We have window coverage !

Our friend Johnny came over this past Saturday to install our custom fauxwood blinds in our master bedroom. Let me just say this. The blinds look nice. We threw some Ikea curtains on top of them and voila ! Window coverings are done for the bedroom. The family room and dining room are set too. The front window will have to wait as Janny hasn't found the right curtains yet and no real rush since the the roof over the porch provides sunshade anyways. The front doors and garden doors will also have to wait as we plan to replace the glass inserts. At $300 a pop though, we aren't in a hurry.

I'll take some pictures later this week......

Better

Well, I guess today, everyone decided to stay home because it took 35 minutes to drive to work this morning. Not too bad I guess.

We had some friends over on Saturday night after dinner and some of their kids took quite a spill on the new hardwood floor. No one got seriously hurt but if this were the Olympics, there wouldn't be too many medals handed out. It was nice to see the house filled up with people because it takes getting used to the emptiness due to the lack of furniture. Our friend Paul helped us stack the dryer on top of the washer which created some more space for us in the laundry room area which we use to access the garage. We had to uninstall an overhead cabinet above the washer and that was near accidental as it toppled onto the top of my head as we were removing it ... OPPS !

Anyways, our friend Johnny sold us some blinds in our bedroom this weekend so that we can remove the cardboard that we have been using to prevent the light from entering. A couple of more curtains go up this weekend too. Now the neighbours can actually open their blinds so that we don't see them ! It's been quite funny since the only way we have been getting privacy is to start staring at the neighbours. Eventually, they will shut their blinds or curtains if you stare at them long enough. Friggin hilarious, ehh?

Had Enough ....

Yes ... I am having a bad week.
Keep reading and you'll know why.

Okay, so weather has been pretty bad lately.
However, checkout these commuting times from this morning with semi-icy conditions:

Home to Hwy 404 - 7 minutes (5km)
Hwy 404 & Stouffville Road to Hwy 404 & 16 Ave. - 20 minutes (9km)
Hwy 404 & 16 Ave. to Hwy 401 & Yonge Street - 10 minutes (17km)
Hwy 401 & Yonge Street to Yonge & Eglinton - 15 minutes (5km)

Yes, the 5 km drive to Yonge & Eglinton seems long but this is in Toronto, that's expected. However, the traffic between Stouffville Road & 16 Ave is insanely horrible on Hwy 404.

For some dumb reason, surburbians forget how to drive on this stretch of road. There are no stoplights, no accidents, no curves, no parked cars, no left turns, no right turns and 3 lanes going southbound. Just cars exiting the highway and entering the highway (only at the right side). The worse thing is that it won't get any better with the increased homes being delivered close to Hwy 404 at the Elgin Mills and Major Mackenzie exits over the next couple of years.

On a good day (which hasn't been that often), the commute takes about 40 minutes. So that's 12 minutes quicker than today. This is usually via Leslie Street to Major Mackenzie before merging onto Hwy 404. But consider that the commute from Hwy 404 & 16 Ave. to Yonge & Eglinton was only 25 minutes today ! On a good day, it can be done in 20 minutes. That is certainly ideal. Hell, that's even quicker than it takes some people to get to work via the TTC.

I have tried to be positive over the past couple of weeks but I am definitely convinced after this morning that if we want to live in the suburbs, it will have to be close to Hwy 404 & 16th Ave. Only thing we will have to give up is the size and type of our home. No more detached 2157 sq ft. home. It'll probably be a smaller townhouse since the Hwy 404 & 16th Ave. area has quite a reputation. The only other person to convince is Janny. Any volunteers want to help? :P

The weather is also worse up where we are:
-if Toronto gets 5 cm of snow, we get 10cm
-the temperature is always one to two degrees lower than Toronto
-the amount of snow that stays is significantly more in Richmond Hill (just check out the picture of our house below, I have yet to see a Toronto house with this much snow on it)

So for all those who are even considering to move north of 16th Ave, think many times about it because I've been trying hard to accept the commute. If you work 9-5 from Monday to Friday, then from a practical point of view, it just doesn't make much sense. So what if you can get a nice big house. At what cost? In a study I read, dealing with traffic stress will shorten a person's lifespan by a couple of years, thus, from my point of view, a person will have less time to enjoy their nice big house. Sorta defeats the point, ehh? Also, we spend less time at home on the weekdays because we leave early and arrive home late in order to avoid the busy rush hour times. Every other weekend, Janny is home late on Fridays and gone for most of Saturday due to classes. Thus, how much time is actually spent enjoying our home together? Not much if you ask me.

