Some things you just don't want to come home to. Some notables things that I dread coming home to include:
1) The Smell of Curry. Sure, loads of people love it (billions of people, in fact). My wife loves it. Me? Not so much.
2) Moonies. Always pushin their Cool-Ade at you...
3) Church Folk. Always pushin their God at you...

...But of them all, few things are as irritating as coming back to the house after a nice evening stroll to get away from the heat to find the fire brigade parked at your home. The very same truck that we'd witnessed scream past us on our way home with it's sirens blaring and wheels screaming. That very same truck, packed full of dudes and dudettes in yellow asbestos suits carrying hearty axes and determined expressions. And there she be, right at our house, lights flashing, completely void of it's recent asbestos clad occupants, looking serious and ready to kick smoldering ass.
Welllllll Sh**.
Robin and I sauntered up to the crowd now milling in front of our building, hoping to god that our crappy home-fixed lamp hasn't gutted the building.
Or what if it was the candle from the bathroom and we forgot to blow it out?
I hope they saved they saved the cat.
Turns out that the cat didn't require rescuing from the ear-wig that crawled into the elevator shaft smoke detector causing it to false alarm, and thank god for that.

Two hundred Kadgillion Zillion dollars (us) is what it'l cost to have proffesional movers, with proffesional hands, and proffesional billing departments move all of our $216 worth of stuff to lovely sunny Bethesda. So, needless to say, OFF TO STORAGE WITH THE LOT! The vast majority of our precious things will sit safe and comfortably in Chucks basement.
Robin would prefer that we carted everything down in a U-Haul, but after a breif and heart felt conversation with my spinal chord, I realized that it's just not possible. Three days driving, packing/unpacking, loading/unloading, spazzing/un-spazzing just isn't a happy prospect for my dear and dinged spinal chord. So, storage it is.
Also, in semi-precious news, we're sending off the lease tomorow, and hopefully that will officially mean we have a new home. Hurray for that! It's a lovely place, in a quiet cul-de-sac (although, it's a quiet cul-de-sac off a six lane mega-highway). But it's tree lined, a loverly bit of brick building, and spacious. Or at least we're told it's spacious. They've told us it's a little over 800 sq ft, but we haven't seen the apartment. We'll see it soon enough though. The day we move in. Well, moving in wont be hard. All we have to do is drop our suitcases inside the door and PRESTO!! All there! All moved in!
The plan is that we'll purchase necesseary furniture stuffs once there with the idea that we get things to compliment what we'll be keeping in storage here in canada. A futon is the plan, for our bed at first, then after a month or two, we're going to try and buy a bed, and move the futon into the living room for guests. My mom has mentioned what a nice futon my sister bought for around $900. We wont be getting that kind of futon, more like it's meak and wimpy cousin. The futon that's a little skinny, pale, sorta reliable, not exactly pretty but you can walk all over it. The $200 futon. A similar approach will be taken with everythign else we need to get. That's the plan at least. Here's hoping it works. Here's hoping Robin goes for it. Now that i think about it, i'm not too sure how much of the "Master Plan" ive shared with her.
This makes it extremely likely that robin will use her Walsherstonia VETO and powers of Wifedome to make better plans. She's good at that.
If she goes for this plan, then i fuly intend to try and convince her that we should buy "Golden Tee's" Golf Arcade Deluxe Edition instead of other household "clutter" like dishes or pots/pans. Wish me luck!

A weekend of weeding

After surviving Tropical Storm Berryl, I (Robin) decided to make the most of the weekend by weeding through mountains of paperwork in anticipation of the up-coming move.

By the way... we are still "undecided" ( i.e., arguing) about the best way to move all of our stuff. I say pack up a U-Haul and bring it with us. Colin says, put it in storage and fly with a couple suitcases. Either way, packing has to start sometime. I managed today to turn 2 years worth of class material into 4 file folders. It doesn't seem like much, but hey... it's a start.

Colin was nagging me for not putting more on the blog. So, I offer the above commentary about the weekend to prove that I don't have much to say. But I also added the picture of Lou looking adorable to show that at least I take good photos.

Much love,

Robin

HURRAY FOR NOTHING DAY!!!
Walsherstonia's official national holiday. Best part is, it's two days long.

