I've Missed You

Hello lovelies! I have missed you so! I have no internet in the new apartment and it is driving both Mr. Milk and I a little bit crazy! Unfortunately we won't be getting it anytime soon either! Since it is a new building, with 4 privately owned units, they have yet to connect the phone/cable company to the building, and our request is the first one. Everything shuts down here in August, so we are looking at September to be reconnected. I'm really not sure how Mr. Milk will survive this - most likely he will be searching for someones unprotected wifi connection :)

How are you all?! I have tried to read and comment as much as I can, but between moving, unpacking, multiple trips to IKEA, final wedding tasks, and the lack of a computer/internet, there isn't much time left. There are a few updates to report, so I will briefly mention them here and then elaborate more as soon as I have more time.

• I have decided to keep my blog public. While I would still prefer it to be more private, I think doing so would make it more difficult for all my great readers and followers, and thats the last thing I want. Decision made!
• We have decided on favors and are in the middle of ordering everything for them. All I can say at the moment is that they involve chocolate!!
• Moving into our new home is going well. The apartment is starting to look and feel homey but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. We got most of our furniture delivered and all of our appliances, and I spent 2 days setting up the kitchen. It is almost ready for our first meal :)
• Mr. Milk set up his bbq within 2 days of us moving in, and so now has a new baby. He is very proud

• We have planned and booked my bachelorette weekend/party. It is taking place from the 3rd to 5th of Sept at a villa with private pool at the resort where the wedding is taking place! Can't wait!
• Mr. Milk has also planned his bachelor party and is the same weekend as mine, which I think is very convenient. He is going to Budapest!
• People have started RSVPing and we are excited that many also want to stay at the resort.
• I have turned into bridezilla lately and am trying to keep her under control! When too many people get involved it drives me a little crazy!
• I bought my garter set and gifts for my bridesmaids. Will show you soon. 
• Flowers are still in the works and although I am not loving the lady who is in charge of weddings there, I am trying to work with her. 
• There may be some good news brewing for me on the job front, but its too soon to tell just yet. Fingers crossed.

So whats going on with all of you? How are the wedding plans coming along? Congrats to all of you who got married while I was away from blogland!

The New Apartment

We had our mattress delivered yesterday so I took a few pics to share with you ladies while I was there. The pics are from my iPhone so not the best quality.

Our kitchen

Dining room

Living room with large balcony for Mr. Milk's bbq :)

Main bathroom

Master bedroom...

...with a sort-of walkin closet, that leads to an en-suite bathroom with a shower 

We are very happy that we found a place so quickly and one that not only fits all the things we ordered but that we really really like. Hopefully soon enough, I'll be able to show you after pictures too. For the next few days we will be busy unpacking, receiving deliveries, and cleaning :)

The Apartment Fell Through

As some of you may recall, Mr. Milk and I had found an apartment a few weeks back that would be ready beginning of August for us to move into. Here is the apartment we had put a downpayment on. Well we met with the building owner this past Friday so we could sign the rental agreement. OMG!!! This woman was from another planet. She was probably in her late twenties but for some reason or another had also made some money. And it had gone straight to her head! All she cared about was getting/making money. The best way to describe her is a redneck from a Cyprus village!

When Mr. Milk asked her what type of tenants she was looking for (a question he had asked all landlords we had visited), her response was "Those who pay." She went on to tell us that she didn't care if tenants had issues between them, and if such problems were to arise we should just call the police! All we wanted to know was that we wouldn't be in a building full of rowdy college kids! She started telling us how they had built the building for personal use but decided to rent it out instead, how much money they had spent on it, and blah blah blah.

