The verdict?  I love my new camera.  LOVE IT!  I feel very grown up having options to change aperture and focus and f-stops and such (although I don’t really understand what any of those words actually mean), and knowing that if I want to go all rogue I can switch off of auto mode and (gasp!) manually take charge of my settings (although, honestly, automatic mode seems to be working pretty well for me at the moment.)

And (most importantly) my snazzy new camera takes awesome pictures of the cats.

Which, I’m guessing, means that it’ll likely also take rather fantastic pictures of the baby.

Who could ask for anything more than that?  :)

(Erik is a big fan of this moving thing.  Moving = boxes.  And boxes = one very happy cat.)

The problem?  We’re having a tough time finding suitable (ie: not decrepit or showing major electrical flaws or just plain old infected with a big case of ugly) properties within our ideal price range and available in our preferred area.  The community we’re looking at is a small village that’s just outside of the city.  Home prices are smaller, lot sizes are bigger, and it just seems like a very friendly place to live and features most of the amenities we’d need on a daily basis (grocery store?  Check!  Small hardware store?  Yep!  Gas station?  Oui!  Bank?  You betcha!  Liquor store?  Hell yes!)

But, because it’s a small town, not many properties are ever available at any particular time.  Currently there are about seven houses available within our price range in our beloved village, and we’ve visited six of them (and ruled five of them out.)  Two came equipped with copious amounts of knob and tube wiring (which we’d need to have removed before taking possession in order to qualify for a mortgage through our bank.)  One felt very unstable – the upper floors had most definitely shifted to various, rather unsettling angles (Sweetie instantly got vertigo) (and vertigo means NO.)  One had a great deal of water in the basement, and boasted the world’s tiniest kitchen (with no room to expand.)  Another had several haphazardly constructed additions, and a rather scary damp crawlspace.  And the house that we have not visited is listed as an “as-is” sorta deal, and claims to be “160 years young” (and, unfortunately, as-is plus archaic doesn’t strike me as a particularly good combination.)

There is, however, one house that is in the running.  It’s on a beautiful tree-lined street (my favourite kind of street!) and has so much potential!  We’ve visited it twice now, and haven’t yet entirely ruled it out.  However, nor have we agreed that it should definitely be our next home.

First, the layout doesn’t thrill me.  For example, there is no defined entryway (you enter directly into the living room) and while I acknowledge that we could definitely create some sort of entryway area with a cleverly placed wardrobe or strategically aligned bookshelf (I’ve already done some anticipatory “how to create an entryway” searches a la Pinterest, of course) (you know…  just in case…), I like having a formal entry space where shoes can be hidden, coats are out of sight, and all the messiness that tends to form around the main entrance door can quickly be stashed away from view.

Secondly, there’s the kitchen counter conundrum.  While I actually like the layout of the kitchen, the counters must go.  They must, in fact, go far far away.  The counters have been (rather haphazardly) tiled with some sort of beige tile, and while I’m not normally a countertop snob (I lived with THIS counter for over two years, afterall), I’m not a super huge fan of tiled counters.  There’s the porous grout.  There’s the nooks and crannies.  There’s just something about it that seems a bit unclean to me.

Then, there’s the basement.  I have this same problem each time we’ve searched for new homes: I don’t like scary and unusable basements.  Crawlspaces are even worse.  That said, this basement isn’t overly scary.  There’s no dirt on the floor, and it’s brightly lit.  However the ceiling height is at about five feet, which means that while (exceedingly tall) Sweetie has to pretty much maneuver around the basement on his knees, even I have to duck.  Claustrophobia is a very real type of fear.  Thus, by default, the low ceiling height makes the basement quasi-scary.

But most alarming is the back yard.  Oh, that back yard…  I’m guessing the current owners’ goal was to make the backyard into a meadow-like oasis.  Or they’re exceedingly bad gardeners.  Or a little of both.  There are various wildflowers scattered haphazardly about, but far more prominent are the weeds and overgrown bushes and… well… just stuff everywhere.  It’s more a thick dense jungle than a meadow-like oasis.  The yard does have potential however – it’s a rather deep lot (over two hundred feet deep) and it has many mature trees (a must for me!) and tonnes of privacy (a must for Sweetie!) but I’m just not sure if I’m up for tackling that ginormous and overgrown space.  I was an indoor child, afterall.  A spectacular gardener I am not.

