I have learned a few things since we began the renovation process several weeks ago and I am here to share my wisdom with you:

• There is more dust inside the walls and floors of your house than you ever imagined possible. You can’t possibly prepare for it. So don’t even try.
• There is no excuse for painting anything flesh-coloured (as in Caucasian flesh, other skin colours are much classier choices for paint).
• Sleeping on air mattresses gets old really quickly. But remembering to pump it up with a little extra air every few days goes a long way. If you are wondering why you are so damn uncomfortable…it could be because your mattress is only at 25% capacity.
• Renovations make me bitchy cranky.
• My husband and father-in-law have a bottomless fountain of energy from which to draw. It must be genetic. I don’t know how they do it but they have been working on the house 20 hours a day without stopping for 10 days now. My father-in-law is taking vacation time to come and help us, which is incredibly generous. However – WORST. VACATION. EVER. Sleeping on an air mattress and working til you drop every day is not my idea of a holiday. Just sayin’.

Random stuff I’ve been wanting to tell the internets:

• Elementary school in Boston was guarded like the freaking White House. Picking up a child from school was practically a secret service mission, what with no entrance to the school without filling out visitor forms. School here is like a free-for-all. They don’t care how the kids get to their classrooms, so long as they get there. They don’t care who picks them up or where they go after the bell rings! The teacher’s first parent letter indicated her goal for the children this year is independence. I fully endorse this goal but after the red tape, overprotective atmosphere over kindergarten I’m getting whiplash just dealing with it all!
• Everyone keeps saying Saskatoon has had no mosquitoes until September. Remarkably, when we arrived in town. The mosquitoes waited for me to show up and then moved in to feast. I am undone. Really, just covered in bites!
• I have never been so aware of the easygoing Canadian attitude before. After being away for a while it has never been so apparent. I like it!
• All moving companies are, without exception, completely corrupt and out to rob you of every last penny.
• Things have been rocky with our moving company, or can you tell?
• They charged us the equivalent of several mortgage payments extra for “packing services” because we ended up putting a lot more on the truck than we originally intended (because we bought our kitchen for the new house in the states and brought it back with us). But the kitchen was all in boxes. It required no extra packing. Loading yes. Packing no. Loading charges did not change. The cost of the weight changed, which is fair. The cost of the packing changed, which is not fair. We will contest this.
• We were told our belongings would be delivered no later than September 10. They are arriving tomorrow, September 14. Why yes, that is smoke coming out of my ears! Thanks for noticing!
• It is really refreshing to make such a big move and already know where everything in the city is and how to go about getting settled. Really refreshing! We know where the grocery stores and schools and parks are. We know which events to look forward to. We know which friends we can call and beg to help us with our home renos…. Ahem.
• My Massachusetts driver’s licence broke the computer system of the local licence provider. I went to switch back to a SK licence and they had it all printed out but realized they hadn’t entered it correctly so they could create a new photo id. So they tore it up and started over. And then they started over again. And then they called the help desk. Five times. And I waited for a full hour (which I know doesn’t seem like much to those of you in big cities, but for Saskatoon if you have to wait five minutes it’s a HUGE FREAKING DEAL). And then they told me to go do what I needed to do and they would call and let me know when I could come back. And then they called and said my Massachusetts licence broke their whole system and it will be a week before they can get the bug fixed so I should come back then. Awesome.
• A large percent of people here can’t pronounce Massachusetts. You would think that anyone who can pronounce “Saskatoon, Saskatchewan” without any problems would already have the linguistic dexterity necessary to pronounce MASS-AH-CHEW-SETS. Most common mispronounciations: Mass-a-two-shits and Mass-a-two-sits. It amuses me.

Ok, I think we’re done. Hopefully the blog is working and you can all read this. I’ve been experiencing technical difficulties recently so if you’ve been seeing nothing past August 22 and now suddenly see several new posts, it’s not you, it’s me.

