Citry girl in New York

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These days I kind of feel like my Portuguese mom would have felt a year after moving to Manitouwadge from the Azores: super confused about my identity.

I’m not a posh Torontoist, but I’m not a bumpkin from Perkinsfield anymore either. I scoff at people in crocs, but snort at those who order espresso. It’s an interesting space to inhabit.

I’m a country-turned-city-turned-country girl, or (another hybrid word!) a citry girl. And this citry girl just got back from an extended weekend in New York.

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Mireille and Cynthis in Times Square

I’m not going to lie, the trip kind of made me miss Toronto. Not because New York’s not awesome, but because big cities can be.

We shopped for sunglasses at 2 a.m. in Times Square, ate amazing Indian food on Diwali, and bought handmade jewellery from an artisan’s market in Greenwich Village. Somehow Elmvale’s gift shop, Chinese food and farmer’s market can’t quite compare.

Ghost busters stand in a group

Halloween in NYC means meeting Ghost Busters!

Exploring some parts of New York felt to me like bumping into childhood friends – your guts say you know them but you don’t actually. Wall Street is like Bay street, but with better bagels. Fifth Avenue is like Yorkville times 20. Central Park is like High Park, but bigger and, well, central.

Rockefeller Tower

Rockefeller

It was pretty wonderful to be in the thick of it all, but at the end, it was equally wonderful to park my car next to my big red house, step out, and smell the fresh country air.

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Skyline with lady liberty

A big, warm thank you to Mireille and Cynthia, my travel buddies, for sharing the big apple with me. A little city adventure was just what I needed to appreciate where I’ve been and where I’m going.

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Me at the Staten Island Ferry

Heather and Jerry

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The other day, JF and I were puttering when he said “I hope when we get older we can afford to leave a bunch of nice stuff for the people who buy our house.”

I knew exactly what he was talking about. He was installing the last doorknob and lock left to us by Heather and Jerry, the kindest couple you could ever buy a home from.

Cast your mind way back to a time before slush and sleet (that’s another story, winter has already hit Elmvale): late summer. At about 9 p.m. on a Friday night, after many hours spent moving my sister Alicia’s stuff, we finally pulled a giant truck filled with our junk into our new, Elmvale driveway.

We were exhausted, but when JF put the key in the back door lock we practically fell into the mudroom, we were so excited. Well, at least I almost fell in. I guess the rest of them were pretty graceful about the whole thing.

Anyway, a great many gifts were waiting for us a little further inside, in the kitchen: spare keys, a fresh loaf of bread from the Elmvale bakery, some new smoke detectors, fly swatters, and several brand new locks. I figure that last one was H&J’s way of saying “this is your home now.” Either that or “There is a lot of crime in Elmvale, we changed our locks a lot.” So far all signs point to option A.

Heather had hired a cleaner to scrub the house from top to bottom.  It was beautiful. The kitchen cupboards were immaculate, which meant my organized (read: anal retentive) soul got the satisfaction of putting things away as quickly as they could be unpacked.

But the best thing they left was a great big note, with phone numbers for local services, information on where to find things in the house, their email address with an invitation to “contact us any time with questions!” and and a suggestion to keep David.

I kept a piece of the note and pinned it to my kitchen bulletin board

I kept a piece of the note and pinned it to my kitchen bulletin board

David lives in the garden, along with other treasures from Heather: birdhouses, dragonflies and angels. He is not a gnome. Some people say he’s creepy, but I love him.

Admittedly this photo is slightly creepy. David is far lovelier in the daytime.

Admittedly this photo is slightly creepy. David is far lovelier in the daytime.

And that’s not all they did. They finished the back deck, gave us a free fridge, left us a few pieces of furniture, and kindly donated basic gardening implements. I’ve been using the shears daily.

Much as I see work to do in this home, it really is in stellar condition. A brand new roof and furnace, fantastic appliances, updated (mostly) electrical and good plumbing. And as cheesy as it sounds, a wonderful feeling about it. This is a friendly house because good, happy people lived here.

So to Heather and Jerry, thank you. Hopefully we can pass along the good karma.

Kansas

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Sometimes I feel like Dorothy. Yesterday, I learned that Flynn’s Irish Pub in Penetanguishene becomes Uncle Flynn’s Daycare during business hours.

Huh?

When I hear about stuff like that, I can help but think “Mikaela, you’re not in Toronto anymore.” I’m actually in Kansas. Or what most Torontonians think of as the equivalent of Kansas: Ontario farm country.

Here are two other examples.

1) The other day I asked a colleague from Elmvale where I could drop off my dry cleaning in town. The answer surprised me.

“The gun shop,” she said.

“!??,” I said with my face.

