The neighbourhood residents group organised a community garage sale today. For $10 they handle the permits, printed maps and distributed balloons for marketing. Coincidentally, my immediate neighbour is also participating, and another neighbour brought her stuff over so we had a 3 family-2 garage sale. Convenient for shoppers.

I have a lot of junk. It wasn’t difficult to get 10+ boxes of stuff I want to sell — stationery, kitchen stuff, games. I’d prepped over the week, sticking prices and set up the tables yesterday. People came in waves. The early birds looked like professionals! Then there were the families having a nice time. I didn’t have many problems, one old lady paid me $1 in loose change, including 20 pennies. I was tempted to not sell to her. Then this guy came with his dog and I didn’t let the dog inside the garage and he left in a huff. Did I care that I may have lost his business? Not one single bit. I asked all dog owners to leave their dogs outside. Dog owners need to learn to respect other people’s wishes and property. The sense of entitlement and arrogance is astounding.

I didn’t sell everything. What I really wanted to sell, my glassware, didn’t attract any buyers. It was the same with my neighbour, people just weren’t interested in glassware. Ah well. All in all, I made $172.50. Subtracting the $10 fee and $5 for labels, quite a nice profit.

With all the excitement about parents visiting, going to NY and Niagara, I forgot to mention that our basement tenant moved out and I got the garage. It just fits my little car.

My landlady was showing me around the garden apartment — the previous tenant had moved out, and she and her husband were getting it ready for the new tenants. As is the case with the whole house, everything was well designed and full of great details. Thom is an architect after all. She was showing me the windows, which she called european style. Whoa!! These are exactly the ones I had in Switzerland. Wonderful, wonderful engineering and design. They open normally, but turn the handle up and the top of the window tilts away from the frame. It’s safe and allows air to circulate. A little bit of googling brought me to some youtube videos, and the knowledge that they are called tilt turn windows here.

The aisle seat was unoccupied, I had a comfortable flight back. Only got 3 hrs sleep though. Our captain was a woman, I shouldn’t be surprised but I was. Especially since I think I saw her at heathrow when I checked in. There was a whole bunch of them and a slim fortysomething lady had bright, shock red hair. I remember thinking, she can’t be a flight attendant cos they’re usually more conservative. Then I saw her pilot’s uniform and figured she was a cockpit crew. If that really was the captain, I think she’s pretty cool.

Because of the volcanic ash cloud our flight plan was changed to fly further north, adding an hour to the time. By the time I got home it was past 1pm. I unpacked everything and immediately went out to the store.

Too tired to cook. Netflix kindly sent me sherlock holmes during the week, it was perfect for the afternoon. I wanted to wait till later to call mum for mother’s day but it didn’t work. Going for a nap at 7.30pm whilst jetlagged is not a good idea. I slept till 3.30am, called her, then went back to bed.

I got this rocking chair and table at ikea. The plan was to get an armchair for the bedroom, but I got sidetracked in the garden furniture section. There’s actually a full-sized lounge chair I want, but it’s way too big for my car. I like this rocking chair, it’s comfortable and pretty.

Contrary to certain stereotypes I’m absolutely crap at DIY. I can change lightbulbs, wire a plug and assemble Ikea furniture. I don’t own a drill. Tinkering with my car? Forget it. I don’t even know how to change tires — I know how to check oil level and refill windscreen wiper fluid, that’s it.

So the w.c. has been dripping for a while — a steady drip drip sound, but no visible leak. I googled a bit and it seems the most obvious culprit is a leaky flapper valve. There were so many to choose from at home depot I got the most generic looking one. Now I have “change toilet flapper valve” in my repertoire of DIY activities I can do. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s pathetic. It’s like someone getting excited they can add “whisk eggs” to their cooking abilities.

There are only 3 of us in 3 apartments. I wonder why sometimes it’s difficult to coordinate laundry. I wanted to do laundry on Tuesday but the guy in the basement was using it. Then yesterday my downstairs neighbour came back from being away and was doing his laundry. So finally I get my turn today. In-unit laundry was the one item I compromise on when I took this place. It’s not a huge deal though.

I did this ages ago, long before they got packed up in the shipment. I haven’t had plants for over a year, but these nice aluminium planters are ready for next spring, if I decide to grow anything.

I ordered this last week, and scheduled to take today off so it can get delivered. Plus it’s nice to have a Friday off. Officially it’s called the bongo gunmetal high dining table, in reality it’s more a bar table. Came in 5 huge boxes full of thick cardboard. Took me almost 1.5hrs to put together. Not complicated, just fiddly with lots of allen keying. Larger than I thought, may be the kitchen is smaller than I thought? So now I can’t run all the way from the study to the living room, have to make a detour.

I’m very comforted to find that the Ikea shopping experience is similar anywhere in the world. The difference is mainly to do with size of the store, which affects the inventory available. The one here at Schaumberg is the largest I’ve visited, it being the US after all.

I got there early. First stop was the restaurant for meatballs — it’s been a while and I was totally happy to find out that it’s on special for just $1.

On my shopping list were: sofa bed, small table, rug, kitchen table & chairs, floor cushion, dessert bowls. Obviously can’t buy all of them, but I wanted to see what’s available this season.

In the end, I did buy the sofa bed, the Beddinge system to be exact. Imagine when I took the stuff to my car to find…the box was too long, even with the back seats down. Yikes!!! So I drove home very slowly and carefully with the boot door open and held down by a piece of rope. It wasn’t too bad. My downstairs neighbour helped me take it upstairs, thanks Dave.

Assembly was a doddle. Oh, I also got a couple of square cushions to go with it. And a 3-cushion system for the floor in the bay window. I saw the kitchen bar table I liked, that will have to be another trip.

