FINALLY, the transformation of the bonus room over the garage in our new house is complete!
When we decided to put in an offer on the house, we knew this room would eventually become my office, because if I was going to be working from home, I needed the larger office of the two of us (this is, of course, before COVID, so we had no clue Steve would be working from home, too). The more I kept thinking about turning this massive room into justan office, the less sense it made. I mean, I LOVE a good spacious, open room - but this one would've been overkill. I thought, "Well, I could just do like a sitting area on the other side.", but we've got places to sit and relax all over the house, one of which is a library, which is what I'd likely use my seating space in an office for (reading). So I started thinking about what else I could do. Suddenly, it just clicked. We didn't have an extra room in this house for me to convert to a closet - which had been on our list of "wants, not needs" - why not just treat this massive room as two rooms, and build a closet/dressing room from scratch? So, now that we had a plan, I couldn't WAIT to get started!
The room needed a total transformation. It was used as a bedroom by the previous owners. So fully carpeted, ugly green walls (sorry, I guess I should say "not my choice of color walls" - what's ugly to one person...), dated curtains, etc. I have a Before shot without the carpet. We'd already pulled it up before I thought to snag one.
So, first up was the flooring. Before you ask - we did the floor before the painting, because I had the hands available to help with ripping up carpet, removing the doors and tracks from the closet, and get started on laying the floor. It took a few oopsies to get down the installation, so it was slow-going the first couple nights, but once we got the process down, it went super fast. I did most of the full boards myself, and had help from a friend for the boards that needed to be trimmed down before being installed. The final result was SO much better than the carpeting.
Next up, painting! As you can see in the pictures above, the green was pea soup, and just NOT in my palette of acceptable wall colors. Since I now knew I was doing two rooms, I needed something neutral that would work for both rooms. Grey fit the bill. Once I got the walls painted, I started putting my office together. That meant unpacking all of the Oz boxes, and starting to arrange the shelves. By this time, Christmas was getting close, so I got to put up my Oz tree while I worked, as well. I took a picture of the final room, so everyone could see how pretty the wall color was, with the Oz stuff able to shine.
The only thing that was missing was the perfect chair. Lo and behold, a few months later, I found that, too!
Now, it was on to the big project (I know, like reflooring and painting aren't big enough, right?!): the closet. Now, I'll start this with a little backstory about me. My whole life, I've had fanciful dreams about what my house would be when I "grew up" (still waiting for that part to come). When I was little, I knew my house was going to have a spiral staircase, and a rotating door to get into the kitchen. Each room was going to have its own theme - one of which was a beach, with a hammock. As I got a little older, in my teenage years, it was the dream of having a house on the lake. We would pass them all while we were on boats in East TN, or North GA, and I would just fantasize about that being mine one day. As I got into my 20s and 30s, the one thing I knew I wanted was a room I could turn into a closet. Well, here we are, I'm pushing 40, and two out of three ain't bad! I'm on a lake, and I have my "room as a closet"! For these pictures, I am just going to show you progress pictures, with captions under each.
So first was putting clothes into the already-existing closet, and purses wherever they were out of the way.
Next came building the shoe rack.
Harvey appreciates shoes as much as her Mama.
I quickly realized I had enough room to fit two more shelves, so I put those on order while I continued to work.
Next up was the a-little-bit-of-everything rack. I also realized I had room for another jewelry shelf, so I put it on order with the additional shoe racks.
Coming along!
Jewelry rack, with rack #2 underneath it.
Two more racks of shoes makes it complete!
The vanity table was a nightmare to try and figure out. I searched and searched for tables that would fit around that floor heater, to no avail. Finally realized I had enough depth next to the shoe rack to use a desk, instead. It's worked out great. I have hair accessories in the left drawer, makeup in the right, and my extensive perfume collection and vanity mirror up top!
I added the bench next. Harvey approves. It has storage inside of it, so all of my boots are stored in there.
Then came the rug... I'm certain this is additional approval she's showing, here.
