Al Zylstra

Well, here it is, April 2 and I survived Easter.  4 days of merriment and adventure…. *sigh*

Where to begin?  Well, the beginning is as good a place as any, I guess.  

Thursday, I left work at my usual time and headed home.  Alex and I had discussed Easter and what we were going to be doing.  It was decided that we would have a few friends over. Roy was going to come over from Victoria on Saturday, Bonnie was going to come over on Sunday and Sunday Morning, I would pick Angela up from the airport.  She was going to be coming home from a 10 day trip back east.  

Alex mentioned to some of our new neighbours that we were having a bit of a barbecue and then next thing we knew, they were coming over, too!  Not that we minded, though.  (as a side note, we seem to have great neighbours all around the park).

Since we had all these people coming over, we figured we had best get our deck finished off.  That meant more $$$$$.  We decided that we should go and get some furniture for our deck.  So, after dinner, we hopped in the car to go over to Canadian Tire.  The second that I put the key in the ignition, I knew we were in TROUBLE.  The battery was dead!  Dead like Lindsay Lohan’s acting career.  In other words, majorly dead.

AUGH!!!

So, on the phone to the local cab company.  Took a cab off to the Canadian Tire to fetch a new battery.  $130 and 30 minute laters, I was home and struggling to put the new battery in.  Unfortunately, Canadian Tire didn’t have the battery for my year of vehicle.  I found one that was for a Kia two years older than mine.  Needless to say, it didn’t quite fit, but, Alex and I jostled and swore at it and ‘lo and behold!  It fit.  Sort of….

I tentatively put the key in the ignition, said a silent prayer (to whom, I am not sure) and turn the key. It fired up like there was nothing wrong!  Hooray!  Now the truly annoying part started.  When the battery died, I lost all the pre-sets on my radio…. 

 But, I digress.  Off to Canadian Tire (again) we went.  We found the conversation set we were looking for. It was the last one in stock!  Good fortune!

Then, off to Wal-Mart we sped.  There we found our dining set.  Again, the last one in stock.

The Umbrella is in our backyard to provide much needed shade for Nykie.  

We left them in the boxes as it was so late on Thursday, there was no way I was going to get them assembled in a timely manner.  So, off to bed we went.

Good Friday arrived far too soon.  Alex, Nykie and I piled into the car nice and early and headed off to our condo.  We needed to do a clean up on the place before we gave the keys back to our landlords.  Our friend, Bonnie, showed up at the condo about 10:30 and the three of us began cleaning, touching up, washing, scrubbing, vacuuming and general maintenance in earnest.

By 4:00 pm, we were exhausted.  I had forgotten how big our condo was and it hadn’t had such a cleaning in a couple of years.  But, it was beginning to look cleaner than when we first moved in.  Other than some mishaps with some paint, we were almost done.

We left around 6, drove Bonnie home and went back to our house where we grabbed a quick bite to eat.  I then tackled the furniture.  When they say, “Some Assembly Required.:, what they really mean is “We are going to provide you with instructions in Swahili, diagrams that most computer programmers would scratch their heads at and pictures that look NOTHING like the finished product.”

I started to put together the living room furniture and discovered that I was missing one package of screws.  AUGH!  So, back into the box, everything went and I hauled it back to Canadian Tire.  Once there, I struggled to get the box into the store where the Store Manager greeted me warmly and within 10 minutes, I was out of there with another set. *sigh*.  Someone liked me that night.

You can see the end result above.  Kudos to Scott Road Canadian Tire for their amazing customer service.

Once they were assembled, I tackled the dining room set.  Fortunately, the chairs were already assembled and it was just the table that needed to be put together.  10 minutes later, the set was up.  (again, see above). The very next day, Alex was sitting in one of the chairs, pulled it closer to the table and broke one of the arms…. I almost started to cry.

Back to Walmart with the broken chair.  Fortunately, the Seasonal Manager was understanding and kind and decided that it would be easier to swap a chair than to replace the whole set.  Whew!

Nykie loves the umbrella in the back.  It provides him with some much needed shade.

Once the furniture was up, it was Alex’s turn.  He set out candles, decorations, pillows and made the whole deck nice and inviting.  I sat out there with my computer tablet until almost 11:30 basking in the joy that we had a cool outdoor space.