Since it was a new building, and everything in Cyprus shuts down in August, the phone company would not be available to put a phoneline in until September. Neither of us can live without internet but were willing to wait, if she showed some good faith and gave us a reduction in rent for that month. She had initially agreed that we would not pay maintenance fees for the month of August, but when we met with her on Friday decided to tell us that even though she was willing to give us the reduction, it was basically our problem since we were in "a rush" to move in. At that point I was like, we've been waiting 2 months, clearly noone is in a huge rush. Since there were a few things left to be finished in the apartment (mirrors in the bathrooms, toilet paper holders, aircondition controls, and some freaky wire thing in the bathroom) we left the lease as was and arranged a meeting for today at 1pm, to do a last inspection of the unit and sign the contract. I was soooooooo happy we didn't sign. I hated her! Everything in me said go look for another place to rent on Monday. Mr. Milk was infuriated by her, and he doesn't get angry easily at all. The poor agent called us within 10mins of leaving her place and apologised profusely for the other woman's behavior. I remember telling my mom that night that I would rather take the rent money and throw it in the streets than give it to this woman! But Mr. Milk is so tired of living at his parents house and not having his own space, that he couldn't even think about postponing moving for one more month!

Well this bitch decides to call the agent who was working with us and tell her that she was no longer interested in renting us the apartment! She said we were too demanding and she worried that she would have too many hassles with us as tenenats (keep in mind that she had already told us that she wanted nothing to do with the tenants, as long as they paid ofcourse)! Mr. milk was yelling up a storm. I don't think I've ever heard him swear so much! His initial reaction was that we are moving back to Canada :)

So we are left with furniture that has been ordered to fit the size of that apartment, appliances, and a mattress, that are ALL to be delivered at the end of this week! We are basically freaking out a little. The only good thing that came out of her backing out is that we got our deposit back.

Monday night I pack a few things and drive the one hour to Mr. Milk's parents house. I spent ALL day yesterday with my MOH in the car calling up rentals, following agents around int the hope that we would find a new place to rent, big enough to fit our purchases, and in time for the Thursday 1pm delivery of our furniture! Oh and it was about 105F outside with about 70% humidity. Gross!

Someone up above must have been looking out for us because yesterday afternoon we signed a new lease with a very sweet man, who was not only reasonable and cooperative, he offered to help us move our stuff! He bought this apartment for his daughter and we met with her at the lease signing too. She mentioned that several people had come to see her apartment but it was the first time she felt comfortable actually signing a lease. Of course we promised we would take super good care of her house. But my, what a difference! These people are just good, down to earth folks. Since I was in such a craze yesterday, I didn't get a chance to take any pics of the new place, but since we have the keys and will start our move today all through Saturday, I will take plenty and post as soon as I can.

As for the other woman, i refuse to waste any more tought or energy on her, and all I have to say is, karma's a bitch...

Looking For A Place To Live

So we've been here for about a week now. Mr. Milk started his new job yesterday and it seems to be going well so far. He is excited and impressed with what he has seen thus far. We've both felt that we are here on vacation. It still doesn't quite feel real, but at this point I think it will just take time. 

We took a couple of days to just relax and get over the jet-lag, and last Wednesday we went out searching for apartments to rent. We spent three days looking around Nicosia, the capital city, where Mr. Milk will be working. We found a vast number of places, but what stood out was how small many of the bedrooms were! We saw one apartment that boasted a roof-top garden, but the bedrooms were barely large enough for a baby! What good is a garden when there is hardly any space to move around within the apartment?! The other thing that Mr. Milk was rudely awakened to, is that most apartments don't come with appliances, aside from the stove. Stupid? Yes! Common? Very. I don't know why this is the status quo but it is. 

We've narrowed down our choice to 3 apartments. Unfortunately most of the pictures are on Mr. Milk's iphone so I can only show you one. It's our first choice anyway, but I only have pics of the outside at the moment. It's still under construction and will be available August 1st.

This is the building from the back/side view. The apartment we are interested in faces this way. 

Here's some of my handy, childish photoshop work, to show you which one we are interested in. Its "L" Shaped so isn't as big as it might seem from this picture, although it is one of the largest we have seen. 

Here it is again from the very back. The balcony doors are for the joint kitchen, living room, dining room, and the 2 windows to the left are for the master bedroom which has an en-suite bathroom. It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment, which I think we could be very comfortable living in for several years if we had to.

The other apartment we saw is furnished and belongs to a friend of Mr. Milk's. Basically its a bachelor pad. While Mr. Milk was very excited when he saw this apartment, I was less so. It wasn't as bright, or roomy, or clean (men!), as many of the others, especially compared to the one above. But the catch is, that since he is a friend, he will rent us the apartment for the same price as the unfurnished ones we've seen! This would help us out a ton financially. Problem is, I can't see us staying there for more than a year, at which point he will also likely want the apartment back.

