It All Pans Out

Montreal is a very convenient city in terms of public transit, so I've never minded not having a car. Truth be told, it's a bit nerve wracking to be a driver here (or a pedestrian for that matter). No one pays any attention to silly things like stop signs, and it's not uncommon while walking down the street to hear several people leaning enthusiastically on their horns. There are only two reasons I really miss having a car (other than the opportunity to actually leave the island of Montreal once in a while). One is that it makes it a lot more difficult to buy furniture - especially now, since our land lady has decided to sell the house and with it all of the things she had furnished it with. For the last little while we've been bringing new pieces into the house bit by bit, trying to fill the large empty gaps in our decor as our previous furniture slowly trickles out.

The other thing that makes having a car so very useful is the ability to shop at Costco. As a child, I spent many a happy hour chowing down on Costco hot dogs, scouring the clothing section for new fashion trends (which never amounted to much), and getting lost among sky high rows of stuff. As anyone who shops at Costco knows, it's impossible to leave the store without a truckload of new things and an empty wallet. It's just not the kind of shopping trip one can take if one has to travel by bus. Fortunately, we've been able to pilfer borrow a car from a very generous friend of ours in order to take these little shopping excursions whenever we need to. But a Costco membership is not cheap, and having only gone three times this year, we decided not to renew ours at the end of the summer. However, we were able to make one important purchase before saying goodbye to our favorite hub of consumerism:

A new set of pots and pans!! Hurray!! I have been wanting these ever since we moved here, and they're finally nestled (very) snugly in our kitchen cabinet.

This one is my favorite. What a long way we've come from this:

which is what we cooked our first meal in. (Don't worry, that paint stirrer is clean.)

I am very happy with my newest purchase, although my husband has been having a fit trying to figure out how to fry an egg without having it weld itself to the pan. Any suggestions?