Saving our Environment

Well, today I am bitter. No different than how I usually am but today it just kinda struck a nerve. You'll know what I mean .. just keep reading.

Well, today we found out that The Town of Richmond Hill is quite picky with their pickup of recyclable materials. Cardboard boxes must be flattened and be no more than 60cm x 60cm x 30cm. If not, Mr. Recycle Man penalizes you with a nice big yellow sticker (that smells like cheap coffee, no Starbucks here) on the cardboard to remind you of the rules. On their website, no such rules exist other than a line under the garbage section that says "1 bundle of material (tied with string, maximum weight: 18 kgs and no longer than 1.8 metres)". Thus, I went according to this and now I am told differently. I called the appropriate department and they want me to pickup some garbage & recycling calendar that details out everything. Also, I have to go pickup a recycle box from some Richmond Hill facility on Elgin Mills. Since I am a new resident, could they not have just dropped off this stuff for me? Mr. Recycle Man is busy playing with stickers anyways (I swear I saw various coloured stickers near his steering wheel), I'm sure he could have done the drop off while he was here. Instead, I have to get into my car and make an extra trip to the facility to get a recycle box and go to a library to pickup a calendar. Post the information on the Internet maybe ?!?!

Living in a house necessitates such strict rules for garbage and recycling. Trust me, I got used to the garbage collection at condos and apartments. Not a bad thing to enforce garbage and recycling, but what about commuting. Everyone in Richmond HIll has to get into a car to get anywhere. Are car emissions not something that contributes negatively to our environment? Of course they do ! Has anything in the Town of Richmond Hill been done about it? Oh yeah, there is VIVA transit or what I call Very Incompetent Vehicle Addition. So you add a huge bus on the road that supposedly should take cars off the road. First of all, it would help if they had a VIVA bus stop close to our corner at Yonge Street & Stouffville Road. Currently, I would have to get onto a York Region Transit (YRT) bus to get to a VIVA bus stop. Kinda defeats the point of a quick commute. Second of all, I have yet to see one of those damn things full ! The most I have seen is maybe 8 to 10 people. Whoopee doo !! Let's spend millions of dollars to implement a bus system that works only a little better than the current YRT system. Why didn't they just invest the money to improve the current YRT instead of beginning an entirely new system? Who is the dumba$$ who authorized this decision? Probably the same one thinks cardboard boxes need to be packed 60cm x 60cm x 30cm. Should I put a nice bow on it too? Or maybe include some stickers for Mr. Recycle Man?

Anyways, if anyone is looking for me this weekend, I'll be spending my time repackaging all my cardboard since that's what people in Richmond Hill enjoy doing. Spending their time trying to ensure that the environment is saved. On that note, I'll also be driving out to the facility to pick up my recycle box, driving out to get some rope to tie the cardboard together, and driving out to get a calendar. Hopefully, all the gas emissions from my car will contribute positively to our environment ......

A couple of more pictures ...

Even more snow !

Guess what ... when we got home yesterday, there was so much snow on the driveway that I could have drowned in it ! WOW ! The house got hit hard ! Good thing I grabbed a shovel from Canadian Tire on the way back home because I would have had to ski to the front door. Janny decided to brave it out and wade through the snow to get to the garage. The snow almost reached her knees ! I'm serious ! Okay, maybe not her knees, maybe a couple of centimetres below that. I would estimate that it was around 30cm deep. A lot of it was from blowing snow rather than accumulation.

I decided to take the shovel out of the car and cleared myself a path to the garage door. Yes, I was wussing out but whatever. Got changed and came back out to tackle the snow. The friggin neighbour decided to block a little over half of our driveway with their Honda Accord so I went over to speak with the owners to get the car moved. Some woman in her twenties answered the door in a tank top (it's minus 5 outside woman !) and said her sister went downtown with the other car and took the keys to the Accord with her. She tried to sound sorry but she just sounded dumb. I told her to mention to her sister to not park in front of our driveway again. Hopefully, she's smart enough to understand that.

