If I Had a Blog This is what I'd say...

I've had my share of bad neighbours. In my previous life, my house had three panhandle lots behind it and two out of the three neighbours were assholes. One set never spoke to us, even when we said hi to them directly, and it was apparent that they hated our dogs. The other set started off okay but then they parked a beater of a car at the end of our driveway and left it there for months. When we politely complained, they blew a gasket and it got progressively worse after that.

When Greg and I first moved in together we didn't have any issues with our neighbours, which was fine, but we didn't really know anyone either, so we kind of lived in our own little space.

The first day we looked at this house, the neighbours on one side were outside doing yardwork, and as we pulled away after our viewing, they waved to us. Then the night we moved in, they came over with a tin of homemade cookies and an invitation to their Christmas Open House. They are a "blended" family. He has three boys, all in their late teens/early 20's, and she has one daughter who is 12. The boys haven't been around much, but the rest of them are outgoing (without being in your face) and have been very friendly to all of us, kids and dogs included.

It seems to be the best kind of relationship you can have with your neighbours. They watch our house when we're away and vice versa. We have friendly conversations when we're all outside together. We've talked about getting together for a bottle of wine, and that will happen at some point. But we never feel (and I hope they feel the same way) that they are infringing on our personal space.

It makes living here all the more pleasurable.

Both kids have been really into helping with household tasks lately. Amy's been doing the dishes (and quite well I might add) and Elliot's been helping me with laundry and sweeping.

Amy just thinks it's something fun to do, but Elliot really wants to help. He specifically asks: is there anything I can help you with, Mum? There are definitely jobs he likes better than others...if I mention anything about cleaning up his room he doesn't want to do it, but if I ask him to go get the laundry from the dryer, he's all over it. He carries the laundry basket downstairs, opens the dryer and takes out all the clothes, and then carries the basket back up, full. I'm pretty impressed with his strength.

Both kids are quite good about clearing their plates away after dinner. Elliot almost always does it without being asked, and Amy now (after a few months of sticking to our guns) does it without a tantrum. And sometimes without being asked. :)

I know it'll change at some point and these things really will become chores for them, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

We broke ground this afternoon for a sandbox for Amy and Elliot. Elliot was playing with his dump truck and loader in the resulting dirt pit and left the vehicles in and near the pit when he came in for dinner. It looks like a mini construction site out there now. And if I wasn't so lazy I'd upload the picture I just took of it...perhaps later.

There is so much to do in this house that I don't know where to start.

I haven't had a shower in almost 48 hours, so maybe I'll start there.

As I told Greg this morning, there was nothing about today that I wasn't looking forward to. We arranged for all-day babysitters (Gramma and Auntie) for the kids, and we headed over to Ikea for a shopping spree. It was the first time Greg and I have spent that much time together, alone, not sleeping, since Amy was born.

We stopped for a chai, a coffee and two breakfast sandwiches before we hit the highway, then it was on to the ferry for over an hour of uninterrupted reading of a great book (after a quick and somewhat unimpressive tour of the Coastal Celebration).

We got to Ikea soon after they opened so it was pretty quiet for about an hour. We found everything we were looking for (and then some), even the items their website said were not in stock. We were prepared to go to Coquitlam as well, but didn't need to.

After shopping we had a yummy Swedish meatball lunch, paid for our goods and then loaded the truck in the POURING rain, after cleaning up the puke Yoshi had left for us in the truck. It could have been worse -- it could have come out the other end.

We ended up driving up and down Bridgeport Road looking for covered parking so we could finish up tarping our goods out of the POURING rain, and we were successful in that endeavor. Our boxes got a bit wet, but the furniture didn't.

We arrived in Tsawwassen in plenty of time for the 3:00 ferry, after literally getting run off the highway by some idiot trying to cross two lanes of traffic at 80 km/h right beside us.

We enjoyed another hour or so of uninterrupted reading, and on the way home in the POURING rain we picked up some Thai food and joined the kids, Gramma and Auntie for dinner. The kids were in a great mood (Elliot's first words to me were "I had fun!!"), and bedtime was a breeze.

Now back to my book.

