The Dog

We had a session with a trainer who confirmed what we suspected – we have a really great dog who had a really bad day. And who is suffering from a distinct lack of leadership. Two distracted humans does not a quality dog-owner make, so we’ve been working hard on giving her clear directions, a “job” to do, and acting more like leaders who are capable of “protecting the pack” so she doesn’t feel she has to.

She also didn’t have a good command for getting out of an uncomfortable (to her) situation, so we’re working on something called “This Way,” which is basically a cue for us to give her so we can make an about-face and walk away from whatever is stressing her out, be it a rude dog or a loud noise or just a chaotic environment. So far it’s all going quite well. Sasha hasn’t had an aggressive moment since, and we’re well on our way to having a much less neurotic dog around.

The House

We are not moving. We are, in fact, not doing anything. We are sticking our heads in the sand for at least a year and just enjoying the place we have now, which is, a la Goldilocks, just right. Well, it’s not quite just right – the outdoor space is still pretty barren and uninspiring, so we’re going to attempt to remedy that so we can enjoy it through the end of this summer and whatever nice weather Spring/Summer/Fall 2012 brings us.

The biggest factor in the decision was the fact that we really love the neighbourhood we’re in. The amenities, parks, local shops, community centers and activities are pretty much perfect, and we make good use of them on a regular basis. We’d love to stay exactly where we are, but local prices in the 8 block radius around here are insanely overvalued, and with the Westside teardown market being what it is, finding something bigger than 2 bedrooms that’s not $1.5m and/or falling down is actually really tough.

So we’re holding tight and waiting until we really are out of space before doing anything.

The Trip

I didn’t end up posting much about the logistics of our trip to DC and Montreal, but traveling with Isaac went really well. He was an absolute charmer, and really calm and quiet on the flights. He didn’t sleep particularly well at night while we were away, but made up for it with an abundance of stroller & ergo naps while we were out and about.

We took a lot more luggage than we’re accustomed to when traveling alone (we generally fly with 1 or 2 very small carry-on bags each), but I think still managed to fly pretty light:

This setup meant we each had one wheeled thing to pull, one back/shoulder bag, and one of us carried Isaac in the Ergo. We navigated airports, train stations, rental cars, buses and taxis easily.

In fact, the one packing fail we had was packing for me! I totally misjudged the weather, what I’d decide to wear on a day-to-day basis, and what would make most sense for exploring and nursing on the go as well as how much I’d be spit-up and spilled upon. I only wore about half the clothes I brought, which is really quite bad compared to my usual efficient packing.

Excitingly, we get a do-over next month as we’ve just booked tickets to Europe for September. I feel a tiny bit more nervous about this one, mostly because we don’t have our accommodations and intra-European transport all planned and booked yet, but it should be pretty fun.

And if you have suggestions for baby-friendly things to do in Amsterdam, Barcelona and anything between the two (along with a way to traverse that – we are torn between driving and training), and a day or two in London near Gatwick, drop a comment.

Otherwise, that’s pretty much it for us. It may sound like a lot, but in reality, we mostly do a lot of hanging around:

Photo by raysto

On one hand, it’s a place to live. Above all, it should feel safe & comfortable and be in an area we like living in.

On the other hand, it’s where a significant amount of our net worth is tied up, and losing much (any!) of that makes me feel all squeeby inside.

And none of the options I can think of sound particularly awesome.

Option 1: Wait until we truly feel we are out of space and need to move (dealing with cramped quarters until we found a new place), suck it up and swallow a potential loss (though values would have to plummet around 30% before we actually lost any money from where we initially bought) knowing that if the value of our place is down, the price of the place we’d be buying probably is as well. Try to stop thinking about it in the meantime.

Option 2: Start looking for a new place now, hope we can find a good deal, and start submitting offers subject to (among other things) sale of our existing apartment. Maybe we’d have an accepted offer and a new place in a year, but we’d spend a lot of time touring houses and having inspections done, etc. in the meantime.

Option 3: Sell, sell NOW and rent until prices go back down or we find a place to buy that’s a home we like at a price we can live with. This would likely be the best option to protect our current investment. I don’t actually mind the idea of renting, but I do mind the fact that houses are flipping so fast around these parts (as the last of the speculators try to get their money in and out) that it’s almost certain we’d be moving at least yearly until we decided to buy again. And of course renting is made even more difficult because we have a big dog. Kids and dogs: two big strikes against us as tenants, no matter how well-behaved either of them may be.