Sigh…  Decisions decisions.  Like my friend Jess said one night while I was lamenting all this to her (during one of our rather epic marathon phone chats): you can change a house, but you can’t change your neighbourhood.  And I’m definitely keeping that in mind.  Having once lived on a very busy street that I despised from the moment we moved in till the day we moved out, I fully understand that location is possibly the most important consideration when choosing a home.

Yep.  Awesome location may indeed trump all the negatives about this house.  Even the Amazon out back.

I’ll keep you posted.  :)

The problem with being both a home seller and a cat owner?  The two don’t mix particularly well.  I like my cats.  Sweetie likes our cats.  Lots of people love our cats.  And as they should – our three fur-babes are pretty darn awesome and friendly and adorable, if you ask me.  :)  But, sadly, home seekers aren’t necessarily kitty-friendly.  There’s the smell-stigma (“ohhhh… honey, look… they have cats… let’s try really really hard to find some sort of cat smell somewhere in this house… it must be here somewhere…”)  There’s the distraction (afterall, the kitties are indeed ridiculously cute.)  And there’s the terrifying possibility that during all of the open house comings-and-goings one sneaky little fur-ball could weasel its way through the front door.

So what do we do?

We go on field trips!  All of us.  Sweetie, me, and the three cats, all in one car together.

When we sold our last home, we quickly discovered that the easiest way to create home selling harmony was to pack the cats up in their individual carriers and bring them for a mini roadtrip during house showings.  During open houses, they’d get treated to a full-blown field trip to a local park for a couple of hours.

And so, in keeping with house-selling tradition, Jacob, Irwin, Erik, me and Sweetie all hung out at the park for most of the weekend while random strangers wandered through our home.  Were the cats excited?  No.  But did they survive?  Absolutely.  After about thirty minutes of initial panic, they all settled down and spent the remaining four-ish hours exploring the car/looking out the window/napping.

Until the house sells (hopefully soon!), we’ll likely keep the car set up like a big rolling kitty crate.  There’s a litterbox in the back, and a food bowl and water, and some puppy training pads and lots of old towels too just in case of accidents.  It’s not pretty, but it’s functional.  And if it helps make these outings a little less stressful for the kitties, so be it.

That said, if you need to carpool with someone, I’m likely not your best choice right now.  Unless you like a whole lotta cat fur on your clothes.

But all that is over now.  Work is done, for better or for worse.  I’m applying for jobs like crazy and hoping that a promising phone call from some nice prospective employer-person (who thinks I’m awesome and wants to pay me loads of money to come work at their fine organization) comes soon.  We’re working on the house and have been in talks with our agent so we can list as soon as possible.  And we’re looking at other houses and trying to make smart and solid plans for what to do next.

But, in the midst of all this chaos, I realized that I never posted my “look-what-we-did!” big reveal on our bedroom makeover.  So I thought I’d take a bit of a timeout from everything else and indulge in a quick “tada!” moment.  :)

First, let’s take a looksee back on what the room looked like pre-painting/-primping/-improving, k?  Our room wasn’t terrible.  At all!  But I’m not a sage green kind of girl – I’d like to be, and I like it in other people’s homes, but it’s just not me.

A couple coats of BM Revere Pewter later (plus a pretty pendant light, a much-obsessed-about new duvet cover and some new curtains too) and here’s our lovely little bedroom now (on a mighty sunny day!)…

I’m particularly happy with our curtains (Matilda from the awesome curtain-making folk over in Ikea-land.)  Cheap and cheerful and sorta girly but simple.

And I’m also in love with our duvet cover.  Also cheap.  Also cheerful.  Also Ikea (Alvine Orter.)