Then hung the mirror. This mirror was actually a stand-up that I converted to a wall mount, and I love how it turned out!!
Artwork was up next. I found a Canadian artist on Etsy that I fell in love with, and asked her to customize a few of her pieces for me. I'm saving those as a surprise in the video below, and will credit her at the bottom of this blog. Her artwork is exactly what floats around in my head, and what I would be sketching for myself, if my health conditions hadn't taken away my ability to do so. She's fantastically talented, and I encourage you to check out her stuff!
See that small-ish stack of purses in the first picture? It turns out to be way more that it looks like when you start color-coordinating all of them...
I built the purse shelves from some scrap lumber that my neighbor had. Cut it down (actually I didn't cut it down, but...), painted it, added brackets, and mounted on the last free space in the existing closet. The shelves need to be a little deeper, for how big a lot of my purses are (you'll see in the video), but I made it work. Lastly, I added a small laundry basket next to the sweaters, and the dressing room was complete*!
*Confession, I want to change the curtain "door", and I might add more artwork on the other side of the shoe rack, plus I need lighting - but complete for now.
So, finally... here it all is together. I've rearranged the clothes in their sections a couple times already, and probably will again. My OCD-tendencies and anxiety result in a lot of rearranging in any project I ever take on. Currently, the dresses for example, are by strapless, sleeveless, short sleeved, then long sleeved - and by color within each of those. I might change it to just color-coded, period. We'll see...
ENJOY!
As far as where everything came from - the desk was from Amazon. Chair came from Wayfair. Closet is all IKEA, other than the bench (Amazon), and the rug (Overstock). The artwork is from BrookeJadeStudio. I'll add the image here, so you can see all 4 drawings better than you see them in the video (I wanted Allie to be the feature, there).
So, the only thing left is to get at least one more bookshelf or storage cabinet for the office, so I can display the rest of my Oz stuff/spread out what's currently on the shelves, and have a place for all of my supplies, craft stuff, etc. The big projects are complete, and it's on to the next room!
I am grossly behind on updating this blog, and there has been a lot to talk about, but no real time to stop and do so. There have been more immigration steps, house hunting, wedding planning, our illnesses, cat illnesses... and suddenly it's July.
So, I'll do my best to catch everyone up with where life is now, and where it's been since I last posted in November (NOVEMBER??? 9 months ago, really?!).
So, given the position I was put in with suddenly being without a job, I had no health insurance after the first week in October. As I've spoken about a little in this blog, I have several health issues - some life-threatening, and some chronic pain-related - so not having insurance just flat-out isn't an option for me. That put us in one spot: we needed to get married as soon as I moved up, so I could be put on Steve's health insurance through work/put in my PR application with immigration so I could get a health card.
We got married on December 18th (took us a month to get all of the paperwork in order), in the lobby of our apartment building by a Justice of the Peace. While she was fantastic, I'd been planning our wedding for 5+ years at this point, so the idea of giving up what I'd been working on/dreaming of for us really upset me. We decided this would just be the "official, but not official" marriage, and we'd go on with the actual wedding in the Spring, and celebrate that as our "official" marriage, and anniversary going forward. It's what would've been the wedding if I'd still had my job when I moved up, so it only made sense.
That being said, above all else, this is a shoe blog. I bought these heels 3 years ago, and literally never even opened the box they were shipped in; saving them for our wedding day. I decided to give them a trial run on the "official, but not official" day, and thank goodness I did. They're PERFECTION, but too small, and I would've been in trouble if I'd had them on for the "official" wedding. But look how pretty!!!
Review: 6" heel. Fits SMALL. I'd for sure recommend going up a size. Keep in mind, I'm used to having my toes squished, and being uncomfortable for the sake of fashion. These were unbearable, and I only wore them for about an hour, if even that.
Since December, we've been house-hunting like crazy. The market is out of control right now in Halifax. People are listing for $50,000-$80,000 above what their house is worth, and getting it. It's been incredibly discouraging, especially since we waited this long to be together, and now are still waiting to start our life here on our own. We're getting glimmers of hope here and there in the last 2 months, so I'm trying to stay positive and know our house is coming soon.