Option 3a: Find someone who’s interested in buying our place as an investment property, and rent it back from them for a year or more as a condition of the sale. At least it would shave one move off the experience.

And as much as I don’t want it to be an issue, it seems like having a kid (and someday kids) complicates the question of “where to live next?” Now, it’s not only a matter of finding adequate space suitable for us and the dog, along with our list of must-haves (laundry, dishwasher, balcony, nearby amenities). We also need to start thinking about things like play space, storage space (especially as we’re currently keeping Isaac’s baby things so we’ll have them around for eventual kid #2 – offsite storage is of course a possibility, but comes with a cost), outdoor space (either our own, or nearby parks & playgrounds), and schools.

I can’t be the only one thinking (obsessing) about all this. Gentle readers, what are you thinking about Vancouver real-estate these days? Or are you trying not to? Have I missed any bright, shining options or opportunities that you’re seeing? Commiserate with me.

Apologies, but I was busy moving 85% of the things that I own to other places, and back again.

It started innocently enough with the bathroom sink. In a battle of Porcelain Sink vs. Ikea Vase, the vase was the clear winner. The sink didn’t stand a chance. Apparently the sink was somewhat bitter, though, about the unfair matchup, because it exacted its revenge by being the most impossible thing to replace, ever.

The contents of the cupboard below my sink have been living in a couple of laundry baskets for the past couple of weeks, being shuffled through hallways and rooms, depending on where we needed the space.

After a hunt to find the make and model of the sink, procure a replacement, undertaking some some tentative removal experimentation and eventually summoning a work party of husband, dad, brother and a motley assortment of tools used normally for everything from standard household maintenance to aircraft repair, the sink was replaced! Huzzah!

It wouldn’t have been a particularly big deal, except it also butted against the deadline weekend of rearranging the rest of our furniture to make room for other stuff.

We’re off next weekend to visit the in-laws and retrieve our supply of lamb, so we needed to replace the deep-freeze we got rid of during the summer with a smaller model that would fit indoors. Except there wasn’t room indoors without downsizing and moving a bunch of the office furniture out of the way.

We also had to move the TV from the 2nd bedroom (previously the office/TV room, on its way to becoming the baby room) into the living room, which meant losing a bunch of bookshelves, which led to cleaning out the closet in that room and purging a bunch of things, and also swapping the former-TV-room couch with the music room chair (aside: free IKEA Klippan – interested?) so we’d have room for our now trimmed-down book supply and the new glider (thanks mom!) that’s supposed to be delivered sometime in the next week or so.

It’s all cleaning and organizing that we knew was coming, but had procrastinated on dealing with until the last minute. So we’re done, until the next round, when we need to find, procure, make space for and assemble a crib. Personally, I think my idea of some shredded newspaper in a drawer is looking better all the time.

Me neither. I do recall an early-school-year project from my elementary days when we all made “escape plans” for our homes and learned to “stop, drop and roll” our way out of suddenly bursting into flames.

But I hadn’t thought about fire prevention for many years, until I saw this post on Lifehacker about how to properly use a fire extinguisher.

In fact, I haven’t thought about fire prevention or fire extinguishers since I nearly set my parents’ house on fire in 1995.

Whoops!

It was a summer day (must’ve been a weekday, since my parents were both out at work) and I’d decided to wax my legs.

I had one of those wax kits where you melt the wax in a little copper pot on the stove. So on it went. Except when I tried to pick it up, the potholder slipped and I dumped about a cup of hot wax directly on the element. Which turned into a 3 foot column of flame.

And instead of thinking “I should put a lid on this flame to smother it” I went straight for the extinguisher.

Verdict: I am excellent at using a fire extinguisher.

I also learned the important skill of how to remove fire-retardant dust and dried wax from almost anything. Could be a useful party trick, depending on the type of parties you frequent.

Anyhow, it’s probably as good a time as any to check your smoke alarm batteries, make sure your extinguishers are still charged and ready, and stop-drop-roll just for fun. Also a good time to call your friendly neighbourhood esthetician and make an appointment to have your legs waxed. It’s much safer that way.

Let’s see. This Earth Day I’ve:

-Driven to work
-Stopped at a coffee shop and purchased coffee in a paper cup & food in a paper wrapper (both of which went in the garbage)
-Drove 10 blocks to get lunch
-Got takeout lunch in non-recyclable, non-reusable plastic containers
-Set fire to a pile of tires
-Poured solvent down the drain
-Kicked a puppy

Okay, so maybe those last few are fibs, but the rest is accurate so far.

