unpacking

One more day

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If all goes well, we have only one more day without hot water!

The plumber called me back this evening. Turns out he is out of town. After asking me some questions – including if we had any hot water right now – he said he could come over tomorrow!  He won’t reach The City until mid afternoon, where he will pick up a tank for us and collect what he needs to install it. Then he will give us a call before heading out.  Hopefully, he will be here around 3 or 4 pm.

Thank God CPP payments come in early at Christmas, or we would have to wait another week or two.

Getting the new tank in is going to be a challenge. Thankfully, he remembers this place and has an idea of what to expect.

Also, he takes payment by eTransfer. Which is cool, because we have no checks left.  Actually, I think we do, but I’m not sure what box they are in.

Speaking of boxes…

I am 99% sure we are missing some boxes.  The girls are unable to find some things, just as I have not been able to find my giant stock pot.  While we have not unpacked everything, we have at least opened all boxes and bins.

We were the last drop off, so the truck was empty when they unloaded our stuff.  It might be possible that a couple boxes went with one of the other two drop offs before us, but items have colour coded tags, so that’s unlikely.  They were not left behind in our old place.  So if they got lost somewhere, it is most likely to have been when our stuff was put in or out of storage.

Two provinces away.

But until we unpack more, there is still that 1% chance we just haven’t found them yet.

And it will likely be weeks before we reach the point where I can say I’m 100% sure.

Frustrating.

The Re-farmer

Some progress

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Today was another day to work on packing the kitchen.  Including a whole bunch of canisters on the counter, most empty, but some with food in them.  I don’t know how many years they were in there, but in one of them, the canister was starting to rust into the sugar. 😝

Tomorrow, we will have another load for the shed, then the cupboards can be cleaned.  Then we can unpack our own kitchen stuff.

Hopefully, we will finally find my giant stock pot.  That thing is big enough to brine a whole turkey, with room to spare.  You’d think something that big would be easy to find!

We did end up keeping quite a bit of plates and bowls, since we had to get rid of almost all of ours.  With the cramped layout of the kitchen, those will go into shelves outside the kitchen.  The plan is for the kitchen to only have pantry items, food and cooking tools, so much as possible.  With the counters as empty as possible.  Soon, I might even have room to use a slow cooker!

It’s amazing how the most mundane things become exciting when you realize just how much you use them, and suddenly you can’t.

Speaking of which…

With the hot water totally gone again (we have theories as to what happened, but no way to know for sure), we went over our budget and crunched some numbers.  With Christmas, my husband will actually get a disability payment early, so if we can swing it, we might be able to get a new tank installed before Christmas, instead of in January.  It will depend on whether the guy I called can fit us in.

Some bills will have to wait, but the amount of time and energy going towards heating water every day has got to stop.  Our electric bill is going to be insane.

But, if we are careful, we will be okay.  Not having rent to pay makes a difference.

We still need to consider all those little fees that need to be dealt with, like transferring our drivers licenses and vehicle registration and insurance. Thankfully, those all seem to be cheaper in this province. Still, it’s never the big things that kill a budget.  It’s the little things that sneak up on you, chipping away, a few dollars here, a few dollars there.

Still, we have got by on much less, in the past.  Plus, growing up here, I learned very early, how to make a little go a long way.

That has come in handy, many times, over the years.

That initial rough patch is sure painful, though! 😂

The Re-farmer

More damage

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Yesterday, I managed to unpack a few more boxes the movers packed.

I was disappointed to find this.

This was another situation where they packet had to physically damage something – in this case, break it – to fit it in the box.

This latch hook wall hanging was made by my late mother-in-law.

Then there was this utterly ridiculous find.

Who does this? I realize its just a roll up sheet of poster paper, but it was folded like this and crunched into a plastic bin.

Insane.

The Re-farmer

Back to work

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I took a break from unpacking yesterday.  Today, my goal is to get rid of the wall of boxes in front of the wall of shelves that I have to squeeze through to get to bed.

Sure enough, I found more damaged items.  Like this. Continue reading →

New Habits

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As chaotic as things are, we’re settling into a bit of a routine.  Mornings, the heating of water for washing begins.  My past habit of staying up to the wee hours and getting up at around 10am has changed to going to bed before midnight *gasp* and getting up earlier.  It takes most of the morning to heat enough water to wash up not only ourselves, but any dishes and stuff that needs doing.  No point in heating all that water again in the evening, just to do dishes.

In the morning, someone goes to feed the outside cats and get them some warm water.  A warm water refill gets done again, later in the day, when what we gave them earlier is frozen.

