Still no laundry baskets...but new IKEA furniture

I have some photos to showcase in this post. Perhaps I won't write much, just captions of the photos. I will, however, say this: Umberto FAILED the stupid bullshit BC Inspection. He's obviously too good for Vancouver. I have to get a new set of tires, and then I get their stupid sticker so I can get stupid plates. So now on top of the unpacking painting organizing buying furniture agonizing crap that is my life right now, I get to shop for tires. Fortunately, I have a lovely brother and father who were both gracious about giving me advice on what to do. Ultimately, I ended up picking some from Canadian Tire (where I happened to have been earlier and almost lost my shit in). Maybe I can pick a day to go to Canadian Tire AND IKEA in the same day!!! And then I'll slit my wrists! Maybe I can fit in a trip to Wal Mart before I bleed to death.

On a better note, I found a horse that I'm going to try out for a month and see how things work out. She's lovely (though she is a mare, and we all know how ladies can be...) and reminds me a bit of Hijack, though a bit smaller. Still the giant hooves and head and nice soft eyes though. I'm going to take her on some trails on Saturday with a couple others from the barn! Exciting! The barn is totally nothing special, and I'm a bit worried about the lack of a good arena to ride in, but everyone seems SO nice and laid back and casual that I'm totally drawn to it. I emailed the coach that I will be taking lessons with and she said I would just pay as I went, lessons are $30/hour for a private, and we could start whenever. But at the same time, they are laid back but really attentive with their horses upon my initial impression. So wish me luck with that!

Here are some photos! They span the past week.

This is Josh in a sushi restaurant down the street from my house. Sushi in Vancouver is like pizza in most other places -- there is so much of it that it's really cheap. So far I've only been to this one place and it was average to good, but cheap! $1 miso soup!


This is Josh in the Tsawassen ferry terminal. We were on our way to Victoria to stay with lovely friends and then heading to Nanaimo the next morning super early for Josh's conference. We missed the ferry and had to sit there for nearly 3 hours total.


Fortunately, Josh is a card shark and we had some heated games of Gin.

Gratuitous ferry shots


Rosie the wire-haired fox terrier! She is the cutest, most well-behaved dog EVER. She slept snugged up against my bum all night!


While Josh was at the conference all morning and some of the afternoon, I took a walk along the harbour in Nanaimo.

This is a past mayor of Nanaimo. He was nicknamed Black Frank, but I forget anything else. I guess he was a pirate.


This cat followed me for a bit of the way. An older lady stopped and said that she sees that cat often. He was stalking mice, and at one point jumped 3 feet into the air after one!


We went to deep-fried heaven, a place called Pirate Chips. They sell fish & chips but the rest of their menu is vegetarian and involves deep fried goodness with stuff on top. I got chili cheese fries and Josh had nacho fries. They also had deep fried chocolate bars, bananas, ice cream AND deep fried nanaimo bars. I had a non-fried nanaimo bar earlier in the day and it was totally underwhelming, I must say.


The ferry ride home was also full of Gin, with a power nap thrown in at the end. We drove home from Horseshoe Bay in rush hour, so what should have taken 15 min probably took around 40. Did I mention that I hate driving in this city? The next night Josh came out with Colin and I to a couple of bars. Then he had to leave!! Suddenly!! Well, sort of. He was meant to be leaving on the Sunday, but on Saturday I got a text message that he was at the airport and all the flights on Sunday were full so he had to go then. It was bogus, but it wasn't going to tarnish the rad times we'd just had. PLUS, MY CATS WERE ARRIVING THAT AFTERNOON!!!!!!!!

They love their catnip pouches! Colin and I got them (along with a whole lot of other stuff!) at a lovely pet store near our house called Tisol.

Mom and Dad obviously fed Monster well while he was staying with them!! Cute saggy tummy! Actually, to be honest with myself, he totally has had that tummy for ages. This is just an extra flattering shot of him.

I SWEAR ON MY LIFE that is not a Starbucks coffee in my hand.

Our cozy bedroom, which looks totally crooked in this photo but you get the idea somewhat. Stuffed animals reprasent!!

I will showcase the rest of the photos tomorrow. Halloween! Maybe I will take photos of cute children to whom I will be handing out candy. Or maybe I'll just give them rocks.