So this is our dilemma thus far. Our stuff should be arriving mid-June and it would be nice to have a place to put it all! Luckily there is space at my parents house to keep it for a while if we decide to take the apartment in the pics.

Airport Drama - Part II

In my previous post, I started to describe our airport drama. Here's what happened next...

I grab my wallet and go on a crazy hunt for a luggage store as Mr. Milk and the lady try to sort things out.

I asked the first person I ran into if they knew if and where there was a luggage store. Sure they said. Downstairs. So we run downstairs (me and one of our friends) only to find the luggage conveyor belts. We look to the left and see a luggage storAGE place. Obviously I needed to be clearer. So we run back upstairs and go into the international terminal. We look around but nothing. We ask someone else, they tell us we passed it on the left. We were clearly looking and would have pounced on the darned store if we had seen it! We start to walk back and finally see an information booth with a lady who knew what she was talking about.  All along the store was right next to us in the domestic terminal! We get to the only luggage store in the whole damn airport and start looking for a suitcase like crazy people. Lifting them up, looking at size and price. I can hear our friend yelling prices out, all ridiculously pricey. I think we found the only suitcase in the store that was less than $100! The salesperson clips off the tag and our friend runs it over to the counter while I pay.

It then became a mad rush of unlocking all the suitcases and unpacking enough items from each to balance out. Mr. Milk was thankfully still allowed 32kg, which we would have to pay $225 for. We were already paying an extra $50 for my second one at only 23 kg. But there was noting else to do. Our friend placed each suitcase on the scale and took out enough items to pass over to me to place in the new suitcase. We came out at exactly the maximum weight for each piece! I can't even explain to you how grateful I was at the time. While I would love to break that damn scale over Mr. Milk's head, I will refrain from doing so, and instead track down the manufacturer and write a very very pissed off letter of complaint! In my fantasy world, they give us back the $225 for the extra weight and $85 for the new suitcase! We knew we had extra weight and that's why we shipped 3 other items a few days before with air freight! If the scale had been accurate, we would have just sent more items that day since it was so much more cheaper than doing it this way. Oh well. What's done is done...

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But I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that i had a suspicion that our bags were too heavy. I've flown enough to have a sense of what 23kg feels like. While I'm no body builder by any means, I can typically lift a 23kg suitcase with one arm with mild - moderate difficulty. I needed both hands to lift these up and that was with considerable effort! I should have said something. We'd sold our regular scale, so I'm not sure what we would have done, but worst case scenario, we would have bought one and returned it. Better safe than sorry right... But alls well that ends well.

We also realized that we had less than an hour to make our connection in calgary. As if this wasn't stressful enough, we were told that it was snowing in Calgary! It's almost June for crying out loud! If there were any kind of delays we would miss our connection for sure. Luckily everything went smoothly after this and not only did we make our connection, but we made it home safe and sound, with all our gazillion pieces of luggage!

Airport Drama - Part I

There is so much to tell you all about the day of our departure that I'm not even sure where to start...

We had our alarm set for 6.30am on Saturday morning. Mr. Milk woke up without the need for an alarm several minutes before it went off. I'm actually surprised he slept at all. By the time he got out of the shower, I too was awake but still lying on our airbed. He came over, said good morning and started to tear up. My heart broke for him. He started to tell me about the memory he'd just had of when he'd first arrived in Canada. He was in a similar situation, lying on an airbed in a place that had very little, and he was eager to get started. He recalled the smells and sounds. The same was happening now, only this time it was goodbye. We cuddled for a bit, both with tears streaming down our face...

We got up, got ready, packed the few things that remained, toiletries, pj's, packed up our bedding, and waited for two friends to come pick us up. We wanted to get an early start even thought our first flight was a domestic one and we definitely needed two cars to fit our things. It was raining outside. Not atypical of Vancouver and quite fitting I think. I remember taking our luggage downstairs to be stuffed in the cars and just taking a moment to look around. People walking their dogs, staff in the supermarket downstairs getting ready to open, the shops and restaurants around that were still closed, and thinking, this is it. We are actually doing this. I felt a little panicky at the thought to be honest.

