still life homework for my summer painting class

Happy summer everyone! My days have been stuffed pretty full as of late with 7 market dates booked in June (7!!), 2 sets of houseguests, much unpacking plus 2 art classes at Emily Carr University. This has all been leading up to a well-deserved vacation as I head back to Winnipeg, Manitoba for a few days to celebrate my grandmother’s 90th birthday. It’s hard to believe my grandma is 90 years old. This is a lady who reads my blog regularly (& is good at reminding me to update when I get busy!), sends me emails & is always keen to shop for a new outfit or piece of jewelry to wear when she goes out for coffee with the girls. She’s awesome.

My whole family is heading back to Manitoba for a few days where my folks have rented a cute little cabin at Clear Lake. Princess Sparkle gets to go on her first airplane ride & hopefully I will be getting plenty of quiet time to catch up on my drawing class homework. Some time to poke around antique shops would be lovely too!

Is your summer off to a good start?

Soggy Saturday, a photo by acageybee on Flickr.

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It’s taking me much longer to get unpacked & settled into my new pad than I anticipated, partly because I’ve got piles of work to catch up on & partly because I really need to buy new furniture before the office/studio sorting can finish up. I’ve got more space now, but I’m lacking the handy dandy storage cupboard that I Tetris-ed my way into stuffing chock full of more art & office supplies than one person should rightly own. So. Unpacking is at a standstill as I now have a large space that holds my desk & a whole whack of boxes with nowhere to go.

What to do? Go back to Craigslist, of course! If you have access to a vehicle & Craigslist, there’s really no need to ever pay full price for anything Ikea has ever sold. Vancouver seems to be a particularly transient city with people constantly moving away or downsizing to smaller digs, so new furniture posts number in the hundreds each day. Crazy!

Why do you have to be all the way in Port Moody?

Ideally I’d like to find a beautiful antique cabinet to house my printer & different types of paper & all my mailing supplies. These are a little tougher to come by, however & will definitely not fit into my car, so I have to be *really really* sure it’s the piece I want before I commit to hiring a mover as well. Which leads me to be still sitting here, surrounded by boxes!

Fortunately the sun is out, the Canucks are winning & I have 4 full days before my next market!

Blim Monthly Community Market

Sunday May 22 | 12 – 5 PM | By donation
@ Heritage Hall (Main St. and 15th Ave.)

http://blim.ca/

Please excuse the mess! Princess Sparkle is doing a fabulous job of supervising the unpacking process, though unfortunately could not rescue us from the hell that was moving on the weekend.

Moving is an exercise in exhaustion at the best of times, but we managed to fall into that special ring of hell in the form of wicked colds that had me & my mister both coughing so much that we couldn’t sleep, movers who showed up 3.5 hours late & then only moved about half of our stuff because we felt guilty making them work so late (& they kept grumbling about missing the hockey game). To top it all off? Once the movers arrived at our new building, the elevator was broken! Argh!!!

To save time (& money…those hourly moving rates are not cheap!), the mister & I both hauled as much stuff as we could up to the new place. Which, of course, meant that I was not spending that time cleaning out the old place as I had planned. We + the movers finally finished up at 11:30pm. Too exhausted to do anything but sleep, we dozed for a few hours & then hurried back over to the old place in the morning to start one of many, many car loads to move the rest of our stuff. Then do the big clean. Then the big garbage haul away. Oh, did I mention we were already supposed to have been out the day before? Whoops!

Fortunately there were just workers doing some repairs scheduled, so we didn’t interrupt anyone’s plans (though my ex-landlord didn’t hesitate to phone every few hours to bitch at me). The cherry to set atop the Move From Hell is the sprained ankle I am now nursing, which kind of puts a damper on rearranging furniture as I unpack. Blerg.

The good news is – it’s over! We’re moved. Huzzah! And as much as I would love to share photos of my artfully decorated home, it really doesn’t matter if it takes me a few weeks to get there, so I’ll unpack at my own pace. Right now my focus needs to be solely reserved for whipping up a few more trinkets to display at Got Craft this coming Sunday:

Sunday, May 8th

Got Craft? Spring Edition

Royal Canadian Legion

2205 Commercial Drive ~ map

I can’t believe it snuck up so quickly! Got Craft is one of my favorite shows of the year & the vendors this year are even more AWESOME than last year! If you’re in the Vancouver area, why not grab your mom & make a crafty shopping date for Mother’s Day? It’s right on Commercial Drive too, so lots of yummy brunch places to fuel up.

See you soon!

Taking a gander out my window yesterday afternoon I spotted this wily guy, just hanging out on my sidewalk:

I love that a city the size of Vancouver has maintained so much green space that us city dwellers still get regular run ins with coyotes, raccoons & skunks, but in the middle of the afternoon this was definitely an unusual sight. I’m glad I wasn’t walking out to the car with my pooches! (If we’re going for a walk, they’d be leashed, but if we’re going for a car ride? I’d be carrying leashes & they’d be free to become coyote snacks.)

The Stanley Park Ecology Society is mapping the sightings & are particularly concerned with pet attacks. If you would like to report a coyote sighting, you can contact them via phone at (604)681-WILD or via email (coyotes@stanleyparkecology.ca). Include the date, time, location & what the coyote was doing at the time of the sighting.

They also have a really good FAQ explaining what to do should you encounter a coyote:

“encourage the coyote to keep moving by shouting and gesturing aggressively at it.  Remove all attractants around your property: accessible garbage and compost, pet food left outside, rat and mice habitat (birdseed fallen from feeders often attracts rodents).”

The Society maintains that people can co-exist with coyotes & has developed several programs & information packs for neighborhoods & schools.Based on the map displaying coyote sightings for 2010, I’d say it’s pretty clear we already are co-existing with coyotes!