posted by Robin on Art, Home & Mom, Blog

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So, it’s finally here, moving day. Well, the moving truck came Monday and we have our long drive to Toronto tomorrow. Then just a few days until we move into our new place. I don’t even have the official move in date yet, when the moving truck is there and ready to unload. But I do have pictures to share our adventure and smoothie inspiration to share with you!

We’re packing it all up & wow do we have a lot of paintings. These are mine, but there are way more of mom’s getting packed up. Mom’s passion in life is her art, and she taught many painting groups for years. Some of her paintings can be seen here.

Boxes everywhere!

& Mom’s still on smoothie duty. She makes us incredible smoothies 2 times every day. Love, love, love her smoothies!

My 2 gorgeous nieces have been here with me every day since last Thursday. Emily, in the ball chair, lives in Halifax and is here visiting for the week. She is here until right before we head out in the car for Toronto. Amethyste lives here in the same city close to us and is spending lots of time this week at our place with her sister and us. It’s so awesome for both mom & I having them around!!

This was a very huge deal. Mom’s paint room studio was packed – 2 of the walls were floor to ceiling, wall to wall art books and another was filled with shelves. It’s hard to imagne how much she had packed into this room! (and most rooms!).

Our basement still has a 70’s feel going on down there! and boxes of bananas!! We also have another fridge and huge deep freezer, which I have just cleaned out.

Last week my mind was blown at finding a secret room. Yes, I really did!! It sounds strange but the next day I heard the story of the room. My dad was a bit eccentric. I always wondered is he was borderline genius/crazy.. he was always coming up with some really interesting things.  But life was fun with him. He had a garage with pin ball machines when I and my brother were young, and a deep freeze in the back porch with at least 8 flavors of ice cream, in huge ice cream store tubs. When he decided to get into making ceramics he bought a kiln and whole room full of accessories. I could go on, oh and he had lots of shops: hobby shop, fish and chip stand (yikes!), framing shop.. always getting into something new, and going pretty big into his hobbies. Our basement was actually a hairstyling salon at one time, as well as a brew your own shop and framing shop. Life here was always interesting.

I found out about this secret room the day after I discovered it. My brothers friend came over to help me clear out some stuff and said he was the one who built the room. My dad hired him to do it. Dad was always building walls and shelves.. the attic and basement of this home often were a sort of labyrinth anyway. The room is inside of another room that we used to house paintings. and the reason why it was hidden to me is that a big shelf was pulled out in front of it and there were empty boxes that you can ship paintings there too.  So as I was getting to really cleaning out I finally discovered it.

It was down here all along with the bananas..

Our intense blueberry smoothies!

I made these in the afternoon.

Put 2 cups blueberries (more or less) to 2 cups almond milk (more or less). We packed up the measuring cups.

and blend!

The result is an intense blue delicious icy slushy that is great for energy on moving day, or any day! It’s best to eat while still semi-frozen, because after it developed a weird texture.. but even so, I drank the rest anyway. Cause blueberries are totally irresistable!

The kitchen is getting packed. This moving company really wrapped everything.

Buddah too.

I love my laptop.. it’s not going anywhere. I do everything on this little guy and love it.

Front door. I was tempted to take the brass lion. But I am just being sentimental, I think it wants to stay with the house so I’ll leave it.

View from our our front door and front porch. Jones lake is awesome. walking around the part closest to us takes about 35 to 40 minutes. Emily & I walked it last night, and often. It’s about 3 kms going around and is a beautiful walk.

Around the corner here’s the moving truck getting packed.

Mom’s and my juicers.

My last time sitting in the ball chair here. This chair is an original from the 60’s and I am praying it fits in the doorway of the new place where we are moving. It’s big. (cross your fingers for me!)

The place is emptying out.

The moving truck has now left and we have bare essentials for the next couple days. I borrowed a camping mattress pad for Emily. This is her new room.  Mom still has her queen bed, which gets picked up the morning we leave.

Our new dining room! pretty funny..but we can still handle little dinner parties. I have 8 bamboo plates and just enough utensils, although I had to use a spoon one night. crazy but fun.

It’s wild for me to see it so empty. although we have had lots of company the last few days, so it’s not really as empty as it looks.

We moved in the summer I was going into grade 2, so Mom has lived here for the past 43 years. She’s put a lot of love into this home and I think it has a great energy and feel to it.

Well, that’s it. This is our last day here.

See you on the other side for more adventures from Toronto!

Peace and love,