I tried to take in the short ride to the airport. Looking at the houses, the greenery, the rain. Mr. Milk was in the other car. It was a quiet ride on my end.

We got to the airport and went to check in at the business class counter. Mr. Milk's constant traveling has earned him the perk. And thank god!!! We have never needed it more than we did then! We had been weighing our luggage as we packed, trying to ensure that we were within the allowed weight. We used a piece of crap nifty little tool that Mr. Milk had brought home not too long ago that looked similar to this

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Pretty harmless looking right?

Oh no! That piece of junk had it all wrong!! We put the first suitcase on the scale and the damn thing reads 34.8kg!! I can't be bothered to do the conversion, so let's just say we were only allowed 23kg! So the lady kindly informs us that we need to remove 2kg from this bag and place it in another one.  Obviously the math doesn't add up here. That's because Mr. Milk is actually allowed 3 pieces at 32kg. So I think, ok... We got one wrong. Still have room to play with. That was until he put the next suitcase on the scale. And the next. And the next. And the next! All 5 bags weighed around 32 - 35kg! I felt the pit of my stomach drop. How could a scale be so wrong! It wasn't like we could move a few things around and be ok. We had another suitcase worth of stuff!!

Stay tuned for what happened next...

We Made It!

Hello ladies! Just a quick check in to let you know that we made it in safe and sound.

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What we have done definitely hasn't sunk in yet, with Mr. Milk and I both feeling like we are here for a vacation.

It's a little after midnight here so I am going to hit the sack. But there was a little drama that went on in the last few days, so I will be back to tell you all about it soon!

On A Jet Plane...

As you ladies read this post, Mr. Milk and I are (hopefully) on a plane heading out with our 5 suitcases and 4 carryon bags! We have 2 stops, the first in Calgary and the second in Germany. All our bags can be checked in all the way to Cyprus so we don't have to worry about them at all. Unless they aren't there when we arrive. Then I will have a mini melt down :)

I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who have followed along on this journey thus far. While I plan to keep blogging and know I will be following all of you just as before, I am also feeling like I am leaving people behind, making me feel kinda sad. 

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You have all been great! I feel like I've made awesome connections with so many of you, and its been much more fun taking this wedding on with such avid supporters and people who understand what I am going through! 

Have a great long weekend! Next time I check in, we will be on the other side of the world! And home :)

Fridays with Mr. Milk - It's Time...

Ten years. It's time to go.

I love this country. I came here in 2000, in search for a path unknown to me and Canada helped me find it. I studied, I worked, I partied, I enjoyed the nature and the outdoors, and took notice of the little things Canadians do that makes them the wonderful people they are.

You see, to me nothing epitomizes more what a "Canadian" is than seeing a hubcap positioned by a light post on the side of the street. This is a country were consideration is in the collective agenda, every day. Where "thank you" and "please" are not just nice words, but mandatory words. Where everyone is equal and there is a proper way to do things and a not-so-proper way to do things, and society is your judge. Where people stand in single file to get on the bus, and where tipping a waiter 18% is a society-imposed rule that compensates for the minimum wages servers make; and everyone does it.

Love it or hate it, Canada is a wonderful land. When I tell people that we are leaving, the immediate response is a big, stunning, "WHY?" (with an undertone of "why would anyone think of leaving Canada?"). People pray for the opportunity to move here. We are leaving.

Back in September, when Chocolate Lover and I began thinking of leaving to go back home, I must say the journey ahead of us scared the crap out of me. Not for the amount of work that it was going to be, but for the weight of the decision we had to make. What if we regret it? What if we make the wrong call? I asked friends, family, strangers, I made pros and cons lists, thought about it every morning in the shower and in my sleep. January came around and our final decision made sense.

Tomorrow we are leaving and I could not be more certain that this is the right thing to do. Family first. Nothing is more important than being close to the ones you love. That's exactly what we are doing, and I'm happy to be leaving on a super high note.

