Changes — Pandorah's Box

Do you guys remember the feeling when your life changed? Not in a bad way or anything, but in a big way. For instance, my sister is moving to the city, and my parents are moving away. Not too far, only two hours or so, but they will be gone...off doing their own thing and having fun in their retirement years (thank god! It's about time). I guess it's just weird because my entire family will be spread out now. We are all going our own ways in life, and although we will see each other often, it just feels...strange. Maybe it's the fact that I will never visit Orangeville again after Thanksgiving (my parents move afterwards) and I have lived/ gone back there since I was 11-years-old. So yeah, changes. Good ones, but changes nonetheless.

So, moving means helping with things. Things like painting and lifting. When my sister found her place here in the city, of course I offered to help her paint before she moved in. So that is what my Saturday consisted of...painting like a machine.

Before pictures: awesome white walls. My sister is going to kill me when she sees I posted this picture of her. I don't know why...she looks great. Ready to paint!

I love how bright it is. It reminds me of mine and Dave's old apartment. We miss that place like crazy!

My mouth is full of crackers. That is all we ate. We painted for 6 hours non-stop and all we ate was a mouthful of crackers. We barely drank a thing either, too busy to think about it I guess. Painting takes a lot out of you man. By the time we called it quits for the day we were tired, sore and covered in layers of paint. We decided on the easiest option when it came to food: McDonalds. I was getting all aggravated that EVERYONE was staring at us when we walked in there, and then I was like 'oh right, we are sweaty and covered from head to toe in paint'. Sexy.

Look at that awesome neutral tan colour! It looks gorgeous!

Grey for the bedroom. I love this colour for a bedroom.

It was fucking HOT. So much for Fall weather, it was stifling that day. My hair was dripping wet (yeah, awesome) with sweat. It was brutal. I kept looking longingly outside, wishing I was out there with a cold lemonade, watching OTHER people paint my sister's place.

I had to get as much window time as I could. I needed to cool down for a few minutes before tackling the next wall.

Look at my hair. It was curling and starting to frizz from the heat and my sweatiness. Are you guys grossed out yet that I keep talking about how sweaty I was?

After a long, hard day of just getting it all done, no talking, no complaining, my sister (whined at) convinced me to go back to Orangeville with her to party with her friends that night.

We got to my parents house at around 8:30 that evening, moaned a whole lot about our different aches and pains, and then decided to just go to bed. HA! We are such party animals. I crashed. HARD.

So the next day at my folks' house, I was looking around and thinking that I would only ever come back here one more time when we all gather for Thanksgiving, and then that's it. But I want to let you guys in on a secret: THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY.

I hated Orangeville when we first moved there when I was a kid. And the hate NEVER WENT AWAY. Now, I hope that my Orangeville friends who read this don't get offended, but it just never grew on me. We moved there from a much bigger city (it's a really small town) and I was always an outsider. I was glad to leave it myself, first for university, and then for good when I moved to Toronto 6 years ago. I have always said that I thought Orangeville was built over a giant Indian burial ground, and if any of you watch horror movies, you know what that means.

Anyway, my point is that I decided to take some pictures of my parents disorganized and in the middle of a move house. Cool?

So my father is obsessed with plants.

He also built this fireplace and mantel himself. Well, the fireplace was already there, he just made it pretty all around.

I love my parents bedroom. It has windows like this on every wall. I used to wait at this window for my ex boyfriend to pick me up to go out and I would sigh impatiently and be incredibly annoyed because he was always late. Yeah, that went on for years. Now I am always late.

Jacuzzi bathtub in the middle of the room. I am definitely going to miss that.

The drive. Ha! As if we are dignitaries.

Oh look! It's my parents pooch Chivas. Yeah, after the scotch. Love this little guy.

Oh and look! It's the lawn where...yeah, I never did anything on this lawn ever. Nary a cartwheel or a hill roll.

This guy is the love of my life. His name is Felix, and he is a hundred years old (if you couldn't tell). He is the sweetest guy and he own my heart...he has lived a long, eventful life and I think time for him has slowed down as much as it will. He is living out the rest of his days in patches of sunshine, eating the dog's food. No one shoos him away from it because, well, look at him. You can almost see Death grinning on his shoulder.

My dad built this ramp for our potbelly pig, Priscilla. She was really big and fat and couldn't walk down stairs so he built her a ramp into the backyard where she could dig up the grass as much as she wanted to. She lived in the house and so would whine to go out, just like a dog. Pigs are smart. I miss that fat piggy, she was a funny girl. I was telling a story today about how she ate the pepper spray out of my purse. Just chomped right on down and busted the canister and ate it. That was AFTER she sprinkled it on my books, bedspread and whatever else was on the floor in my bedroom. Because she ate all those things too. No we didn't eat her, but that day I wanted to!

My sweet old guy.

Peekaboo!

Sunday we went back to Krista's new place and did it all again. Needless to say, I was pretty wiped by Sunday night. As you can tell by the amazing picture below. At least I am clean in it. Wait, no, I'm not.