For now I’ve tossed (er, lovingly and carefully placed) a random navy and red striped Roots blanket that I’ve had for eons at the foot of the bed.  Once spring hits (weather-wise at least!) I’ll likely swap the heavy blanket out for a lighter throw.  But for the time being, it works.  :)

And I’m ridiculously pleased by how nice our freshly painted walls look against our awesome black-brown Hemnes dressers.  I’ve been wanting to paint a room (a wall? A random piece of furniture? Anything!) Revere Pewter for years.  Mr. Benjamin Moore?  You did not disappoint!

So there’s your mini bedroom makeover update!  There are still a few additional plans in the works.  New colourful pillowcases, and maybe a few throw cushions too, to make the head of the bed a bit prettier.  Snazzy new bedside lamps perhaps.  Maybe even a new nighttable for Sweetie (since the nighttable cleverly and deliberately hidden on his side of the bed is archaic and rather awful looking.)  If you look really closely, the ugly nightstand (and ugly lamp and one uninspiringly beige pillow) sneakily snuck into the corner of this pic…

Silly photo-bombing pillow!  Updates on further updates to follow.  :)

But for now, Jacob is a really big fan of what we’ve accomplished to date.  So much so that he refused to leave the room (or, really, the bed) while I wandered around taking pics (hence some of the somewhat wonky angles in these images – I was working around a rather stubborn cat.)  But, really, how could I say no to this little orange face?

Yup.  Jacob knows exactly how to get his way with his cat-loving fur-friendly mom.  Smart boy.

-a lovely basket I found on sale (regularly $44, all mine for $22!)

-a pretty metallic picture frame picked out of the clearance pile for $4 (happy squeal!)

-a sheet of lovely scrapbook paper that was neither on sale nor on clearance (but it’s pretty and, at $0.99, it still felt like a ginormous bargain)

…and my ball of yarn (of course!)  Quite the hodge-podge-y group of items eh?  But, oh… I had plans.  All of this Michaels-bounty (minus the yarn) went toward updating my little living room and faux fireplace.

And, that all said, here’s the result of lots of rearranging and tweaking and pondering and tweaking some more…

Tada!  OK.  So it’s not necessarily a hallelujah moment, but I think it looks better.  :)  Here’s what I did…

First…

I summoned my inner DIY-er and created the world’s easiest art for inside my new (really really inexpensive!) metallic frame (which, btw, reminds me a lot of the fancy gold frames my grandmother used to have scattered around her house) (which, of course, makes me love this frame even more.)  The instructions?

-cut a 4×6″ rectangle (to match the size of the frame) from a sheet of basic white printer paper

-fold it in half and cut a heart into it (a la grade one Valentine’s Day art project)

-put said piece of paper (minus cutout heart) in the frame (letting the brown cardboard backing that came with the frame peek through the cutout)

…and poof!  Instant 30 second art.

Super cute, eh?  And, almost as important, super easy!

That all said, I can’t really take any credit for this project.  I first saw this idea here on House Pretty’s lovely blog.  My method is a little different, but the overall end result is pretty similar.  And I don’t want to be a big bad awesome easy art project idea thief!  So, House Pretty, I’m totally tipping my hat to you on this one.  :)

And then…

My second easiest-ever DIY art project?  Adding that lovely $0.99 scrapbook paper to a frame for an instant print.  No fancy instructions required, just add scrapbook paper to frame, put frame in a frame-worthy spot, and admire.  Done!

The paper I used doesn’t even really fit my frame, if you want to get all technical about it.  The paper is 12×12″ I think (or whatever standard scrapbook paper size is) and the frame is matted for an 11×14″.  But it still works. Truth be told, I kinda want to wallpaper my entire house with this scrapbook paper.  So springy!  So happy!  I’m hoping to find other places around the house where I can use this pretty paper shortly (which, in turn, means another trip to Michaels – yay!)  I love it just that much.

As does Jacob.  Lesson learned: never try to take pictures of things on the floor.  When you do, this happens…

Yup.  Jacob agreed that this scrapbook paper was the prettiest he had ever seen (and, as a result, he felt he should roll around on it.)

I’m hardly a scrapbooking aficionado, but I’m guessing that cats don’t make very good scrapbookers.