Work has been amazing to me, and if it wasn't for the lack of anonymity on public blogs I would go into more details, but let's just say that I feel very satisfied with what I have accomplished here and I am eager for Chocolate Lover and I to do the same back home.

Home was Cyprus when we were in Canada and Canada when we were in Cyprus. It's time to choose.

We are going back to Cyprus. We are going home.

From sunnier pastures and loving surroundings, but with memories of a wonderful decade in Canada, we'll be touching base soon. Until next Friday, this is Mr. Milk signing off.

Whats On The Schedule For Today?

Although Mr. Milk is still technically working, he will be leaving early from work today to come pick me up so we can get some more necessary chores done. He'll be borrowing the truck from work to help us out.

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We need to load and deliver our couch to a friend of Mr. Milk's. We might also have a buyer for the kitchen table who will need it delivered. While it is a bit of a hassle to be doing the delivering, we are thankful that they got sold!

We have 3 boxes that we will need to ship by airfreight. That includes our invitations. While I am still a little hesitant about this, we have no choice, so I am letting it go and hoping for the best. As you might recall from my previous airline rant, passengers are now only allowed one piece of checked luggage for transatlantic flights. Luckily, we just found out that Mr. Milk's elite status transfers to our Lufthansa flight so he is actually allowed 3 pieces. This makes things so much easier as we only have to pay $50 for one extra piece of checked luggage, bringing the total to 5 suitcases. I was able to squeeze my dress into a carry-on bag, so that will work out too. Anyway, we need to take our 3 boxes to the freight company and get that shipped off. It takes about 5 days, so not bad at all.

Then we have 2 large boxes of household items which we will be donating to Gather and Give, an agency I found online which donates the items to low income families and those in need. We then head to our local food bank to donate some non-perishable food we have left over in our cupboards. 

A friend is coming over later in the evening to pick up our bed. Luckily we have an aerobed we can sleep on on Thursday and Friday nights. We'll then leave that with a friend, as well as the bed sheets and such, for him to donate. 

Anytime left in between will be spent cleaning and packing the rest of our stuff. Hopefully by tomorrow night, most things will be done, giving us some time to chill out on Friday and maybe even enjoy our last day in Vancouver. Our flight is at 8am (PST) Saturday morning, when the dreaded long flight back home begins. 

I will hopefully get a chance to post something tomorrow before I say farewell to you ladies from this part of the world. But rest assured I will back as soon as possible, even just for quick updates.

Thanks for following along on this non-wedding related journey! Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well in the next few days :)

4 Months!

Yup thats right! We are down to the 4 month mark already! I don't know where the time has gone! The last month or so has been consumed with the move and getting everything sorted out for that, that there has been no wedding progress. Not that there's a problem with that. I feel we are on a good path. The only thing that I wish I had finished was the invitations for the reception. But I will get my mum and sister to help assemble those, which will also make it more fun. What do we still have let to do? Well...

- Get a videographer. Hopefully this won't be too difficult
- Decide on favors and purchase them. Also favors for kiddies
- Talk to our florist about the flowers, centerpieces, boutonnieres, decor, 
- Get venue lighting sorted out
- Find people for hair and make-up
- Seating chart and name tags as it gets closer to the date
- Send out rest of wedding invitations. A lot will be hand delivered too.
- Wedding cake
- Get a garter
- Gifts for groomsmen
- Book a HONEYMOON!
- Welcome baskets for our guests
- Transportation for OOT guests to wedding if they need it. 
- Decide on a guest book
- Get a marriage license
- Decide on TTD/Location shoot for the next day. 

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Thats the gist of it. Once we get settled in I'll get back to work on this and try to get as much done as possible over the summer. Plus I need to get a tan! And look for a job! I anticipate a lot of interesting times ahead...

News From the Chocolate Milk House

I have beef with the airlines. Can someone please explain to me why airlines think it is logical to only allow you one bag for transatlantic flights?! Don't we pay enough for tickets as it is? We will have a minimum of 5 suitcases by the looks of things! I'm looking around and kicking myself for not shipping more stuff! There is a box that is just wedding invitations! I was nervous shipping them in the container, but now we are looking at shipping them by TNT or UPS or something. Dumb cause now we need to spend more money doing this, when it wouldn't have cost all that much to add to our initial shipment. Oh well. We are learning the hard way.

