Life: Buying a House

The mortgage broker emailed me last week to say that the conditions on the mortgage have been lifted. We only have to show up at the lawyer's office with photo ids in hand to finish that now.

It has been more than a little stressful to go through this whole process. I have to say that Aerin and I are not looking forward to the prospect of doing the whole thing again anytime soon. Chris (our realtor) told us that people in Calgary are averaging a new home every four years. Four years! You're barely moved in before you move out again. Why would I want to put myself through the selling process at the same time as the ringer we just went through with buying? Granted this is our first home, but even then I'm not at all taken with the idea of "moving up". I plan to firmly plant this memory in my mind for instant recall if we ever consider buying another place before we've lived in this house less than 10 years.

Despite the financial considerations that go into home ownership, I'm happy to be a home owner. We can make changes and improvements as we see fit. We don't have to worry about finding a place to live that will allow Ursa. I don't have to concern myself with grass at any point in the future. We'll probably hire a local entrepeneur to take care of that until we get things zeroscaped. And we won't have to worry about our rent getting jacked up on us - at least until we have to renew the mortgage anyway.

We purchased new keypad locks for the house and garage. That was a $527 purchase, and I don't think we may even bother getting them rekeyed to match either. Once we get the codes set we won't need to worry about needing a key until such time as the battery dies or the circuits fry.

I hope we can get the new laminate flooring picked out this coming weekend on our way through Red Deer in either direction. We're getting a cash deal, so we can get the good stuff for far cheaper. I will look forward to getting that job done before we move in, or at least in the rooms and hallway if not the stairs. Once we get the flooring picked out I hope to start organizing the work gangs. A number of friends and family have offered to help with the install. Since I'm taking a couple days off after possession to get everything ready I hope it will go quickly to get it installed.

The other near immediate change is to chaulk around the window frames and flashing where there was some shoddy work. It'll hold up for a couple years until we fix up the windows and exterior. The windows are more important in my mind since they are the original aluminum sliders that are drafty and don't keep out a bit of the evening sun's heat. Nice in the winter, but not so much in the summer. Thankfully we're lower in the river valley where we can get some relief before it's bed time. The nice ceiling fan in the master bedroom will be most welcome.

I need to put a section of fence to ensure that Ursa doesn't escape on us, but that will happen once the floors are ready for their redo. I plan to have that done before we move.

And finally we'll replace the garage roof before the fall. Not sure of when that might happen, but again we have numerous offers of help to get it all done. I'm currently leaning towards the August long weekend since I despise camping with the long weekend crowds. But it's not decided, so there are still options. Of course the weather will be a major factor to consider, so who knows if Plan A will actually work out.

We're so looking forward to having a place of our own. It certainly casts renting in a different like. And while our current place has served admirably, it was definitely starting to cause frustrations for its deficiencies. But that will soon be a distance memory. Less than a month until possession!

Life: Welcome 2009!

Didn't we just celebrate New Year's 2008?

I have to say, that from my end of things, the passing of 2008 was definitely NOT slow. I will always remember an episode of Daily Planet a few years back about how a person in 2004(ish) perceives time passing eight times faster than someone in 1904. That would mean we haven't even made it to my birthday before we're celebrating New Year's again. Talk about getting the short end of the stick!

I'm happy to be back on the road to running after few months of nothing much leading up to Christmas. Between injury (not running related) and illness (damned 6 week chest colds and my second this year) I got in little running between October and few days ago. Even a minimal amount of core work hasn't done much to keep me sane or maintain any level of fitness. The stress of moving and lack exercise was a horrible combination. So it's back to building, and I have some time to do that properly and with some enjoyment that was missing from this year's training.

Aerin and I are both pleased with our new place, and invites to the house warming party will be going out to friends in the near future. We'll probably never move into anything smaller than a two bedroom apartment now that we have all this space. Unfortunately I think we may be a little beyond future living area with the items we've purchased to make our place truly functional, but I don't foresee any great need to depart anytime in the near future unless under duress.

I've been doing some life inventory to spend time on the things I really enjoy doing. So there's time with Aerin, friends and family, being outdoors with running and backpacking, and building and playing my Flames of War armies. I'll be spending some time exploring industrial design related classes through Continuing Education, and Aerin and I will take the digital photography course to get the most out of my Christmas present, a Canon Powershot G10 (essentially a professional-grade point-and-shoot). That's all I have on my radar for the coming year. I still won't have as much free time to spend on these as I'd like short of winning the lotto, but I'll be happy to be able to do it.

Another Flames of War player and I are also collaborating on a writing project for a campaign book for our shared interest, but that's still in the development stage. Our plan is to have a proposal submitted by the end of January. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

I'm having a little trouble getting to sleep, but I'm getting closer to sleepy now. I hope everyone had a great 2008, and that you're looking forward to another great year in 2009. I know I am.

Happy New Year!

Life: Settling In

Two weeks go by very quickly these days. The last week of November is almost a non-existent blur in my memory now. Where did the year go to already?

With the arrival of the freezing cold weather (-40C with windchill) I am very happy that we got our move done when we did. I can't imagine trying to load and unload a truck in these conditions. The people we were going to rent from originally were hopeful they could move before Xmas, but the long term weather looks none to promising for that even though they have a company doing the move for them. When I stopped by to pickup some mail that had made it there before our switch in residence they had all kinds of boxes stacked up waiting to go. I'm glad Aerin and I managed to spare ourselves that fate right now.

