Ever Run A Marathon?

No?  I haven’t either.  But after the last 2-3 months, I certainly feel like I have.  We have successfully sold the Southern Homestead, bought a 1+1 bedroom condo apartment and have moved in a little over 2 weeks ago.  Still trying to get my bearings and figure out where the heck I put things, but I am absolutely LOVING condo life.  When I want to head to the Northern Homestead, I walk out the door, turn the key and that’s it.  No lawn and yard maintenance, no pool maintenance, nothing to worry about, just pack my clothes and head out.

It is awesome.

Getting to this point was rough though.  I spent a year and half de-cluttering the house as after 19 years in one location, you accumulate stuff.  Lots of stuff.  So I donated, recycled or trashed what we did not need (or want) any longer. If I can provide at least one piece of advice to anyone even contemplating moving after a lengthy stay in one place, is that you have to be ruthless in deciding what you will take with you and what must go.  If you are downsizing, you can’t take it all with you.  Those knickknacks and chachkas from trips or excess dishes/china/silverware that you haven’t used in eons need to go.  It is overwhelming for a lot of folks, but look at each item and really decide “do I NEED this?”  The answer is often NO.  If you really can’t part with it, offer the item to a family member, this way, if you need to visit it, it isn’t far away.

During the de-cluttering time, we renovated the main bath and put a new bath in the basement.  Because we were crazy. We also painted, repaired and fixed whatever needed painting, repairing or fixing.  Once done, I then had to poof the house for sale.  Being in real estate, I know the importance of staging a home.  Spend a little bit of money on certain things and it will translate to a higher selling price and a quicker sale.  We sold our home for over asking in less than a week.

Once the house sold, we had to find a place to move to, which was another whirlwind of taking hubby around to different condo buildings in the city.  We found our condo on the first day out, put an offer in the next day and bam…we had a new place to move to.

Next was packing the house up – lordy lordy but do I hate moving!  We had a garage sale, which netted a good chunk of change, packed up the rest of the house, emptied the garage and ferried said garage contents to the Northern Homestead.   Then I had to do the one thing that I was absolutely dreading…. I had to dismantle Bob and take him north as well.  I finished the last weaving project on him and hubby and I took him apart, loaded him in the truck and dropped him off at the cottage.  He is still in pieces, awaiting me to come up and refinish him.  I should have refinished the loom when I first bought it, but I was too anxious to learn to weave on it.  The timing was right for getting this next project done, so next month, when I have some vacation time coming, I will be sanding and varathaning him, then bring him back to his new home all shiny and slick.

Once the house was emptied and packed, we took possession of the condo and began a 5 day painting odyssey.  We apparently purchased a condo that was professionally painted….by Bozo the Clown.

DSC02874 DSC02880The blue and orange were the toughest to cover up.  We bought a 5 gallon pail of primer and used all but one inch in the bottom of the bucket.  Once primed (which was a HUGE improvement alone), we painted every room but the kitchen and bathrooms.  Oh, did I tell you about the kitchen?  It has a lovely, BRIGHT countertop that matched beautifully to the clown walls….

Yellow CountertopWe are living with the countertop for now, they will be torn out and replaced in a couple months but wanted to leisurely unpack and enjoy some time at the Northern Homestead after being so busy the last 3 months.

With all the craziness of moving, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to work on fibre projects, but I managed to scrape out some time here and there finishing up some lovely tea towels to match the canary countertops…DSC03020

As well as a couple knitting projects.  One is a pair of ankle socks made with neon pink and bright purple Knitpicks sock yarn and the other is a shawl being made from the leftover yarn of the big blanket I wove on the loom.

Now that we are all moved in, the only pressing items are figuring out where to hang pictures and look for some new furniture for the living room as we ditched our decades old sofa and chair.  There are other odds and sods to do, but minimal and can be done over the next couple/few months.

More importantly is to get back on track with healthy cooking and getting some exercise in. We have not been eating the best with the move, relying on quick meals that have caused (me at least) to gain a few pounds and with summer here, I am looking rather like a stuffed sausage in my summer clothes.  Time to enact some discipline and willpower.

I did make some awesome low-fat apple muffins this morning which I will share the recipe in the next post, maybe tomorrow or the next day, or at the very least, within the next week.  They turned out awesome and are just the thing to curb that hunger in between meals.

I will sign off for now as this has been a lengthy post, but it is also good to get back to writing as  I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

Adios!

Deborah

10 thoughts on “Ever Run A Marathon?

  1. And I have missed your posts! I was thinking of you this MORNING as I was doing my long over due yard work, here at MY “southern homestead” … thinking …. maybe Deb has this thing figured out right …..

    Talk soon, Ramona

  2. Wow! Congratulations Deb! i’m exhausted now, after reading your post! LOL Life should get easier as we get older. nicely done:) and btw, i’m very intrigued with Bob! Lol

    • It was terribly exhausting, but now I can recuperate 😉 You did not know about Bob before? I bought him a year and a half ago, rescued him from the upper loft of a barn out Cobourg way. He was in a makeshift music room (think garage band) so I named him Bob the Roadie 🙂

      • i do remember….love hearing about him, which just adds to the intrigue! i think visiting pioneer village as a child on a school trip and watching them spin yarn (like you do) and then using the loom to make carpets and blankets! i really LOVE the dish towels you made 🙂

        • There is a loom for sale on kijiji that is from Pioneer Village (wink wink!) 🙂 I remember several school trips there way back when, and I didn’t know it closed until not too long ago! What a shame!

  3. Lol! Your post has me smiling. Hubby says, Like Goldfish, we grow to the size of our bowl.” It’s amazing how much stuff we accumulate over time without ever realizing it until its time to move. Glad you’re happy with Condo life. We should downsize, but I can’t fathom not having chickens or a garden. It would make our life so much easier with all the traveling we do. Before leaving on a trip I spend an entire day just getting plants watered and procuring chicken -sitters. I guess I’m just not ready. Nice blog Deb. Can’t wait to see the new colors in your condo and the muffin recipe.

    • Candice ~ If I was able to have chickens I would! Not allowed in the cities though and we are not at the Northern Homestead full time to have them there (plus….I think hubby would object) 😉 I like your hubby’s line about the goldfish bowl – so true! Glad my post made you smile 🙂

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