Safe and Sound, eh

I arrived in Los Angeles ten years ago in a 1988 Toyota Camry with my brother. I left LA with my husband and son and cats in a stretch limo. Only the best. We're here in Toronto, at last. Of course, we brought the worst weather of the year with us. Freezing rain and snow. Yeechh. There is a lot more to say, naturally, but no time right now. Not much computer access at the moment. But, rest assured Baby Boy is good, Devoted Husband is good, Spastic Cats are sorta good and I'm good. More to come...

Packing is for Suckers

Man, does moving ever bite the big one. My mom was just recently telling me the reason he has so much junk around her house because she has never moved. We've actually tossed a lot of stuff and we had a garage sale (with my friend Lisa's garage, as we don't have one) and we did pretty well. We made about $150 and we got rid of a lot of sharp and pointy furniture that was becoming a hazard for Baby Boy. We're down to the zero hour on this move. A week from today we'll be in Toronto. We still have so much to do and I'm sure it will all get done. It always does. But, I know that it will be quite an interesting adventure and we will have a great time doing it. Friday will be my last day here in Burbank and I'll miss seeing all my awesome co-workers everyday. But I signed up yesterday for instant messaging, so I hope that we'll be able to "talk" in real time to make it at least feel like we're still in the same office. There's a lot that I'll miss about Los Angeles, but I look forward to doing new things and going to new places in Canada. Once all this moving stuff is behind me and we're more settled in, it'll be nice to relax and become a Toronto-ite. I'll try to post to recap the actual official move. Cross your fingers that it goes well.

We Got an Old House on The Danforth

Well, we still hadn't found the apartment for us. We looked at some very wee little places that were in our budget, but wouldn't be enough space for the three of us. We had a family meeting and decided to raise our monthly rental budget and hope that we could find something with a little more room. We did find a small place in a wonderful location. It was right across the street from a huge park with playground equipment and lots of rolling hills. The apartment was just too "cozy" (but not a "motivated seller") , but the area was so wonderful. Sigh. So, with an increased budget and a new rental car (to let Hayley off the driving hook) we ventured on our own and drove around Toronto looking at places. We were supposed to see four apartments, but we stopped at the third. It was just so perfect.

It was on a quiet street in the Danforth area of Toronto. The apartment consists of the main floor and a finished basement. We also get the veranda on the front and a deck and small yard in the back. The owner lives on the top two floors and he seems really really nice. There is so much room (especially in the basement) and yes...

It was right across the street from that wonderful park! Baby Boy will have such a wonderful time, especially on the swings. We also found out there is an indoor swimming pool in the park as well. It's also a great way to cut across a couple of streets to get up to Danforth. I'm also less than a mile to my new office and within walking distance to all sorts of restaurants and shops.

The street is nice and quiet and all residential. Our next door neighbor is a family as well. We were so excited that we filled out the application. We had to got to the bank and cash out all of our traveler's cheques so that we could pay the first and last month's rent. Well, long story short we did get the place and although it's weird to go back to renting after owning, but this time in a rental will allow us to take our time to find a more permanent housing.

Apartment secured, we could relax for a little while before we flew back. We had gone to several restaurants and with the exception of Lick's which makes an AWESOME veggie burger that doesn't even remotely taste like a veggie burger and Reliable Fish and Chips which unfortunately is very near my office and SOOOOOO good, the food and service weren't so hot. But then we went to a family-type chain restaurant, Jack Astor's. Our lovely server, Ana, was great and she kept our drinks filled and our orders hot. When I told her that she was the best server we'd had on our trip, she told her manager. The manager came over to our table and said we could have a free dessert.

Well, we're not ones to turn down a free anything, so we ordered the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie Cup. It was so good, but huge and we couldn't even come close to finishing it. But so delicious.

By Thursday, we were back on our way to Los Angeles. We only just barely made the shuttle to the airport and almost left behind our stroller and our passports (!), but we managed to get back to California in one piece.

And when we got off the plane, it was so warm.