Other than that, we dealt with health issues (both us, and Gus - our sweet, 18 year old cat), and *I* dealt with wedding, Wedding, WEDDING. That'll come in another post. It was almost 6 years in the making - it's earned a solo post.
I am still holding off on a job search, in hopes that we'll find a house soon, and I can get us through the move before taking on the stress of resumes, interviews, etc. We'll see if that plan changes in the coming months, if no houses come about.
So, until next time (i.e. THE WEDDING), it's good to be back, and I'll see you all soon... I hope!
So, I've spoken over the years in this blog about my long distance relationship, and I THINK about my immigration journey... but long story short if I haven't: 4 years of trying, and here we are: it's time to move to Canada.
The plan for the last 2 years has been for me to continue working for the company I was working for, and working remotely from home. Suddenly that plan fell through when everything I'd been told for 2 years got ripped out from underneath me. I had to make the unfortunate decision to put in my notice, because I now had to figure out what my life was going to be in Canada with this new twist. My income, health insurance, house plan, etc. was all gone thanks to an unfortunate need to not be truthful with me by a company I'd been with for 13 years. It was (and still is) heartbreaking, but life has to go on.
So the full court press started of getting to Canada as quickly as possible. Despite me wanting this to happen within a couple of weeks, too much has to happen when you haven't even gotten started on the end game. I began packing, and tying up loose ends. Hired a moving company (Trans Canada), and just tried to keep moving. My fibromyalgia did not cooperate, and everything came down to the wire (I was packing literally as the truck was being loaded for Canada). Finally all of the details were done, and it was time to go.
This is when the drama started (not that there hadn't been enough to get to this point). I went to Atlanta for the Xtina concert, thinking I'd have a day or two to finalize everything at the house when I got back in town before Steve flew in for us to drive back to Canada that week. I got a call from him on the way home from ATL on Monday that winter weather was heading in for the NE States and New Brunswick at the end of the week, and he had to stay in town to wait on my furniture to be delivered before he could go anywhere. So basically it was either I drive by myself to beat the weather, or we wait on him and pretty much guarantee we go through a lot of bad roads. There wasn't a choice. I packed up the car Monday night, and hit the road Tuesday morning with the two cats.
Tuesday's drive went slowly at the start because I was so tired from driving from ATL, plus packing all night that I kept having to stop because I was so tired. Once I got a 5 Hour Energy things went smoother (I don't do well with caffeine, so I was taking teeny sips every 10 minutes or so, but it served its purpose). The problem was, I was so mentally exhausted that by the time I made it to Cincinnati, 10 hours of driving and Harvey at her peak of "I'm over this drive" put me at my limit. I knew I couldn't stop at Cincinnati because that would put me in a horrible position for the next day, so I pushed myself to Columbus and stopped for the night.
Wednesday we set off and hoped to make up time. Did pretty well as the day started, then started getting calls. We'd been working with Trans Canada about not knowing whether I would be in town by the time my goods got there or not. They told me Steve could sign for everything as long as they had all of the paperwork signed by him, and a copy of his passport (which we got to them). Steve showed up Wednesday to sign for everything, and border services wouldn't clear it because the goods weren't his, plus he didn't have the B4 form filled out (which Trans Canada told us nothing about). Trans Canada tried to get him first to lie and say they were his, then tried to get him to pay the fee just to get everything across the border so they could keep moving. Steve, of course, refused both. He called me to fill me in on what was going on, then I called the rep for the company to see what he said. He claimed we'd had the conversation about Steve lying to customs the whole time. There NEVER would've been a chance I would've agreed to this, given we've been going at this for 4 years. I'm not going to do anything to put my immigration in danger. Then the dispatch officer called me and claimed the reason the shipment was rejected wasn't because of us not lying about the goods, but because Steve didn't know my status as a resident in Canada. At this point I lost it, because I told him we'd been working on this for 4 years, there was ZERO chance he didn't know that, so I knew I was blatantly being lied to. And between Steve and I, we were getting a different story every single time. I set back out on the road, and Steve spent the rest of the day on the phone with border services/the warehouse, and they both told him to stop talking to Trans Canada, because they were flabbergasted at the position they'd put us into. So I'm talking to Steve at the end of the day Wednesday, completely exhausted both mentally and physically, going down a mountain in the middle of the night, and suddenly I see in my rear-view mirror Harvey has escaped her carrier. That was the straw. I burst into tears, hung up on Steve, and tried desperately to find a place to pull off on the side of a mountain to get her back in her carrier (those familiar with past blogs know my fear of heights, so this was a worst case driving scenario). I got her back in, and we drove for another 2 hours after that/finally stopped for the night in Cromwell, CT.
