SOLD

 Our house in Regina finally sold! It was not super smooth, it sold for a fair bit less than we would have liked, and it took forever. But it finally sold. Possession is on February 16, so fingers crossed nothing bad happens before then (like water in the basement, or something else random). 

Selling for less, and having to pay a high interest mortgage for months longer than we expected, means we have less buying power in the tight market here. But we are highly motivated to leave our current rental, which keeps getting worse and worse in terms of disrepair. I don’t even want to get started, but rats, horrible smells, standing water under the house, now a toilet that is sitting in the middle of the room plus more horrific smells, all among other things - it’s just too much. I’m hoping that the perfect house will just appear for us!

But here is some fun news. On Thursday night there was a family dance at Maren’s school. As part of the dance there was a hula hooping contest, and Maren won in the second and third grade category!

Sharing

 About a week and a half ago a smell started coming up from a trap door (that goes into the crawlspace under the house) that is in Linden’s room. It was a moldy smell, and gave me a headache right away. I submitted a maintenance request to the property management company right away, but of course we had no idea how long it would take them to get to it (a plumber is now coming out on Wednesday, so that will be two weeks later) so we had to take some kind of action to protect Linden from the mold.

We moved Linden’s bed into Maren‘s room, and now they are sharing. It is going surprisingly well. We may end up just keeping this arrangement for a while even if we don’t have to!

Ice

 On Friday night, we had freezing rain, and then all day Saturday we had a little ice pellets falling from the sky. It seems that overnight last night. There was a new batch of freezing rain, so the city is covered in a thick hard layer of ice.

On the one hand, it isn’t so great to be stuck at home, unable to drive anywhere or do anything. On the other hand, it isn’t so bad to be stuck at home, unable to drive anywhere or do anything. 

Plus we are used to it. We have appropriate clothing, sleds for the kiddos, and we are very familiar with snow and ice. The kids have spent lots of time playing outside. 

We will probably be at home until Wednesday, when we return to our regularly scheduled warm (relatively) rainy weather 🌧️

Potions

On Friday our oven started on fire while we were preheating it to cook dinner. Jeff yelled from the kitchen “the oven’s on fire!,” and I couldn’t really process that right away so I didn’t answer and he yelled again, with more urgency “the oven is on fire, what do I do?!” After telling him to close the oven door and turn it off, I made it to the kitchen where the flames were just dying down. What was supposed to be homemade pizza turned into a takeout pizza night.

We put in a “maintenance request” with the property management company, and haven’t heard a word. No one works over the weekend, so no surprise, but it occurred to me that if there ever was a real emergency -say the house burned down because we didn’t catch the oven fire immediately - there is no number to call. So that is a sign that we are not renting from such a great agency. 

As long as we don’t turn the oven on, life is normal. Today the kids made potions. Linden has decided that this potion Will bring her a spell book. She is not sure how it will arrive. It might come by magic, but it might come through the mail, or in a box delivered by courier. I have no idea why she decided this or how she came up with it but I kind of love it :-)

Happy new year 🥳

 This last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. Christmas here then in Eugene, then a lovely visit from Jeff’s brother and family (complete with cousins aged 9 and 5, perfect playmates for Maren and Linden), 

more visits from friends, then today taking down the Christmas tree, and finally celebrating the new year having hot chocolate and cookies (which we baked yesterday) with new friends (a family with 7 kids, meaning plenty of playmates for the kiddos). Then tomorrow is back to school, and back to a normal routine. I have to say that I am kind of looking forward to it 😊