My $1500 back pay cheque arrived today as a result of the union’s contract negotiations. WOO HOOO. That means my salary just went up $4K a year too. (well my salary until Nov. 3rd anyway).
J. is home from work today working on the laminate flooring in the living room. He is doing a great job! I have photos, only my computer room is a little cluttered so I can’t get to my camera dock, but when I can, I’ll add more photos.
My house is on the market!
http://www.mls.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?PropertyID=4973099
She told me she was going to go with a side view so I was surprised to see a photo of my tree instead of my house on the listing. Oh well. There has already been one person who wants to see it but we aren’t allowing showings until next week.
In the meantime, we’re painting, installing laminate flooring in the living room, vinyl flooring in the back room.. We’ve already painted the front steps, and installed a new light in the hallway (which is SUPER bright!).
We have lots of work to do, not only for the first showings next Monday, but our garage sale this Sat & Sun! I still want to wash all the stuff I’m selling so it looks good enough to fetch an extra quarter. haha.
I don’t know how I’d do it all without J. He’s a good worker!
It’s Sunday morning. I still have a few hours of cleaning to do before the real estate agent comes over.
Yesterday was a very long and tiring day. I was moaning almost constantly by the end of it. J. on the other hand is incredible and keeps his cool as he works away. I don’t know how I’d ever get this house ready to sell without him.
The house is looking WAY bigger without so much stuff in it. Practically everything is being categorized as:
After I get most things out of a room, then I start scrubbing. I have been using an orange Pine-sol to get a fresher smell in here. I’ve been scrubbing down the baseboards and around the edge of the floor, and then mopping. J. does the prep work by vacuuming. He’s so funny, he can’t understand how 10 minutes after he vacuums there are new dog fur dust bunnies. He’s also washed the windows inside and out, and washed off the house.
I’m not a great housekeeper, but the job is far harder living near a steel mill. That damned mill fills my house with black grit. It etches everything as you wipe it down. Everything is covered in black crap. I almost wish it was winter so I could shut the windows for good because if this house doesn’t sell fast, I’ll have to keep washing everything down over and over.
Anyway, I have to get back to work here. I shouldn’t have went to the gym yesterday morning too. I am sooooo stiff and sore. I was so tired last night, but didn’t sleep so well because I was so sore.
So I went through several large boxes of all my school notes from about grade 4 through to the end of University and I pitched all but a small file box full! 88|
J. wishes I had gotten rid of it all, but he has no idea how much I just pitched. Boxes of notebooks, looseleaf notes, all my 4H binders, ALL OF MY JON BON JOVI POSTERS!, artwork, tests, exams, etc. I did save all of my History course notes because I need to reread and relearn my history. I also saved any creative writing I could find because they are good! (DAD – I even found the original Dot on the Wall story!)
We went through most of my garage storage boxes last night. Threw out A LOT of stuff. Boxes of stuff that I had moved from house to house to house.
Inside we continue to find more things to sell at next weekend’s garage sale. I think moving me is going to be a breeze… because there will be nothing left to move!!
My real estate agent is coming over on Sunday to get things moving. My friend who is a garage sale expert is coming next Monday to help me get an idea of what prices I can put on things. I need to wash and clean many of the items (then I can hope for $0.50 instead of just a quarter each! haha)
It was a big weekend! I got to stay at J.’s parents house on Friday night, meeting them for the first time. J. came with me to my Dad’s house on Saturday, met Becky and played poker with Julie, Mom, Brian, Leanne, & I on Saturday night, and came to my Grandma Verkley’s 84th Birthday picnic on Sunday!
Everything went very well. J.’s parents are very nice people. They even babysat Monty on Sunday afternoon. I’m not completely convinced he’ll be invited back there. He wrestled with J’s dog so much J’s dog is warn out and limping a little bit. And Monty ate several of their tomatos right off the vine!! What a silly puppy!
Yesterday on our way back to the Sault, we stopped in Parry Sound to check out our new town, and to drive by the two properties that we had tagged as our favourite two.
Our number 1 favourite left us severely disappointed and angry at the real estate agent. We were completely misled by the trick photography in the listing. The place was a dive. I suppose that is why they used an aerial shot of the house as the main listing photo. I almost didn’t recognize it when we actually drove by. I just can’t understand why there is a need to mis-represent the property. Why waste our time? Do you think we were going to buy it sight-unseen? Sheesh. The neighbours had built their place at the back closest corner of the lot so basically you wouldn’t have a speck of privacy because they are practically in your backyard so your 1.3 acre lot isn’t very appealing anymore.