A quick call to her husband, a local tradesman, confirmed it. Watson’s Sports is where you go to get your clothes dry cleaned in my town. While you’re dropping off your silk shirts, you can also pick up a new Ruger and some Hula Poppers. Amazing.

That night I – the pacifist vegetarian – stood in front of the gun shop on Queen Street East with an armload of dirty officewear, looking for some sign that they cleaned clothes.

My eyes found a barely legible, tucked away old placard that either said “French cry leaners” or “French’s dry cleaners.”  I hoped it was the latter and went in.

A man stared me down as I dumped my blouses and trousers on the glass counter – right on top of the ammo. He didn’t offer to help me. Didn’t even bat an eye.

“Do you take dry cleaning?” I asked.

“Yes we do,” he volunteered.

“…?” I said with my face. “I’d like to get these cleaned. How long will it take?”

“Two weeks,” he replied as he slowly moved to fill out a receipt.

I tried not to look shocked (two weeks!?) and walked around the store. I’m pretty sure there was a mounted stuffed dear head behind a rack of camouflage coats. Pray for my favourite blazer.

2) This past weekend was the Elmvale Fall Fair, in all its carnivalesque glory. There are so many reasons to love this event.

For starters, all of the moms and dads with kids at local schools take a day off work to watch their children march in the Friday afternoon parade. Apparently it lasts all of 15 minutes. That, friends, is community.

Then there’s the Saturday afternoon parade, which features pretty much all non-school-aged Elmvalers – everyone from grannies on scooters to farmers on tractors.

Also worth seeing at the fair: the tractor pull, oddest-shaped vegetable, best barley, most beautifully decorated pancake, and of course, the top cow.

This year, my old roomie Steph and I watched a handful of (we thought identical) three-year-old jersey cows walk around in circles and compete for a shiny red ribbon. A dairy farmer sitting next to us explained that judges look for cows with veiny udders and great “angularity” – that means bony.

But what I love most about the fair is that basically every living person originally from Elmvale comes to town, plus several extras like me. We could probably have sold parking spots in our driveway.

This really is a whole other world. My personal Oz.

The eighth oddest shaped vegetable in Elmvale

These cows are for eating, but at the fall fair, they are treated like queens.

These cows are for eating, but at the fall fair, they are treated like queens.

Off her rocker.

Off her rocker.

Mini princesses at the parade.

Mini princesses at the parade.

Elmvale is...

Rural Elmvale is… where we come back

Rural life.

Rural life.

Steph at the top of the ferris wheel

Steph at the top of the ferris wheel

Electric baby blues

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I have long subscribed to Style at Home, House and Home and Architectural Digest magazines. Plus I buy the occasional drug store issue of Home and Garden and Elle Décor. I have also watched every single episode of anything on HGTV by Sarah Richardson. I spend a lot of my spare time trolling through home stores and antique shops.

Suffice to say, I thought I had the decorating thing down. I had absorbed good taste by osmosis. Plus I figured I must have excellent style genes from my mother, whose home is simply lovely to be in.

Turns out that looking at fabulous pictures of Diane von Furstenberg’s Manhattan penthouse isn’t the same as being Diane von Furstenberg. Or her interior designer. Or even anyone distantly related to her interior designer’s assistant. And style doesn’t transmit through DNA.

I have absolutely terrible taste in paint colours. So far I’ve chosen a chilling hospital white and a colour I can only describe as electric baby blue. Both are uniquely horrid, but after two months of living with frog tape, we’re simply unwilling to paint over either. We’ve accepted the baby blues.

JF, puttying the cracked bathroom walls

JF, puttying the cracked bathroom walls

Paint debacle aside, the place is starting to feel like home. We’ve made a few good meals, hosted a few good friends, and gained a few good pounds thanks to the Elmvale bakery’s boston cream donuts — they have real cream in them and are made fresh every morning. They smell like delicious trouble.

Mmmmmmm

Mmmmmmm

And even though I’m not happy with the way it looks right now, our house will get there. I did a walkabout tonight and took some pictures for you. Skipped the loft because it’s currently the most work-in-progressy space, but I promise to post photos of those rooms soon.

What I’m loving most about being in this house is what’s around it. My family is minutes away. The air smells like fresh rain, or cow dung, or burning leaves – depending on the time of day and year.  And I can walk 30 paces to pretty trails filled with fall colours.

This field is just off the trail by our house

This field is just off the trail by our house

The chronicles of hardware

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Did you know that if you want to return something you bought at Rona in Midland at Rona in Barrie, you can only do so for store credit? Neither did I, until recently.

I also learned that Home Depot doesn’t even need a receipt to do a full return, provided they recognize and can sell the product; that Canadian Tire has great deals; and that Home Hardware in Elmvale has the friendliest service in Simcoe County.

