"on hold" is good for something...

Thanks for checking up on me, I know I have been overly quiet, in fact outright silent - MUTE! I apologise to my regular readers, but right now chaos reigns in our house.

We are packing up to leave this week. The international removalists are coming tomorrow to commence the three day ordeal or packing, wrapping and loading all our wares into a shipping container.

I haven't had two seconds to scratch myself these past two weeks. "So how is it that I now have time", I hear you ask. Well, I am am currently undertaking the monotonous task of ringing all those utility companies to terminate service - yep, I am in for a long morning stuck on hold.


Meanwhile I have caught up on some of my favourite blogs and now what.... hey, why not write a post myself - how novel! Not sure when I might have time to do it again, so here is my chance.


So do you want to hear about the drama? Well there hasn't really been too much drama. Drama is really about how you perceive things, in my opinion, and I prefer a nice peaceful life. So instead I chose to discuss the hiccup in PLAN A, which was to move out of our current address mid-November, jump onto a plane and fly off into a candy coloured sunset bound for Disneyland, before departing back home to good ole Australia.

PLAN A was scrapped when the purchasers of our house wanted to move in 6 weeks sooner than PLAN A had allowed. So with no furniture, two dogs and two kids in tow, local temporary accommodation had to be found. PLAN B was to find a local, fully loaded sublet, and camp out in LA LA Land, oblivious to the worlds turmoils. Like a true idealist, I posted an ad on the all important craigslist, requesting our needs and wants, but sadly - no takers to match our needs or dates.


Onto PLAN C. Plan C consisted of staying in the infamous Beach Grove Motel, in nearby "sunny" Tsawwassen. It looked dingy, but the guy assured us it had a kitchen and a fridge and would suit our situation. Suspiciously however, the guy at the front desk could never find a suitable time for us to view the room we were to occupy for 7 weeks. Last week, with a week to go, I turned up early and unannounced, requesting a viewing. I could see from where I was standing that it was vacant; the cleaners had the door wide open. What could he do?


Let me paint the scene for you....
The place was the size of a shoe box - two beds were in the room, one was in the kitchen/lounge. The so called kitchen consisted of a free standing stove and a sink - no preparation area. The fridge was a bar fridge. There were no tables and chairs and the bathroom was a woeful display of dank, soiled and mouldy ceiling, half a corroded bath and the place was an ice box on a PLEASANT day.

After I had recovered from a fit of insane laughter, brought on by the realisation that this joint was going to be "home Sweet home" for the next SEVEN WEEK!!!!!!! It wasn't going to work. How was I going to prepare meals in there? Where were the kids going to play when it rains? Where were we going to sit to eat? Where were we going to put our 8 suitcases? And above all else - what about my cousin and her daughter, who are coming to visit us at the end of October?

Previously I had joked to her that it was possibly going to be like a scene from a cheesy cops movie - you know those scenes....the suspect is on the run hiding out in some cheap motel with a flashing neon sign complete with dodgey wiring, flickering in the background like it has a nervous tick. I did offer to put her up in a B&B, a mere walk away from the BGM. It looked very nice, and I knew she'd be more comfortable there, but she was in happy to experience hell along with us (bless her). Upon inspection I dare say the BGM was perhaps a little below the movie scene cheesy motel - she was sparse to say the least!


PLAN D - panic. Didn't last long. It sort of arose after the shock wore off. And so I set about trying to find ANY place offering furnished, short term rental that accepted dogs. A place was found in a town about 20 minutes further out. It is small, but about double the size of the BGM. It is clean. It is comfortable. It has a normal sized fridge and a laundry room, and it is warm. When I went there the following day to drop off the deposit, the landlady told me that she would actually be going out of town the week after we arrive and will not be returning until the day before we leave - perfect! So PLAN D it is.


Autumn/Fall started last weekend. It constantly amazes me how in sync the seasons are over here. A couple of weeks ago we were at the beach; sun shining, larraping sun screen onto our bodies. Today we are inside shivering, watching the gold coloured leaves float to the ground.

We had our garage sale on Saturday. My friend helped me out as I didn't think I really had enough stuff to warrant a garage sale, but needed to off load some stuff anyway. My friend's contribution certainly lifted the inventory.

The day was freezing. The coldest day we have had since last spring. I think it topped 10 degrees and threatened to rain the entire morning. It even snowed at Whistler. The weather kept many of the "garage sailors" away, and even the usual dog walkers that traipse around our streets were few and far between - smoke curled out of many a chimney top as we stood embracing our mugs of coffee, inhaling the steam to prevent our noses from succumbing to frost bite.

8am - 1pm, that was our sale time, and the hours meandered along begrudgingly. I have had garage sales before and they are always so boring - an hour seems like a week. The slow procession of minutes and hours made me wonder if it had anything to do with the unwanted items I was surrounded by- all those unneeded and burdensome goods and chattels; layers of the unnecessary, rejected and rendered useless - NULL AND VOID, dragging us all down.

We sold a few things. The sale didn't turn out too bad. One guy bought two laundry baskets of kids toys and items, for his soon to be born baby. It is nice to think our old unwanted stuff might get some new loving. Our next dilemma was what were we were going to do with the remnants - The Thrift Shop, the charity clothing bin and the dumpster - keeping it was OUT of the question. Arrrh! I feel lighter already.


Ok, I have gotten through to all the utility companies now, so I guess I had better get back to packing. I hope to post again soon. Thanks for hanging in there for me. Cheers.