I usually dread the, “How was your weekend?” question at work. I don’t ask it and I cringe to be asked. I don’t often remember what I did and so the question almost catches me by surprise although I should expect it by now. I often don’t remember because it was usually pretty boring to talk about.
This weekend, like the past while, has been full-speed and interesting and busy. So busy, I forgot it was my mother’s birthday on Sunday. Partly also because we celebrate her lunar birthday and that is not the calendar I refer to every day. Daddy had to call me to remind me. During my call with mum and when we talked about my preoccupation this weekend, she remarked, “You have moved a lot these past few years!”
Yes, indeed.
August 2011
– moved out of my “junior one bedroom” of seven years and split my stuff between a storage unit in Vancouver and my sister’s place in Toronto
– moving materials consisted of tens of “banana boxes” procured from Safeway next door
January 2012
– moved into my one-bedroom apartment on Toronto’s Bay Street
– my belongings were shipped across the country by U-Haul in a U-Box
January 2013
– moved out of my Bay Street apartment and into NPY’s family’s house
– moving materials consisted of some 30 Frogboxes – moving men praised how organized I was with them
– two young moving men hired who moved my stuff into a U-Box that traveled across the country
August 2013
– moved out of NPY’s family’s house and into our Olympic Village rental
– easy move as most of my stuff was still in Frogboxes that I could finally return to them
– rented a U-Haul truck for a day and family and friends were free movers who hustled everything over within the span of an elevator reservation (a couple of hours)
May 2014
– moving out of the Olympic Village rental and into our Olympic Village
This has been the strangest move to date. Originally, I demanded Froxboxes. It is so easy to pack when you have tens of boxes to separate your belongs logically. But it turns out to be overkill when we are moving from one tower to a different tower in the same development, connected by a parking garage. It would be, I laugh to think about it, a “shopping cart move”. Our moving supplies consist of:
– two flatbed dollies – they are adorned with red daisies and identical, belonging to friends who bought them at the same time when on sale at Costco
– about ten large Rubbermaid containers and three large suitcases
– elevator reservation of two hours and use of the family’s SUV
– our own blood and sweat packing several Rubbermaid containers, carting them through the garage, unpacking at the condo and repeat ad nauseum
I got it into my pretty little head to paint the walls since the place is empty, and to introduce some of our personality to our first (owned) home. That is, if we wanted to make a statement, our personality is not beige but gray.
On Saturday, we had a “painting party” wherein six family members and four friends dropped by throughout the day and helped us.
Yes, there was a point earlier in the day when I felt overwhelmed and wondered to myself why I didn’t just leave well-enough alone. What a disaster! What a mistake! It may have been a generational miscommunication but it felt like although Dad had painting knowledge, we were crashing around in the dark. Then friends arrived and they brought confidence and extra helping hands. With the extra labour working on the second room, I started to believe we’d actually finish. Then experienced family members arrived and we pushed through and – all things considered – finished for a day after nine hours of work.
We were back on Saturday, just me and NPY and it was more somber, just the two of us and a Songa playlist going. We went through everything two more times with roller, a brush and a fine brush, touching up the ceiling we accidentally painted, sparsely painted spots and spots revealed to be unpainted when we removed the Frog Tape. It felt never-ending but we finally called it a day when everything is as good as it could be with our hyper-critical eyes.
I’m so very pleased our bedrooms’ colour is definitely different from the default colour. That we took on this eye-opening experience together.
We are so grateful and lucky to have plenty of family and friends to give us a hand. We couldn’t have done painting in two days without them. We couldn’t pack and move within a week without them.
The same set of keys as we are staying in the same development, but our new space is going to be a world different.