease entropy.
I’ve swept through the basement and last week and took two days for the office (still not done…). I am almost done with the rest of the main level.
Sorting toys took a whole day. I’ve left enough toys in the living room for kids to be able to have fun and still clean up at the end of the evening without having a tantrum because there is just too much mess that it can’t possibly be tidied up. The small toys, seen here on the second shelf, are sorted, labeled and moved to the older boys’ bedrooms, the rest can comfortably fit in the cupboards and in front of the fireplace.
No loose toys in the TV room!
To be read books are politely waiting their turn. I debated putting the bibs away (top left) as Markus no longer needs them (read, has a screaming fit anytime someone even suggests fitting one on him as he is a tidy eater, thankyouverymuch) but I have a suspicion that it is a bit too early for that.
I’ve been having trouble figuring out what to store in the TV room puff when the most obvious answer came to me – media!
This drawer was the most troublesome drawer in the house. And now look at it – batteries, picture hooks, tape (sticky and measuring), glue, pens and pencils, enough screwdrivers for most quick household uses and a few expired coins, for old time sake. Nothing else allowed in here.
Where chaos is imminent, I’ve resorted to labels.
Notice board is ready for artwork.
I wish I could say I am done, but I am only about one third through the project. I am hoping to get the next third done by the end of the year when my vacation resets. The final third will be an on-going thing and I have no specific plans as of yet. Next step? Getting rid of that beer bottle on the fridge.
Neboderi
Having grown up on the “old” side of the Sava river I always looked on the New Zagreb sky scrapers as ugly necessary evil. Towards the end of the 80’s the architecture started to look pretty, even exciting, but the 70’s splotchy gray incited in me only pity. That is until I saw this diorama.
The model misses both the human element (flowers, curtains, laundry, balcony mods, graffiti…) and the weathered effect, but it underlines the sense that this is someone’s (many someones’) home and it has elegant design after its own fashion.
The Sopot appartement blocks were part of the exhibition by Klub Kockice.
The cleaning lady
One of my whiny complaints about mat leave is that, because you spend so much time at home, the household chores take over your life. Sometimes it feels like a mom’s life is an endless cycle of cooking and cleaning. Supposedly I am home to spend time with my kids, but I end up not spending time with them because I am trying to feed them and keep them clean. It does not help that while I am cooking and cleaning the kids get their toys (and things they consider their toys) all over the place because I am too busy cooking and cleaning to stop them. Then I get mad at them because I have to clean some more. Then they refuse to eat the delicious healthy meals I lovingly prepared and scream for cookies.
By the time I am done enough to sit down and relax a bit, the kids are already in bed. To cheer myself up I made a new rule: Whoever cleans up the Lego gets to play with it.
It took me almost a week to put all the models together. I had been hiding the finished ones from Trevor because I wanted to complete all sets before he took them apart. He actually noticed one of the pieces in a box (I did not try very hard to hide them…) and concluded that the cleaning lady had made it. I suppose he is right, but he guessed the wrong cleaning lady.
Then and now
I usually roll my eyes whenever someone tells me that life “before” was easier, “before” usually meaning when they were growing up. I don’t remember life being easier. It certainly was not easy in the Balkan in the 80’s. Mind you, it was not terribly hard, but it was not easier than what my kids have.
One thing that was “easier” was social interaction. If someone punches you, you punch him back. Yet, it did not work out for the Balkans and somehow it does not sound like a mantra I should be teaching to a five year old.
Jian’s army
Jen asked me if I am interested in going to the live taping of Q. Well, of course I would love to! I’ve had fun at the live taping of the Debaters a few years ago and I really enjoyed taping of the geography quiz show I went to to cheer on a friend way back in middle school, so why not? I re-read Jen’s message and realized that the tickets were $30 bucks. I though it was a bit high for taping of a mid day radio show but I had already told Jen I would go and I was a bit excited about it so I decided to stick with it. On the way there Jen was a little bit worried about not getting good seats so she dropped me off at the door and went to find parking. It was a good thing she did this because even though we were almost an hour early, there was a line going all the way around the building. I wondered at the crowds and Jen told me that Blue Rodeo was one of the guests. I shrugged and attributed the popularity of the event to this important Canadian band. It was only after the show started that I realized that people were not there to see Blue Rodeo, they were there to see Jian Ghomeshi. I was there to see Jian as well but it had never occurred to me that he is so beloved and that he has reached the status of a Canadian icon. Go Jian!
I had a blast at the show, I even bought the album of one of the artists (Austra) that played. I am hoping to give it a good listen over the next couple of weeks and write a review (though saying that I will pretty much guarantees that I will not).
Now if I could only go to a live taping of Tempo or Shift…