It take 18 minutes to get to Rona

Here we are, finally deposited in our new home. 

Okay, it doesn't quite feel like home yet, but we're working on it. The movers haven't delivered all of our belongings yet (they estimate they'll have our things delivered to us by August 3rd, but that's another story); we're surrounded by a jumble of boxes that defy my logical packing plan (kitchen boxes are stacked in the mud room; Liam's things are spread between his room and the living room and my clothes are in the dining room); we have no oven apart from a small countertop convection oven that's probably 15 years old, holds nothing larger than an 8x8 pan and has it's own ideas about the value of heat in the cooking process; and the list of "projects" grows exponentially each day.

But not all is bad. It's comforting to know that some things are reliably consistent, no matter where you go. For example, a Big Mac in Paris tastes exactly the same as a Big Mac in Prague and The Gap and Starbucks Coffee can be found in every city in the world. I'm not suggesting that these are necessarily good things, just that consistency has it's merits. Closer to our immediate needs, we've discovered an amazing consistency with Home Depot. On our second day here we began the inevitable parade to the home improvement stores and found that the staff at Home Depot in Langford are as woefully inadequate in their knowledge of home improvement projects as the Home Depot staff in Vancouver. So, really, we felt quite at home. All that orange shelving and not a soul who knew anything about the issues at hand. 

On the upside, we've found that Rona has more knowledgeable staff than Home Depot and is about 4 minutes closer to home. In fact, it takes about 18 minutes door to door. Result? We now own an impressive array of wrenches and have a functioning bathroom faucet (rather utilitarian looking, but it works) and a functioning kitchen faucet (looks fantastic but highlights the dismal state of the rest of the kitchen). Check two projects from the list.

Tomorrow we'll be deciding on a new washer and dryer and dishwasher. The laundry is starting to stack up so it's either buy new appliances or buy more socks and underwear. The dishes we're managing to stay on top of the old-fashioned way but we don't really need any more chores than we could, instead, automate. So soon we will be able to apply three more check marks to our list.

One day at a time. One box at a time. One leaky faucet at a time.