I used to be afraid of hardware stores, but now I think you could strap a blindfold to my face and I could still find the paint section. I’m drawn by the smell of fresh, plastic-wrapped brushes and frog tape.

It’s amazing how much crap you need to renovate a room — and how easy it is to buy the wrong thing. Did you know that vent covers come in different widths and lengths? Because I sure didn’t.

Owning a fixer upper has really expanded my handiness horizons. I can now use a drill, mud walls, and paint like a pro. At least I think I can. There may be the odd drip or extra hole here and there. Either way, you can call me a renaissance girl.

We’re hoping to finish the walls this weekend. I promise to post pictures soon. After that? Refinishing the floors. Eek.

I believe in little things

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Prairie Dawn (yes, the one from Sesame Street) sings a song I’ve always loved about her belief in the power of little things. Her examples are honeycomb, spiderwebs, and starfish.

The pace of our lives remains blistering. It’s JF’s busy time at work and he’s exhausted from travelling to head office in Toronto and back. I’m trying to get used to this whole nine to five thing. And we can’t seem to keep ourselves from chipping away at house renos every night.

But, optimist that I am, I continue to find heaps of joy in things like perfect donuts from the Elmvale bakery, clean sheets out of the dryer, and colourful tea towels.

One of the best compliments I ever got was from my childhood taxi driver, Carol. She drove my sister Alicia and I to elementary school every day. Not because we had money (I wore hand-me-downs from my cousin Anne-Marie until I was 14) but because we lived so far in the boonies there was no reason to send a bus.

Anyway, Carol was obese, wrinkly, and had platinum blonde hair of dubious authenticity in with neon pink curly ribbons coming out of it. She was also, I thought, one of the kindest people in the universe. When I was 11, she told me I had the greatest capacity for seeing beauty of anyone she had ever met. I guess that’s kind of questionable coming from a woman with plastic hair, but I felt pretty special.

At that age, I collected purple rocks, walked through woods alone to admire fall colours, and sighed with pleasure at the sight of an open peony. I also did dumb things like keep dead leaves I’d seen twirling in the wind and practice making perfect impressions of lipstick on Kleenex. I was pretty cool.

Things haven't changed much. I picked these around Elise and Roger's house a few weeks ago.

Things haven’t changed much. I picked these around Elise & Roger’s house a few weeks ago.

I have been using all my powers for admiring loveliness lately. I’ve needed them to spot the potential in my patchy bathroom walls and see through the stained carpet on my 2nd floor.  I’ve also used them to remember and appreciate the many small blessings in my life.

Sunflowers + fresh picked apples + sunrises over canola fields = happiness.

The last piece

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I’m probably not supposed to virtually high five myself in my own blog, but I’ve got to hand it to me, I’ve been fairly practical through this transition.

With an exceptionally detailed to do list, I planned and prioritized the shit out of our move. I took an almost clinical approach to long-distance coaching JF on how to pack our apartment. I gathered amazing friends and family to help us renovate and settle. And through all of the job hunting muck, I stayed calm, reasonably organized, and moderately efficient.

Which is why I rather surprised myself today, when I traded my cell’s hard-fought 416 area code in for a no-questions-asked 705 model.  I didn’t think it was a big deal, but it was. As soon as I hung up with Koodo customer service, I felt a wooshing and sinking feeling in my belly.

I blame the new phone number. I don’t like the way it sounds. Too many fives or something.

Anyway, as I was driving home from work and pondering the wooshing, I realized this change was the last piece. The final vestige of my life in the city.

Tomorrow, I will toast the end of a process that took a lot out of me. Onward. Upward. And 705-ward.

Settling in?

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It’s been 2.5 weeks and our house is starting to feel like home. Sort of. We’ve finished de-wallpapering, painting and unpacking two out of 13 rooms. Two important rooms — the kitchen and living room — but that is still a measly 15% of the spaces in our house.

The good news is, we’re really enjoying that 15%. Tonight we sat on the couch and surfed the internet for several hours. That was great.

Living room before and after.

Living room before and after.

 

The bad news is, the rest of the house is in shambles. Pockmarked walls, smelly grey carpet, and a few sticks of furniture. I generally pretend those parts don’t exist. Or I attack them with spackle in the hope that they can soon be painted and prettied up.

Dining area before and after.

Dining area (in the kitchen) before and after. I need a bigger area rug.

 

I don’t think I’ll ever claim the main bathroom and damp basement as ours. They might be lost causes.

Kitchen before and after.

Kitchen before and after.

Neither JF nor I have fully absorbed the implications of home ownership. I still treat my mom’s like a grocery store. And JF still refers to the Toronto apartment as “home.”

I say THE Toronto apartment because, as of August 31, it is no longer OUR Toronto apartment. Aside from the baby squirrels that currently live on its dining room windowsill, it’s vacant. And soon, someone new will take over the lease.

