Greg and I moved to Fort MacLeod in February 2014. It's a town of about 3,000 people I think, and it very much has a small town feel. We came here because eventually we plan to build and permanently settle about 5 minutes out of town. More immediate reasons were financial and practical. We weren't huge fans of living in Calgary (read "Big City, Little Friends" to find out why). Soon after I wrote that, Greg decided for sure not to go back to school, and his sister-in-law inherited a tiny little mobile home from an old lady that she had befriended. We said we would come down for a week and clean the place out for her. The lady (Mrs. Elhert) was a hoarder...like badly. We took 3 days to clear out all of the junk from her house. Then we took another 2 days to clean the place. 4 truck loads to the dump and 3 to Salvation army later, we had the place cleaned and painted. We decided to move in there. Rent and utilities are about a third of what we were paying in Calgary and the house is way closer to Greg's family and my relatives.
Soon after we moved, Greg's sister, brother-in-law and 5 kids moved about 7 minutes away. Since moving, we have really enjoyed the town/area. We visit either Steven and Sonja (and their 4 girls) or Hetty and Brent (and their 5 kids) every week or two. Both of them live right near town. We can do all of our groceries and shopping in town if we want, and I'm finally starting to understand and utilize our grocery store's rewards program (PC Plus). We've built 3 parks in town; one is amazing! Another is right down the street from us. We go to a church a couple blocks away which is a whole blog in itself, but we have made some great friends there. We also have some friends right down the street who we see often.
We live on the "wrong side of the tracks" (ok...I don't know why I put that in quotes. It literally is the wrong side of the tracks). Probably around 70% of the houses on our blocks smell like pot on a regular basis. There are occasionally drunk people passed out on the road. There are more suicides and murders per capita on this side of the tracks than there are in most places. This all seems bad, but it means all the theft, happens on the other side of town because that's where the rich people live. We maybe lock our doors half the time when we're gone and have yet to be robbed (it may be because our house looks like it would be better burnt, but hey we like it).
My favourite part is probably that at least once a week, we get a visit from Greg's Uncle Gerald. He is a 70ish year old man who's wife really struggles with depression. He sometimes just needs to come over to feel a little joy and have a cup of coffee and we are always more than happy to oblige! He drives school bus twice a day and owns the building that houses the post office in town. He used to farm, but when that got too much, he and Aunt Rita moved into town and bought a nice house on the right side of the tracks. He loves Annalyn and even fed her an entire bowl of soup the other day. Whenever he needs help moving something in the Post Office, he comes over and picks Greg up. He also happily helped us renovate our kitchen one evening (he stayed and helped from about 6PM-10PM). We really like Uncle Gerald and feel that we can be a blessing to him.
Another big plus of living here is my bi-weekly lunches/coffee's with my sister-in-law Ellen. She works in the medical clinic in town and comes over about twice a week just to cuddle Annalyn, talk, eat, and drink coffee. It's really nice and breaks up the day very nicely.
As far as our house goes, we bought it for $7,000 (probably above market value in all honesty). We've made some fantastic improvements in it since living here. First, we cleaned it out and painted. Then we added a shed in the back yard which meant we could switch our bedroom from the tiny 5' by 7'6" room into the 12'6" by 15' room. It also meant that we could store our bikes outside rather than in the house (that's one thing we don't trust outside around our neighbourhood). It also meant that we could prepare the tiny room for the arrival of Annalyn. We painted it brown and turquoise and got a crib and change table along with some colourful bins from Ikea. It's actually a super cute little room. Next we added a front porch. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but our old entrance went through our bedroom which meant when Uncle Gerald came for a 8:00 AM visit on a Saturday morning and just walked in, we were very grateful that Annalyn had woken up at 6:30. It also meant we could take our freezer out of our bedroom and put it somewhere more fitting. It also meant that the wind didn't whip through our house and make it -7 C right next to that door. Our next improvement seemed like my favourite at the time, but thinking back, the other ones were all huge too! It was a new kitchen! Our old kitchen had about 3 square feet worth of counters, incredibly inexcusable cupboards, very little storage, stained counters, cupboards that were falling apart, and no oven or stove. Now our kitchen is beautiful! It has about 10 sq feet of counter, loads of cupboards, a big pantry, a microwave, and a stove and convection oven. It's very nice. The next improvement was mostly for Greg, but I have come to enjoy immensely too. We got a nice little cast iron wood stove. We spent a couple days building a hearth and mantle for it and then put the stove in. It has made our living room so incredibly cozy and reduced our heating bill! We've spent a bit of money on this house, but it has become so much more livable and people actually like visiting us now (at first Greg's mom was repulsed that Greg would make his wife live in such a dump).
We just had someone agree to buy our house. We loose possession on March 1. We're not really sure where we're going to live yet, but we'll figure it out. If we end up moving out of Fort Macleod, I'll really miss it, but I'm sure other places have big advantages too. We might move to Monarch which is halfway between Fort Macleod and Lethbridge. Otherwise, maybe we'll move to Shaughnessy which is closer to all my side relatives and Lethbridge. I guess we'll see what happens. Wherever we end up, I'm sure we'll love that too, and hey, if we don't, we can always just re-uproot!
