This and that

We went to sign some papers today for the mortgage - how exciting! We're getting a really flexible mortgage that has a relatively low base payment but that allows us to both increase our payments by up to 25% and to pay a lump-sum payment each year of 25% of the initial amount borrowed. This way, we can pay extra if we want but we can also just pay the amount specified. All it takes to change the amount one way or the other is a phone call.

After we did that, Ian went back to work and I walked home. For some reason, I ended up with blisters on the ball of both feet. I've noticed that I'm getting a lot of blisters on my feet lately but I don't know if that's because I'm wearing the wrong shoes or if my feet have become super-sensitive. Either way, I'm not loving having so many blisters.

Tomorrow I'll be up early as I have a pulmonary function test to do for the appointment with the respirologist in a few weeks. The test is easy: take a deep breath, blow into the thingy, and then breathe in. Repeat that once or twice if I do it wrong (which has happened before). After that, I'm meeting up with a friend from one of the support boards. I'm really looking forward to seeing her; she's so wonderful online and I'm excited to be meeting her in person.

If it's Sunday, we must be looking at houses

We looked at two houses today that are way, way, way above our budget - so far over that there's no way that we could afford them. We wanted to see whether the reason we hadn't found the right house was because our price point was too low.

Both houses were nice enough but definitely not right for us. The layout just wasn't right because the master bedroom was right off of the great room. We want separation of the living and sleeping areas so that people can't see right into the master bedroom. both houses has some upscale amenities with pot lights, lovely wood bathroom vanities and kitchen cupboards, and coffered ceilings. Gorgeous amenities don't make up for the wrong layout, however.

I'm still finding myself very upset and rejected by my sister. I don't know if I'm focusing on this because with all the emotional stuff going on I'm choosing to focus on this or if I'm just so upset because it's family and I don't fully understand why this situation has escalated to this point. She's said that I am deliberately trying to hurt her, like I've done before.

I'm not trying to hurt her and I don't understand what's happened or what I've been doing wrong all this time... I'd apologized and she'd said she accepted my apology for anything I'd done before so I don't understand what she means. I can't ask her because she's made it clear that she wants nothing to do with me. None of this makes any sense to me.

I wish this situation weren't happening. I think I need to let this go... either she'll contact me or she won't. I just need to deal with my own feelings and come to my own peace and let everything else happen as it's going to happen. This may take a while.

Things related to houses

We went to a housewarming party held by one of Ian's colleagues. It was potluck so we brought our usual Black Bean Hummus (yummy) which everyone enjoyed. We make it with roasted garlic instead of fresh garlic which gives it a smoother, richer flavour.

We got to talk to different people who were or are looking for houses; it's good to know that we're not alone in our thinking. We actually saw a great house yesterday; the layout was fabulous and we could definitely see ourselves living there.

Unfortunately, when we opened the door to the cold room under the porch, hot air came out. We found a flashlight and saw that the ceiling of this cold room was covered in black mould. Outside under the porch the ground sloped towards the house, not away, which is why moisture was getting into the cold room. In fact, all around the house the ground was sloping the wrong way. We saw at least six frogs nestled up in hollows near the foundation which doesn't seem good.

So we said no to that house, too. We probably could have dealt with the grading outside (although there was a problem under the back deck, too, where the ground sloped towards the house) but we didn't want to deal with the black mould in the cold room. We didn't want to knowingly take on this problem.

All of the events over the last couple of days have left me exhausted and given me woogles. My back keeps doing funny things and I'm finding myself rocking back and forth, whining. I guess I'm emotionally overstimulated and need to relax. I've had a hot, relaxing bath and I'm hoping to sleep a whole lot better tonight than I did last night.

Not a completely lazy Sunday

We went to an open house today; only one, since there aren't many houses that come even close to being right for us. The house we looked at was an older bungalow with a formal living and dining room. It had a lovely yard and a nice kitchen but we prefer a more open layout, probably with a great room, for our living space. We also felt that the basement didn't get enough light. If I'm going to have a sewing room in the basement, I want as much natural light as possible there. It makes it feel less like living in a dungeon.