Anyways, shovelled half our driveway and left the other half covered in snow. I'm hoping we get an early spring so that it melts and I won't have to shovel it. I made sure that the Accord was nicely surrounded and decorated with snow :P to remind "the sister" that she not park in front of our driveway again considering that they have a double driveway with no cars parked on it.

It didn't snow overnight but this morning, CHUMFM broadcasts that the Yonge subway line is shut down from York Mills to Bloor because of some fire and CO leak. This created traffic chaos and we made the poor decision to go to work at our regular time. BIG MISTAKE ! It took 1hr and 10 minutes to get to Yonge and Eglinton instead of the regular 40 minutes. Should've stayed home till 9am and then head to work. That's the plan next time they decide to have a fire and CO leak.

Again, no pictures because like yesterday, all you see is white.
I'll post some pictures of the house all cleaned up later this week.

1st Snowfall

So we just had our first official snowfall at the house.
God damn !! That was a lot of friggin snow !

We got 5 cm on Saturday. Then it rained and it all melted. Then we got another 10 cm between Sunday morning and Monday morning. All in all, not too bad. Well, of course till we got down to Toronto and it looks more like fairy dust down here. I don't even think it counts as accumulation.

Anyways, have to go out to get a shovel from Canadian Tire b/c my car ain't going to go up that slope to my garage, especially since it isn't paved yet. Snow and ice on top of loose dirt and gravel doesn't provide much traction. Trust me, I tried yesterday and eventually had to use a broom to clear the snow from around the car just to get into the garage.

The joys of living up north in the suburbs...... till the next snowfall....

No pictures. If you want to see what it looked like outside, hold up a blank 8.5 by 11 piece of paper in front of your face.

THE commute

So I'm sure a lot of people are asking ... how's the commute to work now?
Well, it really isn't too bad. Yes, I said it, NOT too bad.

Here are the times:
Previous commute at rental apartment - 5 minutes
Current commute at new house - 45 minutes

Okay, okay, so the time increased by 40 minutes.
But, let's look on the bright side .. I live in a much more comfortable place and I like my house. The only adjustment I have to make is waking up earlier. Not a difficult tradeoff once you get used to it.

Let's get back to the commute. We leave at 7:20am and access Hwy. 404 via Stouffville road. Once we get on the 404 at about 7:27am, the traffic flow slows down to anywhere from 20km/h to 80km/h depending on the lane until 16th Ave. One thing that really pisses me off is how slow people drive in the far left lane. THIS IS THE FAST LANE PEOPLE ! Just b/c you sit on the left side of the car, doesn't mean that you have to drive on that side. In the end, I have to conform to others' stupidity (yeah, I'm being harsh) so I drive along the far right lane which ends up being quicker.

Once we pass 16th Ave, the brand new HOV lanes start. This is one thing that I will give full credit to the Ministry of Transportation for having the balls to implement. This lane is DA BOMB ! For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about ... yes, you downtown people ... this is a new lane on the far left side that will accommodate any vehicle with 2 or more passengers. Vehicles can only enter and exit at designated spots so traffic is much better controlled. Very similar to those in California. You can usually drive anywhere between 100km/h to 140km/h in this lane and it has it's own exit to the westbound Hwy 401. Pretty convenient, ehh?

Once I get onto the 401 at about 7:45am, I head over to Yonge St. in about 5 minutes. The drive down to Yonge and Eglinton is your typical city drive with traffic lights and vehicles making left turns. We arrive at our parking spot (located at our old apartment on Holly St.) at 8am and do our 5 minute walk to work.

Now on the way home, for the past few days, we've been leaving Y&E at about 6:45pm since we like to hit the gym after work before heading home. This drive is a little quicker. We drive along Eglinton to hook up with the DVP and then head home. By the time we are in the driveway, it is 7:20pm. So give or take 35 minutes.

We plan to test the drive home at 6pm tomorrow just to do a comparison.
If we can get home before 7pm, then life will be good.

Anyways, this blog is even longer than our commute so time to sign off for now.