When we finally went to bed, it was close to 1 am….. We got up the next morning bright and early and started off, again.  First a trip to the grocery store for some items we forgot.  Found the “No Frills” on Fraser Highway.  Great store!  Great prices!

I finished off the grocery shopping in time to run home, drop everything and head out the door to collect Angela from the airport.  I got to the airport just before her flight arrived.  She looked tired but so happy to be back on the West Coast.  She was home!

We then went and picked up Bonnie and her daughter.  Bonnie’s car was giving her grief.  She needed new tires and was afraid to drive it.  I concurred and so agreed to pick her and Sarah up.  We then went home where Alex was waiting patiently for us to arrive.

On the way to our place, we found out that Roy chose not to come over.  So, that meant one less person to feed.  

That being said, Alex, being an East Coaster, likes to cook for small armies.  We had two chickens, ribs, a massive bowl of potato salad, another massive bowl of cole slaw, a blueberry crumble, a coconut cream pie and a variety of munchies.  I haven’t seen that much food in one place in ages.  It was like he was prepping for the end times!

Dinner began at 5:30 and we must have eaten for about 2 hours before we finally gave up.  I then spent the next hour washing dishes, finding bowls to put all the leftovers in, de-crudding the barbecue and making sure that all our guest had their whims attended to. Our neighbours left around 7:30, I drove Bonnie and Sarah back to Bonnies place around the same time.

I got home around 9:00 and walked in to find both Alex and Angela glued to the TV.  Their newest Guilty Pleasure?  TLC’s Myrtle Beach Manor.  Apparently, it is a reality show about a Mobile Home Park!  Was the cosmos trying to tell me something?  Gawd, I hope not!

Monday couldn’t come fast enough for me.  We went to bed at around midnight.  Got up the next morning and took Angela to the Ferry.  Got home to have Alex waiting for me to take him back to Home Depot.  I swear that Home Depot is going to be his second home….

Spent another $120 there.  More plants, more lawn stuff and more dirt….. We are going to have a veritable jungle when he is done…. But, at least we will eat well.  He has been getting tomatoes, potatoes, beets, carrots, radishes, blueberries, strawberries and a host of herbs all ready to plant.

Sure hope he runs out of space to put things.  Thus endeth my Easter Weekend.  

There are, a ton of small mishaps that occurred on this weekend but, I have successfully managed to block them….

Suffice to say, my weekend was a hectic one and I look forward to going back to work to rest up from my weekend.

As promised, I have finally found a few minutes to take some “after” pictures.  

Enjoy

Al

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Dining room

Dining Room

Dining room

Kitchen

Living room

Living room

Living room

Living room

Front door area

Living room

Give my husband some gardening tools and watch him go.  Yesterday morning, this whole front area was filled with brush, shrubbery, plants and the like.  

Another view of the work in progress.  I fully anticipate this to be completed in a matter of days. He is in his element here….

You can see he has started digging up part of the backyard for a vegetable patch….

A bit of a mess on the deck, but, you can see the size of it.  It is gonna be great for entertaining….

Well, it is done!  After 6 weeks of ferrying boxes, pictures, clothes, bedding, aquariums, books, movies, music, plants (so many freakin’ plants!!!), we reached the end of the road on Saturday, March 23.  The big stuff came over.  What a day that was!

I reserved a 2 ton truck from Budget Rent a Car on Kingsway in Vancouver.  I did it online because that seemed to be the simplest way to accomplish the move.  On Friday afternoon, I picked up our good friend, Roy from the Ferry Terminal.  He came over to help with the move.  His lovely wife, Angela came over on Thursday.  Unfortunately, her trip over was to catch a ride to the airport.  She had to fly back to Halifax for her mom’s funeral.  Very sad for Angela.  Alex and I did what we could to make her brief visit here quiet and relaxing.

Back to the move…. Saturday morning, Roy and I got up early and headed out the door to pick up the rental truck.  In the meantime, Telus showed up at the house to install TV, Internet and Phone.  That made Alex a happy camper.  He got to stay behind and supervise. The Telus installer showed up around 9:00 am and would be staying there for almost 6 hours!  Those of you who complain about Telus… STOP IT!  We had amazing service.  This man crawled under our house 4 times, removed all the old cabling, set up all new systems, upgraded our modem and was generally amazing!  Kudos for Telus!!!