We still have a bunch of stuff to sell, namely the bed and the kitchen table. These are the last 2 large items left and then we can rest a little easier. We have a ton of photo frames, plants, a couple of phones, fans, and so on, but these things can be given away for free or donated. We've decided to donate our towels, quilts, and bed sheets to the RSPCA. I'm sure they can use all those things for the animals. I also found a charity that will give household items to families in need, so we'll be giving them all our kitchen items, cups, plates, cutlery, pots and so on. 

Luckily Monday is a public holiday here in Canada (Victoria Day) so Mr. Milk will be home, giving us 3 days to get a lot done. I've found that its hard to pack his stuff. I'm not sure what he will need cause he is still working and needs work clothes, he has a ton of shoes, some of which he may be donating, or what he wants to wear on the plane. It was so much easier when I was moving from San Fran and it was just my stuff. 

So I've decided that today I will watch trashy tv, read your lovely blogs, go to the gym, do mindless chores, and take on the bigger stuff come Saturday. Also, I picked up my dress yesterday afternoon! Initially I was kind of blah when I went into the store to get it, but when I saw it all steamed and looking lovely it put a smile on my face.  I will (hopefully) take some pics of it to show you gals. 

Hope you all have super weekends!

Motivation Issues

This week I am having trouble getting motivated to do anything. Even cooking which I usually enjoy has become a drag cause I have no idea what to make! Maybe its the move and living in limbo, with half our stuff gone and no where really to put the rest other than suitcases. Even calling the bridal store to ask them to prep my dress for pick up didn't do it for me. 

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Mr. Milk and I went to the mall last night looking for a gift for his boss. We kind of don't know what to get. He wants it to be meaningful and symbolic of his appreciation for all his boss has done for him (he's been more of a mentor than a boss). But we came up with nothing. We'll try again tomorrow, but if you ladies have any ideas, your help is appreciated! 

The trip wasn't a total miss though, as yours truly bought a box of 3 pairs of false eyelashes for 10 bucks! I've never used them, but love the look on all of you who did, so will be trying them out before the wedding. Hopefully they look just as good as yours!

Crazy Weekend

This weekend we had an open house in an attempt to start to sell our stuff. It was a huge success, but left us exhausted. Poor Mr. Milk has to be at work today for a board meeting too. All that is left to sell is the bed, kitchen table and chairs, a swivel chair, and coffee table. The rest is just small things, like frames, plants, phones, that we can give away if they don't sell. We had people coming from 11am till about 6.30pm. The apartment looks so different, so bare. Sigh. I don't think either of us will be wanted to spend too much time in here over the next couple of weeks. 


Ironically, we invited a friend over for a bbq to celebrate his birthday, and the first thing that sold was the bbq! Smart huh!? Luckily our building has one in the communal garden that we were able to use. We'll keep posting until everything is gone. We have two more weeks so hopefully we'll be able to sell what's left.


On a brighter note, the bridesmaid's dresses arrived and I picked them up Friday evening! They look great! I love all the colors. I'll take some pics and post them soon for you all to see. 


Hope you all had good weekends!

Fridays with Mr. Milk - Shipping Our Life Away.

Hey all. I'm sure you are all up to speed with our hectic past few weeks... moving and all. We are packed, loaded and ready for shipping! As I am typing this, a trailer (borrowed from my work) is downstairs in storage, filled with ALL our goodies that we bought to ship to Cyprus. Chocolate Lover said it well, that although all our stuff is packed, the house still looks the same. I'm wondering, if say the ship were to sink, would we miss anything?

Well, I am indeed tied to one particular item. My BBQ! I bought the BBQ of my dreams after extensive research. Four vertical burners, the right distance from the grill, stainless everything, infrared sizzle grill on the side, and super cool rotisserie which I can't wait to use! Here's the plan everyone: The night I set up the BBQ and Chocolate Lover and I have our first gourmet steak, it means that we have moved back to Cyprus, found a home, likely started our new careers, got married, and are finally taking a big breath of relaxation. I CANNOT wait until that moment. Just Chocolate Lover and I, and our steaks... yum...!

