A Long Story, Longer (or, "How to Make Gyoza out of Nothing at All")

I just made homemade potstickers for dinner (insert pat on my own back *here*), and they were pretty good. Food is a lot more expensive than it was in South Africa (insert "duh" face *here*), but not too bad. Since we haven't started working yet, we have been eating lots of rice and beans, but..... (insert BACK STORY *here*)

Two days ago, Sebastien and I were talking about the differences in our personalities, organization-wise. I said (insert sloppy mis-quotes *here*): "I really actually like to randomly find stuff every once in a while, so I like things to be organized, but I don't necessarily want them to be TOO organized - a place for everything, and NOT necessarily EVERYthing in its place!" (or something like that).

And Seb said (because I already know that this is NOT how he works): "I think everything should have a place, and it should always be there, so that it is always there when you look for it! That way it is nice to have it where you thought it was!"

So I said: "Well, take for example, money; sometimes it is so GREAT to reach into your pocket and pull out an unknown fiver! I love it when that happens!"

And he says: "Wouldn't it have been better if you had KNOWN where that 5 bucks was, when you needed it?"

So then me: "I don't know.... Usually stuff shows up right when you need it. An old photograph when you need to smile. 5 bucks when you need coffee!"

And Seb, "Hmmmmmmn. Let's have a place for everything, and don't worry about it TOO much, but then we can try to organize every once in a while."

Hope: "Good Compromise."

SO - This IS leading somewhere. Yesterday, I opened an old wooded box that Sarah Schreiber gave me when we were younger, covered in pictures, etc. I use it to hold my old foreign coins and a broken pocket watch. I started looking through the coins, and started taking the folded bills out of the side that they were tucked in, so that I could look at the coins easier. Then I was looking at the pocket watch, and then - wait - wait - folded BILLS? And yes, I did say folded bills. In fact, I have somehow been sitting on 800 Danish Kroner (about 145 US Dollars!), 10 British Pounds (20 USD), and 23 Canadian Dollars (although when will I EVER use those?!)!!! I could not believe it! If there was EVER a time when I was thankful that I found my own money (that I never knew I was missing!), it was then. I exchanged part of it today, and of course it is already mostly gone (starting up a new apartment is expensive), but I got to go grocery shopping, and now we have a fairly stocked kitchen at least. Seb is going to make cookies tomorrow for us to take to work, and there are two meals left of gyoza. I think for a while I am going to really get to know tuna casserole, and I am going to love it. We are also going to start making our own bread to save a little money, plus it is so darned good! Next - JAM.

Vancouver, at Last!

We are finally here, and we are getting settled.
We drove up to Vancouver last Monday from Portland, and everything went smoothly at the border. No fuss. No trouble. We were a little nervous because we drove up in a UHaul, basically not sure that we would be allowed to work in Canada (I know - crazy, eh?), but everything was fine. We got to the apartment building at 5:pm on Monday, and thankfully, our landlord allowed us to unload all of our stuff a day early, because the apartment was empty; he was just finishing the floors. We moved the entire truckload of house-stuff in before 7:pm, and then, starving, met Sarah to go get dinner, and went to stay at Ted's apartment because we weren't officially in our apartment yet. Work starts on Monday for both of us, and we would like to be as organized as possible, before then, so we don't have to rush home from work to hang clothes and unpack boxes. Suffice it to say, we are THRILLED with our little apartment, and in the picture that appears to be looking out a window, yes that IS the mountain range in the distance! Yippee!
This week has been tiring for sure. You can tell from the photos of Sebastien. Poor guy has also been SICK on top of all the moving....