so long, 2012!

you were a pretty good year! while 2011 was a year of transition from a bad place to a better one for me, 2012 was more about building on the good stuff of the previous year to create something even better.

in 2012, i rebounded financially. i earned a healthy wage while still, technically, freelancing. i enjoyed about three months off in total, and still made more than i did when i was working full-time. i managed to save a nice chunk of change, which is why...

in 2012, i restarted my home hunt. more and more, i was feeling the need to put down some roots in a place that actually belongs to me and not a landlord. at first, i thought my budget would be limited and my options few but, upon closer examination, realized i could afford more than i thought. i went to see a slew of condos, found a couple i liked and collected invaluable data that will no doubt help me find my perfect pad in the year to come. more importantly, i suppose, in 2012 i went from thinking it might be time to move... and then panicking about it, to knowing i'm ready to do it... and feeling right about the decision.

in 2012, i became senior editor of a third magazine -- a high-profile publication that will launch in the spring of 2013 -- while still working as senior editor on the other two. and, as the year drew to a close, whispers of yet another, much more massive, potential opportunity began. it's too soon to know how that will unfold, or if it will unfold, but my boss should know by the end of january. regardless, where my professional plate was once completely barren, it's now filled. and there's also the monthly gig for the entertainment magazine, too.

in 2012, i interviewed CEOs and celebrities and super-interesting folks, wrote about travel and toys and technology and tom hanks, and researched everything from income-tax credits to in-flight entertainment systems and seemingly infinite stuff in-between. i learned about people and places, found fun facts and expanded the scope of my writing and skills more than i thought i ever would.

in 2012, i made my very first cheesecake. and it was delicious! i also learned to make a perfect tomato sauce from scratch.

in 2012, i made some great new friends and, more importantly, gained a better understanding of what i value in a friendship. growing into a more secure, stable place in my emotional life brought new revelations and helped me reevaluate what's important to me.

in 2012, my family bid a sad farewell to our beloved furry friend, mr. poo (kyle). but we also said hello to our huggable, sent-from-heaven new furry friend, george.

in 2012, i learned new skills (hello, indesign!) and discovered a new passion in the process. well, not "new" really, since i've always practiced visual arts and the like, but i certainly developed a new affinity for the realm of graphic design and blissfully lost myself in it for hours on end.

in 2012, i had fun. trix and i went on our first road trip in more than a year, mom and i went to florida and, while there, we hung out with moob and mr. moob. i went to film festivals and empty bowls and spent a day trekking in the autumnal wilderness at my sister's boss's stunning retreat. i walked around the toronto islands to take photos of the beautiful emptiness and discovered a love for outdoor* manual labour. [*in any season when all the bugs are dead.]

and, in 2012, i regained a sense of self that had been lost for a while. i felt confident and accomplished, and i restored my self-worth alongside my self-esteem. i felt more secure about my place in the world, and more okay with the way in which i am carving that out.

so, thanks for everything, 2012! please tell 2013 to pick up where you left off.

i am made of snot and phlegm

my nose has become a faucet and my lungs are trying to heal themselves by oozing sludge. good times.

i know this is my body's attempt to rid itself of cooties, but i'm going through kleenexes by the dozens and i'm fairly certain the sounds of my grotesque hacking have my neighbours wondering if they need to call paramedics because "the lady upstairs is trying to cough up her spleen."

i've done nothing but lie on my couch and watch TV for the past two days. i went to bed just after 10pm yesterday and didn't get up until after 8:30 this morning. i stopped taking sinus medication today and, know what?, it really made no difference... which i'm taking as a good sign. obviously, blowing my nose four or five times an hour is just as effective as swallowing a slew of chemicals.

the climate inside my apartment is downright tropical. i have pools of condensation along all my window ledges (i towel them off a couple of times a day), and my plants all think it's august. it's warm and humid and is comforting when begermèd.

hopefully, all of my aforementioned neighbours will be going out to celebrate new year's eve and not, say, hosting a party that rattles the walls well into new year's day. i'm so not interested in spending tomorrow evening wishing for quiet, and my cooties + my cough mean heading to YB's or my parents' place is out of the question.

hopefullier, my stupid cooties will start to die off tomorrow so that i can get better and re-enter the world outside my door on january 1st.