We also did some grocery shopping. Apparently Loblaw's workers in Ontario have voted to strike and we wanted to get as much stuff from their chain as possible. I sympathize with the workers this time because the company is asking for a 25% cut in wages and benefits. That's huge. I think the two parties are going to or are in mediation but if those talks go nowhere, the strike could happen.

We bought lots of produce and meat and stuff that I can use to cook dinner. I have actually been cooking dinner from scratch as much as possible, and it's been turning out quite yummy. I cooked dinner most nights a few years ago and if I didn't know what to make, I'd start by sauteing an onion. So I've been using that approach and adding vegetables, spices, a meat, and a starch and ending up with dinner.

I was even learning how to use the barbeque so that I could do some yummy roasted vegetables there, although the propane ran out before I could finish cooking. When we get a house, we're getting a natural gas barbeque in addition to a gas stove. I'll need to learn how to use those appliances because I've never used either before but it shouldn't be as daunting as it would be otherwise since I'll already know how to cook some things.

A bit of this, a bit of that

This walking thing is getting easier. I was out for an hour and a half today, walking through the neighbourhood next to ours. There are some houses for sale there and I've been trying to get a feel for the neighbourhood. One house actually went up for sale there last night; it's a little bit over our price range but not so far out that we couldn't bring it into what we're prepared to spend. I walked by the house today and decided that I didn't love it.

At least there are still houses going up for sale. There was another bungalow that we had planned to look at but when Ian reviewed the listing he discovered that it had electric baseboard heating. We want forced air heating, please, and we don't want to pay to convert from one to the other.

I checked out http://www.yournextshoes.com/, a link that my sister sent me, and discovered this amazing pair of shoes:

$155 000 Eternal Borgezie Diamond Stiletto

They're made almost entirely out of gold and diamonds. Seriously. How decadent is that? I like them but I'd prefer something with a heel strap. Also, I'd be concerned about the strength of the stiletto heel, if they're using gold there. Gold is a very soft metal and I don't know if it would be strong enough to take the force of the heel striking the ground. Still, these are a gorgeous pair of shoes and would be beautiful when worn out dancing what with the diamonds around the footbed.

It's really hot, hot, hot

Happy Fourth of July to all my American friends! I hope that you and everyone else are finding ways to enjoy the weekend and beat the heat.

It's crazy hot here and is supposed to get even hotter this week. Today got up to over 30C (86F) and it's supposed to be 34C (93F) by Tuesday with lows around 20C (68F) this week. Add in our regular humidity and smog and we have hot, sticky, humid, hard-to-breathe, feels like over 40C (105F) weather. We're also supposed to get clear skies until the weekend and  a UV index of 10 tomorrow so we'll get lots and lots of sun beaming down on us, too.

We really hoped to be in a house by now. Not just so that we could stop looking for a house but also so that we could have air-conditioning. We have a portable unit in our bedroom so at least we'll be able to sleep but it's very uncomfortable to just sit around in the un-air-conditioned house.

Speaking of sitting around, that's pretty much all we did today :) We were able to watch Legion, which we'd rented yesterday and which took over 4 1/2 hours to download. It's an ok but not great movie. It's an interesting premise: in an out-of-the-way truck stop, an unborn child and a rogue angel try to save humanity against God's attempt to destroy everyone (as in the Old Testament).

There's something missing in this movie, even though dialogue is ok, the acting is fine, and the special effects are good. Thinking back, the story is probably what's lacking here. The characters, their actions, and the situation have been seen before in other movies and there was nothing really special or interesting about the people here. The rogue angel was an interesting idea but somehow it just fell flat. In many ways, what should have been a compelling, interesting, gripping movie was just... boring. There are moments approaching greatness in the movie but those moments are few and far between.

This movie is worth watching if you can watch it for free and tend to like movies that you can watch while also doing something like a crossword or something.

Games night!

We went out and played games tonight for the first time in ages! We played games with a different crowd than we used to which was fun. I knew some of the people there but I hadn't seen them in ages so it was great to see them and catch up a bit. I'll have to get together with them again because I shouldn't have to wait this long to see them again. There was a great mix of geeky people like us at the games party, probably because we were also watching episodes of Big Bang Theory, so we got to meet new people, too.