What can I say, the week went a little sideways on me, and Earth Day caught me a bit by surprise.

I tend to treat Earth Day mostly like Valentine’s day anyhow – we rarely actually celebrate on the 14th of February. We do enough things that show we love each other throughout the year that it’s not so important that we clean up our act for one random day out of the year.

The rest of the year I:

-Bike to work sometimes
-compost
-recycle
-shop locally
-grow vegetables
-eat sustainably produced foods
-keep the heat turned down
-have dual-flush toilets at home
-turn off the tap while I brush my teeth

Just… not today. Except those last three – I TOTALLY conserved energy and water today! SCORE!

I’m sure you’re all far more together than I, and have done some lovely and extraordinary things for the planet today. Why don’t you share them in the comments?

And, on the off chance you’re a little behind on your planning and good intentions, as I am today, commiserate on the ways you’ve joined me in accidentally destroying the planet for future generations.

Perhaps if enough people comment, we’ll cancel each other out! Environmental offsets FTW!

I’ve tried to hack it in a couple ways to make that less true, and it almost worked.

First off, the cleaning pads. They’re disposable. Like diapers (plastic coatings and all). I don’t have the facts, but I don’t think they’re even biodegradable. Feel free to correct me on that one.

Anyhow, it’s easy to get around those, since they attach with velcro. If you happen to have a Method o-Mop pad kicking around, it sticks on just fine (since the o-Mop also uses velcro). If you don’t have one of those, any cloth you can fashion with the “soft side” of velcro on the top for attaching to the Wet-Jet, and a soft cleaning surface on the bottom will work like a hot damn. The Microfiber doesn’t glide over the floor quite as well as the Swiffer cleaning pads do (it sticks a little), but it’s still effective at the actual cleaning part.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky with the cleaning solution.

Once it ran out, I removed the container from the Wet-Jet, drilled a hole in the bottom of the solution container and filled it with my own cleaner. I used a bit of paper-towel and tape to secure the hole, and re-attached it. And… success! It admittedly didn’t have the same spraying power (I think the consistency of the different cleaner was to blame there), but it was a viable option.

That was a month ago. Then I didn’t wash the floor for a few weeks. When I went to retrieve the hacked Wet-Jet from the broom area, I found it was a bit gunky with leaked cleaner. When I went to use it, it gave me two lacklustre sprays, and gave up.

I checked the batteries, that wasn’t it. I tried reattaching the bottle a couple times, that wasn’t it. Rinsed it off, checked the batteries again, nada.

Without going to buy another bottle of cleaning solution, my troubleshooting abilities end there. And considering the fact that if the Wet-Jet is actually dead, thanks to the form-factor it’ll be useless to me, not to mention the fact that the intent of the hacking was to avoid buying more of their solution in the first place, I’m going to call the experiment closed.

My attempt at speculation is that the bottles of cleaner lose their integrity if they are attached and dis-engaged multiple times, along with some special consistency of the Swiffer cleaning fluid that’s optimized for their device.

So, there you go. Hack the Wet-Jet’s solution-holder-thingie at your own risk.

While I loved how well the Wet-Jet worked while I used it as designed, I’m not going to replace it, or recommend it heartily to anyone else. The cleaning pads are still crap for the planet. It uses batteries, which are also crap for the planet (I suppose you could get rechargeables, but really, when everyone’s saying “use less energy” do you really need it for a device that’s been, until now, entirely manual?). And it seems to only work with the Swiffer-brand super duper grease-fighting, dirt-busting cleaner. Which makes no claims to be anything near environmentally friendly.

So yes, I went back to my old mop and bucket. Which, when I did wash my floor this weekend, worked just fine. And the only thing I threw away (along with the Wet-Jet) was the dirty mop water with a tablespoon of diluted green cleaner in it.

Anyhow, with the holidays, comes a slew of products I’m asked to review, and I recently received a Home Care Kit from the fine folks at Procter and Gamble, purveyors of Mr. Clean, Febreeze, and the almighty Swiffer.

Especially good since the season of good cheer and entertaining is also the season of wet, muddy dog, and I need all the help I can get!

I didn’t have a lot of these products around the house, since I’ve been trying to switch to more environmentally friendly options. But I figured, what the heck, I might as well see how they stack up to my usual arsenal.