well, poop on a cracker

i think -- nay, i'm fairly certain -- i've developed bronchitis.

this morning, i coughed once and a red-hot burning sensation went through my upper chest. it freaked me out. i've never had that happen before.

i googled "cough with burning chest" and every single result was: bronchitis.

seems my bronchial tubes are MIGHTILY pissed off and inflamed (not surprising, since i spent two days dry coughing at YB's place and outside in the cold), and that causes the burning. it's actually surprisingly common during/after a cold or flu. go figure.

though my efforts to soothe my cold at a general level -- with rest, epic amounts of fluid and plenty of warm, steamy air today -- have *dramatically* decreased the frequency with which i cough (yay!), the few instances when i do cough feel a tiny bit like setting fire to my lungs for three seconds (boo!).

the cure? time. departure of cooties. and the stuff i've already been doing. but this means i likely won't leave the warm, humid comfort of my apartment for at least the next couple of days, which means i will be spending new year's eve by myself.

covered in cooties

this year, i got cooties for christmas!

boo.

i woke up with a sore throat on christmas eve, fought off germs with moderate success for two more days, but caved yesterday and am now eye-deep in snotty, phlegmy germiness.

thankfully, i don't really feel too bad, just a little tired and congested, but i sound really gross. so much so that, earlier today and while we were wandering the aisles of a large grocery store, YB turned to me and said, "stop trying to talk!"

a number of curious things have happened over the past week, and i'll write about them tomorrow as i convalesce in my apartment, in my pyjamas. tonight, though, i have a date with a hot shower, warm pyjamas and a healthy dose of nyquil.

five things that have happened since my last post

1. my ass has gone numb. well, not my whole ass, but my left side. and not so much "numb" as "weird and tingly," sort of like a pins-and-needles (or twelve million ants) type feeling. once in a while, a section of the left side of my back will do the same. it's freaky and mildly disconcerting, and it happens when i'm standing or lying down. if i correct my posture or twist a certain way, it subsides. usually. my chiropractor believes it's an irritated nerve; i concur, and figure it's from the epic amounts of sitting i've been doing these past several weeks.

2. my mom and i began our christmas baking. unfortunately, due to my work schedule, i'll miss the majority of the baking, but we crossed two types of cookies off the list this past weekend.

3. it has yet to really snow in toronto. it's been unseasonably warm and virtually snow-free, save for the occasional flurry weeks ago. i don't want another green christmas. it does not feel christmas-y. it feels like march.

4. i bought myself a christmas present: a jacket from eddie bauer. it's down-filled and is actually called a "down sweater" because it's meant to be worn as an underlayer beneath something else. but it's super-packed with down and, thus, super-warm despite weighing (per the tag) exactly one pound. it's red and feather-light and very soft and cool-looking and can be squashed down to the size of about a paperback novel (because it's designed for mountain climbers who need to pack their clothes into veryvery small spaces). i was assigned a bonus story for the movie magazine, so i justified my purchase that way. this is it!

5. mom and i went to her church's christmas concert last wednesday night, and it was really lovely. very small town-ish and homey and sweet, with some really impressive performers. then, on thursday night, YB and i went out to dinner before strolling the downtown core for a couple of hours to check out all the lights, holiday displays and christmas windows. the tree inside the eaton centre really is quite hideous this year.

five good things that happened today

1. i wore my brand new shoes -- which i ordered online for 50% off on cyber monday and which fit PERFECTLY -- to walk to and from work, and they could not have been more comfortable!

2. one of my friends at the office makes the most AMAZING shortbread. he made it last christmas, and i've been pestering him to make it again ever since. yesterday, he brought a big box in for the entire department... then gave me a beautifully wrapped bundle just for me. :-D "go pilfer the box upstairs first and save these for yourself later," he said. so, tonight (and after having eaten probably a dozen cookies at work yesterday), i cracked open my personal batch. they are so very very good, and it was a very very thoughtful gift.

3. the new editor is rubbing many people the wrong way and underperforming. this isn't good for her, but it makes me happy. so, my boss had a sit-down with her today, to basically say, "yeah, you need to start doing things differently." (which also made me happy.)

4. i submitted a bunch of story pitches (that i think are quite good) nice and early.