The other one looked okay and wasn’t misrepresented in its listing. There is a park and a beach about a 2 minute walk away. Lots of trees. It wasn’t too far from town. It feels like a real cottagey area. There isn’t much of a backyard, but we believe the lot goes much further back into the woods so we could clear out a bit more perhaps. Now we just have to wait for J to get a paid house hunting trip and a real estate agent assigned, and then he can go and find us a house.
J.’s job is transferring him to Parry Sound and I am going with him! 
I think the next three months is going to be fairly chaotic. My job ends November 3rd. Before then, I’d like to put my house up for sale, sell it, and complete the transfer. That means a lot of cleaning, pitching, more pitching, and more cleaning!
J. is still waiting on some final paperwork, and then we’ll have a better timeline on when he can go for an all expense paid house hunting trip. He may start there as early as October 1st if he can find a house.
This is a massive step for both of us. Moving in together is huge, but I think we’re ready. This weekend we are going to meet each other’s families. I’m admittedly quite nervous to meet his parents. He’s met mine already, but he will be coming to my Grandma’s big birthday picnic on Sunday to meet my Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins.
Tonight J. helped me go through my kitchen and bedroom pitching stuff. Since we’ll be living together, we can sell one of everything. I hope to have a big garage sale in a few weeks. I feel bad selling some things because they were gifts, like the really nice coffee maker Dad bought me for my birthday a few years back (I think it’s nice, I’ve never tasted coffee), but J. has a nicer one, and I need to drastically downscale the amount of stuff I have – no one needs two coffee makers. (I have a lot of “stuff” – some call it crap – I call it my precious stuff)
Anyway, J. is in the other room with the A/C on as he rests from all the hard work he did (the man is a work horse! Or maybe he was just super eager to fill garbage bags with my stuff) – anyway, I’m going to join him and watch some TV.
Thank you to my ancestors for allowing me to be born in Canada….
A county in southwestern China has killed as many as 50,000 dogs in a government-ordered campaign following the deaths of three local people from rabies, official media reported on Tuesday.
I guess they don’t have rabies vaccines????
The five-day massacre in Yunnan province’s Mouding county spared only military guard dogs and police canine units, the Shanghai Daily reported, citing local media.
Dogs being walked were taken from their owners and beaten to death on the spot, it said. Other killing teams entered villages at night creating noise to get dogs barking, then homing in on their prey.
Did the Chinese citizens just stand by and allow their officials to beat their dogs to death?
Even 4,000 dogs immunized against the sickness were put to death in case the immunizations were not effective. Compensation of 60 US cents was paid for each dog.
Oh so they do have vaccines, but just didn’t care. The world is one messed up place I tell ya.
News Sources: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/08/01/china.dogs.ap/
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=6853
A month or two back I bought a set of wooden tv tables for my living room – you know the kind that you can sit in front of your recliner to eat dinner on in front of the TV, and then fold up and sit on a little stand when you are done?
I really like these ones – they are made out of natural rubber wood, and are solid and heavy.
The only problem is I continually hurt myself when trying to put them away.
Last night I was folding one back up and before I knew it, it had sucked up three of my fingers into the joint were it folds and I was left standing in the living room with my three fingers totally pinched and I couldn’t get them out without attempting to re-pinch them by opening the legs and I was trying to get the words out to J. who was standing in the kitchen to come and save me. After what felt like 2 minutes (but was probably only a few seconds), J. realized I really was stuck in the tv tray table and he came running to save me. After he got my fingers out I fell to the floor in tears.
For most of the evening my three fingers throbbed and pulsed and I moaned and whined. I need to find a better way to fold up those tables because they are just soooo dangerous! (they’re really heavy!)
Today my fingers have a general discomfort about them as I type, but they aren’t too bad compared to last night.
Last night at 10pm it was still a 37°C humidex outside! My air conditioner wasn’t really keeping up to cooling my entire house so we all bunkered down in my bedroom, ate some popcorn, watched Holmes on Homes, and enjoyed the coldness. Thank goodness they are predicting cooler weather for our retriever trials this weekend.