We played Apples to Apples and Sputnik. Apples to Apples is a fun party game that we've played before. Sputnik was new to us and it was a really fun game to play. Each player starts with a rocket piece on a landing piece surrounded by stacks of galaxy pieces. Each player moves their rocket piece to a galaxy piece next to them and then removes another galaxy piece if one is available. If a player can't move to a galaxy piece, they can transform their landing piece into a galaxy piece on an empty space near them; if there's no place for the rocket to move, the player is out.

It's a simple game to understand and play but the strategy can be quite complex, which makes it an interesting game to play. We recommend it.

We also bought a new tv today. We've been waiting to buy a really, really big tv for when we get a house - we'll put an entertainment area in the basement where we'll be able to play video games and watch movies on a nice, big screen. But we don't have a house yet and our old tv was a flat-screen CRT model with HD capabilities. It was fine for regular tv but it didn't have enough resolution for video games or some of the fine HD stuff.

So we decided to spend a little money now to buy a replacement 37" LCD tv that's bigger and has better resolution than our old tv. We'll probably put this tv in the living room or great room or whatever we end up with in the new house, so that we can watch tv while cooking or hanging out on the main floor for whatever reason.

A bit of this and a bit of that

Apparently the longest Wimbledon game ever so far was recently played. I don't follow Wimbledon, but there's a live blogger talking about the games for those that like that sort of thing. The entries about this particular game are hilarious! Even better, you definitely don't need to understand tennis in order to get the humour.

The entries are here; the whole thing is entertaining but the real fun starts at about 5pm. Have a look if you're in need of some giggles - and really, who doesn't need giggles once in a while?

I went for a two-hour walk this afternoon. I almost didn't go out because I was feeling lazy but I ate way, way, way too much ice cream last night and I figured that I should do something other than sit around at home. I managed to find a fairly long path through the closest woods. It was so nice in there, with the birds singing and the light coming through the leaves. I think I may have got too much sun on my face, though. Ian says my face has a few extra freckles and it feels hot. Oops.

This weekend we'll go to some open houses, as usual. There are hardly any tomorrow and too many on Sunday. Most of the houses won't be right, of course, but we've had our eye on a couple of them for a while: one that's a bit out of our price range and another that's way down by the 401. It isn't worth taking up our realtor's time to see them but we'd still like to see what these places are like. If we like them, then we can see them again with our realtor.

It turns out that seeing places that we like twice is a good idea for us (well, for me, anyways). The first time through we kind of wander around looking at the overall picture and react with our feelings or intuition. The second time we see a place, we look at things more carefully. It's hard on my emotions but at the same time, I do have a hard time thinking critically about a place I'm looking at when my feelings about it are so strong. Love is blind, as they say.

More house-hunting

We looked at a couple of houses with our realtor today. Well, we really looked at one and a half houses because we couldn't get into the first house as there was an alarm system. We did take a really good look at the yard and exterior of that house, however. It had the most decadent yard of a couple of hundred feet of mostly trees merging into a conservation area.

Sadly, there was a lot of traffic noise in the yard from the nearby major street. At first we thought the noise was from the expressway but that road is sunken and has a noise barrier, so the noise is almost certainly coming from the nearby regular major street. Even though that house appears to have potential, the traffic noise interfered with our ability to enjoy the tranquility and peacefulness of the backyard. There's no point having a 300ft long property if you can't enjoy it, right?

The other house is a newer house that hadn't really been updated. It was ok but didn't really excite us. Plus the master bedroom windows looked directly into the neighbour's windows - presumably it was their master bedroom. We're not the kind of people that like peeking into our neighbour's windows. Besides, that window placement meant that the bedroom got no light.

The basement in that house was also unfinished which meant that we'd have to finish it... and I wouldn't have a sewing room until that was done. Even though I haven't been sewing much lately, I still want to be able to sew whenever I want.