5. one of my co-workers and i invented a new in-office game that we've just now dubbed "shazzamies." it involves a tiny (pencil-eraser-sized) supermagnet, a metal filing cabinet and an elaborate set of targets of differing point values.

misadventures in exotic produce

let's get something out of the way right now: i love grocery shopping. one of my favourite things about grocery shopping is bringing home a new and exciting product, and then sampling it. (speaking of sampling, that's another favourite thing about grocery shopping for me: free samples!)

lately, weekend grocery-shopping outings have included stops at the new whole foods that opened way out in the 'burbs. not only are there copious amounts of free samples to be sampled (a recent visit found YB and me enjoying no fewer than 14 different food items!), but their produce section is ridiculously pretty and features all kinds of unique or heirloom-y or not-readily-available-elsewhere fruits and vegetables.

so it was that, a few weeks ago, i audibly gasped when, upon trawling the tubers, i found a bin of purple (!) potatoes. now, i have searched for purple potatoes for a long while, but have only ever found them in bags of assorted potatoes… and, even then, it would be one tiny purple potato in a bag full of mostly yukon golds and reds. i could not justify the purchase of five-pound bag of potatoes with that kind of pathetic ratio.

but there, that night in whole foods, was a bin of purple potatoes -- in bulk! i could choose as many or as few as i wanted! so, being cautious (i mean, what if they sucked?), i selected a medium-sized purple potato and decided that would suffice for my inaugural PP purchase.

then, next to the purple potatoes, i spotted two large bins of yams -- golden yams and garnet yams! i'd never heard of either before, but the garnet variety was calling out to me because of its reddish skin and the promise of deep deep orange flesh. i picked up one of those, too.

at a different, much cheaper grocery store, i picked out a handful of brussels sprouts and imagined how wonderful my impending meal of wildly coloured, perfectly roasted vegetables would be. i also imagined the super-nutrients i'd be absorbing with such a vibrant, healthy, organic (well, save for the sprouts) meal -- earlier that week, i'd written a feature story on what different food-colour groups offer, vitamin-wise.

so, i knew that the purple potato was packed with anthocyanins, that the garnet yam would be chock-a-block with carotenoids, and that the brussels sprouts (members of the brassica family of vegetables) would fill my belly with heart-healthy, cancer-fighting goodness.

and, i have to tell you, my plateful of those roasted vegetables -- wonderfully crispy on the outside (they'd been tossed in olive oil and sprinkled with garlic and herbs), tender and juicy on the inside (maybe not "juicy," but still) -- was DELICIOUS. after i was done, i felt a bit like popeye after scarfing a can of spinach (ooh! i also bought frozen spinach, but haven't yet used it) -- jacked-up on power foods and ready to rock.

instead, though, i loafed on the couch in my pyjamas. but i felt like i could rock, if needed. oh, and not all the adventures in exotic produce turned out as well as the above: the organic jonagold apples i also bought a WF were mushy and mealy inside.

things that happened when i could have been blogging

* i had a tiring week at work -- it's been five days a week for the past three weeks, which is unusual. normally, my five-day weeks are reserved for production time, when we're readying pages for the printer... but we're nowhere near that yet. it was lots of chasing down interviews, having those interviews cancelled, rescheduling, having folks bail and so on. on my lunch hours and after hours, i was working on my next feature for the entertainment magazine. so, the best-laid plans for five blog entries in five days kind of evaporated.

* i spent the weekend getting my parents' house set for christmas, which entailed putting up the lights -- an extremely frustrating undertaking because, after last year's lights went kaput, YB and i had unknowingly purchased one string too few of replacement lights... which meant some creative redesign to the window-light pattern i've used for the past umpteen years. trix and i also put up their tree, under george's ever-watchful, ever-curious eye. we're not sure if he's ever seen a christmas tree before so, for the next week, it'll stand with lights only, just in case he decides to try to climb it or something. if all goes well, we'll try a few ornaments. he pounces (gently, but still) on ANYTHING that moves, so we're a little worried that the delicate, decades-old ornaments will (by force of the furnace air or someone walking by and creating a breeze) sway or otherwise somehow invite george's excited wrath.