Exhausted!!

We spent the entire weekend packing! We are exhausted! We have 24 boxes and 4 suitcases full of our crap stuff!! The irony is, since we aren't taking any furniture, the place doesn't look any different! Oh well...

This is exactly how I feel!

Next Saturday we are getting up at 8am and taking all our boxes to the freight forwarding company. We don't leave till the end of May, but we figured we should give our stuff a head start as it can take 40-60 days to get there. Poor Mr. Milk has been on the go for the last 2 weeks and there's not letting up either. Hopefully next Sunday we can have a super lazy day! This week I will continue to assemble invitations, and maybe show you a sneak peak :)

In the meantime, don't forget to enter my giveaway! TWO lucky winners can win a pair of these gorgeous rollable flats in the color of their choice! You have until the end of today PST!

Looking For A House

So since things are happening so quickly with the move and Mr. Milk starts his new job only a week after we arrive, the task of looking for a place to live falls in my lap. Ideally we would like to rent a place for the first few months, find our footing, and then look for a place to buy. We have been renters for so long and sometimes feel like that was money wasted that could have been going towards a mortgage payment. Either way, the idea of having a place of our own excites me! So I've gone on this wild search looking into properties, decorations, bathrooms, and my most favorite, kitchens! The two rooms in the home that I really really care about and want to make beautiful are the bathroom and the kitchen!

The one thing I have always wanted in a kitchen is an island with the stove on it! Look at some of these beautiful kitchens I am dreaming about. 

I love those counter stools around the island! So comfy and friends and family can hang out while you cook and nibble (source)

This one is funky :)

Not sure about the red but love the feel of this kitchen

I love wood, stainless steal, and glass together (source)

I love to tease Mr. Milk that we will have separate bathrooms! I want my bathroom to be a little spa-like sanctuary! And frankly, if you are sharing with a boy it just can't be!

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love this tub!

This one needs a little more decor but has lots of potential!

What are your favorite rooms in the house? Any dreams or plans for your kitchens and bathrooms?

The BIG Announcement

As some of you may remember, I pulled a sneaky move in this post and told you I had a big announcement, but left you hanging a little. Well, its time to reveal all.

Mr. Milk and I are moving! We are so excited about this as it has been a work-in-progress for some time. Where are we moving to you might ask? Right here:

CYPRUS

Yup! Thats right! We are moving back home!

We have been talking about this for many many months and although it was tough coming to the decision, we both feel a lot of relief now that its been made. We will both miss North America greatly (me mostly the US and Mr. Milk Canada) but we are just too far away from our friends and family over here. If you recall the family health issues we had over the Christmas holidays, well those pushed us further towards this decision. 

But lets start from the beginning. Back in September, Mr. Milk was faced with a job opportunity that he wasn't quite expecting. Accepting it would mean that we would be spending the next 3-5 years in Canada for sure. While the job offer was enticing, there were other issues. I for one am a visitor here, hence can't work. It would take at least a year for me to become a permanent resident and be allowed to work. I was already feeling restless at home as it was. And then there was the question, if we stay now, will we ever go back to Cyprus? It's hard enough to leave now, neither of us could imagine how much harder it would be if we had established careers and potentially kids. 

Luckily Mr. Milk had a lot of time to think about this and while we were in Cyprus over Christmas, he started looking into potential job opportunities there. While the economic crisis is starting to improve over here, there it's probably at its worst at the moment. But it seems like we are truly blessed because a few weeks ago he was offered a job at a company he was interested in and he has accepted! All the T's have been crossed and the I's dotted! We are both very grateful that at least one of us will have an income going back. I have applied for a position at a college/university there, so fingers crossed that it goes well!

So when is the big day? May 29th 2010 will be our departure date from Vancouver. Not a lot of time!

In the meantime there is sooooooo much to do! We need to sell off all of our furniture, purchase some things that are cheaper to get from here (hence the upcoming Portland shopping spree), pack the things we are taking, get rid of the things we are not, get quotes from freight companies, and so on and so forth! Aargh! 

I am sure my blog will come to reflect the chaos that will be my life in the next couple of months, so please bare with me ladies!