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!

Blerg. I’m feeling wildly unproductive & uncreative right now, in part because the awesomeness of the Home & Garden Show totally kicked my ass (thank you, rad customers!) & partly due to a nasty cold that I seem unable to shake (& by “shake” I mean “unable to stop the sieve that is my nose from pouring snot upon every viable surface, including my dogs”). But my biggest hurdle to happiness right now is moving.

Like most folks, I hate moving. However my particular shade of hatred resembles the white hot intensity of the sun as my brain will. not. allow me to function until/unless I feel settled. I don’t know if this is an ADD thing or a crazy artist thing or a matter of being a self-employed person who works from home & already has an unstable source of income, but I *need* to feel settled. My particular brand of crazy absolutely requires it to function.

The last few days I’ve felt like I’m in a constant state of a low level panic attack as I scour Craigslist for apartment listings that: are reasonably priced (ha!), have at least a wee bit of storage space (haha!) & take dogs (Bahahahahahaha!). Anyone who’s ever lived in Vancouver will feel my pain.

The dog thing particularly irks me because mine are small, quiet beasts. They’ve never caused a problem anywhere I’ve lived. I owned a condo in a high rise building (back in Alberta) with carpeting, elevators & long hallways designed to attract the attention of dogs wondering who the voices were outside the door – no barking, no accidents, no damage. But in a place like that? Sure. I can see why a building would implement a “no dogs” policy because there is the *potential* for problems to arise.

But you’re telling me I can’t have a dog in a dingy basement suite with laminate flooring? With such tiny windows that a dog would never see a glimpse of life at which to bark? With only a cement pad rather than a yard, lest a blade of grass ever be peed upon? Come on, people. I can’t fathom a way even the worst dog could damage some of the places that refuse any & all pets.

Actual text from a listing: “NO DRUGS, NO PARTIES, NO SMOKERS, NO PETS!!!!!!!”. Yeah. ‘Cause those are all totally the same thing!

Perhaps these landlords are banking on keeping their mortgage helpers hopeless & depressed so they continue to fork out $1400/month for the privilege of living in said hovel.

So. I’m frustrated. I really just want to find a place to call home & feel settled. I wouldn’t have moved into the place I live now if I’d known the landlords were planning to sell within 2 years. Moving is expensive, but more than that, it’s exhausting. I can’t handle the instability of not knowing where I’m going to live next month & what’s lurking in the back of my mind is wondering how long I’ll be able to stay in the new place I find anyway. Throw in the arbitrariness of the decision on whether or not I can occupy a space & my mind goes something something.

Prior to moving to Vancouver, I always owned my home so the hurdle was saving up for a down payment & having good enough credit to qualify for a mortgage. This makes sense. There are clear cut qualifiers & I knew (& followed) the steps. I didn’t have to come across as more “likable” than the other stacks of couples also applying. I didn’t have to assure anyone that my family is always in bed by 10:30pm & we never raise the television volume above a whisper. I didn’t even need to supply references! I just had to have the money.

Today I had a lady email to tell me she didn’t think the 2 bedroom suite was large enough for my family (me, my mister & the boy), so she wasn’t going to let me view it (you know…to decide for myself). If your garden suite was constructed so shabbily that it has zero soundproofing, then I can understand why you wouldn’t want to rent it out to a family with a baby or a toddler. But the boy? The only noise you’ll hear coming out of his room emanates from YouTube clips & video games. Annoying to me, perhaps, but really should not effect our neighbors. And may I remind you for a moment that this is in a city where 2BR condos selling for $400,000+ are 650 sq feet. WTF people??

So, my search continues. I do have a bunch of showings lined up this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

A peek at my booth at the. Vancouver Home & Garden Show – March 2nd to 6th.