It's a new home!

Well, the move went about as smoothly as possible. We had lots of help, especially from Danice's family, who were awesome. Her brothers pulled our couch up over the balcony with a rope! Her mom and dad completely unpacked our kitchen the same day we moved... and that was a real blessing, because I was not in the mood to do that! I inherited a bed from Alberto for free, and he also fixed my bike. What a guy. Jodi, Lindsey, James and Veej also chipped in... everyone was very helpful. I'm grateful, because I felt like I spent most of the time kind of numb, walking from room to room, staring at boxes.

Some things I like about our new place:

-Our bathroom has a red door.

-We have a gas stove! It gets hot and cools down really quickly!

-I get to ride the Skytrain. It makes me feel like a working woman.

-When the sun shines through the leaves outside our bedroom window, it makes a beautiful moving pattern on the floor.

-We have a lot of pots. And a lot of mugs. And a lot of forks.

-There is a cat who used to live here. His name is Jackson. He now lives two doors down, but he still wanders in, hoping to be fed, whenever we leave the door open.

-Everyone on Commercial Drive is a soccer maniac. All restaurants, pubs and coffee shops are tuned into the European Finals.

-Gelato.

-There is a Farmer's Market five blocks away, every Saturday morning.

-The passion flowers I bought at the Farmer's Market yesterday. Owning plants (especially the coolest flowers ever, which I deduced after taking my plant taxonomy class) makes me feel like a real adult.

-Meeting neighbors! I've met four already. At my other place, I didn't meet any. Admittedly, I'm trying harder now.

-One of my neighbors, Len, enjoys working on motorcycles, on his front lawn. You can hear him revving the engines a lot. When he's not playing the flute...

-Being able to leave doors open without worrying about animals (or insects!) coming in. Except Jackson.

-The balconies! Especially the front one. Oh man. It is the bomb. We've already put a string of lights on it. It's the best hang-out spot. I'm going to sleep on it one night this week, I think.

-I shaved 25 minutes off my commute to work. I can even bike to work now that my bike is fixed!

-Roommates who aren't insane! Well, maybe a little bit.

-Having a kitchen table.


The day after we moved in, it was Car Free day on Commercial Drive. It was like the whole neighborhood got together to celebrate our arrival! It reminded me of the Fringe Festival, but 10 times bigger and weirder. Lots of street vendors, crazy acts, live music, people in costumes, and drumming circles. It was a blast. I especially loved watching one band. They're called the Carnival Band, and they rock. They are a ragtag collection of brass and percussion players with varied backgrounds and abilities (no auditions!), and they have more fun than any band I've seen. They dress up in crazy clothes and march around and play each other's drums and walk right up to members of the audience and they have nothing in common with each other except that they play for the joy of it. I found a video of them playing on the Skytrain... in case you want to see them (or the Skytrain!).

I also checked out the free stage at the Vancouver jazz festival on Saturday... oh man. I love the Saskatoon jazz festival, I think it's awesome, but the free stage in Vancouver is something else. I would have paid to see most of those bands. Especially the 11-piece Cuban salsa band in the evening... the whole crowd was dancing! Including me. At least I was trying. I've decided that I'd like to marry a Cuban.

To sum it all up... I'm loving summer in Vancouver, summer in my NEW HOUSE!



P.S. The sermon I preached last Sunday on the conversion of Saul (and Ananias!) went well, I think, despite the craziness of the weekend. If you have 25 minutes and you want to listen, you can find a recording here.