While this was going on, Roy and I headed over to Budget to pick up the truck, where would also meet up two more able bodied friends, Dwayne and Tina.  When we go there, I showed the counter person my reservation and she started the paperwork.  She asked me for my driver’s license and credit card.  Out came the credit card and my TEMPORARY license ( I renwed it with a change of address on the Friday before).  *sigh*  A word of warning:  DO NOT EVER RENEW YOUR DRIVER’S LICENSE IF YOU NEED TO RENT A VEHICLE THE NEXT DAY!!!  

The counter person refused to let me have the vehicle because I didn’t have picture ID.  *sigh*, so, back to Surrey, I went to collect my passport.  

90 Minutes later, we were on our way…..  We got to the condo at around 11:30 instead of 10:00 am which is what I was shooting for.  AUGH!  Our friend, Bonnie was waiting oh, so patiently for us.  We got right to work.  We surveyed the remains of our lives in that condo and determined that everything was gonna go over the balcony.  A joy having a balcony only 3 feet off the ground.  It made our move so much easier. 

The sofas, armoires, chairs and the like went over the balcony.  The freezer and a few other items went down the elevator.  Amazingly enough, we finished in about 90 minutes.  Whew!  Then began the convoy.  We had three vehicles and only one person who knew where we were going.  Me!  So, in the truck,  I went with Dwayne, while Bonnie followed in her car and Tina and Roy followed in mine.  

Of course, we had to stop for gas…. Qu’elle Surprise!  So, that made it even more challenging.  But, we managed.  After about 45 minutes, we slowly pulled into the drive.  Another friend, Mona was there to greet us with two helpers: her daughter, Mallory and Mallory’s boyfriend, Rowan.  Excellent!  More slave labour…

But, first:  FOOD!  Mona was amazing and whipped up a great lunch for us.  So, we ate, rested and after 30 minutes, we started the unloading process.  Again, it went so quickly.  We had everything unloaded in an hour.  

Dwayne and Tina left just after and returned the truck for me.  A huge thanks to them for their help and being kind enough to return the truck…..

Mona, Mallory and Rowan left shortly after.  Many thanks to them for their assistance, too.  They were amazing.

Roy, Bonnie, Alex and I began in earnest to put the rest of the stuff away.  We worked late into the night to put stuff away and by 9:30, we were done.  Roy rewired all of our electronics and got the tv’s, computer and various media devices working.  So, we sat back and watched 1 movie:  The Mummy Returns…. and by midnight, we were ready for bed.

I slept the sleep of the dead… well, for about 6 hours… then Nykie decided it was time for us to get up…. We had a great breakfast and at around 11:00, Bonnie and Roy left to go home.  That left me, Alex and Nykie to bask in our new home.  Which we did.  

Pics to follow soon.  Alex did an amazing job getting our home ready.  I will be thanking him for some time to come…..

Hello all:  Well, we are that much closer to being moved in.  Every day I haul at least one load of boxes to the house.  By doing this, we will have a relatively (I HOPE!) easy move on the 23rd.  We have got our frineds, Angela, Roy, Bonnie, Dwayne, and Tina all helping.  Whew!

Angela and Roy are coming from Victoria on Friday, the 22nd and will be staying overnight at the house.  Good thing we got our new bed coming this week.  Roy and I will head over to the apartment on Friday night and get everything ready for the big move.  Dwayne, Tina and Bonnie will be meeting us at the apartment on Saturday morning.

Alex and Angela will stay at the house and wait for Telus to arrive to set up our internet, cable, and TV. That may be the easier job but, since there is so much cabling lying around, I somehow doubt that it will be easy….  My biggest fear about moving the services is that I have over 80 hours of TV that I have PVR’d and I am scared that I will lose it all…. AUGH!!! NO, I haven’t seen a single episode of Falling Skies and I will be seriously choked if it disappears on me.

Back to the move.  What we have left at the apartment is the sectional sofa, sofa table, freezer, armoire, 3 dressers, Alex’s sewing desk, the computer desk, computer, two tv’s, sideboard, barbecue, 3 shelving units, 2 dining room chairs and one easy chair.  Hopefully, it will all go in one shot and with little or no trouble.  I am worried about the sectional.  It has a queen sized sofa bed in it.  *shudder*.  I recall the difficulty we had moving it into the apartment.  