And last (but definitely not least) (in fact, the opposite of least… most?)…

The basket is my absolute favourite addition to the room.  I’ve been searching for a basket to fill the fireplace void for a while now, but baskets are crazy expensive (and I’m rather frugal.)  Which is why I did a little happy dance in the middle of Michaels when I realized that all of their baskets were marked 50% off.  Woo!  And I’m pretty sure I practically skipped out of the store.  (I tend to do that when I find a good deal.  People look at me funny, but I don’t care.  Cocked eyebrows can’t compare with the joy of finding a bargain.)

Doesn’t it look cozy all filled with blankets?  Yep!  I’m ridiculously pleased with my find.  :)

In conclusion…

So there!  Those were my Michaels-inspired updates!  I made a couple of non-Michaels-related improvements too, like the framed black and white pic of me and my girlfriends from back in our university years (that I found while rummaging through our second bedroom last weekend) (we look so young… sigh!)  And I did a bit (um, a lot) of rearranging too.

All in all, the room is coming.  Slowly but surely.  I figure by the time we decide to sell the house I’ll get it right.  I still need something on the wall to the left of my pretty little faux fireplace (besides the cats’ beloved scratch post, of course) but that’s a whole different story (that I’ve already obsessed a bit about HERE) for a whole different day.

Until then, I’ll likely continue rearranging things weekly-ish and posting regular fireplace-mantel updates.

Excited?  Me too.  :)

Admittedly, there are some really bad dance moves going on in this video (I can almost hear the choreographer: “Oooh!  Running man!  Yes – we most definitely need more running man!”)  And I have no idea why Jon is missing from this performance.  Maybe he was having a bad hair day?  I wouldn’t show up for Arsenio Hall on a bad hair day either.  You think they’d mention it though, no?

Strange.

Then again, Jon was never really my favourite.  If Joe had been missing?  Chaos and woe.  Jon?  Meh.  He never really did that much for me, truth be told.  And Jon eventually left the group anyway, right?  I think?  I might be a little bit behind (by, like, 20 years perhaps) in my NKOTB gossip.

All that aside (although I could ramble on about New Kids for quite a while if you’d like) (Joe? Now HE had good hair) (so dreamy…  swoon!), this post is obviously a little late (since we’re now two weeks post-the-big-red-and-green holiday) but I wanted to show off a couple of my favourite Etsy Christmas purchases (which then became my favourite Etsy Christmas gifts!)

Awesome Etsy Christmas gift #1: Kitty Candles from Kitty Baby Love

I fell in love (at first sight, in fact) with these little chubby cat-shaped crayons.  So cute!  So friendly looking!  And when they arrived, smiling at me happily from their little egg carton container, I seriously wanted to break out my colouring book.

(The little yellow one in the bottom right is my fave.  “Pick me!  Pick me!” he says.)  (And yes, I just assigned a personality to a crayon…  Weird?  Probably.)

I think my niece liked them too.  Well, rather, she liked the wrapping paper I wrapped them in.  (She’s only one, so she hasn’t quite gotten the hang of that whole the-gift-is-the-thing-that’s-wrapped-IN-the paper-not-the-paper/packaging-itself concept.)  And while she’s not yet actually at the colouring stage, she will be soon!  So excited to see what lovely scribbles these happy little balls of kitty-shaped awesomeness will produce.  :)

Awesome Etsy Christmas gift #2: T-shirts for Sweetie from Quasi Science Apparel

I have only three words to describe my transaction with the folk over at Quasi Science Apparel: fastest shipping ever.  Ev-ver.  Seriously.  I purchased three t-shirts on a Monday, and by Wednesday (as in, two – TWO! – days later) they arrived.  I was flabbergasted!  (And thrilled!)  Albeit, Quasi Science Apparel is based out of Canada (like me!), so there were no customs-hoops to jump through or anything like that.  But still?  Two days?  That’s pretty darn amazing if you ask me.