* mom and i went shopping yesterday morning, and we witnessed the christmas spirit in full un-swing at the mall. two women got into a heated argument while standing in a line at old navy -- i found out later (from mom, who was standing two spots in front of them while i browsed elsewhere in the store) that one had apparently made some kind of under-her-breath remark about the other's misbehaved children... and the rest is history. good grief, these women would NOT give it a rest! yelling at each other, frightening their own kids, drawing all kinds of unwanted attention from everyone else. finally, another mother farther along in line chastised both of them, reminded them that their children were having to listen to this argument, and then encouraged both of them to just "let it go." ten minutes later, mom and i were in another store, and one of the women came in, still ranting to her mother and rehashing the whole thing.

* after the above, i bought three shirts on sale -- regularly $23 each, but i got all three for $30. :-D

* trix and i have cracked open the holy crap. it's good, but the chia seeds give it a slimy consistency when prepped in milk. in yogurt, though, it's great! you only need two tablespoons, which is why the bags are so small but will still last a long, long time.

Crap in the mail: an update

a week ago today, i wrote this.

i was expecting them to send me a bag of cereal.

but no. the package arrived this morning.

it was a CASE.

12 bags! (and that stuff ain't cheap.)

plus an apron and recipe cards!

SCORE! :-D

why i love Homeland

1. this show is smart. i love a smart show. it doesn't dumb-down its content in a bid to appeal to the widest possible audience base. in fact, just the opposite: it's a wonderfully tricky and complex web that asks viewers to be smart, to pay attention, to play armchair spy. nothing is ever clear-cut or simple or so obvious as to make it almost insulting. in the making-of documentary included in the season one DVDs, the producers explain that they purposely wrote, shot and scored every single scene in the show so that it could be interpreted two ways: brody is guilty or brody is innocent. genius.

2. claire danes, as CIA operative carrie mathison, is fantastic. like, katey-sagal-as-gemma-teller, ass-kickingly good. having a strong female lead is one thing; having a strong female lead who isn't afraid to be unlikeable, unpleasant, volatile and unsympathetic on occasion, is another. carrie is terrifically flawed on so many levels and is, therefore, immensely watchable.

3. it is never, ever* boring. i never finished an episode and thought, "meh." my first thought was always: "OMG, are there enough hours left in the day to squeeze in one more episode???", followed fairly closely with "and do i have to get up to go to work in the morning?" i couldn't wait to find out what happened next, and i did a good job of keeping myself unspoiled (even though season one ended last year for the rest of the world). i'm fairly certain there was a chunk of the first-season finale during which my heart was pounding at twice its normal rate. [*except for the last 20 minutes or so of the season-one finale, which i thought were uncharacteristically uninteresting and which sort of undermined what came before.]

4. there's no such thing as "good guys" or "bad guys." the producers have done a fine job of fashioning every character with enough breadth and depth that their actions never unequivocally fall under "good" or "evil." that goes for terrorists and government officials alike -- no matter where you think your allegiances lie in any given moment, they might shift based on what happens in the next few scenes. and, no matter what you think you know about any given character, you're bound to be surprised by something unexpected down the line.

5. it's just really well-written and well-acted and well-produced. i have no idea what season two will hold, or whether it'll be a step up or down from what i just finished watching, but i can't imagine it being a disappointment. these folks (the writers, directors, producers and actors) are churning out some really amazing television, and i'm looking forward to diving in to the next chapter… right after i watch all of SoA season five. :-D

five things i could have written about tonight if i hadn't started this blog entry at 9:07pm

1. why i love Homeland.

2. what happens when you make assumptions about people.

3. adventures in exotic produce.

4. how i think my life might be different if i spent my time more wisely.

5. getting into the holiday spirit.

instead, because i got home later than expected and then loafed far too long, i'm now tired and don't feel like writing about any of the above tonight. BUT, on the upside, it looks like i've just given myself five blog topics for the coming days!

workplace vignette: fun with Crap

yesterday, i interviewed the founders of Holy Crap™ cereal. they were absolutely lovely and funny and generous of spirit, and our chat was great. after we finished, i emailed their communications rep (who'd set up the interview) to thank her. the founders had also asked that i give her my address so they could send me some of their cereal. so i did, and our brief email exchange went like this:

me: thanks so much for all your help! and here's my mailing address, as requested!

her: great! your cereal is on its way!