I left my flat in the good hands of my parents, who I trust to have better taste than me. Mum did call me a couple of times to make decisions on colour and materials.

So both the bathroom and kitchen were renovated. The pics above were taken just after the movers left in April. The ones below are new. There’s also really beautiful new flooring and closet doors. Papa and Mum made good choices.

 

Sooner or later, with all the gadgets we own, we end up with a mess of wires everywhere. There are plenty of cable organisers around. I bought 3 of these cableboxes for: a) their aesthetics — they’re well designed, almost Swiss; and b) their capacity. I was able to fit a wide surge protector, the mbp adaptor, the airport, stiff cable wires, adaptor for the modem and usb charger for the iPhone/iPod into the box. Impressive.

 
While I was on their website, I ordered a spacestation to replace the usb hub and other wires for the mbp. This one isn’t as useful as I thought, and since I already have a coolsink, the “prop the end of the laptop for cooling” bit is less relevant. Still, looks nice.

I haven’t had a whole weekend at home since I moved in, and I’m still waiting for that full weekend. Nevertheless, i had a full day at home, which is a small blessing. Went to church in the morning, cos I promised I would. Supermarket on the way back, then it was reading, cooking, watching tv, laundry, ironing, messing with the iphone, websurfing. Still languishing in a weird combination of loneliness, solitude, uncertainty and irritability. Difficult to shake off.

I ordered a chairmat and in/out trays from staples. On the website I could print and sign a “driver release form” so the driver can leave the goods on the porch. But they decided to use ups instead, and the driver left a card instead of the stuff! Anyway, I signed the release at the back of the ups card, and they were delivered today.

In other news, I had bought a new 26” tv over the weekend. I briefly thought about the $299 Dynex (Best Buy own brand) but finally went for the sony, which was $479. When I plugged it into the cable box, there was no signal. Argh. So I had to make an appointment with the RCN guy to come in. He said there’s something wrong with the HDMI port, but got me hooked up using component cables. I still get the hi-def channels, so i’m not bothered. I have 4 yr extended warranty, so I can take it back for repairs whenever I feel like it.

This is the weekend of the BIG shop. We went first to Target where I spent $180 on top of the $360 I spent a few weeks ago:

• floor lamp for living room — with 5 heads
• floor lamp for bedroom
• small step ladder
• extension cord
• swiss ball and mat
• bin with cover

After dinner we headed to Best Buy:

• Sony Bravia 26” TV for study - $480 plus $70 for 4 yr warranty
• iHome deck for iPod — this will take the place of my trusted clock radio - $99.99

I also bought a HDMI cable and iron from Walmart. Total spending for the day: $870.

I’m sitting at my desk and my comfy Aeron chair as I type this.

According to TDP, unpacking uses 270 calories an hour. So I think I did like 4 hours today, so I spent like 1080 calories. I definitely didn’t manage to eat all of that back.

Plan of action was room by room, and I got a lot done:

• finish unpacking all the suitcases
• 3 loads of laundry
• loaded up the dishwasher
• moved sideboards
• glassware in hutch
• kitchen is done
• most books on shelves
• filing cabinet done

I even partially unpacked the Keller box that came with me from Zurich — a couple of beautiful Le Creuset oven dishes, more kitchen stuff. Only stationery that goes in the desk and shelves in the study left from this side of the apartment.

Of course, there’s the front side — living and dining rooms still to be done. It’ll have to wait till I’m back from London.

Car came over at noon to help me move my stuff from PT. I was lucky that I got a luggage cart, they ran out after I got mine. So I loaded 5 document boxes, 1 duffel and 2 suitcases into her car. Off we go!

Lucked out, got a parking space opposite the house. Unloading didn’t take long. OMG I have SO MUCH STUFF. There’s things everywhere, it’s amazing. Didn’t know where to start — living room? Dining room? Kitchen? Bedrooms? Study? But first, lunch. Walked over to Hamburger Mary’s and we each got a big burger. Nice.

Then I got to work on the rest of the clothes and Car helped put the bookshelves together, then sorted fiction from non-fiction.

We worked steadily till 5-ish, then headed out to Target. I spent $360 on a whole bunch of stuff — a vacuum cleaner, mop, broom, a Magic Bullet, electrical cords, laundry detergent, shampoo &conditioner, drinks, and a Queen sized airbed with electrical pump.

Too tired to do much after getting some dessert and shower. Still a long way to go, sigh.

I just realised, this will be my last night at PT. 5 months. Wow.

So I left the mbp’s adapter at home yesterday, and had to shut down early. Went over after work to get it, and while I’m there I tried to make a dent in the unpacked stuff.

Two hours later — clothes off half the bed into 1.5 closet and part of the drawer unit.

So the shipment got delivered today. The crew arrived at 9am, driving the container right up the street. Luckily there was enough space for it to park. They put protective covering on the staircase and the hallway, then started unloading. I was responsible for checking off the items as they arrived upstairs and directing the crew which room to put it in. 160 items took till lunchtime to unload.

 

The crew ate their lunch in the truck, and I ate mine sitting on one of the boxes. The one with the footrest, I think. I brought chicken salad with me from PT. After lunch was the big unpacking. Everything got taken out of its box and onto whatever flat surface was available — the floor in the living room, kitchen counter, books all over the study and clothes on the bed. At least it’s all out, and they took away the packaging.

 

It took me 2 hours to clear half the kitchen. I was pretty exhausted, and I’m lucky that I can still stay at PT. It’ll take many many hours of work, it’s okay, I’m so glad I have my stuff.