etc.

For fear of turning this into a journal of proud home ownership, I will merely mention the projects we completed this weekend: finished the painting for the dining room, sanded and painted the two chairs we bought at auction some months ago, and unpacked every last book we own. We’re even well on our way to installing that window AC, thanks in large part to Mike’s dad.

Yesterday morning we headed out to Milton for a combined estate/town auction. It was in a big old barn on the fairgrounds and the viewing began at 9am with the auction scheduled to begin at 10:30. We thought that getting there at 9:45 would give us plenty of time to have a gander at everything, grab a muffin, and find seats, because surely the antique-coveting-yuppies wouldn’t venture that far afield on the morning of holiday Monday. As it happens, we had it figured all wrong. The yuppies came good and early, with seat cushions, bubble wrap and empty liquor boxes in hand, ready to wrap up their newly-acquired Royal Doulton china and Hummel figurines. It was sticky and tight and we could barely make our way around the auction tables and even though I did spot a couple of interesting boxes of postcards, a working clock and some functional flash lights (we bought flash lights at the last auction too), we decided we’d leave the bidding to those better prepared and left with our muffins.

Disappointment wore quick once we’d found a big country market for local farm produce and had our grocery shopping done by 10.30am. You know your life is working well for you when a good plan is serendipitously replaced by a better plan, in a flukey things-have-a-way-of-working-out kind of way.