me: thanks! i love getting Crap in the mail!

fin.

tasks & transitions

* yesterday, mom and i went shopping so that i might buy a new pair (or two) of shoes for walking. my keens are dying, one pair at a time, and they need to be replaced... but the keens of today aren't made as well as the keens of four or five years ago, so i'm less inclined to buy another pair. especially with canadian pricing. anyway, we drove to the west pole -- first, to drop off some soup and chili with a friend of my mom's, who's kind of a recluse and who's still recovering from hip-replacement surgery because she won't actually do the exercises that would help her get back on her feet (pun intended). so, mom drives about half an hour once a month or so, to bring her friend crossword puzzles and fresh-baked bread and frozen meals. after that, we hit a big outdoor-adventure store, but i found no shoes. there was a fabulous pair of keen winter hiking boots that were on clearance, and i tried them on and they fit perfectly, but i couldn't justify buying a second pair of keen boots (i have a pair of kick-ass growlers that i love) when what i need are SHOES. we did, however, each buy a pair of nordic walking poles... also on clearance.

* afterwards, we drove to YB's to help her with yard work. while mom raked leaves (she LOVES raking leaves), trix yanked up plants and i trimmed the giant bonsai tree. it was very meditative... until i had to try to trim the top cluster, which required a ladder and a lopper and upper-body strength that i do not possess. when it was done, i was tired but the tree looked great.

* in the evening, trix and i set out for what was to be a "quick grocery shop." instead, it stretched to nearly two hours, included a stop at whole foods and resulted in each of us coming home with three bags of groceries! i am most excited about two finds at whole foods: a garnet yam (which is like a red-skinned sweet potato) and a purple potato! i've never found purple potatoes in bulk anywhere here, so i was over the moon and willing to pay $1 for the potato. at a different store, i bought a bunch of baby brussels sprouts, and am very much looking forward to the multi-coloured, roasted-vegetable dinner that awaits me later this week.

* today, mom gave me a lift home with the aforementioned three bags of groceries + three other bags of groceries i'd procured, and we stopped at gryfe's bagels to pick up some fresh, warm, chewy poppy-seed bagels. they are AMAZING, and they are best when fresh, eaten on their own, with either a barq's root beer or a cherry coke or cherry pepsi. so good.

* i spent the bulk of today cleaning my apartment. one of the renovations that took place in the building earlier in the week involved the removal of all the milk boxes. since this building is quite old, each unit had its own (long since sealed shut) milk box, and those boxes all protruded from the hallway walls by about two inches. evidently, the new management company felt they were unsightly, so these decades-old boxes were yanked out of the walls. even though they'd been sealed -- from the inside and the outside -- years ago, i decided to check the inside of my closet (where the interior milk-box door is) to see if they'd also removed the inside door. they hadn't, but there was a nice pile of dust and debris on my closet floor and inside a couple of pairs of shoes. so, i pulled out everything on the closet floor, vacuumed... and then just kept going. because it was such a beautiful, sunny day, i just kept cleaning and cleaning -- moving furniture, washing things, dusting stuff -- and my place is now Vickie Clean™. i love it when it's like this!

* much to my dismay, ABC has cancelled 666 Park Avenue, a show i'm pretty sure only YB and i were watching. too bad. so many mysteries and questions will be left unsolved and unanswered. in related news, i think this is the week that i'll start Homeland.

* this is also the week that my new editor starts at one of the magazines. i can barely bring myself to call her that. "my new editor." feh.

food finds: behemoth burrito

even though i've been working at the publishing company for about 18 months (take that, "five-week assignment"!), i haven't really done much exploring as far as lunch-hour eateries are concerned. partly because i hate fighting lunch crowds, partly because i don't want to drop $5 (or more) a day when i could bring lunch from home for about $1.28, and partly because -- on the days when i do need to buy food -- we've got a subsidized cafeteria and in-house tim horton's that fit the bill nicely* (*toenail soup notwithstanding).

but, yesterday, i decided to find somewhere to buy lunch. i'd been very good all week, and had brought sandwiches with cut-up vegetables on monday/tuesday/wednesday, so i didn't feel guilty about treating myself. the only problem was: WHERE?