Generally, we haven’t had any time to ponder the deep, existential, seismic change that empty apartments represents. We haven’t even cut our lawn yet. I’m waiting for that “holy crap this is real” moment.

In the meantime, we will keep trying to enjoy our new life while chipping away at the monstrous project we started when our mortgage went through.

Love Army

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I am the luckiest, most blessed person ever. Lately I’ve felt so valued by my beautiful friends and family. I’ve also felt totally overwhelmed by everything that’s going on in my life. So basically, I’m joyverwhelmed.

Since I last posted, we moved everything we own into our new home, unpacked dozens of boxes, and painted broad expanses of cracked, uneven wall. I also celebrated my 29th birthday, organized a bachelorette party for one of my dearest friends, and started a new job.

Me, in the chaos of our kitchen

Me, in the chaos of our kitchen

In between all of that, we tried — and failed — to find time to do boring things like check our mail, do our laundry and pay our bills.

We also tried to settle into a new, Elmvale routine. So far our routine is: wake up at 7 a.m., put in a full day of work, have takeout dinner (note: it took us under 10 days to try ALL of Elmvale’s takeout), work on the house until 2 a.m., zombie to bed, and then do it all over again.

Under normal circumstances (note: nothing about August has been normal) I would have buckled under the magnitude and weight of all this change. It’s all good stuff, but sometimes it feels like a big, heavy pile on my shoulders. The thing is, I have a veritable army of people propping me up and keeping me moving. My love army.

Dozens of people have stopped by to say hello and lend a hand. Far too many to thank. My uncle Dan left half an hour ago after spending his whole night moving my washer and dryer.

My friend Cynthia was the first to strip wallpaper with me

My friend Cynthia was the first to strip wallpaper with me

Over 20 individuals came by on my birthday to help strip the acres of wallpaper that used to cover this house. Some — my dad, aunt Denise and uncle Dean — were here from 9 a.m. in the morning to 10:30 p.m. at night.

When the army took a break to eat Life’s a Slice Pizza (note: it arrived an hour late because the small Elmvale pizzeria had never made 3 party-sized pizzas at once before) I felt surrounded by love. It was in the gluten-free birthday cake my sister baked just for me, the aching shoulder our friend Donna braved to free our bathroom of sheep, and the bus ticket my old university roommate Steph bought to get here.

My cousin Duncan, sister Genevieve and mother Helena lighting my birthday cake

My cousin Duncan, sister Genevieve and mother Helena lighting my birthday cake

Without all of our loved ones, we would have had to fix up this big old house on our own. We’re not even close to done yet, but they literally saved us months of work.

I promise to post pictures of our progress soon. But before talking about our new space, I needed to devote a little bit of cyberspace to the unsung heroes of this brief, hectic period of my life. Thank you all for sharing in this transition. For helping me bear the load. And for loving me enough to strip wallpaper.

The end of funemployment

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The good news is, I’ve just accepted an exciting contract position with the communications team at Georgian College — one of the best employers in Simcoe County. Thank all of the harp-toting angels in heaven because I will soon be earning my keep.

The bad news is, my adventures in funemployment are coming to an end. On August 26, I will bid farewell to leisurely Mondays, sweatpant Tuesdays, romance-novel Wednesdays, quiet Thursdays, and going-out-for-a-stroll Fridays. I’m really going to miss them all.

Me a few weeks ago, carefree and funemployed

Tobias and I a few weeks ago, carefree and funemployed

But to those friends who poked fun at my funemployment activities, I’d like to say my hours weren’t all spent eating ice cream while watching TV and scanning eBay. Many were, but not all.

While funemployed, I went to Wonderland on a Thursday with friends.

While funemployed, I went to Wonderland on a Thursday with friends.

Finding a job is really tough. Mostly on your brain and confidence. That self-inflicted pressure to find work is omnipresent. I woke up and went to sleep thinking about jobs. Every day, I either put together an application, prepared for an interview, or met a nice new contact — apparently Simcoe County is full of lovely people.

I also learned a lot about unemployment and job hunting these last 2.5 months:

  • Listen to everyone but your own brain. Try to enjoy your time off.
  • Don’t be shy about telling people you’re looking for work. You’d be surprised who will help you.
  • You don’t have to take the first job that’s offered to you, even if every practical part of you says you should.
  • Don’t apply for jobs you don’t want. You will end up getting them, debating madly with yourself, and then painfully turning them down.
  • Try not to let the process get you down. You will apply for jobs you think you’re perfect for and never hear back. You will also interview for jobs you want and won’t get. That’s okay.
  • Have faith that the right role will come.
  • Have faith in yourself.

Well, I’m off to enjoy a gourmet vegetarian dinner prepared by my mother. And red wine, of course. It’s time to celebrate.