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Friday, July 11, 2014
The Pros and Cons of Pregnancy so Far (32 weeks)
Pros:
- I get to feel cool wiggles and bumps multiple times everyday
- We get a baby at the end of it
- People are really nice to me in general
- There's always at least 1 topic for conversation with female playground volunteers
- If I want an excuse to eat whatever I feel like eating, I have one.
- Greg lets me order chocolate milk instead of the beer I would normally get at the end of a day working at a faraway playground
- I don't have to lift really heavy things
- Volunteers think I'm amazing for performing simple little tasks
Cons:
- I can't visit Indiana when the rest of my family is there
- I cry at small little things and tear up every time someone mentions me maybe missing my family...or really anytime my family is mentioned just because I miss them so much.
- Cigarette smoke smells so good, but I'm not allowed to smoke
- Coffee just doesn't bring the same type of satisfaction as it used to
- I feel fat...and really kinda am
- I'm not allowed to work as hard as I used to
- My back and hips hurt if I do lift anything remotely heavy
- Heat is amplified, and I don't have a pool that I can just go run and jump into at the end of most days.
- My feet hurt after standing for even an hour.
- Some foods that I usually really enjoy, just taste gross (eggs, mcdoubles, sometimes bacon)
- I feel inadequate to do so many things that I used to feel competent in
- I'm always a little scared that I could be hurting my baby by something I do or eat or if my emotions are out of whack
- I'm scared every time I think about the possibility of a miscarriage or still birth.
- Our kid uses my bladder as a punching bag
- I'm growing an annoying knack for finding things to complain about even if I can think of good things that outweigh the bad.
Now even though there are more cons listed than there are pros, even just the very first item on the pros list outweighs all of the cons. Then if you looked at the 2nd one, I don't even think any of the cons would even matter at all (except for the last con on the list...that one sometimes makes it hard to remember that I shouldn't care). I can hardly wait for September to come just because I'm so excited to actually meet this kid.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Big City, Little Friends
So I have discovered that heavily populated places are the loneliest places in the world. Take Calgary, a city of around 1,200,000 people and counting, after living here for almost 5 months, I have only had actual conversations with 11 residents of the city. Those 11 people are Greg, James, Lori, Kayla, Sarah, Shayna, Liz, Theo, Shawna, Kylie, and Joe. Greg is my husband...in case you weren't aware. James and Lori have been married for almost 2 years and are our best friends in the city; we hang out with them often. Kayla is a friend from Redeemer. Sarah is Kayla's sister. Shayna is Kayla and Sarah's cousin. All three of them live together. Liz is Heidi Dunham's sister and she's married to Theo; we had them over once. Shawna lives in the basement of our house with her boyfriend (who's name i still don't know even though I've lived in the same house as him since July). Kylie and Joe are our landlords.
Ok I guess that's a tiny exaggeration. I've talked to a couple random people at bus stops, people that were in my classes when I was still in school, a couple people at churches we've visited, and Kayla's parents, but I haven't hung out with any of them.
Another heavily populated place within the city of Calgary is Centre Street Church. There are around 7,000 people who attend. The main campus is just a mile or 2 away from our house; however, there are multiple other campuses around the city. Main Campus has a Saturday night service and 2 Sunday morning services. Greg and I have decided that we're just going to make it our home church because we're sick of church shopping and the only ones we liked more are a half hour away (still in the same city of course). We just decided that for sure on Sunday so we haven't really gotten plugged in yet, but we're hoping to join a small group so maybe we'll meet some people there.
One of our biggest blessings in Calgary comes in the form of James and Lori. They are a fantastic couple. James is 20 and Lori is 21. Both of them love playing games, eating food, talking, and studying the Bible with us, and we could not imagine a couple that we get along with better. Maybe it would be if they liked camping more and snowboarding less, but we need some differences I guess.
Yesterday, I was making pie because we had some pears that were going bad. Since Greg doesn't generally eat many sweets, we had James and Lori over to help us eat it. We had them over for a supper of pork chops, potatoes, applesauce, and green beens. After supper I put the pie in and we taught them how to play killer bunnies. When the pie was ready, it was hard to tear everyone away from the game to eat it. Then we ate cake, finished that game, and played a game of Keiser (a fantastic 4 person game they taught us). Somehow it was all of a sudden almost midnight so they headed home. It was a really fun night; every time we hang out with them is great. We just finished a couple-series called Love and Respect, and I learned so much through it. It's great to have Lori around to talk to too. Every once in a while I randomly invite her over in the middle of the day too which is always fun.
If we didn't have James and Lori, I don't know how I would keep my sanity in this city. I would only know one person well. As it is I only know 3, but 3 is better than one!
I'm hoping that soon we'll meet more people and actually get a little bit connected, but as it is, I'm so happy for what we have as far as people go.