i debated walking to whole foods (about a 20 min. walk in each direction), which would have been fine except that any "hot" food i might purchase would be decidedly un-hot by the time i got it back to my desk, and there wouldn't really be enough time to sit down at whole foods to eat there.

i thought about stopping at a little crêpe shop for my fave -- a nutella crêpe with sliced bananas -- but couldn't really justify forking over $7.50 for what would essentially be a glorified snack.

nearby food courts are depressing and smelly, so those were out. i didn't want a sub or sushi, which crossed more than a few nearby options right off the list. burgers? no. pancakes? no. a salad? come on.

so, a friend of mine and i decided to just go and wander. our initial plan was to head towards whole foods and then stop if we found something more enticing along the way. we weren't more than seven minutes from the office when i remembered one of our co-workers raving about a nondescript, super-small burrito place where he'd bought a giant, delicious burrito for $5.99.

suddenly, that's what i wanted.

we arrived at the nondescript, super-small burrito place and, honestly, it looked a little fly-by-night (even though it's been there for more than a year). "signage" was large vinyl tarps, the "kitchen" was an area at the rear of the retail space and the front counter was kind of just that -- a counter.

but, let me tell you... it was amazing. first, as my friend excitedly pointed out while my made-to-order burrito was being assembled, they were not stingy with the ingredients. they asked me if i wanted guacamole.

"is it extra?" i asked.

"not with the veggie burrito."

"then, YES!"

and, omg, you should have seen the heaping spoon of fresh-made guac that made its way onto my burrito! by the time they'd finished loading in the ingredients, the girl making the burrito could barely wrap it halfway closed. when they handed it to me, i swear it weighed at least three pounds. i handed it off to my friend while i looked in my knapsack for a plastic bag, and she said, "this is as big as a baby!"

when i got back to my desk and opened the foil wrap, the beautiful, behemoth burrito sat before me. i surveyed its girth and had no idea HOW i was ever going to finish it. i cut it in half, reasoning that (in the event of an emergency) i could always wrap part of it for later, and then dug in.

it was FANTASTIC.

so delicious.

so rich in flavour.

so filling.

and, somehow, i managed to eat the entire thing. all of it. when i was done, i threw my hands up in the air and wheeled my chair away from my desk, as though i'd just finished a competitive eating challenge. i was very proud.

and very full.

what's been cookin'

* last week, i thought i wouldn't be back at work full-time until, probably, the new year. turns out, i was wrong, and i'll be doing the monday-to-friday thing for the next few weeks already. it's been busy. but i'm very glad to have the work. right now, i'm working on four stories -- one interviewing a slew of famous businesspeople, one about eating colourful fruits and vegetables, one about multivitamins and, my favourite for obvious reasons, a five-page feature on room-by-room spring cleaning.

* this past saturday, my parents' furnace stopped working. (thankfully, the weather was very mild in the two days it took before it was fixed.) watching my father work himself into an annoying, antagonistic stressball gave me some insight into where i get some of my own anxious behaviour.

* overnight saturday night, i had a nightmare. well, the dream itself wasn't scary, but it was distressing. i woke up crying and couldn't shake the feeling for most of sunday. i woke from the dream at about 4am and it took me almost an hour to calm down enough to go back to sleep. but, about 20 minutes after i woke up and when i was most certainly fully awake, a very weird thing happened: i saw a glowing blue orb in my room. the room is PITCH dark at night, thanks to blackout shades, but, as i lay there with my eyes open, i suddenly saw this blue dot. i opened my eyes wide, thinking maybe i was seeing things, but the blue dot remained. i moved my eyes around the room in the blackness but, wherever they'd land, the blue dot eventually appeared. i wondered if it was a ghost, or if i was imagining it (but i was WIDE awake) and then i thought maybe it was the start of a migraine (it wasn't). it only lasted about a minute, but it freaked me right out.

* the weather is supposed to be cold, crisp and sunny all week, so i'm taking advantage of the clear skies -- and dry streets -- to walk to and from work each day. i love starting the day with a brisk walk!

* earlier this afternoon, i handed off all my paperwork to the new broker. she figures it'll take a couple of days to get me pre-approved, and then i can relaunch the home hunt. i'd put it on hold between brokers, but the market has been bone dry over the past week, anyway. barely any listings. so, i'm hoping there's one last real-estate surge before december hits.