Remember that house we loved and thought about putting in an offer for? it's way, way overpriced for the neighbourhood and its amenities. It seems that the realtor representing that house contacted our realtor to find out why we didn't put in an offer and basically told her that they wouldn't reject an offer closer to the house's value. We're still not going to buy that house. Even though we loved that layout and everything, we don't have a good feeling about it.

In some ways not buying a house was a good thing this week because Ian was really, really busy at work and it would have been hard to have the stresses of the house and work at the same time.

Our house is out there... somewhere.

Odds and ends

I felt my first earthquake today! I didn't even know it was an earthquake until it was over and I was reading about an earthquake that occurred at that time. There was a 5.0 quake at about 1:42pm this afternoon with an epicenter just north of Ottawa and effects were felt all over Southern Ontario and parts of the US. Here at home it felt like someone was walking heavily over the roof and there was a rumbling sound sort of like thunder. Over in Ottawa the effects were much stronger and buildings were evacuated.

Earthquakes in Eastern Canada are fairly rare; hopefully there won't be more of them.

Around the time the earthquake happened I was trying to figure out what happened to a package I expected to receive weeks ago. I ordered a vintage pattern on May 27 and it hasn't arrived yet, which I thought was strange. The seller has a tracking number and I checked it and the package has apparently been sitting in the Kitchener sorting facility since June 3. I called Canada Post and instead of delivering items immediately, they wait until the package delivery standard time arrives.

So if a package is supposed to be delivered in 21 days, they'll wait until almost 21 days has passed before attempting to delivery it. Similarly, if a package is supposed to take four to six weeks to arrive, Canada Post will wait to deliver it until at least four weeks have passed. It doesn't matter when the package arrives at the sorting plant.

How ridiculous is this? Canada Post, you suck.

Also, I'm not allowed to try and trace the package. The seller has to contact the US Postal Service who will then track the package. The fact that they apparently tried to find out if Royal Mail (in the UK) had scanned the package does not fill me with confidence, however. Canada and the UK are not at all the same country.

I'm concerned that something's happened because I know that my postal delivery worker doesn't leave the attempted delivery thingy on my door until the day after the delivery attempt, if I'm not home. I paid a ridiculous amount of shipping for it to take this long to arrive. Sigh.

Finally, I wanted to talk about yesterday's post, because I didn't explain myself very well. Getting excited isn't always good for me, especially if I'm disappointed afterwards. But excitement isn't bad in and of itself; it's only bad when it prevents me from sleeping. When I'm physically tired I'm not able to handle emotional ups and downs. Emotional extremes do leave me feeling tired and if I'm already physically tired, the extra emotional tiredness is too much for me.

So when I say that I'm thinking about tranquilizers for part of this process, I mean that I need to take something so that I sleep when I'm excited so that I don't stay up all or half the night being excited (which is what happened this last time). I've tried to do meditation then but my excited thoughts are out of control and just keep interrupting.

I have no intention of taking tranquilizers all the time or even every night because I don't like them. However, my goal is to make sure that I get the rest I need when exciting house-related stuff happens and if that means I take an ativan or klonopin before bed, then that's what I do. I've never taken sleeping pills - which might be the thing most people would take in this situation - and I don't want to start taking them when important house stuff is going on.

I do need to see my family doctor and when I see him, I'll ask him what else I can do or take to help me sleep and to better handle emotional ups and downs that can't be avoided. Maybe I should take sleeping pills in this case - but I'm not going to try them until he gives me the ok.

Looking for a house in exhausting

You know, the emotional highs and lows associated with looking for and buying a house sucks. I was so excited thinking that we'd found the right house and then I was just so disappointed when we found out that the house wouldn't work. I went from feeling excited and happy to a very deep low that persisted through today. The low was made worse by the fact that I was so tired; I didn't sleep well when I was excited about the house and then feeling that disappointed left me exhausted.

From this, I'm learning that it's much better for me to try and stay emotionally even. The emotional ups and downs aren't good for my mood and I end up physically and emotionally exhausted from which it takes me a while to recover. I don't have the extra energy to go through this, you know? Still, it's hard not to be excited about a house we like. Next time we see a house we like, I'm wondering if it would be better if I took ativan or klonopin (clonazepam) so that I don't get so excited or disappointed.