Elliot is having a four-day sleep over with his Gramma, and Amy is napping right now. I have so much that I want to do that I'm incapable of figuring out what I should start with. Not to mention the couch and a cup of tea look mighty inviting.

Perhaps I'll go the couch route and spend some time making a list...because I'll be faced with this decision every time Amy naps for the next four days.

Not that I'm complaining.

The previous owner of this house had art and photographs everywhere, which we saw when we viewed the house. When he moved out, he left EVERY nail and picture hanger in the wall. So our walls are riddled with picture hanging hardware. We haven't done anything about it yet, because well, things like being able to walk from the back door to the office and being able to cook meals have taken precedence.

We just got our meagre set of Christmas decorations out, and most of them are hanging things. So we went around and randomly hung things on nails that were just waiting for things to be hung on them.

The end result? The walls are still looking mighty bare, but it looks more festive in here. Tomorrow we'll put the tree up, and that will fill things up a bit.

If anyone's looking for gift ideas for us...we apparently need some more Christmas decor. ;)

This house wasn't very clean when we moved in. It could have been worse, but it could have been a lot better. Our cleaning lady came today and gave the stove, countertops, bathroom and floors a good scrubbing. The stove especially looks a lot better.

The kitchen cupboards still need a good cleaning and some shelf paper (the shelves are pretty gross) and some of the upstairs closets need a clean, but it's a lot better.

Now...we just need to start wading through what is our basement, but what looks like a storage locker gone wild.

So yesterday wasn't about Elliot, it was more about me. I woke up feeling terrible (managed to catch whatever the kids had), and Greg ended up staying home from work to take care of the kids. I was able to sleep for about three hours during the day, and laid low for most of the rest of it. Thank goodness for caring husbands with flexible jobs.

I'm feeling much better physically today, but woke up still feeling a bit blue. But I just spent the last hour hanging out with Amy and listening to Christmas music. My house may not look anything like Christmas, but it sounds like it! It improved my mood.

Greg and Elliot put the outside lights up yesterday, and I hope we can get a tree up in the next few days.

I unfortunately missed my office Christmas party last night due to being sick, which was disappointing. But hopefully this means I won't be sick at Christmas.

I purposely didn't blog yesterday because I'm OCD enough that I thought it might lead into a whole how-long-can-I-keep-this-daily-posting-going thing, which would just stress me out. I even googled "world record blogging", which wasn't too helpful, but I was curious.

However, I actually enjoyed posting every day (except the one time I forgot and had to get out of my warm bed), so I'm going to try to post more often. I've discovered that I can usually come up with something to say, and this move has certainly provided some content ideas. Plus, three of my readers have voiced how they will miss my daily posts, and since that's probably half my readership, I may as well listen to them. Although I'll have to ask them again in a month if they'd still miss me if I disappeared into the ether.

So...on with today's post. Today I took Yoshi for a neighbourhood walk with Amy in the backpack. I wanted to check out Highrock Park (also referred to as Cairn Park).

My first nice surprise was how warm it was out. The thermometer outside our house read a balmy 17 degrees. I actually took of my jacket before I even left the house.

My second nice surprise was the park. Wow, Esquimalt is good to it's dog-owning residents. Highrock is an off-leash park, and it was beautiful. It's small (just under 12 acres), but there is a path to the top of a hill (elevation about 235 feet) that provides a 360 degree view of Greater Victoria. The link above provides some pictures that give you some idea of the view.

Most of the paths are paved, so very stroller-friendly, but there are lots of side paths with little rock outcrops that Elliot will have lots of climbing over. And there's a big open field as well.

My third nice surprise was how close the park is to the house. I had walked to an entrance that was about a kilometre from the house, but as I explored the park I realized there were multiple entrances, one that is just a couple of blocks from our house.

I'm thinking I won't miss Macaulay Point quite as much as I thought I would.

Oh, and the title of this post has nothing to do with the content. It's just the ingredients to a bagel sandwich that I made for Greg tonight for dinner. We walked down to "town" tonight to watch the Esquimalt Christmas parade, so we did sandwiches for dinner. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I made his.