A phone call three months in the making...

I am trying not to get my hopes up, but we just got a call from our real estate agent that an offer has been made on our condo. He said that it would be dropped off at his office tomorrow morning and he is meeting with us at our house at 10am to go over it with us. If you would say a prayer for us we would really appreciate it. I can't believe that our condo has been listed for almost three months already. We listed it at the start of July on Saskhouses.com, then listed it with a real estate agent at the beginning of August. What a relief that would be to unload that place!!

Yesterday at work I had an appointment with a woman who is 85ish. I have seen her a number of times but usually only 3 or 4 times a year. Yesterday morning she left a message wanting to get in "with that girl...what's her name...it starts with A-N-.....something like that". My coworker called her when she got in at 10:30am and told her that I could see her at 12:30pm. The client agreed to this, but showed up at the clinic at 11am. She came in and asked my coworker if she could treat her. My coworker was busy treating someone else and politely told her that she was 1 1/2 hours early for her appointment and that she would have to wait for me. Then my other coworker came in and this client asked her if she would treat her. My other coworker said, sorry, I already have a fully booked day. My client seemed somewhat distraught about this, but still sat and waited. She was quite thrilled however when one of my coworkers clients brought their husband along, and she sat there the for the whole half hour and talked his ear off.

I need to rewind a little bit here. This woman came in to see me last week. She called in the morning and wanted to come in as soon as she could. I told her that I could see her at 11:15am, and when I got to work at 10am she was sitting there waiting. I told her that I already had a client and that she would have to wait for over an hour until her appointment time. She didn't seem too worried about it.

Fast forward to yesterday, finally I got in around noon and was able to get started on her a little earlier than 12:30pm. I gave her her one hour treatment and told her to take her time getting up (as I do for every client). She did take her time, but she is 85 years old so I didn't think too much of it. She paid and left. I then went into my room and was hit with a wave of menthol smell. She helped herself to my Deep Cold. I keep some on hand in case a client needs it when I am done, but usually I am the one to apply it if I feel they need it. Also, in all the times I have used it on someone, I have never smelled it THAT strong in there. At first I wondered if she had put it somewhere in the room, but I think she probably just slathered it all over herself before she got dressed.

I think that her mind is failing, but she is very outspoken and sometimes can be quite rude. I also don't think she is at a point where reasoning with her would help. There was one time she showed up at the office in the morning after a doctor's appointment upstairs and came in and when there was no one in the front of the office she started yelling "Helloooo, is anyone here???" I was there, giving a treatment and had to go out and tell her that I could not treat her right now because I was in the middle of treating someone else. And then there was another time when we were chatting during a treatment about how she had made some perogies and I said that I liked perogies so she offered to make me some. I thought that sounded great....until I went over to pick them up and she wanted money for them. I was so shocked that I paid her and left. Though she was quite insistent that I stay for coffee, I politely declined.

Not quite sure what to do with this woman. I realize that I only see her a few times a year, but I feel bad when she shows up early and starts harassing my coworkers. A person definitely meets some interesting folk in this line of work.

A rather boring post...

I found a great pair of new jeans today. I seem to have a more difficult time than I used to finding good pants. Or maybe I am just more picky now after watching many episodes of What Not to Wear. I have come to the realization that usually if you cheap out on stuff you get cheap stuff that doesn't last or fit properly. I don't know that I could spend more than $50 or $60 on a pair of jeans without feeling exceedingly guilty, but most pairs I have found for less than that just don't fit properly. The ones I found today are Levi's brand and they were regularly $70 on for $50. I don't know that I have ever owned a pair of Levi's brand jeans. I remember when it seemed like they were quite popular in high school. I also remember that back then the jeans had the waist size and leg length on the tag along the back of the jeans which seemed silly to me, but I think I was more self conscious back then (who isn't in high school??). I also found a nice shirt. I spent more on it than I usually do on shirts ($25) but I really liked it and I think I will get a lot of wear out of it. Also it is long sleeved and with winter on it's way I could definitely use more long sleeved shirts.

May I gross you out for a moment??

My coworker was telling me the other day that her hairdresser bought some grapes from the store. When she was washing them she noticed a rather large and exotic looking spider in them. She was braver than I would have been and managed to get it into a jar and took it to a friend of hers at the university to find out what it was. It turns out that was a black widow spider! It just makes my skin crawl. I am seriously arachnophobic! As she told me that story I thought of the bag of grapes that was sitting in our crisper waiting to be washed. Gladly when I got home from work Jay had washed them and put them in a bowl. I asked him if he found any spiders in them...thankfully he said no, but he was on his guard looking for anything out of the ordinary when he took them out of the bag.

I came to a conclusion today after a brief visit from my sister, brother-in-law and two nephews. I don't think we are allowed to have kids until this house is 'broken-in' a bit. Not that I don't like kids, it's just I feel like a little bit of a neat freak in this brand new house, and kids always find all the stuff you don't want them to touch. I know I will relax with time and as things get broken in...but for now....I will enjoy my brand new house and take each knick and ding and stain as they come.