I think that we are going to toss it over the balcony.  Don’t laugh!  Our balcony is 4 feet off the ground.  So, to save energy, frustration and grunting, over the balcony it will go….

So, back to the house.  Alex has been working tirelessly to get the place ready.  Every day I come there and I am literally blown away by the progress he has made.  Walls are all painted, floors are clean, kitchen is completely organized, the dining room is set up, shelves are in their place, plants are getting situated and so many tiny details that make it look like a home are done.  I couldn’t be prouder of him.

I took a ton of pictures but, of course, I left the camera at the apartment.  *sigh*.  Will post them all in the next day or so.

Al

Alex has a new pair of friends:  Our new washer and dryer.

However, we had a challenge getting everything hooked up yesterday.  We did not realize that the dryer needed a water hose attachment.  Since when do dryers need water?  Well, this one does.  Apparently, it has a steam setting….

So, we went to Home Depot to find the”Y” connector and the stainless steel hoses that were recommended.  

So, yesterday was the first full day that Alex was in the house by himself (well, Nykie is there).  He is a man on a mission.  The amount of work he has put into the place already is incredible.  He has stripped wallpaper, patched holes, tightened things, repaired things, removed a myriad of screws, hooks, nails, pulled up baseboards of every shape and type.  

He has tackled the living room.  He ripped down the chair rail – which for some reason sat at 24″  up the wall instead of 36″.  We think it was because the previous owners were confined to a wheelchair and therefore everything was set much lower…. It is a theory which works for us.  

Up went the anaglypta wallpaper which looks like beadboard.  It is at the 36″ level and he will be putting up the chair rail to coincide with the height.  

As you can see from the photos, he has his work cut out for him, but, he knows what he wants and what has to be done.

Once the rails are up, then he will begin the painting of all the wood.  It is going to look spectacular once we are done.  

I am so proud of my husband for the energy, creativity and enthusiasm he has for this project.  Like he said to me last night:  “This place is ours and I can do whatever I want and I want it to be our home, the way I want it….”

More power to him.  

Next week begins the moving of some of the furniture.  What fills me with a degree of dread is the aquariums.  We have a tank that is 88 US Gallons.  AUGH!!!  Moving it is gonna be a freakin’ nightmare.  First, we have to pull out all the plants and fish and store them…. somewhere.  Then drain it, pull out all the gravel (120 lbs), all the decorations (approximately another 75 lbs), and then bring it downstairs to a waiting van.  Load it, the stand, the gravel, decorations, fish and plants and take it to the house where we will then have to reassemble the whole mess. It is gonna be interesting….

Well,  here we are in our new home. We have just started to move boxes in since Friday of last week.  We have no furniture here except for our air mattress but, we thought we would give it a shot.  Almost like camping except we have a furnace, bathroom, a function kitchen and carpeting.   Nykie seems ambivalent but, as long as his Pappa and Daddy are there, along with his blanket and favorite toys, he is content.
We started renovations on Saturday.   Went out and bought paint,  anaglypta wallpaper (paintable), a new ceiling fan for the living room, and and bunch of supplies. On Sunday, wd began stripping wallpaper off. Wow what a horrible job. So much badly installed paper.
After a few hours of that, we welcomed our first visitors. Our good friends, Tony and Tyna Meier along with their two youngest daughters, Alex and Dominique.   We chatted for a bit while they ooohed and awwed over our new digs.
The next few weeks are going to be hectic but, well worth it.  I have one last show to do at the Metro – Murder on the Nile which runs until March16 and theni am done with shows for therest of the year. I will be devoting all my free time to making our home what we need it to be.
We have a lot to do here but, it is for us and not a landlord. Homeownership is all it is cracked up to be….

Today I have good news and well, not so good news.

First the Good News!

Today we are that much closer to realizing our dream.  We met with the bank on Saturday to sign the mortgage documents and today we met with the lawyers to sign the conveyancing.  All the paperwork has been completed.  All the inspections, stresses, documentation, and of course, the waiting is over!

We only have one more thing standing in our way:  getting the keys.  We are picking those up on Thursday!!!! Well, I am picking them up.  Alex will be waiting at home by the phone to hear from me once I have the keys… Hooray!!!!

We drove by the place today on our way back from the lawyers and we were thrilled to see “SOLD” signs in the windows of our home…. What a great feeling.  Alex looked like he was going to break out in song.