So, in celebration of our hoiday and it's rich pageant of glorious history, we did nothing and lots of it, for threeeee days. That's right, threw an extra nothing day on there for good measure. Oh sure, we had to work and such, but we put no thought into it whatsoever.
Cleaning? BAH!!!
Socialising? BAH BAH!!!
Personal Hygiene? Partial BAH! (Robins too conciensous to go that extra mile, so I stank enough for us both. What do you call that but dedicated!)

...sadly though, all good things must come to an end...and so we're back to doing something about everything, with only fond memories of our nothing to keep us going...

And a very important something would certainly be...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BONITA BONNANA!!!!!!!!
(aka Mom 'o Colin)

Day in Mahone Bay

Ah, Mahone Bay. Seing as we had the rental for a second day, it was determined that we should head down towards the southern side of NS, not so far as to spend all day in the car, but far enough to relax. We made it to Mahone Bay where it was sunny, bright and had a nice breeze. It's a really beautiful little town, tourism is huge there, and reminds me a fair bit of cadboro bay. Most of the people we encountered were from outside the area, and had moved there to retire or open a business (lots of British accents...and yes, I can tell the difference between a Brit and a Maritimer...). Anyhoo, we headed off to Hirtle's beach after we'd had enough of quaint Mahone bay. Robin had previously been to the beach before with her girlfriends, and did a good sales pitch. I was pretty enthusiastic (SP???) to check it out.
We rolled in under the cover of a dark and ominous fog, the lapping of the sea and the ominous wail of the lightouse droning forbodingly in the distance. Our gear in hand, we moved with determined strides across the wooden planks nestled snugly in the tall grass of the rolling hillsalong the shore. Fortunatly, the map had not failled us, and we'd been furtnate in our choice of local guides. It had taken the better part of the morning, but we were moments away from our intended target.... THE BEACHES OF NORMANDY!!!!!!!!!

...oh...wait, my bad. That's right, we were going to a sunny beach, weren't we? I got confused with that book i've been reading. Easy mistake to make really. The beach looked like something out of an old war movie. The fog was ridiculous....thick as soup. But it was hot at least, and burned off while we were there. Anyhoo...the kicker to this beach is that it's got a nicely sized fresh water lake that feeds right into it, about 40 feet from the beach.














As friends of ours have said - "if you don't like the fog, don't come to Nova Scotia."

Beach Weekend

As some of you may have heard, I have been whining about not having a beach vacation this year.
It was such a shock to discover that some of the best beaches in the world are right here in Nova Scotia!
It looks as though I'm going to get my beach vacation after all.
Today I'm going to attempt to locate a little spot of heaven in Lunenburg County. I went there last year but can't remember how to get there. Poor Colin. It seems as though he will be victim to my practice of "sensory navigation."

I was a bit shocked this morning to see that Colin had posted pictures of me on the web in my bathing suit. I hope you will all enjoy this as a little piece of retribution...


Love,

Robin

Needing to get outta town and away from it all, it was suddenly decided to rent a bohwemoth Dodge and cruise to the Eastern Passage and it's hefty Beaches. So, that's what we did. Rainbow Haven beach must be a nice beach, it's parking lot entrance was the only traffic jam we hit all day, and based on that, I appologized to the missus and continued to drive right past it, confident as I was, that being an Island Province, there were surely other beaches. Odds were also in our favour that the other beaches would be empty, as everyone and their dog seemed to be at Rainbow Haven.
We troddled on and actually had a wonderful drive. Stopped in Fishermans cove (actually, before we even made it to Rainbow Haven, but, I digress...), had a kick-ass lunch. Well, I had a kick-ass lunch. Two beer battered pieces of Haddock and Fries with 3x tartar sauce. They were out of Veggie burgers today. Robin ordered a belini coctail, had a few of my fries, and even a couple bites of haddock, but i think she still enjoyed herself. Company like me, how couldn't she ?!?!?
Onward and Upward we drove, and it was an incredible sunny day, eventually we made our way through some lovely country and arrived at Lawrencetown beach, which was itself a nice beach, but rocky. Ideal for surfing it seems, as that's what the bulk of folks seemed to be doing. We flipped and floped our way up and down that beach for a bit, and then decided to have a go at Martinique, a beach robin had heard mentioned as a must-see.
This beach is incredible. About 10 kms of sandy dandy sandy beach. maybe 200 people on it tops, and a good 30 feet of beach, and additional 60 feet of low tide shallow water on sandy dandy sandy sand. It was great. We spent about three hours there, and it made the day. Robin had a bit of a dip and lounged in the sun while I tried to see just how long the beach was, and spent the full three hours walking as far as I could and back again. I didn't get that far. Hopefully that will give some context to the random pictures i'm about to insert. Sorry if this is a tad scattered, but it's midnight, and I'm pooped. Well, that and when we hit the country store (see picture) I bought for $1 The greatest works of Alistair Maclean (The Guns of Navarone, etc...) and it calls my name.... Robins already asleep. She can always post a more appropriate commentary when she wakes up in the morning. That being said, enjoy the photos....