Angie the Model

Jay and I went for a walk down to the river landing today. It is going to be quite something when it is all done. Really nice down there! Jay took the camera along and took a few pictures and a few of me. Thought I would share a couple of the nicer ones.

Jay commented tonight that our new fridge is good for us. Why you ask? It dispenses water and ice from the door. The novelty hasn't worn off yet, so we have been drinking much more nice cold ice water than we usually do. I am sure eventually the novelty will wear off and we will settle back into our normal routine of drinking and adequate but not greater than usual amounts of water.

Yesterday when we were at Costco we picked up a new set of cordless phones. I am very impressed with them. They do a lot and so far the sound quality is wonderful! They can be used as walkie-talkies, alarm clock and even as a baby monitor! And they are only slightly larger than my current cell phone (which is quite old and big), but that's small for a cordless phone.

We finally got our couch and chair today and they are the right ones and I think they look very nice. They are quite comfy and cushy but not as poofy as some leather couches and chairs are. We also got a call from the Blind Factory that our blinds are finished and will be installed next Monday morning. I am looking forward to that because right now I feel like like I am on display for all the neighbours to see at night with our big living room and dining room windows. I think we may be able to have a house warming party sooner than later because unpacking is going quite well!

Warning! This post is LONG!

I am writing this blog on Sunday morning in Microsoft Word because our internet is hooked up at the house but our computer is still at the condo. I hope to post it by Monday night or Tuesday.

We did it! Our house is officially ours! I am finally so excited about this. I have been excited to an extent all along, but with all the financial stress of the last couple of weeks, it feels good to get in there and do some work to bring it closer to move-in ready.

Jason’s mom and I spent yesterday (Saturday) morning cleaning the condo. Jay and his dad went over to the new house to accept our deliveries. Then the women brought lunch over to the guys and we spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening assembling furniture. But we did get to take a break to order and eat Chinese food as a celebratory supper!

I am so thankful that we were able to take our time with this move. I couldn’t imagine trying to assemble everything we did yesterday (Saturday) with all of our boxes and other furniture from our condo in the way. I think with some furniture in there I finally realize how big our master bedroom and our kitchen/dining area really are. When we had our headboard set up against the wall with the box spring in place, we fit the new king sized mattress flat on the floor at the foot of the bed. I joked that we could fit two king sized beds in our room! (This is as far as I got on this blog on Sunday morning, the rest was written Tuesday afternoon.)

We spent Sunday morning and afternoon hauling over a few things from the condo that the movers wouldn’t move or we didn’t want them to move. Then we were invited to go to Jason’s aunt’s house for supper which we gladly accepted as we could all go for a home cooked meal. Then Sunday evening was last minute packing at the condo of things we couldn’t pack before then.

Monday morning the movers arrived at 8am (they said they would be there at 8:30am). The plan was for Jay and Dale to go over to the house and wait for the people from the Blind Factory to come and install our new blinds, and Clara and I would stay behind and direct the movers and clean the condo once it was empty. All went according to plan except the blind installers never showed up and Dale and Jason were really bored at the house by 11am. The movers took longer at the condo than we thought, but it does take a lot of time to haul things down in the elevator. It took them about half of the time to haul in the stuff at the house as it did to pack it at the condo. They finished up at the condo by about noon and were at the house unpacking until about 2:30pm. They were two young men and they were working very hard the whole time. I would definitely recommend Geransky’s moving to anyone looking for a mover. I can’t imagine having to move all that stuff ourselves. Even though it wasn’t cheap to hire movers I think it was worth every penny. Then on Monday from 2:30pm until 6pm we all worked at unpacking and setting up the computer. We ordered supper in, ate, then we sent Dale and Clara on their way back to Swift Current and we did a little more unpacking but then just relaxed. I think we are completely done unpacking the kitchen, I thought that might take forever but Clara and I spent a lot of time working on it yesterday!

Today we slept in. Well we tried to anyway. We are sleeping on our new ultra firm foam mattress so it is taking a bit of getting used to. The good posture that it causes feels very unusual indeed. When I first laid down it felt like I was hanging upside down a bit. I think that was because our old bed was saggy, so your butt hung down lower than your head or feet. Now that I am laying flat it feels abnormal. We also went out and did a bit of shopping today at Walmart, Costco and Home Depot.

We only hit three snags with our new purchases and deliveries. The first we found out about on Thursday last week when we called to confirm that our stove was going to be delivered and found it that it had never come in. We found out later that everything from Maytag was on backorder and that it will be in on September 28^th. They offered us a loaner stove until then but we declined because our new stove is a slide in range so the countertop has to be custom fit to fit it. It sounded like the loaner stove was just a plain one that wouldn’t have fit anyway. I guess we’ll be doing a lot of barbequing and using our electric frying pan.

