Waiting: Day Eight

Greetings from Dartmouth/Halifax.

Hot Dog!

MWAH! Gillian Hearts Starbucks.

South Shore!

Ahhhh, out of the house at last! Today we went down to the South Shore and spent a few hours on Risser's Beach (lovely sand!) and in Lunenburg! Gosh it's beautiful down there!

Belal and Me on the beach (Fiiiiiiinally out of the car! Haha!)

The mast of The Bluenose II!

Mum touching The Bluenose! Very exciting, she has a thing for ships!

The bell on The Bluenose. Shiny, Shiny!

The anchor on The Bluenose :) I have a thing for anchors ;)

Love,
Gillian

Finally, My Anderson Cooper Shrine is Complete!

Ha Ha! Okay, I really am kidding! Did you ever watch the cartoon "Hey, Arnold!" where Helga had the shrine of "football head" in her closet (I tried to find a video, alas, no such luck!) Well, this isn't like that at all ;) Although, I do have a major celebrity crush on CNN's Anderson Cooper (ahhh, integrity in journalism... smart, gorgeous and a Vanderbilt!)... Eh hem.... moving on...

My parents have been occupied in the garden lately, so I jumped at the chance to paint and decorate my bedroom to make it a bit more tolerable. Once upon a time, this room was painted "Cookie Monster Blue." Then someone painted about 2 coats of "insipid cream" over that (btw, it needed 3 coats.) Then they put up ugly wire shelves and TA DA! One tiny, unattractive conglomerate of half-assed design (much like the rest of the house... but I digress.)

Well, it just so happened that we had a pail of "Silver Fox" paint left over from the main floor bathroom, and it also just so happens that Anderson Cooper's nickname is "The Silver Fox." Could I resist? Absolutely not! So I tore down the metal shelves, painted (and painted, and painted) and this is the result:



Soooo much better than it was! I love the soft grey-brown colour (and not just because it looks like Anderson Cooper's hair, although it does help! heehee!)

I miss you all!
Gillian

We've Only Been Here A Month?!

Okay, truthfully, right now I'm sitting on the back porch in the shade with the dog, watching my parents dig up weeds, and frankly life is pretty good at this very second. I'm NOT digging up weeds because I'm "watching the dog", which means I can be helpful while still being lazy. This way the dog is well-behaved, and outside. He can see mum and dad, which means that he doesn't need to lick his elbow in his obsessive-compulsive fervour. The dog is happy, so mum is happy, and I am happy until any bugs invade my personal space.

It's now been a month since we arrived in Nova Scotia. It feels like it's been a loooooot longer. A LOT longer!!! It's not that Nova Scotia is really a bad place, it's just that I feel a lonely and trapped and I live in my head an awful lot when I don't get out of the house at all. As the days go by, I learn to cope a little more. We don't get CBC AM out here, but I can stream it quite effectively from their website, so I can learn while I work, which is all good. Nathan and Sheila are coming out for Thanksgiving, which I'm giddy about!!! It's only for a few days, but it gives me something to plan and think about. Should we have a bonfire on the beach? Should we go on a winery tour? Lobster dinner at Hall's Harbour? I really can't wait, although I may have to tie them up and keep them here, because I get teary just thinking about them. I MISS YOU GUYS! Have I mentioned that? Only about 40 times, hey?

We're "now 90% bat-free", with only a few incidents which dad has blogged about here. I've been trying to think a little more about the website for the B&B, wondering if I can find a course out here to teach me Flash so I can incorporate fancy tide charts and such. I've painted/decorated my room, which I will write about later in the promised "Anderson Cooper" post. I dunno, it's really kind of a blur, ya know? Each day is like the last, and it's certainly not what I would call "exciting", but it's different. I have to keep reminding myself to "buck up, it's an adventure," but that's hard on days like today... It's my friend Kim's birthday, and all of the Salsa gang back home are going dancing, so I feel pretty miserable about that. I want to be there so badly to help her celebrate and dance into the wee hours, spinning around precariously, laughing till it hurts.

So that's it, really. A month of mixed emotions and bats and a horrifying lack of Salsa dancing and sushi. But as they say in Elizabethtown (one of my favourite movies!) "We are intrepid. We carry on."

... We just carry on a lot more easily when we can go dancing ;)

Okay, okay, enough of my whining! My love to all!
Gillian

Waiting: Day 7

This picture is actually from yesterday, but I was too tired to upload it last night!

This is my mum's favourite picture so far.

New posts coming soon! Check back for "We've Only Been Here a Month?!" and "Finally, My Anderson Cooper Shrine is Complete!" Ha ha! Am I kidding? There's only one way to find out ;)

Love,
Gillian

Waiting: Day Six

CA-RAZY thunder storm last night! I've never seen anything like it!!! That meant that I was going off five hours of sleep, so I was okay to stay in the car while my parents did the Home Depot and Lee Valley thing in Halifax...