And the t-shirts are fantastic too!  For Sweetie, I bought…

…the Tesla t-shirt (since, well, he is an electrician afterall):

…the “Geek” written in binary t (since, um, he’s also kind of a geek) (which is precisely why I love him):

…and, my absolute favourite (and Sweetie’s too, I think): the SCLF (Schrodinger’s Cat Liberation Front) t-shirt:

The best part?  The back…

Totally makes me smile.  :)

For the record, and in case you were also wondering, I’m not really sure who Tesla is either.  I know he did something important, probably involving electricity?  And he was in an 80′s hair band too, I think.  Does anyone else out there remember (nervously/sweatily) dancing with some (equally nervous/sweaty) boy at some random school dance to Love Song?

Sigh.  Oh, 1980′s… you were tacky, but you kinda rocked.

So there you go!  My post-Christmas (and rather tardy) Exceptional Etsy Gift Review.  Plus a lot of 80′s nostalgia.  Because there’s nothing like a well-choreographed boy band, and a little power ballad-ness too, to perk up even the gloomiest January day.  :)

Now that 2012 is leaving us (can I say good riddance?) (yup – it’s official: I’m saying good riddance)  (I’m more than just a little perturbed at the year 2012 has been) and making way for the fine and outstanding year that 2013 is going to be (I have reallllly high hopes for you, 2013!) I thought that now might be a good time to give thanks for another year.  2012 really hasn’t been the best year (it’s kinda sucked – a lot – at times), but I’m still here and I still have my Sweetie and my family and my cats and my friends, so, in the grander scheme of things, 2012 was ok.  I didn’t win the lottery (I was expecting a massive lottery win in 2012) and I didn’t take that cross-European trip I really wanted (so disappointed that that one didn’t pan out as planned) but all in all, I suppose 2012 wasn’t entirely bad.

So, to 2012, as you leave us (and as I dance my little bon voyage happy dance) I would like to extend my thanks for the following…

I’m thankful for friends.  Both new and old.  Friends who made me laugh.  Ones who kept me going this year with encouragement.  Ones who let me cry.  Ones who let me vent.  Friends who reminded me that eventually everything works out, with a little patience and lots (and lots and lots) (and lots) of perseverance (when the time is right.)

I’m thankful for our snazzy new vacuum, the fabulous Mr D (aka the Dyson DC37) (fur?  What fur?)  And for our new washer and dryer too (dear LG: Love you!)

I’m thankful for two new furbabies who joined our family in May.  I think Jacob is thankful for them too (but he’ll likely never admit to that) (he’s a rather stoic and serious orange cat, you know.)

I’m thankful for our cozy little 1940s house.  It’s tiny, but it’s more than enough space for Sweetie and me and our three little furry roommates.  I’m pretty sure my house, on the other hand, is thankful for Benjamin Moore.

I’m thankful for family.  My family, Sweetie’s family, extended non-related-but-just-as-loving-and-amazing family.  I’m thankful for long phone chats and Christmas baking with my mom.  For coffee runs and Diners Drive-Ins & Dives marathons with my dad.  I’m thankful for my niece, the sweetest little one year old ever.  I’m thankful for laughter-filled dinners with my in-laws, and long emails from family-like friends.  I’m pretty darn lucky to have so many awesome people in my life.

I’m thankful for wine (the super girly pink stuff, of course) and dill pickle cream cheese and pumpernickel bread and pizza.  And brownies.  But I think we’re all thankful for brownies.

I’m thankful for good health and a creative mind.

And so many other things.

So, as we wish 2012 adieu, I’d like to present the following wish to all my friends and family (found during a random Pinterest patrol via the lovely blog Beige Infection):

…and I think that says it all.  :)

Happy New Year!  May 2013 bring you everything you want and much much much more.  Wishing you good health, great friends, and love.

And lots of brownies.  One can never have too many brownies.  :)

The cats will be alone on Christmas Day, but they’re not overly concerned – we had our own pre-Christmas celebration here at the house this morning and over the weekend.  There were tiny little reindeer antlers.  There were gifts to unwrap and catnip mice.  And they even snuggled up with us for a bit to watch White Christmas (my absolute favourite Christmas movie ever.)