* the renovations continue at my building. the driveway to the parking garage STILL isn't finished or close to finished. i have no idea what people with cars down there are doing -- if they didn't get them out before the work started, they're stuck down there until it's done. the entire complex looks like a mess, and i maintain my theory that the new owners are trying to drive people out so they can jack the rent in the vacant units and rent them to new, deep-pocketed tenants.

* i love the christmas season. every last bit of it.

startin' fresh!

so, i fired my broker on friday and fully ended all my dealings with him on saturday morning. then i spent the rest of saturday with trixie, preparing my parents' garden for winter. i thought that was a very nice metaphor for clearing the air, cleaning the slate and getting ready to start fresh.

i have a new broker on deck -- she came highly recommended by a couple of people whose opinions i trust, and i had a chance meeting with her last friday afternoon, when we discovered we had back-to-back appointments at the chiropractor. (yes, pun intended.) she seems very nice, and she was understanding when i explained that i wanted the dust to settle on my previous broker arrangement before moving forward. it's now almost a week later, the dust has settled, but i remain gun shy. i'm finding myself hesitating to make the call to set up an official meeting (and to get the mortgage ball rolling again), even though i know i should.

in other news:

* i went back to work this week. it was initially supposed to be two days this week, but i found out there's a huge, company-wide charity bake sale on friday... so, i'll be going in. it's always odd switching gears – either from being in the office to being at home, or vice versa – so i'm still getting myself up to speed. we're still in a relative lull, but i already know i'll be working pretty regularly at least until the end of 2012. and then, in 2013, i've been told it's going to be "REALLY busy." we're launching a new magazine (drop date: spring 2013), which is very exciting and which will give me a chance to do a little less advertorial writing and a little more editorial writing.

* unfortunately, one of the downsides to the impending publishing season is that i'm getting a new editor on one of the existing magazines... and it's someone of whom i'm not really a big fan. when i heard she was applying, i voiced my concerns (i think i said something along the lines of, "NO! anyone but her!"), but i've been told she's the most qualified candidate (of THREE! one of whom declined the job!). and, technically, i will now have to report to her. even though i'm the more senior staff member, i'll have the (technically) junior position. i'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but i'm also expecting her to pull her weight. i also want to make it clear that she only got the job because i didn't want it, either. i know how much work will be involved, how much will be fielding client complaints/concerns/requests (a LOT) and how much will be actual editorial writing/editing (precious little, since it'll be done by me). my suspicion is that she's going to bolt once the realities of the job set in. we shall see.

* mom will be doing a bunch of pre-christmas baking this weekend in preparation for a church bake sale. that means: vickie the helper and, more importantly, vickie the batter tester. :-D

* i have season one of Homeland sitting on my coffee table and, now that my week as a nielsen family (did i mention that? i was chosen to document ALL my TV viewing for seven days last week!) is done, i can get started. i'm "worried" it's going to be so addictive that i will not be able to turn it off.

* today, i got my flu shot, bought a lottery ticket and decided to treat myself to an expensive chunk of cheese. not really knowing what to get, i chose one at random after reading a bunch of labels. it was a beemster vlaskaas, and i felt all fancy when the cashier rang it in. i'd also bought some finely shaved black forest ham, a freshly baked baguette and a deep-red pepper. when i got home, i made myself a pretty kick-ass sandwich.

* right now, i am listening to jackhammering. VERY LOUD JACKHAMMERING. one of the (needless) renos happening at the building is the resurfacing of the driveway leading to the underground garage. this involves getting rid of the old driveway... which is maybe 25'x9'. this work began on monday and is supposed to be finished tomorrow. yet, they are clearly nowhere near being done. so, my floors, windows and desk continue to vibrate, and i can barely hear the TV over the noise. good times.