So here's day six of the art installation:

I think Belal resembles a dinosaur sometimes. Today was one of those days!

Meanwhile, I look like Night Of The Living Dead. This is what I'd look like as a zombie. Mmmm, Braiiiiiiinnnnnnnssssss.
Good to know. (gosh, I hope it was just bad lighting and I wasn't walking around Halifax all day looking like that! YIKES!)

Love to all!
Gillian

Sentimental Schmuck

Oooh, it's been an emotionally volatile week! I have been all over the place! Up, Down, In, Out, Upside Down. You name an emotion, and I've felt it. It's been that crazy.

Tonight I have landed in a sentimental place, probably due to the fact that I just talked to my friend Kim on the phone. I miss my friends. I miss It's Yoga. I miss California and Calgary and my family. I want to hug people. I feel all teary. Do you see what happens when I talk to people on the phone??? *sniffle* No more phone calls!!!

Things have been busy here, painting and making jam. So much fresh, yummy fruit and produce out here! There was a total of eight bees in the fireplace today (no, I don't know what they were doing in there) and we've finished painting the walls in the parlours (weeeee... only four thousand rooms to go!)

That's about it, really.
Love,
Gillian

Waiting: Day 5

~gillian~

What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?

This is the most romantic song in the world! Oddly appropriate, since I've been wondering "What Am I Doing The Rest Of My Life?!"

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Love From A Very Homesick

Gillian

Day Four of Waiting

Day Four of the Waiting Art Installation.

Today's entry comes from the Home Depot parking lot in Dartmouth.

Cheers! Love, Gillian

Storm Chasing!

(yeah, yeah, two posts in one day! excessive?)

Last night a big wind storm blew through King's County, knocking the power out promptly at 8 this morning. We had a truckload of compost delivered at 9:30, and then the lot of us jumped in the car to do a little storm chasing, Maritime-style ;) We didn't have any power until about 2:30pm, so we couldn't do much else, after all!

Out at Hall's Harbour the tide was in, and the waves were huge! Here's a picture of mum and dad, so you can see how high the waves were!

Further past Hall's Harbour was a quieter portion of beach. The tide was going out, and left little tide pools, like this one where the snails chose to hang out!
The sky started to clear after a bit, and the wind calmed down. This driftwood was super-cool.
Belal was NOT sure how he felt about the big waves!
The other cool thing about the storm was that it blew away all of the algae on the pond close to our house! It's been a dull, cloudy green the whole time we've been here, but today it's sparkling blue! So very strange!

Love to you all! COME VISIT!
Gillian

Waiting: The Art Installation

Belal hasn't been ready to be left alone since we arrived in Nova Scotia. He just gets upset, and then we get upset, so to make things easier on everyone we've just been taking him with us wherever we go. However, this often means that someone has to wait in the car with Belal while the other people run errands. Often that ends up being me. Often this means that I sit in the car twiddling my thumbs for 45 minutes. SO the other day I was waiting outside the hardware store, bored out of my tree, so I decided to play with the camera on my new phone. There wasn't anything to take pictures of so I decided to document myself and Belal being bored... waiting... waiting for something, anything to happen! From there I decided that every time Belal and I were stuck waiting in the car that I would take a picture of us "looking bored" to post on my blog. It's my own little Art Installation. I like the grainy, glowy quality of the camera-phone pictures, and it gives me something to do while I wait ;) So here are the first three days of my project. There will be more to come, I'm sure.

Day 1

Day 2 - too dark from the rain to get a clear shot of B :(

Day 3

Heehee!

Gillian

Nova Scotia: A History Lesson and Scenery

We keep driving into New Minas or Wolfville for various things, and every time we do I think "I have to take pictures of these things to post on my blog!" So tonight mum, dad, Belal and I piled into the car and went on a little photo excursion.

Canning is located in the Annapolis Valley... Valley being the key word here. As you drive out of Port Williams into Canning, you come upon this sign:

The sign reads "3,030 acres, privately owned, reclaimed from the sea ca. 1682 - 1812. If the running dyke should break, a normal tide would be up to this line."

What does this mean? It means that in 1682 a bunch of guys built a dyke... that was a long freaking time ago! What else does it mean? Well, that if the dyke broke, Canning and the road OUT of Canning would be under water.... weeeeeeee!!!! I'm buying a boat!!!!! The whole "reclaimed from the sea" thing bothers me. It practically is an invitation for a big "act of God" flood, doncha think?

Moving on...

At this point we drove up out of the valley, onto The Look Off. Down there you can see all of the lovely corn and orchards and part of the Minas Basin (with dyke fully intact, or that would be under water.)

More of a view of the Minas Basin. This is at High Tide.

This is a familiar sight of me being ridiculous....