Have you ever heard the phrase "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part"? That's the way things have headed the last week at work as everyone that is moving labs over the holidays wants old chemicals and waste containers dealt with before they move. Our team leader's last day was on Friday before his three and a half weeks of vacation, so we're now short handed with more than enough on our hands to keep us busy. We sent out our 9th waste shipment of the year (compared to just seven last year), and we make one more the end of the week to clear our things so they are not sitting around for a couple of weeks unattended. Certainly never a dull moment at work these days, and I'm certainly looking forward to the time off between Xmas and the New Year we get while campus shuts down.

So the last couple of weeks have been busy with work by day and settling things into the new house by night. Aerin has had some busy nights doing shiatsu treatments for clients. We spent the Monday night after our move at Ikea spending a good chunk of our security deposit on new furniture that we needed but didn't have space for in the old apartment. So we got a new bookcase and a kitchen island amongst others.

The living room and dining room here are as big as the old apartment kitchen and living room/dining room put together. Unfortunately the kitchen doesn't have as much counter space or drawers/cabinets as we had before. The kitchen island has helped a little, but isn't going to quite get us there maybe. We'll continue to look at how to deal with that at a later date once we see how things are going for use with the current setup.

I have a room all to my self for my game stuff. I'll be reorganizing a few things in there, but for the most part I can start setting aside some time work on things without worrying about our tripping over everything or having it out for a few days between the time I have available to work on it.

We have a spare bedroom still that is currently a collection space for everything that hasn't found a permanent home or just needs to be sorted out. So we can host a few more bodies than we could before. Our old place was pretty tight with just the two of us; it was downright crowded once you got to three or four people. And it'll hold all our (mostly my) outdoor gear.

And the bedroom is quite nice too. We got the blackout blind hung yesterday, so that helped me sleep a little better last night. The street light is pretty bright through the existing blinds, so it was nice to have it a little darker for sleeping. I just have to remember to close the spare bedroom door if we plan to sleep in since it's across the hall and lets in a lot of light.

As a bonus we can now have a proper house warming, or even just have a few friends over, since we now have actual space to host people without sitting in each others laps. The house warming will happen some time in the new year.

Time to get some things done here. Cheers!

Life: Move Complete

So the big day arrives for the move. We've got a lot of boxes loaded with stuff, and could have loaded more if we'd actually had space to put them.

So Saturday started out spectacularly. Apparently a reservation with Budget for the truck isn't actually a reservation - it's a go to the front of the line, first pick that expires if you don't show up immediately upon opening. When I arrived to pickup the truck, there wasn't a single one in sight. I talked to the guy at the desk, and was informed that since I wasn't there at 8am my truck was gone. Needless to say I was pretty mad and used a few choice words.

The thing that steams me the most is that even when I said to the guy I made the reservation with on the phone that I needed it for 9am, all he said was the reservation was for 8am and didn't mention a single thing about it being 8am or nothing. Needless to say I will be writing a not very nice letter to Budget about their policy and inability to communicate that policy.

After a call to Aerin, she quickly had a new truck lined up from Discount. I had to go back to the airport to get the truck, but I can't say enough about how much better my experience was with them. And I saved at least $60 over Budget's gouging. We could have gotten a bigger truck since we couldn't quite fit in all the furniture, but it was a short trip to get the rest moved. In the end it took a little longer to move with the late start and second trip, but we were done in about 4 hours with the help of our friends and co-workers.

So a big thanks to all that came out to help!

Life: Not Homeless

So last night Aerin and I found a place to live, so we are moving this Saturday.

It's a house in Parkdale at the foot of the hill below the hospital. Aerin would have liked me to dicker on the price when our new landlord was open to an offer, but I was too damned tired and excited to have found a place for my neurons to fire in that direction. At the very least we are not paying more than we are now. I am happy to found a place, and I doubt it will be a problem to go back and talk to her about lowering the rent some after we've not driven up the utility bills for a couple of months.

The house is a quite old, but in good shape. It's hardwood floors throughout the house. Three bedrooms. A big living room, and space downstairs too. Gas, water and electricity are included in the price. I'll try to post some photos once we get moved in.

Life: The Bachelor, Week 1.4

Well I can say that it really blows that Aerin is still away. I think I would be much happier if it had only been a week, but two weeks is getting to be a really long time. I'm pretty sure I'm suffering withdrawl from the lack of hugs and kisses. A large dose of chocolate chip cookies can only take you so far.

Last Sunday was the Gear Swap at the MEC store. I didn't get rid of everything I took, but I got rid of most of it and made $260 in the process. I really would have liked to have sold my Salomon light mountaineering/heavy backpacking boots since they don't fit anymore. I certainly didn't get many miles on them before I needed a larger size. Oh well. I hardly splurged either since I got groceries and some salad rolls from the nearby Vietnamese place and still had plenty left over for the coming weekend. Of course there is more gear in the future, but not yet.

What else...

More packing is complete, but still plenty to go. More empty boxes will no doubt return with us from Edmonton this weekend. I really don't want to bring back anything else that I will have to just move again in a few weeks.

I had a great visit with Raj (our soon to be new landlord) on Sunday afternoon. It's really great to be forming this new relationship, and I really look forward to living in a great new place too.

I've started to do some work on another Flames of War writing project. This will be a joint venture with another Calgary player. I've also dusted off some files of mine for converting some old pulp science miniatures into Flames of War.

I'm having dinner with Mike and Angela and the twins tomorrow evening. No doubt Aerin will be thrilled with the opportunity to house sit a little since it usually involves a nice soak a much larger tub.

Time to get some food before class and finish up a couple other things.

I hope you enjoy the Thanksgiving Weekend if you're in Canada.