I knew Thursday I'd have to get up early because I lost almost 3 hours from the drama the day before. I hit the road at 7. That day was pretty uneventful, driving-wise. I get to the border and...
"You can't move to Canada."
I was numb at this point. I let them tell me all the reasons I supposedly hadn't done things right. Once they were done, I asked them if I could go outside to get Steve the keys to the car so the cats wouldn't freeze to death (he'd come to the border with a friend to help me drive the last leg). They were ok with that, so I went out there and immediately told him to get our immigration lawyer on the phone. 2 hours later (the story is too long and complicated to tell) we hit the road towards "home". 5 hours + a dinner stop later, we were able to go to bed. A 15 hour day for me.
Friday morning, we knew we needed to go to the warehouse to get the paperwork, go to border services to get it stamped, then back to the warehouse to get the goods released. After that, it would just be getting it unloaded at the storage unit. We figured maybe 3-5 hours. Wake up Friday morning: blizzard. Left the apartment at 9:00. Should have taken us about 20 minutes to get to the warehouse. Took us 3 hours. The snow hit almost a day earlier than they were expecting, and was a lot worse than called for. So lots of people didn't have their snow tires on their cars yet, therefore were causing a bunch of wrecks/delays. We had a few things we'd planned to do after the move, and that all got thrown out the window. Thankfully, the actual process of paperwork went super smooth. We got to the storage facility at 3:00, and figured we'd be done around 6:00. We left there just before 8:00. It's a long, frustrating, painful story that isn't worth going into at this point because of how long this blog already is. The one positive thing I WILL say about Trans Canada is the driver was amazing at his job. Problem was, they had him as the driver/unloader, so everything got done wrong in the storage unit, and they had to start over once he saw that was the case. At the end of the day, we had to pay an extra $1500 for the delays that Trans Canada had caused. On top of the thousands we'd paid for the move itself.
12 states. 2 provinces. 4 days. I told you all we'd have an incredible story for you by the time all was said and done, and this is it... in a VERY condensed version. Apparently 4 years of emotional turmoil wasn't enough.
To give a current update: we're all here in Halifax, and our only current dilemma is the fact Harvey's nose is torn to shreds from busting out of her carrier (the zipper cut it all up). It's looking better every day, I just hate her being hurt. But both kitties are doing well in their new (temporary) environment. Here's hoping we find a house soon so we can start our new lives in Canada!
I know better than to proclaim my "health goals" out loud, because that's an instant jinx. My health goals are going to take a LOT of mental work for me to reach (3 years of in-your-face stress has broken me). The physical part is easy, once you break the mental.
That being said, as a very small step, I am going to attempt to start cooking every meal for myself again. I find it's very hard to cook for one. I've cooked for two most of my adult life (and, God-willing, that'll be true again soon). So when I have tried to cook just-for-me over the years, I end up with leftovers, that usually go bad in the fridge because I don't want the same thing again, or I forget about them.