* later tonight, i think i will turn on my christmas lights for the first time this season. :-)

cuttin' loose

UPDATE: not surprisingly, my broker did not reply to my email by 9am today. in fact, by 3pm (a full 24 hours later), he still hadn't replied. so, just after 3pm today, i sent my "we need to see other people" email and officially ended our broker/client relationship. i also asked, very politely, that he please return all my financial paperwork -- which is apparently a very reasonable request, given that i was the one who had to make the copies in the first place. it's now almost 9:30pm and, shocker, i still haven't heard a word.

i think it's time to fire my mortgage broker.

if you recall, he became harder to reach as soon as he had all my paperwork. then he announced, after he'd already left, that he'd be in arizona until the end of october. he's answered my interim emails sporadically and, usually, with brief, incomplete text messages. many of my questions have gone unanswered.

so, today, i begrudgingly followed up (which should have been *his* job, not mine) about a face-to-face meeting so he could go over with me the pre-approval he'd secured, and what all the various terms and conditions mean. i asked if he had some time in the next week or so to get together to do so.

he replied that it'll be "tough to meet" next week because he "leaves for the south" on thursday morning, and is fairly booked up beforehand. he asked if we could set up a phone call instead... which would have been fine if he'd bothered to reply to my week-old email asking TO SET UP A PHONE CALL but now just looks like he's not paying attention.

i sent him an email asking whether he has time *this* week (tomorrow or friday), and said that i would be more than happy to come to his office so that he doesn't have to go anywhere.

that was around 3pm today. he has until 9am tomorrow to reply.

if not, i've already drafted my "this is no longer a good fit for me" email and will then send it.

(even though i'm genuinely terrified that he's going to retaliate somehow and use allllll that personal data i gave him -- financial records, tax returns -- to screw me over somehow.)

oh well...

i was 99.9% sure i was going to put in an offer today, but when my agent contacted the listing agent, he told her it sold.

no idea when, since the broker listing still indicates it's for sale.

but, that's the end of that.

i will admit that i'm disappointed. but wiser for the experience.

so...

... i might put an offer in on the condo tomorrow.

much of today was spent talking... and talking and talking and talking... about the condo and my indecision. for me, talking things through is how i find answers and come to realizations and make decisions. sometimes that means i need to talk about the same thing over and over again until an epiphany pops out.

i saw my therapist this morning, and we had a great discussion about it all. "this will be a very challenging experience for you," she said, citing my need to have all the answers even when there are unknown variables. she knows about my fence-sitting and she knows exactly why it exists. and, after talking things through with her, so do i.

in the afternoon, i went into the office for a baby shower and lots of visiting with my colleagues. so, more talking. more thinking out loud. more revelations. and one co-worker who, after listening to me talk about all the things i like about the condo, said, "uh, you sound like you love it."

"no, no. i do like it, though."

"no," she said. "i'm listening to you and you sound like you LOVE it."

she then added that, if what i really need is someone to ORDER me to go for this condo, she would do it. "i can be that person for you!"

and what i discovered through all of this (though, mostly after my own blog entry yesterday) is that the actual condo itself -- the inside, the unit, the space in which i will have my things and the place i will call home -- is what matters most to me. i mean, the neighbourhood matters -- i don't want to live anywhere sketchy -- but it's my home that's tops on the priority list between the two.

when i clued in to that, it suddenly became easier to entertain the idea of possibly moving to this condo and living there. and i realized that a lot of things i'm dreading about buying a condo will apply no matter which one i choose or when -- i'll still have to pack all my things, i'll still have to find a mover, i'll still have to adjust to a new building and new neighbours and a new life.

so, at the end of my day at the office, i decided to take matt's suggestion and join the evening commute "home" to the condo building. i was leaving work at about 5:45pm, which is about the time i'd normally be heading home, so i just stayed on the subway past my stop and timed my journey.

desk to door (because i went right to the condo building without going inside) was 43 minutes, and that included a longer-than-normal wait for a bus.

43 minutes ain't bad, and is only about 15 minutes more than my current commute.

then, i took another of matt's suggestions and walked around the area at night. not up and down side streets (it was dark and rainy, after all), but down the main street, past shops and restaurants and what i believe is one of toronto's only jamba juices.

and it didn't feel weird.

it didn't feel scary.

and i didn't feel a big thud in the pit of my stomach.

so. we'll see what tomorrow brings...

some (very small) photos of the condo

the den. (it looks small, but it's 8'x8'.)

the kitchen. (14'x8'.)

living/dining room, angle one. (22'x12'.)

living/dining room, angle two.
yes, there's a breakfast bar into the kitchen.

main bathroom (there's also a really nice powder room).
i think that bathtub is the reason it's not selling.