At least we're not looking at another house for two more days: we're viewing a property on Thursday. It seems very nice - in a nicer area than that other house was in - backing onto a ginormous greenspace/conservation area and only a ten-minute walk from the park that we love. This place is also close to a grocery store and to the highway. It was built in 1969 so it's as old as I am and seems to be updated. We'll see. One problem we know of is that it has the oven and cook-top separated and the oven might be too high for me but I hope that won't be a major issue.

In a lot of ways it was great to not think about houses today. Instead, I got my hair cut for the first time in nine weeks - it was shaggy! I also got a chance to do some grocery shopping, so we actually have some food and vegetables (and diet soda in a couple of flavours) in the house again. And I did the laundry so we have clean clothes, too. It's easy for me to let things go and I was happy to do some catching up today.

Tomorrow I plan to take it easy, although I'll need to do some dishes and make some yummy dinner with the food I bought.

Well, that didn't work out

We did not put an offer in on that house. You know, if we keep getting this excited about houses, by the time we finally do get a house we'll be totally cool and nonchalant about the whole thing.

We met with the realtor at the house this afternoon and went through the place. It turns out that the house wasn't built by a builder but just some guy who hired sub-contractors to do the work. Worse, the house wasn't registered with Tarion, the organization that regulates new home building, enforces the provincial new home building act, and backs new home warranties. Apparently the guy was willing to offer us a warranty, but what would that be worth if it wasn't backed by the regulatory body?

For all we know, this house was the best-built house possible. But the guy didn't register the house and to us, not registering the home with the right organization means that the guy cut some corners and we just weren't willing to take the chance that other, more serious corners were cut. After all, we already knew that the front steps were weird because there was no handrail and that the drainage in the back might be a problem. It's entirely possible that the guy didn't get an engineer to figure out how to grade the yard so that drainage wouldn't be a problem, and that worries us.

Really, the moment where we figured that something was off was when we saw the cut-out window area above the basement stairs. We want basement stairs because we want to cut off the basement from the rest of the house and having a cut-out there defeats that purpose. It turns out that the cut-out was there because there is no light on the stairs. All the light comes from the bottom of the stairs and through that cutout. That just isn't right.

Also, we looked and looked for the attic access panel and finally found it in the garage. I mentioned before that it was a cathedral-ceiling garage, right? Well, at the door to the house from the garage, there was a platform with some stairs. The attic access panel is located 15ft over those stairs close to the platform side. It's a tricky place to get to by ladder because it would be uneven.

We really wish that this house worked out because we did love the layout. But there were all these little things that just weren't right... and they were just the things we could see. Because the whole house is finished, we can't see what things are like behind the scenes. What if there were other, more serious, code violations? What if there was water damage in the basement already? Apparently basements don't usually get finished for at least the first two years so that if there is water damage, it can be found and dealt with without taking apart the finishing.

As first-time home-buyers who don't know much about homes, we need to be extra-careful about what we buy. We don't have the expertise to deal with a lemon and we don't have the money to fix up an expensive lemon. Knowing what we do about the house, we felt that putting in an offer wasn't the right thing for us to do.

Even if the house had been built by a builder and there weren't weird things about it, it was definitely overpriced. It didn't have the amenities that a house at that price should have and at the asking price it was by far the most expensive house on the street. We would have made an offer considerably under the asking price and there's no guarantee that this offer would have been accepted.

So the search continues. We've been looking for such a long time and we're both feeling a bit discouraged. At least we know that the house we want is out there... we just have to find it. We're very picky and have unusual requests so of course it'll take longer to find the right place.

One good thing that came out of today is that we were able to sit down with our realtor and read over the offer paperwork and talk about what's involved in putting in an offer. We both feel much more knowledgeable about the process now. We also feel that our realtor did a really, really good job getting together the information we'd need and in explaining things to us. We're confident that when the right house does come along we can trust her completely to represent us.