I’m pleased to report that, in general, the Method products I use (cleansing wipes, dish detergent, wood, granite, stainless and leather spray, candles) all performed equally as well as the P&G products I tried out – with the added bonus of (in my opinion) smelling a lot better (do we love almond-scented floors and cupboards? Oh hell yes we do!).

But darned if there weren’t a few of the P&G Products that just kicked my beloved Method square in the behind, and pointed and laughed at him to boot.

1. Febreze. I have had a love-affair with this stuff for ages. Method, where is your fabric refreshing spray? My dog’s bed demands it. I also use it when traveling with a limited wardrobe: fill one of those travel-sized hairspray bottles with the stuff and spritz it on your clothes at the end of the day, then hang them overnight. It’s worked well to eliminate smoke and strong cooking odors.

2. Febreze Noticeables. I used the Method Aroma Pill for a while, but found the scents all far too cloying in that particular format. The Febreze one just smells… fresh. Despite it being called “Noticeables,” I don’t actually notice the smell when I walk in. I just notice that it smells “nice” instead of like a wet, dirty dog. Or leftovers. Or the garbage we forgot to take out (it happens). The biggest win? Neil doesn’t complain about the scent (as he does with just about every other air freshener, scented candle or home-perfuming-thing known to man).

3. The Swiffer Wet-Jet. Oh my holy hell this thing is incredible. And I HATE THAT. I really, REALLY wanted to love the Method oMop. I fought to love the oMop. I still love the Wood for Good floor cleaner. But none of it can hold a candle to the WetJet in terms of actually, you know, working.

My oMop actually broke (the head snapped off the handle while scrubbing at some dirt) in pretty short order, and I went right back to my regular Swiffer. (Aside about the oMop vs. Swiffer dry cloths: the Method ones claim to be recyclable, but the fine print says they need to go in an industrial composter – I have no idea where to find one of those, and the Swiffer ones work better on grabbing dog hair.) I’d been using the Method microfiber cloth, attached to the Swiffer head, with the Wood for Good floor solution to clean the floors, and that did an okay job, but the WetJet blew it right out of the water.

The WetJet cleaning solution works just as well as the Method Stuff, but the whole “dispenser in the device” thing is genius, and makes it easier to maneuver around stuff (without lugging a bottle with me). The mopping pad is also awesome. It breezed through muddy paw-prints, dried up spilled beer, and our usual layer of grime without leaving streaks on the floor afterward (something I always seem to have with a mop & bucket or had with the oMop).

But I hate that it requires batteries. I hate that the pads need to be thrown away (one pad lasts about two moppings for me of about 600sq/ft of floor). I don’t even want to know what’s in the cleaning solution.

Is that enough for me to stop using it? HELL NO. With the oMop (and my later Swiffer hack) cleaning the floor was annoying enough I didn’t really do it. The WetJet is so easy and effective, I’ll actually use it on a semi-regular basis (and just die a little inside every time I do).

So P&G: please step up and make your products a little (okay, a LOT) greener.

And Method: please fill in those gaps before P&G jumps on the greening train so we no longer have to have an open relationship and I can commit to you for good!

I liked the idea in theory, but wasn’t really sure how I’d like it in practice.

I like TV. A LOT. For the better part of the past decade, my at home routines started with “turn on the TV” and it would be my background noise companion until I left the house or fell asleep at night. I’ve always had a roster of shows I follow, and if there were a fire, I’d rescue the TiVo first.

There’s also a particular quirk I have: I HATE being in a room with a TV that’s turned off. The blank, black void is just so cold, and (to me) kindof menacing. It makes me really uneasy. Hey, I never claimed to be the most normal girl on the block. Anyhow, Room + TV + Me = TV On.

But with the TV in the other room, all that changed. And I really didn’t know how I’d feel or what I’d do when I first came home and turning on the TV wasn’t the kickoff to whatever I was doing at home that evening.

Turns out, I feel great, and I’m SO MUCH more productive.

Some of you may remember that I wrote about a few goals I had over the summer to get a bit better handle on my life. I never did actually get into turning any of them into habits, until we moved the TV.

My routine used to be: Get home, turn on TV, get distracted, curse at TiVo for not having anything good left in the queue, make dinner, go back to TV, fall asleep on couch, wander off to bed. Repeat x5, wake up Saturday and scream at the disaster my life became over the week, spend rest of weekend picking up pieces. Rinse & Repeat Weekly.

