Ten Lessons Learned in 2012

2012 was a year of change for me. My life circumstances morphed in several ways — all for the better, but I found myself tested pretty severely at times. I came through stronger, though. Here’s what I learned…

Decisions

• I hate making choices, especially important ones with lasting repercussions, so making a lot of them in a short period of time isn’t good for my mental health.
• Despite that, I can still be a decision-making guru when I need to be and not fall into a million wibbling little pieces…mostly.
• Even though decisions are hard, most decisions aren’t life-altering.
• With the ones that are, I’ll just know the right path, even if I’m scared. Or the path will turn out to be right, one or the other.

6 More Things I’ve Learned from My New House

Back in July, I blogged about 6 lessons I learned from my first month as a new homeowner. That was three months ago, so it’s high time to give you an update on my adventures. Now that I’ve been through one full season, here’s what I’ve learned…

1. Opening your house to other people rocks. In our little one-bedroom apartment, we didn’t have enough room to throw parties, so we’re completely inexperienced hosts. But now our linked living room and dining room fit 15 or 20 people. So far we’ve had two parties and played host to both our families, and let me tell you, even though we’re both introverts, it feels great! (Though we might not have hung our dining room chandelier so low if we’d anticipated moving the dining table off to the side during parties….)

It Takes a Village: Being Good Neighbours

This week I’m blogging over at Turtleduck Press about the people in my new neighbourhood, and our early relationships with them:

I’m also conscious that so far, we’ve been recipients, not givers. As former apartment-dwellers and also introverts, we have a habit of keeping to ourselves, turning inwards. Suddenly I’m finding that I don’t like that habit anymore. Sure, we’re young and inexperienced, but we have talents and resources that could be shared.

Read the rest.

What I didn’t mention was the state of our home’s exterior. The whole backyard is soil, for the former owners were avid vegetable gardeners. We took possession in May and moved in at the end of June; we’ve planted a little, but it’s mostly weeds now. We’ve done our best, but we just haven’t had time to take proper care of the yard this year, and I’m conscious that it looks terrible. The front yard isn’t much better. It’s yet another way that we could — and will — be better neighbours in future.

What experiences have you had with good neighbours — either being them or having them? Go comment at Turtleduck Press!

Remembering This Summer

This has been a long, hot summer — glorious or tiresome, depending on your preferences — but it’s drawing to a close at last. Over the past week I’ve felt a chill in the air, the first hints of autumn. Another season almost over.

It’s been an eventful and hectic summer for me. As I look back on it, I’m trying to fix in my mind the way I want to remember it…

My Love Affair with IKEA

I’ve had a relationship with IKEA for a very long time, dating back to the days when I was small enough to go in the ball pit (wistful sigh).

My earliest memories — besides the ball pit — involve helping to choose a bunk bed for my younger sister and me to share, after my brother was born and my sister lost her room. Not only was it fun to crawl all over the different beds, we got to go in the warehouse section, huge and industrial, with shelves stacked unimaginably high. And then…we got to help assemble the bunk bed. Best thing ever.

6 Things I’ve Learned from my New House

It’s been almost four weeks since my significant other and I moved into our first house. We’ve had a steep learning curve. We were coming from a high-rise apartment building; the house is about 80 years old and mostly unrenovated, except for some basics like wiring.

So far, we’ve faced more logistics than we would’ve thought possible, which has been exhausting…but we’ve also fallen in love with our new neighbourhood (while not forgetting the old) and we’re still glad we moved.

Things I’ve learned so far:

1. Number your boxes. I numbered off the rooms in the new house, then numbered each box as I packed it: Room 1, Box 1, short description of contents. Boxes with higher numbers got packed later, so I knew the items in them were used more often and therefore they should be unpacked first. Bonus: the movers knew which room to put each box in. We’ve had almost no trouble finding anything. (We also haven’t unpacked everything — but that’s a post for another time.)

2. Be flexible. Our freestanding wardrobe wouldn’t fit up the stairs. It has now been repurposed as a pantry, supplementing our kitchen storage. I did have to mourn the loss of it in our bedroom, as well as come to terms with the way it dominated the kitchen, but I have to admit that it’s very useful in its new home.

3 Ways to Cope with Being Stuck in Transition

Have you ever felt stuck between two stages of life? Maybe you’ve graduated college/university but haven’t found a job yet, or you’re working on making a dream happen but it’s still a ways off?

That’s where I am right now. I’m about to move into my first house — an exciting stage to be sure, but it’s taken a long time to get here and still isn’t quite here — and I’m having a little trouble finding balance.