I think this really is it

We finished watching From Hell today. It was a really good movie! It gives an interesting explanation and suspect for the Jack Ripper murders that apparently has little basis in reality... but it's still an intriguing and engrossing tale and movie. The latter two-thirds of the movie have much less gore than the first third. If you enjoy suspense or thriller movies, this one's for you.

Of course, being the weekend, we did go to a couple of open houses. There was nothing we wanted to see yesterday but we saw two places today. One was totally wrong: it was in Breslau near the local airport and didn't have a basement. We were actually really lucky to get there when we did because there was an airshow going on this weekend and traffic was really backed up headed that way right after we got there.

We love love love love the second house we saw. It's down by Chicopee hill, near Fairview Mall, which is the other big mall in the city. There's a huge, fantastic park area right nearby with lots of trails and areas to explore. There's a grocery store (and the local Fabricland!) about a ten-minute walk away, too. After exploring this area a bit, we've decided that we love it so if this place doesn't work out, we'll keep looking in that area.

The house we love is a two-year-old, 1800sq ft bungalow with lots of room and a finished basement with eight or nine foot high ceilings. It has everything we want with living areas separate from sleeping areas, a big kitchen, and a place to put a big entertainment area (the basement). The house is kind of a "reverse" walkout with the backyard sloping more towards the front yard. In fact, the backyard has a big slope going up behind the house; the slope continues up to the top of the hill and there are houses up there. There are no houses directly behind this one, though. It's a hilly area, being kind of one side of Chicopee.

Our biggest concerns about the house are the drainage in the backyard with that slope (we don't want a swamp there during the spring runoff season) and the steps in front. There are quite a few steps in the front and currently there's no handrail. I think it's possible to build a ramp there and I'm sure that putting handrails won't be a problem. We can always enter through the cathedral-ceiling garage if we have to - there's a railing there. :)

We're going to see the place again with our realtor tomorrow at lunch to make sure we still like it and that we're not crazy wanting to put an offer on it. There's apparently an offer on the house that's contingent on the offerees selling their own place, which hasn't happened yet. I guess that puts us in a multiple offer situation because I assume that if we put in an offer, the people with the current offer will have a chance to modify or remove their offer and it's possible that we could get into a bidding war.

What's funny (or sad) is that this house has been on the market for quite a while and I've been watching it and liking the idea of it - the pictures do not do this house justice - since it showed up. It's just that we haven't been looking at that area of the city so we didn't know how much we'd love this house or this area.

So here's hoping that things go well tomorrow: that we still love the house and that the offer process goes well.

This and that

We did go to see a house yesterday that had a main floor master bedroom and a loft. The great room was gorgeous, as was the kitchen, but the main floor master bedroom was located right off of the great room, beside the kitchen. That would never work for us because we want the sleeping and living areas separate from each other.

There's a house for sale by owner that's very similar to the place we saw yesterday. I'd like to see it, but we don't know how to put in an offer on a house for sale by owner... or even if we'd want to do that.

I had a follow-up appointment with my regular surgeon this morning in Oakville and so I spent the night with Ian's parents. We ended up watching the Tony awards. I've watched a lot of award shows but never the Tonys - they were great! I loved the songs from the musicals and of course I loved the dresses :) The whole production felt so much more relaxed and upbeat than award shows lately. Plus the show managed to end just about on time, even if the acceptance speeches at the beginning were longer than those at the end.

Tomorrow I return my RIM property to the company and pick up my severance letter and stuff. I don't expect the appointment to take that long but I'm finding myself feeling a bit sad about the relationship with the company coming to an end. I didn't always like it there - ok, I really hated some things there - but I felt more secure being employed. And some part of me has thought that I'd go back to work, that I'd be well enough to go back. I still feel that way... but now, if I ever actually feel like I could work, I don't have anywhere to go back to.

Weekend open houses

If it's the weekend, we must be seeing open houses. We went to see two different houses today: both houses had a split entry, where when you walk in there's a landing and you can go either up to the main level or down to the basement. We have this theory that if the landing was big enough to have a coat closet that this type of entry might work. Of course we have no idea whether or not this theoretical layout actually exists.