Ahhh, the joys of a bureaucracy... well, today has been primarily spent wading through heaps of cyclical papers and files pertaining to our visa applications, required forms, and attempts to make sense of what's required for us to get into the U.S. So far, so silly. Phone calls, emails and expletives abound as we try to sort out who knows what to do, and who's only guessing. So far, no one seems to be in agreement with what we have to get from where, as we're dealing with three different departments of three separate agencies from two different countries.
If this is what people go through trying to emigrate to our country, then I honestly believe they've suffered enough, and if all is filled out accordingly, they should be granted immediate citizenship, as they are obviously truly gifted and intelligent people with infinitely more brains then me, and more deserving of a place in this lovely country of ours.
Random photo time: I would rather be sitting in the in-laws back yard right now then doing stupid paperwork. Or, come to think of it, I'd also rather be sautnering across the Tim Hortons parking lot in North Tydney, on my way back from the Lick-a-chick...

I'd rather be Leading a band of stinky pirates across the high seas in search of booty and plunder. Yes, yes I would.

Back to the grind (but with a possible lead...)

Life is getting back to normal for us in Halifax. Colin and I are both working lots and trying to sort out our move. We got a good lead on an apartment in Washington. Only $1290 USD per month! What a deal!

Yes indeedy, we spent a fairly good time frolicking in the BC sunshine for the better part of twelve days. This shot is taken of a rather jubilant and elated robin in one of her typical moments of mirthful delight as we cross the brentwood bay ferry (for those of you not familiar with the area, "Crossing the Brentwood Bay Ferry" has nothing to do with deceiving a man in women's clothing).

On second thought...

Having viewed the published site, I think just plain white text will be better from now on. Apologies to those of you with colour blindess. The purple on blue is a bit hard on the eyes.

Inspired

After seeing a friends blog, I decided this could be a good way for us to stay connected with friends and family.

I admit this is a bit of a whim. But I promise to try my best (or at the least, nag Colin regularly) to keep updating our blog.

For a very brief update on Colin and myself (Robin), I offer the following:

• We are now poised to leave our adopted home of Halifax, NS. We have been living here for 2 years now. Colin has been working the hotel scene and I have been attending Dalhousie. This May I graduated with my MLIS (Master's of Library and Information Studies) and won a fellowship with the National Library of Medicine in Washington D.C.
  

• We just visited Victoria BC for a 12 day whirlwind reunion with all of our West Coast family and friends. Colin had a decidedly relaxing time in my parents' backyard, drinking beer and reading juvenile fantasy novels. I spent a lot of time in Cadboro Bay village catching up on the local gossip thanks to Margaret, Ali, Pascale and Lyn (our fabulous hair dresser). I also had a chance to reunite with some of our dearest friends who also happened to find themselves in Victoria.
  

• It was good to return to Halifax though. Our latest member of the family was very happy to see us back on the East Coast. We adopted Lou-Lou-Belle from the SPCA over a year ago now. She is a orange tabby with lots of attitude. She will be coming with us to Washington and will be continuing her career as an author of juvenile fantasy novels...

Please stay tuned for our next exciting adventure of living in the United States.

Hope you are all doing well,

Robin