We can start moving stuff in as early as Friday…. Yippee!!

Now for the “Not So Good News”

Friday afternoon, I got a call from Alex.  He was panicky and out of breath.  Apparently, Nykie had another relapse.  (Expletive deleted)!!!!!!

While taking Nykie for a walk in the early afternoon, he experienced another “attack”.  It took Alex over 30 minutes to get him home.  As soon as he got Nykie settled in, he started experiencing chest pains.  So, he called me right away.

 Fortunately, I was on my way home.  I got home around 3:30 and took him straight to the ER.  I dropped him off and took the car home.  Once home, I looked in on Nykie and made sure he was okay.  He looked so tired and frail.  His eyes were doing that darting from left to right in a rapid pace.  But, a huge sigh of relief came over me when I noticed they were moving much more slowly than the last time.  He also gladly took some cookies from me and ate them.  TWO HUGE SIGNS THAT ALL WAS GOING TO BE OKAY!

So, off to the hospital I went.  After being stuck in the waiting room for, what seemed, FOREVER, I was allowed to go and see him.  Talk about looking “frail and tired”…. They had Alex hooked up to a number of pieces of equipment and were getting ready to hook up an IV.  They didn’t take any chances this time and began pumping drugs into him.  First came the morphine, then the lidocaine, and then something called “pink lady” (how appropriate).  Within minutes of the morphine being pumped into him, he started to observe that his lips were numb and he couldn’t feel his fingers…. Good signs, apparently.

Once the drugs kicked in, we began to wait.  And wait. And wait. And wait.  And guess what?  We waited some more.  

Around 7:00, I told Alex I was going to go home and check on the dog and grab a bit of dinner. So, off I went.  I stopped in at “Fatburger” on Davie.  OMG!!!  What a great barbecue bacon burger with rings…. But, I digress….

I got home in time to take Nykie for a walk and tried to feed him a bit.  Nope.  Wouldn’t have any of it… AUGH!!!!

After sitting with him for about 45 minutes, I went back to the hospital to check on Alex.  When I got there, what did I see?  I saw my husband!  He was grumpy and impatient.  My husband was obviously feeling better.  We sat there for about another 45 minutes and finally a nurse came by and told us he could go home.  

You didn’t need to tell us twice.  So, we got his clothes back on and headed for home.When we walked in the door, master and dog were united.  They both breathed a sign of relief.  

As did I.

And how was your weekend?

Well, the home inspection went better than I thought it could have gone.  Arne Larsen – West Coast Home Inspections – you are a god!!!!  You were so good.  All of my nagging concerns about the place were put to rest.

Sure, there are things we will need to do to the place in the short and long term, but, they are all manageable and the bulk of them can be done by Alex and myself.

The roof is in great shape, the electrical is good, the plumbing, on the other hand will need to be replaced sometime soon.  Fortunately, being in a mobile, the access is not in the walls but in the crawl space underneath so much easier to get access to.  Hooray for that.

The one cool thing that Arne commented on was the this mobile was handicapable.  So, there were some interesting things added to the guest bathroom.  The fully functioning electronic toilet is so cool!  It acts as a bidet, enema, dryer and… get this!  It has a MASSAGE FUNCTION!!!!

Alex wants to take it out and get rid of it, but, I say, “not until I have taken if for a test-run!!!”

I simply gotta try the Massage function…. I think…..

Regardless, the conditions came off today, we sign the mortgage documents on Saturday, the deal closes on Tuesday and we get the keys next week!!!!  We can’t wait….  

Yesterday, you would have thought Alex had become a Papparzzo with the number of pictures he took with one of our cameras.  But, he wanted an accurate representation of each of the rooms and so he could plan how we was going to tackle each of the rooms.

My husband has BIG plans…..

So, with that burden off of my shoulders, that leaves me with two more major events happening:

1)  The final three performances of “Barefoot in the Park” happen this week.  Tickets are still available for Thursday, Friday and closing Saturday.  I am very proud of this show.  We have an amazing cast and crew working on this show and I strongly encourage everyone to support the Metro Theatre by coming out.

2) Next week begins “tech week” for Murder on the Nile.  This show runs from February 16 – March 16.  Again, another great show.  I hope you can make it out.

Al