Even if the split entries were big enough (and they weren't), neither house was right for us. The first was just too small with no room for a sewing room and the second was fugly. It was so awful; both of us walked in and wanted to run away from the house. Smokers had recently lived there and we could see the smoke on the walls and we could smell it everywhere. It also looked like there was a water problem in the basement. The lot on this house was huge, though, and it's in a great area. The best thing to do with this house would be to demolish it and start over.

We actually saw another house earlier this week that we liked. The biggest problem was that it had a very musty smell, especially in the basement. This smell could have been due to the very old carpet - when was purple shag carpet last available? - but we didn't want to take a chance on buying the house and finding out that the problem is more than just the purple shag carpet. This house had great bones and if it had been updated would have been fantastic. But we just couldn't take a chance.

We're planning on looking at a couple of houses tomorrow as well. We think that one probably won't be right because the master bedroom is right off of the great room and the other one probably won't work because it's a house up for private sale. We figure that it's worth seeing houses that probably aren't right to learn more about what is right for us and to see details that might work when we decorate our house.

A relaxing early summer day

There aren't just two baby chipmunks out there - there are THREE!!! They're co cute, playing around in the brugmansia pots back there, or trying to climb the patio door or screen. We could watch them play for hours, although they don't do anything cute when we're trying to film them.

We also drove around looking at different neighbourhoods in the city to get an idea of what they're like. It turns out that in most areas there'll be a street or two that we would like but most of the areas aren't so right for us. Since it was a nice afternoon, we were also able to go for a walk in a city park we'd never explored.

After we got home, while Ian played his new video game (Red Dead Redemption, an open-world, wild west game that's pretty good so far), I managed to finish altering the easier pattern. The final product of my alterations looks right to me so hopefully it'll look right when it's sewn up. I hope to cut out the pattern tomorrow and see how it fits. If the adjustments work, then I'll go ahead and make the same adjustments to the other pattern. I'm excited about this and hope that it works out. I haven't figured out exactly what fabric I'll use but I have plenty of choices.

Sunny days are here again!

Spring has finally returned. We had warm spring temperatures a couple of weeks ago and then it went and got cold. I wasn't able to go out walking because it was so cold and rainy and awful, which hasn't helped my mood. I find that I'm more emotionally even when I'm able to go outside and get some sun and see the flowers and trees blooming.

Fortunately, today and the rest of the week is looking all spring-like and sunny and warm and awesome. I'll definitely be going out for walks each day. In fact, we went for a big long walk today to get outside, explore the neighbourhood, and go to see a "for sale by owner" open house.

The house was a two-story with a bedroom and three-piece bathroom on the main floor, which is a layout that could work for us, but the house just wasn't right for us. The kids there had done some cute things, like put up a sign on the front door with a drawing of a house and some stars and the caption "open house here". We also saw the kids put the "Open House" signs up, which was cute.

Because the sun is getting stronger and we're going to be out walking in it more often, I think it's time to invest in some new sunscreen. Ian prefers the spray stuff but of the five different kinds in the store, three are sealed and so I can't smell them. We're both really sensitive to smells and when sunscreen smells it bothers us a lot. I guess we could buy the other sunscreens (at between $12-$18 each), smell them, and return them if they smell bad. I wish I could just smell a tester so that I don't have to go through all of that rigamarole. Maybe I can explain my position to them and see what they say.

Shopping!

We went to another open house today in a new-to-us area of town. We ended up falling completely in love with the neighbourhood - it has parks and lots of walking trails and a pond and it's an older area with mature trees. We loved the neighbourhood enough to want the house to work for us, but it just didn't work. We'll keep an eye on that neighbourhood for the future.

After that a friend and I went to my favourite shoe store in Guelph. It's moved! There's more space! There are way, way, way more shoes!!!!! Oh, how I love that store. I swoon over their selection every time I go  there. Visiting that store was as fun as it ever was, because I was able to just try shoes on and walk around with them. The salesperson helping us was a little pushy because she trying to sell me shoes that I wasn't absolutely convinced I wanted.

