Up until now we had been staying with some of our old friends we knew in India. They were very sweet, gracious and patient with us (not being used to so many small kids). Thank you so much, John, Jacintha, Peter and family for putting up with us. Well, the time finally came for us to move. We found an apartment much closer to David’s workplace (for the time being he is working in a fine-dining restaurant in Cabbage town, Toronto). Even though the kids miss their old school and friends, they like their new place and are looking forward to making new friends in their new school. Fortunately for us, the school is right across the road – Islington Junior Middle school. I heard it is one of the oldest schools in Toronto.

So here we are in our new apartment. This is the first time in our lives that we are living on our own. Up until now we had always been living in a joint family home. So this is the first time we are living on our own – scary and exciting at the same time! The first few days were like Christmas, with new ‘presents’ coming into the house every few hours. Pots & pans, hand soap, dish racks, pictures, food, forks and knives, cups and plates, tables and chairs, etc. God bless our dear friends, John and Jacintha, Peter and Mike, who helped us to move and who lent us some basic things to get started.

They say that a short pencil is better than a long memory, because especially when you are shopping to set up a new unfurnished house, you are bound to forget something if you don’t have it all written down. Well, we did forget some basic small things, like a broom, a dish scrubber, a mop and a dustpan. So the kids got inventive. They made a dish scrubber out of the remains of their vitamin C silver foil, a broom out of a stick and some old cloth which they fastened together with a rubber band, and a dustpan made from a cardboard box and scotch tape. Here they are holding up their inventions.

And of course, a bare wall is an artist’s delight, so Dave went to work. Here’s the bare wall.

And here is the wall the next day.

There’s still some green and vibrant yellow missing in this picture as we ran out of those colors, so that will have to wait till we get more. I thought it didn’t look too shabby!

The wall was done with spray cans. David was used to working with spray cans in India, but these were unlike any spray cans we had ever worked with. They did a great job on the wall, ….. and on every other surface in the house!! After the wall was done, we had to take paint off every other surface in the house as well! The floor, the kitchen cupboards, the toilet and bathtub, even the plates in the kitchen had spray paint on them. Everything had a coating of paint on it. So the next two days were spent in scrubbing all the surfaces clean with kerosene. I think we also used a whole bottle of cream on our hands as well.