Now, it’s: Get home, fire up podcast (I still don’t like a silent house), make dinner, eat dinner, make tomorrow’s lunch, wash dishes, clean kitchen, sweep up dog hair, wash off makeup, get into PJ’s, read a book in the living room or go into the second bedroom and pick something off the TiVo lineup that I want to watch (rather than picking from the dregs of the TiVo Suggestions), fall asleep on couch, wander to bed. Wake up Saturday morning and get out and do something, because I’m not stressed out about dirt, wrinkles and the wasteland that the kitchen no longer turns into.

I’m seriously amazed at how much moving the TV to a place where watching is a choice, rather than a default, has changed my relationship with it. It honestly makes me feel like a bit of an ass for being a slave to the TV for as long as I was.

What about you? What’s your relationship like with your TV? I’m sure you all figured this out long ago, while I’ve been lingering here in the dork (yes, I mean dork, not dark) ages.

I can say that if you’re living in a small space, maximixing what you can put in your closets is kindof a no-brainer move. I can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner. Of course, I’m now itching to find a whole bunch of pretty containers to put things in that make the closets really looks gorgeous and organized (instead of the hodge-podge of cardboard we’ve currently got). In the meantime, there are some pictures up on flickr showing a bit of the before and after.

The real big news though, is we finally bought the first piece of major furniture for the new place: the couch!

It’s the key piece we needed in our plan to really start changing our layout around, and it arrived Monday.

In the Old layout, we had a small couch in the living room, with the TV and a side-chair. We didn’t really have a coffee table, since our old one was gigantic and didn’t fit the space, so we were using a collection of trays and stools to fill in. We also had the piano in the 2nd bedroom and some bookshelves in the sun room.

With the new couch & big ottoman, we’ve now (follow along carefully here) moved the bookshelves out of the sun room (with a ruthless pruning of our book collection), relocated one into the office and the other into the dining room (getting rid of our existing sideboard). The piano moved out of the office into the sun room (to become our music room/library), and the small couch and TV moved into the office to make it a TV room as well.

The biggest adjustment for me so far is the fact that the TV is no longer in the main room of the house. Let me say that again: the TV is no longer in the main room of the house – I have to go into a separate room, on purpose, to watch television. Y’all remember how much I love my TiVo, right?

This completely changes how I interact with my home. I don’t watch as much TV – which is the goal – but it’s still very strange. So far I listen to podcasts while I’m making dinner or puttering around (instead of having the TV on), and we’ve been chilling out in the evenings, reading books or *gasp* just talking instead of zoning out in front of the tube.

That said, while I’m enjoying the change in scenery and activity, I could certainly use some podcast recommendations. I really like This American Life, and enjoy the combination of banter, humour, geekery and useful tips on Lipgloss and Laptops – so anything along either of those lines would be great. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some couch-sittin’ to do.

We’ve had closet organizers installed (post and pictures to come at a later date), and have acquired a few of the recommended design elements.

One of those suggestions was to install an art ledge for photos on the wall in the hallway between the main bathroom and the second bedroom.

What you see in the picture is a photo of the wall with some framed prints on it, sans ledge.

The ledge is currently sitting in our closet, awaiting a better spot for install.

Why, you ask?

See if you can figure it out – there’s something in the picture that indicates installing a ledge at that location (complete with 3″ stud screws and toggle bolts) would be a colossally bad idea.

Give up?

THE POCKET DOOR!

The door to the bathroom opens into the vacant space behind the drywall on that wall. Installing anything other than the tiniest of picture-hanging nails there would be disastrous – either locking the door open, or closed. .

Unfortunately, sometimes these things aren’t obvious. Even professionals occasionally make mistakes, as do dunderheads like us who managed to punch three large holes into the wall for the toggle bolts, before realizing the catastrophe we were setting ourselves up for.

Just to prove how clueless we can be, two of those holes came after we carefully drew all over the wall again because the first toggle we tried to screw in stopped and got caught on the horizontal door-guide framing (we had no idea what it was – we just busted out the stud-finder and moved our measurements up a couple inches).

Thankfully the pictures we were going to put on the ledge are the perfect sizes to cover the holes and most of the scuff-marks. And it’s a very good thing we were already planning on painting (after most of the work is done, because damn but we’re rough on our walls)!

Have you ever made a home-improvement blunder? Measured once and cut twice? Painted the dog? Please share and make me feel better, because I strongly suspect this won’t be our last!