That didn't stop me from buying shoes, though. You might remember that I wanted some shoes for the season? Well, I got them today. I bought these two awesome pairs:

Sofft "Fiore" in Pewter

BC Footwear "Oh Sailor" in Pewter

Aren't they gorgeous??? Ian even liked both pairs, although when he saw the first pair, he asked if I was going to a toga party :) I know that both pairs are silvery coloured, but the slight heel on the one pair makes them a little dressier, and the flat pair is soooo comfrotable to walk in. The silvery colour also works well with my skin tone and clothes. I can hardly wait to wear them :)

More about looking for a house

You know, if our budget was about 25% higher - even 10% higher - our house would be a lot easier to find because houses at that price are available right now. We know that the house we want is out there; we've walked through the neighbourhoods and seen the houses. All we need is for someone to put our house up for sale.

We have talked about building a house but we'd very much prefer to buy a used house for a couple of reasons. First, we've never owned a house before and while we think we know what we want, it's possible that if it was built for us it wouldn't work (especially if we wanted changes to the standard plan). We don't feel confident in our ability to select the right layout.

Second, we want to live in an area that's already got landscaping and trees and stuff. We don't want to live in an area that's under construction because of the dust and upset and stuff.

Third, we'd prefer a house that's 10 or 15 years old because then the "new house" kinks will be worked out. Things will have settled or sunk down to some extent - possibly not completely, but enough for us to know where the settling will occur. Also, problems with roofing or skylights will be more obvious; like yesterday when we saw the ice dam damage. We can pick a used home that doesn't have too many problems but with a new house we'd be taking our chances, and we're not comfortable with that.


If we'd already owned a house and had to take care of maintenance, we'd be more comfortable building a house. As it is, we'd rather start a bit slower with a used house.


Of course if we haven't got a house by this time next year, we might change our minds on building something :)

The house isn't right after all

After looking at the house again and listening to Ian's parent's expert opinions - they own a house and know about maintenance and stuff, which we know nothing about - we decided not to put an offer in for the house.

We'd thought that the house was move-in ready; that it could use some cosmetic changes but that it was basically right for us. It turns out that the roof needs to be repaired because between the cathedral ceiling and a silly architectural detail is a valley that is pretty well designed to form an ice dam. There's quite a bit of damage to the shingles from ice buildup so clearly it's been a problem in the past. The shingles aren't the same type as have been used on the houses that were built at the same time, so it looks like the roof had already been re-shingled once. Even if we replaced the roof, the ice dam would still form and wreck it again.

Because the house has a cathedral ceiling, there isn't a traditional attic - and the ceiling is hard to get to. We couldn't easily tell whether there's been water damage anywhere, although we did see some water discolouration around the skylight in the kitchen.

Now, a roof is important but I don't really think about it all that much in my day-to-day life. A major drawback that we found that directly impacts me is that the wall oven is of the teeny-tiny variety. It is very cute at maybe 22" wide on the outside and maybe 16" wide on the inside, but cute isn't right for cooking or baking. This baby-sized oven won't fit a cookie sheet or the baking stone we have in our current oven. As well, replacing that oven would be tricky as miniature ovens are hard to find and a bigger oven won't fit in the built-in cabinet holding the oven.

And the musty smell wasn't just an anomaly - there's mold around the basement windows. That's a pretty big problem that we don't really want to deal with. We know that the air conditioner probably needs to be replaced as the neighbours have replaced theirs, and that might help, but clearly there's a moisture problem there.

We also already knew that the driveway needed to be re-surfaced because it had sunk about three or four inches. That's normal here; this was a swamp and the ground is soft, but it's an extra expense. The garage door needs to be replaced, too.

Anyways, as nice as the place was, it just needs too much work to make it right for us. The price is right for the area but some of the problems are just too big and too expensive for us to ignore.

So the search continues. We're getting tired of looking for a house, that's for sure.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you that my thoracic surgeon's appointment has been moved to Thursday afternoon. They called me yesterday afternoon because he was running late in surgery. I don't think this three day delay will make a huge difference when it comes to getting the biopsy done.