America, Canada, catch up, Massachusetts, moving, renovations, Saskatchewan | 4 Comments »

We’re not doing too well out here. Not well at all. Those of us who are prairie-dwellers turned New Englanders are currently the equivalent of a fatal case of dishpan hands. We can’t take any more cool and rain and wet and rain and clouds and more and more clouds and rain or any combination of moisture-producing weather systems. We can’t go so long without the sun!  It’s inhumane! It’s barbaric! How do New Englanders live like this?

We have been asked how we deal with the frigid Saskatchewan winters. The answer is simple: the sun can trick you into believing anything is survivable. Even -50 windchill and snow drifts higher than your car.  On the other hand, continuous cloud cover with frequent rain makes even the most lovely locale feel unbearable and unwaveringly dreary.

What’s worse is that the five day forecast changes every single day. Every. Single. Day. the forecast predicts several days of rain/cloud/cool weather followed by Joyous! Sunshine! and Angels Singing! But EVERY DAY the forecast changes to include one more day of yuck. So we never actually reach the promised carrot on the end of the stick, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, facking sunshine and heat!!!! I am ready to throw myself off the upstairs balcony into the ocean if I see one more computer generated raincloud.

Whoever came up with this diabolical weather forecast clearly has a mission to purge New England of all but the pure English race. Only those who are native English folks and their descendants could be expected to put up with this sadistic weather for weeks on end without beginning to feel violent or plotting a permanent move to a better climate. Even Saskatchewan has pleasant summers to make up for nasty winters. WHERE IS YOUR SUMMER NEW ENGLAND??? WHERE IS THE SUN???? WHERE???????

If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be here, drying my damp hair by the warmth of my computer and weeping into the keyboard.

Boston, Saskatchewan, whiny | 7 Comments »

I know y’all are going to think I’ve completely lost my mind but I am actually missing decently cold weather right now. I’m sick of the slushy, soupy mess that Massachusetts gets after a snow when the weather hovers just above freezing. Today, instead of a day of steady snow we had a constant downpour of rain which turned our freshly fallen snow into a sloppy disaster. Just walking to the car is like wading through a damn waterfall.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not missing the -40-55 degree weather (-40-67 F) that Saskatchewan has been getting. I have no desire to relocate to the polar ice caps. But the typical Saskatchewan winter temperature of -12-18 (10-0 F) seems preferable in my mind. At least the snow stays snowy and although climbing over snowbanks and shovelling walks isn’t fun, it’s possible to enjoy the outdoors with the appropriate clothing. 

I miss the sun!  I actually miss crisp winter mornings where the sun is glistening off the snow…. 

….

OMG, my brain must have shorted out there for a second.

That idealistic vision bears no resemblance to my previous posts about Saskatchewan winters. But , it’s true. I do miss the sun. Sunny, bitter cold really is preferable to mild and messy.

Boston, Saskatchewan, snow, winter | 3 Comments »

We went apple picking last weekend and I am totally feeling nostalgic because this weekend we are drowning in rain.

I’ve never been apple-picking before for several reasons. First, we have never lived in an area where the land was such that it could sustain an entire apple orchard (One or two apple trees in a yard, yes. Orchard? No.). Second, we had friends back in Saskatoon who gladly supplied us with more apples than we could ever want for free.  

So when I saw the price tags of our idyllic apple-picking adventure I may have cursed. Loudly.  But still, it was a lot of fun. The only disappointing part was that the picking is over way too quickly. All that’s left after that is to eat as many apples as you can so as to get more apples for your $25.  Between the four of us we definitely ate another $25 worth. It’s amazing no one vomited. Seriously. AMAZING.

Kieran literally walked between the rows of trees picking up apple after apple off the ground and taking one bite before letting it drop and moving on to the next one.  Awesome. 

OMG. Couldn’t you just DIE from the cute?

Boston, family, kids, Saskatchewan | 3 Comments »

Well, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, change is in the air for our family. My husband has been accepted into the twelve month MBA program at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.  It has been a long time coming as he has been studying for the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test), and then travelling to write the test, and then filling out applications to Ivey, doing interviews with Ivey, and then the anxious nine days of waiting to hear if he was accepted.  Those of you who knew we have been waiting on this have my eternal gratitude for not kicking me in the teeth because of my constant uptightness in the past week.  It’s amazing my brain didn’t melt and leak out my ears from all the energy being created by my frazzled psyche. 