And, on that note, and in case you’ve never seen White Christmas, I wanted to sign off for the holidays with the lyrics from one of the songs from that movie.  In all honesty, 2012 has been a bit of a bear.  While there have been some really amazing and wonderful moments this year, it’s also been a really hard year for a few of my friends (and, well, for us too at times.)  I think this song is really good advice for us all…

Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)

When I’m worried and I can’t sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
And I fall asleep
Counting my blessings

When my bankroll is getting small
I think of when I had none at all
And I fall asleep
Counting my blessings

I think about a nursery and I picture curly heads
And one by one I count them as they slumber in their beds

If you’re worried and you can’t sleep
Just count your blessings instead of sheep
And you’ll fall asleep
Counting your blessings

That Irving Berlin guy was pretty amazing eh?

Sending so much love out to my friends and family over the holidays.  I hope the next couple of days are filled with good food, the lively and familiar company of family and friends, and lots of lovely surprises.

Merry Christmas all!  :)

Cats don’t understand that wicker balls are pretty, not playthings.  And that these pretty wicker balls belong in the lovely white bowl on the dining room table, not on the floor.

Cats also apparently think that it’s ok to get up on the dining room table when mom isn’t watching.

Yep.  Lessons learned.

During our weekly marathon phone date the other day, my friend Jess (who blogs over at Little Townhome Love) asked me what on earth could possibly still need painting in this house (since it does indeed seem like I’ve been painting since the day we moved in, like, two+ years ago.)  Let’s just say I’m a methodical painter.  I take my time.

In fact, my typical painting process looks a bit like this…

Day 1: Patch the walls and caulk every seam in the room.  Time consuming?  Yes.  Annoying and messy?  Omg, yes.  But totally worth it?  Yes.

Day 2: Prime.  You know, since there’s nothing like watching mystery stains left by the previous home owners seep through your lovely new paint job.  Yep.  Love that.

Day 3: Paint ceiling.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I hate painting ceilings?  I do.  I really really do.)  Try to keep paint from flying everywhere and damaging hardwood.

Day 4: Paint ceiling again to cover up thin spots from previous day’s painting.  Swear just a bit.

Day 5: Paint walls.  Do an awkward little happy dance in celebration that wall-painting day has finally arrived!

Day 6: Paint walls again (since that whole one-coat-coverage concept never seems to work for me.)

Day 7: Admire how awesome walls look, then begin painting trim.  Tape everything off first (since despite about a gazillion hours spent painting over the past few years, painting in a straight line is still very very hard.)  Sigh and grumble about how much I hate painting trim.

Day 8: Slap a second coat of paint on trim.  Grumble some more.  But!  Then remove all painters tape and squeal a happy little squeal of joy at the results.  Jump up and down a bit.  Have a celebratory glass of wine.  Or two.

Day 9: Spend far too much time standing in the centre of newly painted room staring and admiring.  Bring cats in and make them admire too.  Find Sweetie and ask him multiple times if he thinks it looks nice.  Pout just a little when he gets tired of exclaiming, for the gazillion-th time, that it looks awesome.

So yep, there – painting a room is about an eight day process for me.  Which is probably longer than most people, but I’m a tad nit-picky and obsessive over things like caulking baseboards and trim seams to the wall and priming and those sorts of things.  And, well, I can only paint on weekends (and only on those weekends on which we don’t already have other plans) so I work in little bursts.  A weekend here…  a weekend there…  an entire room probably takes me about a month-ish (maybe a little more) to fully finish up (from ceiling to walls to trim – when I paint a room, I paint EVERYTHING.)  (Woo!  Go big or go home!)  So while I may not be the fastest painter on the block, the job gets done.  More or less correctly.  Eventually.

This weekend I will pick up my beloved paint brush once again, and (FINALLY!) begin working on my bedroom (which I chatted a bit about HERE a while back.)  I finished up Step 1 a long time ago (like, months ago) and my walls have been pleading with me for paint ever since (since now they’re all patchy and rather ugly.  Which is pretty darn embarrassing if you’re a wall.)

Yep.  By the end of the weekend all this will be covered up…

…in lovely Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter-ness.  I can’t wait.  :)

Jacob is pretty crazy excited too.

Irwin and Erik?  Not so much.

Happy Friday!