As a result, I've resorted to a lot of simple dishes, or heat-and-eat. And, of course, eating out. I've also noticed when I DO try to cook, I feel like I have to follow a recipe a lot of times. And I have forgotten many of the things I used to cook on a regular basis. My "chef" instinct has faded tremendously. It's still there, don't get me wrong. I can still follow said recipe, but not have to break out the measuring spoons/cups for tsp, 1/2 cup, etc. (any chef worth her salt can eyeball those things). But that natural ability to see ingredients in the fridge, and put a meal together has left me for the most part.
Most of my life, I've been one of those people that knew while I may not always be happy about the weight I was at, I would never be obese, because I'd reach that "frustration level" somewhere around size 8-10-12, and hit the gym hard, to never let it progress to an uncontrollable state. And up until about 2010, that theory held true. I'd usually hit 8, get fed up, get down to a 6- and maintain that for a respectable amount of time.
Something changed after that. I've spoken about my anxiety before, and I don't want to use it as a cop-out for laziness, because there has been a lot of that, but I think it has been the driving force. From 2012, forward, I have gone through a divorce (essentially, though not a legal marriage), moving, beginning the immigration process, my father's death, my step-grandmother's death, my cat's death, changing paths on the immigration process and starting anew, a couple of friends' deaths, family moving in with me, adopting a new cat, my step-grandfather's death, family moving out, and my paternal grandmother's death. Some of which was traumatizing, some just life-changing, but all at least came with a bit of warning/preparation time. Then we capped it off with losing my sweet puppy (of almost-11 years) VERY unexpectedly. Which I still can't fully process. It's like I haven't really had time to "settle" my anxiety in 6 years before the next thing happens. And my health has suffered.
So tonight, I am taking a VERY small step toward the old me, and cooked an improvised/healthy dish. Baked shrimp egg rolls. Nothing but olive oil, shrimp, garlic, spinach, broccoli slaw, and lite soy sauce. Didn't even use the egg for the sealing/basting. So, maybe it's just a roll.
Tonight starts the first vacation I have had since Christmas last year. I was supposed to be "yelling" VACATIIIOOONNNN on FB, and headed to Summer's house right now, to attend the Bama/UT tailgate tomorrow. That was supposed to be the way I kicked things off before Steve and family members got into town for an epic week.
And now it all feels unreachable.
I know it will still be a wonderful week, with a lot of love. But this is a horrible feeling. Like, when life keeps kicking you, and keeps kicking you, and keeps kicking you... you do what you can to stay positive. To not let it break you. You find the good things to focus on, to just attempt to not completely have a mental break. You say things like "Man, this vacation is going to be AWESOME." And then life is like, "Pshhh. Watch this."
I don't know what God's plan was for taking my baby from me without any warning. I don't know if he wants to prove to me how strong I am. I feel like the tests I've had on that over the past 3 years have been enough. Losing my father. Losing my cat. Losing 3 grandparents. Losing friends. Not to mention the medical and personal emergencies. And that whole immigration thing. Why one more test? Why take the one true companion I had in life away from me? The reason I am not locked up somewhere in a straight-jacket. She was the one thing that I knew I had each day. Yes, I have the cats here too - but cats are cats. Mine are very affectionate, but even so, they're very self-sufficient. Allie knew that her smile brightened my whole world, even on the darkest days. That if she just sat next to me while I cried, or kissed my tears away, my mood instantly lifted. That no matter how many times she told me how mistreated she was, because she'd only been out 4 times in the last hour, and was given 6 treats instead of the 8 she wanted, I would still listen and give her a kiss to make sure she knew I loved her.
For 10+ years, she gave me the best love. The unconditional, I-love-you-more-than-bacon love. She was hand-picked by God for me. Sure I thought I was looking for a cat that day. He knew I was looking for Allie. And now she's gone. And I can't stop crying. I'm writing this through tears streaming down my face. Every time I hear a noise outside, or the neighborhood kids yelling, I brace myself for the loud indignant bark that is supposed to come. And it doesn't. And I think about the fact it never will again. My whole world is forever changed. Again.
And this time I don't know if I am strong enough to get through.
Rest in Peace, my precious Allie. Mommy loves you with her whole heart.