Anyway, now that we know, we can start the stressful chaos of selling our house and moving to a completely new place. You, my faithful readers, can expect many cranky and whiny posts in the future about all the work of packing/cleaning/selling/moving/being a single parent (the hubby will likely go out several weeks, if not a month ahead of me and the kids).  I apologize in advance for this. 

After the move I will probably collapse into a weepy puddle when I really hits me that I am without a single friend in a strange place where my husband will be extremely busy and I have two small children and people mispronounce “pants’ as “pay-ants”, so that will be fun, right?

So I will hope for cheery and encouraging comments from you all.  I will defend my prairie homeland to the best of my ability while residing in this foreign land of rock and trees.  Stay tuned for more information.  Ivey has two programs running simultaneously and we have yet to firmly decide whether we will go for the May or the September start date.

Oh yes, and did I mention how very proud I am of the hubby and how much totally deserves this after how hard he has worked? Because I am and he does and he did.

change, family, moving, Ontario, Saskatchewan | 2 Comments »

This morning Les MacPherson had a hilarious article in The Star Phoenix about merging and the apparent inability of drivers in Saskatoon to complete said driving manouver.  Here’s a bit of the article:

“…let’s review the definition. To merge means to combine, to join or to blend gradually.  It does not mean, as many Saskatoon drivers seem to think, to impede, to obstruct or to thwart.  Those are the opposite of merging.
    The road sign confirms the meaning. Where drivers are expected to merge there is often a big sign saying ‘Merge.’  What you won’t see is a sign saying ‘Impede,’  ‘Obstruct’ or ‘Thwart’.  This is no oversight. This is the result of careful planning by professional traffic engineers.  They must ask themselves, ‘Why do we bother?’
    Often, there’s a special merge lane.  Here is where the definition of merging becomes so important.  If you’re in the merge lane and, instead of combining, joining or blending, you’re impeding, obstructing and thwarting, you’re not with the program.
    We might as well not even have merge lanes in Saskatoon.  They’re often as not blocked by drivers who, instead of accelerating to merge with higher-speed traffic, have slowed to a standstill.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Slowing down is what we’re supposed to do at an amber light.  Speeding up is what we’re supposed to do in the merge lane.  Among Saskatoon drivers there seems to be some confusion between the two….We often see this guy, stopped dead at the end of the merge lane with his signal light on, peering backward over his shoulder for a gap in traffic sufficiently huge to safely accelerate from zero to 90 km/h.  Of course, such gaps are rarely to be found even in moderate traffic.  And so he waits and waits, while, stuck behind him in a long line of vehicles the drivers gnash their teeth and rend their garments. If you’re seeing this a lot in your rear-view mirror, you’re not with the program…”

YES. Yes. Yes. Yes. And, might I add:  Just because you are too lazy to merge onto the freeway and then take the exit off the freeway, rather than just driving along the shoulder to your exit, don’t expect other drivers to yield to you. Also? The left lane is called THE FAST LANE for a reason, jackass.  Fast indicates rapid movement.  Slow would be the opposite of this definition. If you aren’t able to drive fast then you may be misguided about the intended purpose of a highway.

rants, road rage, Saskatchewan, The Star Phoenix | 3 Comments »

When I tried to start my car this morning it took a couple tries and I was just ready to give up and as I began to let go of the key in the ignition the engine turned over.  I heaved a frosty sigh of relief and, after letting the car warm up for two hours (almost) I packed the kids into the car and went off to the mall where I decided to reward the car for it’s good behaviour by parking underground. 

When we returned a couple hours later the car was all defrosted and the temperature gage inside said it was a balmy 11 degrees!  Woohoo!  The mall is only a few minutes from our house.  With terrible road conditions and both traffic lights being red, it takes me no more than five minutes to get home. Today, by the time I got home, the temperature gage in the car had STILL not finished coming down to the current frigid temperature.  My car would have nothing nice to say to me today if it could talk.

Saskatchewan, winter, woes | No Comments »