The second snag was that our couch and chair didn’t show up on Saturday. We were a little concerned because when we tried to call Ashley (who is in the process of going out of business right now!) all we got was an answering machine that said their mailbox was full. I finally managed to reach someone yesterday and they said our furniture had just come in and would be delivered on Wednesday (so here’s hoping it arrives!).

The third snag was the Blind Factory. I am not sure if we misunderstood, but we thought they were coming to install them on Monday morning and they didn’t show up so Jay called and they said they were only done making two of our blinds (we are getting ten). They called this morning to say that they would be done next Monday and could be installed sometime next week. So for the time being we have sheets hung up over our bedroom windows and need to be careful about what we walk around the kitchen and living room in because we have some pretty large windows in those rooms.

I think the rest of the week will be spent doing leisurely unpacking and probably some rearranging in the kitchen. I know we just kind of threw all of our food in the new fridge without much thought, so that will need to be reorganized. I am really enjoying having a ready supply of ice in the fridge. I will admit that the crushed ice option makes more of a mess than it’s probably worth, but it is fun.

Sorry for the longwinded-ness of this post, but it has been a very full and busy three days of packing, moving, unpacking and assembling things.

I also need to give a good word to Sleeper’s Mattress Factory. We had a very positive experience dealing with them in the store when we purchased our new mattress and box spring. Then their delivery guys were very friendly and helpful. I think that their delivery guys actually work for Sleepers. Whereas Sears and Leon’s hire other delivery companies to do their grunt work. You could definitely tell the difference in the pride they took in their work.

Last, but certainly not least, I need to say a MILLION thanks to Jason's parents for working their butts off this weekend for us. We appreciate it more than we can ever say!

After what has likely been the most anxious and tense afternoon of my life, we just got the call that at 4:30pm we get to go take possession of our house. I know that we were cutting it close with all this financing buisness, but when I called our lawyer at 2:15pm they had JUST received the money from the bank and still had to write a cheque to Fraser's lawyers. We got a call at about 3:50pm that we can go get our keys at 4:30! I am still a little too stressed to be grinning from ear to ear, but I am so thrilled and I can't wait to move in!!

Tetris

I have realized that in this packing process that I get great satisfaction from packing a box tight. I love finding just the right things to fit in the box so it's as full as it can be without throwing miscellaneous things in to fill it up. I was never very good at Tetris, but I have been doing pretty well with packing boxes full.

I would say we are 85-90% packed. There are just a few random things around that we might still need. As long as we can get things done in a timely manner tomorrow, there shouldn't be any problem getting possession of our house on Friday. It might not be at 9am on Friday, but even if it is at 5pm I will be happy and relieved.

Gettin' There

Labour Day Long Weekend

We were planning to spend the better part of this weekend packing for our move next weekend. We have gotten a fair bit of packing done, but on Saturday we got a call from mom and dad inviting us out to Pike Lake for the afternoon on Sunday with some of my aunts and uncles and cousins. It was a nice day and the rain managed to stay away. I can't believe that the boys wanted to go in the lake as it was barely 20C, but by the end of the afternoon James looked a little blue and his teeth were chattering. Here are a couple of pictures of the boys.

James enjoyed himself chasing his remote control boat while grandpa drove it from shore.


William kept VERY busy. Now that he is walking you have to keep such a close eye on him. He loves to climb and run very quickly (though somewhat still wobbly) towards the lake or the parking lot.


James and Karsten were VERY excited when Lorne caught some minnows and put them in a pail full of water.

I can't believe how smart James is sometimes. He found a curly snail shell but there was no snail in it. I told him that the snail must have moved out into a bigger house. He looked at me and said quite matter of factly "The snails are attached to the shell." I told him I was just pulling his leg because I didn't have the heart to tell him that the snail was probably dead.

I bought a cute shower curtain for our house today. It isn't a top quality one, but I figured this way if I get bored with it, or if it falls apart, it only cost $15. It is from Superstore and it is a clear plastic curtain, but randomly throughout it there are silk gerbera daisies in little enclosed pockets. It kind of looks like this. I am still not totally sure what sort of colour scheme to use in the bathroom because do have a number of different coloured towels and our flooring and walls are fairly neutral (browns and grays). I thought the colourful flowers would be fun, and the see through curtain would allow me to have some light in the shower when I am in there.

Nutella

I recently discovered Nutella. I saw an ad for it the other day and decided that next time we went grocery shopping I was going to try some. I think I had tried it once before but I thought it was strange to spread chocolate on bread or toast. I thought it was more like chocolate icing. I didn't realize that it had hazelnuts, skim milk (powder) and a hint of cocoa (just like the ad says).

I will admit that I have really been enjoying it. I have had it on eggos a couple of times, on bread once and this evening I had it on a banana and some graham wafers. I think next time I go to the lake and want s'mores I will take some Nutella along as the chocolate. Trying new things is part of being a grown up and doing your own grocery shopping. I am thinking that it is probably not my healthiest choice and once this jar is gone I likely will not buy some more for a few months. But what a nice discovery :)