Driving down from The Look Off to Scot's Bay/Cape Split, we came across this memorial. It reads "Jess Family Memorial.
This monument commemorates two of Scots Bay’s early pioneer settlers: Lisette (Christened Catherine Louise) Payzant (1756-1819) and her husband George Jess Sr. (c. 1753 – 1824).
Lisette was born in Quebec while her mother and siblings were being held captive by the French following the slaughter of her father (by Malecite raiders) in 1756 on Covey Island in Mahone Bay, N.S. After the fall of Quebec in 1759, the British repatriated her family to Falmouth, N.S. , where Lisette and George married and became the progenitors of the Jess family of Nova Scotia. They both lie buried near this memorial on the site of their original homestead established some time before 1792."

Again, me being ridiculous, showing you the ocean!

A storm rolling in over the ocean! oooooooooh, dramatic!

Who knew there was so much history out here?

Love Love Love,
Gillian

Nova Scotia: Evangeline or Deliverance?

Tomorrow marks the two week point in our Nova Scotia Adventure. It feels like we've been here for months already, considering all of my new-found neuroses. Who knew that one could go so crazy in such a short amount of time? At any rate, I figured that it was time for a little overview of Nova Scotia through my eyes.

In 1845 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem called "Evangeline", which begins in the part of Nova Scotia where I am currently residing. For the intellectuals out there, you can download the poem from Project Gutenberg here, but you'll need about an hour if you plan to read it, because this is the very definition of Epic Poetry. If you can only get through the first few stanzas, we're a few minutes away from Grand Pre, and our house is right by the Evangeline Trail. "The Minas Basin: Home of Orchards, Tides and Evangeline" the signs all say. That pretty much sums it up. Oh yes, and corn. Which brings me to the "Deliverance" reference.

The crickets chirp. You're surrounded by corn. The men sit on their porches without shirts, staring at you (and Calvin Klein models they ain't!) I haven't heard any dueling banjos as yet, but give it time. "Haha," you say. "It can't be that bad."
But I bought my cell phone from a place called "Wacky Wheatley's", people. It can and it is.

We've been to Halifax twice now, which is wonderful. It's ridiculous how much of a city girl I am, but my blood pressure and heart rate actually go down when we get into Halifax. The stores, the Starbucks', the fully-dressed people, the streets, the signs, the civilisation!
"Ahhhhh," I sigh, my body relaxing, letting go of the constant "fight or flight" adrenaline. Lovely, comforting city. The concrete jungle, full of sensible things like coffee shops, restaurants, book stores, and 24-hour amenities. I can navigate here. I can handle anything. I get this place. I am CITY GIRL! I can order a Triple Grande Vanilla Non-Fat Latte, while text messaging, all in high heels! This is my comfort zone. As soon as we start driving back home I can feel the anxiety attacks start up again. Oh God, don't make me go back there. Please, I'll do anything. Not back to the place where I jump every time I see movement out of the corner of my eye. PLEASE not that. ANYTHING but THAT!!!

(chirp, chirp, chirp, the crickets respond... was that a banjo I heard?!)

One good thing about Nova Scotia is how friendly the people are. In Wolfville, for example, at the Tim's, all of the men hold the doors open for you with an "after you, my dear." The people are chatty, even in Halifax, and if you tell them where you're from they immediately say "Well if you need ANYTHING, you just let me know." The lady at the fabric store today, the realtor. Heck, our next door neighbour sent his son over to help us clean the yard! My sceptical City Girl mind says "you don't know me from a hole in the ground," but they're just friendly! FRIENDLY!!! Haven't really met anyone my age, though, except for the neighbour across the street, shirt off on the porch, polishing his sword collection... sketchy...

(chirp, chirp, chirp....)

Anyway, that's about it for now. "It's some hot, eh?" to quote the locals. I miss you all TERRIFICALLY!

xoxoxo,
Gillian

... hmmm....

... I'm not sure how I feel about this, but it was too strange not to post.



The moral of the story: Never Trust Robots.

Also, we went for dinner at Hall's Harbour tonight. Here are some pics!

Me!
Belal, Mum, Dad!
Love,

Gillian

The Thing About Bats...

... is that they are a protected species in Nova Scotia, which basically boils down to "you're pretty much screwed."

The bat people finally called us back, and that was the answer. The good news is that the bats leave in the fall, and then the bat people will come in and do clean up. The bad news is that they won't do anything to help our situation before that. The worse news is that bats return to the same house every spring, so we'd better make sure that every possible entrance point is closed before they return.

Last night was the first time I actually saw a bat flying around inside the house, and I was not at all brave about it. I was too scared to even scream. I managed to run into the hall and shut the door and stand there shuddering. BatGirl I ain't. Both mum and I feel a little ridiculous that we're so freaked out by them, but yikes! That was "Bat Incident #6", they're quiet and fast, and the prospect of being so terrified for the next few month is making us both pretty miserable. This place is giving me a nervous breakdown and it hasn't even been two weeks.

*eh-hem* That was happy, wasn't it? Hmmm, what can I tell you that's positive? Hmmm.... Positive... pos-i-tive... Yeah, I've got nothing.

Miss you all,
Gillian