Packing my parents’ stuff, cleaning shelves, unpacking our own stuff, then finding somewhere to put it, happens when we can.  I have been getting a fair bit of it done while heating water and stuff.  Usually it starts with, “I should make breakfast, but I could really use… ” and then I end up going through several boxes to find an item, get distracted and do something else, get distracted and finish another thing… then, eventually, I remember to go back and actually make breakfast.

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Green tea with chamomile, in my footed cup, all freshly unpacked!

We’re tea drinkers in general, but since the move, tea is ever-present.  Even when I was just coming out to stay a short while (usually for something funeral related), and I stayed at the farm, the kettle seemed to always be on.  We’re drinking more tea now than we did even just before the move, when the water at the co-op started tasting worse and worse.  We have since found and unpacked our tea supplies – we have a LOT of tea and tea supplies! – so the variety is being enjoyed often.

Loading packed boxes into the van and taking them to the shed has had a bit of a stall.  The van is currently full of stuff for the land fill.

Now there’s a new habit we’re going to have to get into.  Regular trips to the dump. Continue reading →

Finding more damage

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As we unpacked a box I packed myself and found a chipped mug, we went on the hunt.

Every box of ours marked fragile was opened and checked. Every unlabeled box (which they packed) was opened.  If fragile things were found, we unpacked them.

Thankfully, there was not a lot of damage. Considering we have my daughter’s antique tea cups collection and things like the China I inherited (a pattern that was discontinued in the late 60’s), that’s saying a lot.

I’m not too concerned about chipped mugs or a broken glass candle holder.

Stuff like this is different.

The creamer of a sugar bowl and creamer set made for me by my cousin. It had survived about a dozen moves. Until now.

And this.

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An old statue of the patron saint of music my mother gave me. It had already been repaired in the past. It’s beyond repair, now.

Still not as much of a problem as this.

Original painting by my daughter. She had even wrapped it in a plastic bag with another painting in her inventory. Something in the box dug into it, causing this damage.

So that painting is now can’t be sold.

Then there is the WTF? stuff.  Like this.

My daughter’s metal yard stick. It was in the same box as the damaged painting.

The metal yard stick was bent to fit into a size medium box.

Who does that???

Meanwhile, we had to shove everything we unpacked into any nook and cranny we could reach.  Which is not where they belong.

Where most of it is supposed to go is either blocked off by boxes, or not yet cleared of my patents’ stuff.

The girls did get some kitchen cupboards cleared and half or so of them cleaned, so we could start putting our pantry items away, at least.

We are in that “progress is going to look much worse before it starts to look better” stage.

The Re-farmer 

Progress?

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Technically, I unpacked 4 medium boxes, 2 small boxes and a bin.

In reality, I took things out and they are just sitting on the table, or tucked into shelf cubes, until we can clear out the kitchen cupboards, clean them, then put our own stuff in. Which will likely take days.

I have never been so excited to see a box of kitchen utensils, tea supplies and cups before.

Also, pantry items.  I have herbs and spices and other ingredients that aren’t several years old again.  Some pots and pans.  Plus one of my two big crock pots is unpacked.  Even our stovetop popcorn popper and giant bowl!  I also found our BluRay player and we opened a box with movies in it the other day.

If we can find places to sit, we could have a movie night tonight!

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I have a pair of these. I bought them from a mail order company in California that specialized in everything dragons. They are almost 30 years old and the company no longer exists.

For now, tea. In one of my own cups (though not the giant ones I usually use.  I found those later).

Pretty good for a couple hours work. And to think I went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

Oh.  I should probably have breakfast!

The Re-farmer

More moving causalities…

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My older daughter is an artist.  For years, she sold her paintings at art festivals and the like.  These days, she’s focusing more on her online work.

Among the things we left for the movers to pack was her art.  We figured that professional movers would have access to the sorts of boxes and wrapping materials we couldn’t find at the local Home Depot.

As our stuff was being unloaded, I got my first warning that things were amiss when I picked up what I at first though was part of a dismantled piece of furniture, and it turned out to be a blank canvas.

Just the canvas.

It wasn’t wrapped in any way.  When I picked it up, I could see dirty fingermarks from any number of people who picked it up and moved it.

As the girls have been unpacking their boxes upstairs, my daughter found some of her watercolours…

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There is another box of her stuff downstairs that we have to get at.  It’s been opened and her portfolio sleeve was folded up in it.

I’m afraid to look at see what else in there was damaged.

The Re-farmer