Ok I guess that's a tiny exaggeration. I've talked to a couple random people at bus stops, people that were in my classes when I was still in school, a couple people at churches we've visited, and Kayla's parents, but I haven't hung out with any of them.
Another heavily populated place within the city of Calgary is Centre Street Church. There are around 7,000 people who attend. The main campus is just a mile or 2 away from our house; however, there are multiple other campuses around the city. Main Campus has a Saturday night service and 2 Sunday morning services. Greg and I have decided that we're just going to make it our home church because we're sick of church shopping and the only ones we liked more are a half hour away (still in the same city of course). We just decided that for sure on Sunday so we haven't really gotten plugged in yet, but we're hoping to join a small group so maybe we'll meet some people there.
One of our biggest blessings in Calgary comes in the form of James and Lori. They are a fantastic couple. James is 20 and Lori is 21. Both of them love playing games, eating food, talking, and studying the Bible with us, and we could not imagine a couple that we get along with better. Maybe it would be if they liked camping more and snowboarding less, but we need some differences I guess.
Yesterday, I was making pie because we had some pears that were going bad. Since Greg doesn't generally eat many sweets, we had James and Lori over to help us eat it. We had them over for a supper of pork chops, potatoes, applesauce, and green beens. After supper I put the pie in and we taught them how to play killer bunnies. When the pie was ready, it was hard to tear everyone away from the game to eat it. Then we ate cake, finished that game, and played a game of Keiser (a fantastic 4 person game they taught us). Somehow it was all of a sudden almost midnight so they headed home. It was a really fun night; every time we hang out with them is great. We just finished a couple-series called Love and Respect, and I learned so much through it. It's great to have Lori around to talk to too. Every once in a while I randomly invite her over in the middle of the day too which is always fun.
If we didn't have James and Lori, I don't know how I would keep my sanity in this city. I would only know one person well. As it is I only know 3, but 3 is better than one!
I'm hoping that soon we'll meet more people and actually get a little bit connected, but as it is, I'm so happy for what we have as far as people go.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Riot
One day Greg and I were down building a playground in Coaldale. After work one day Greg, Brendan, and I stopped at the animal shelter just to see what was there. Greg and I both fell in love with a dog named Riot. He is half pit bull and half black lab. The problem was, he was already on reserve for another family. We asked them to put him on reserve for us just in case the other people changed their mind. (I know...it's weird putting a living creature on reserve). The next day Greg got a call at the playground saying the other people did pick him up. I was so sad.
When we were just slowing down on the playground build, Brendan said we had to hurry and pack up because he needed to be home by 6:30. Then on the way instead of passing by the shelter to drop Brendan off, Greg pulled in the shelter. Apparently the other people had returned Riot almost immediately because he didn't get along with their dog. We got a dog!
I was so excited! Greg and I took him on a walk by Brendan's house, and he was good except for barking at some little dogs. We didn't mind that because we hate little dogs anyways. At Greg's parent's house, we let him run off leash in the coulees. We played fetch with a water bottle and just had a lot of fun. We had to keep him in the back fence so that he wouldn't run away, but all of a sudden he was outside wagging his tail and roaming around. He had just soared over the fence no problem. Then we put him in the little back shed. It's just about 10*10 and made out of plywood. He was fine in there for the night. We took him for a walk and fed him in the morning, but the we got back from work, there was a hole in the bottom of the shed, and Riot was gone. We drove around town looking for him to no avail. A couple hours later, he showed up again! That night we went to Fort Macloud to eat supper with Greg's brother and family and to pick up a 6ft fence/kennel. Then we went back up to Calgary. We set the fence up with Riot on a leash then we all went inside. Riot was very well behaved. We designated one chair in the kitchen that he could sit on while we ate, and he sat there during each meal. We also had one chair in the living room that he could use. He would only go in it. He never peed or pooped in the house.
He was a great dog; however, we made the grave mistake of introducing him to the lady who lives in the basement of our house, Shawna. She didn't say anything to us about not liking him, rather she talked to our landlord and said she would not live in a house with a pit bull as a matter of safety. Our landlord came over and talked to us. He pet Riot and really liked him, but he couldn't get Shawna to agree to let him stay so he said we had to get rid of him. We were so ticked at the whole situation. All of Shawna's reasons seemed crazy to us. There was no way we were going to let Riot escape. We had him tied up AND in his fence anytime we weren't home and in the house when we were. There was no safety issue to be had. Plus, she said she never would've moved in if she would've known a pit bull would be living upstairs. Do you think we love her shitsus who bark for an hour strait every time she leaves the house?
Reluctantly we brought him back down to Lethbridge to return him next time we went down. He convinced us that maybe he wasn't perfect. He growled at Greg's dad and little sister. He also had a problem with Jackie (the dog Greg has always liked). He was fine with Teddy (the dog Greg hates). We found out about his problem with Jackie when suddenly Riot lunged from one side of the table, under it, and on top of Jackie in about a second. He might've killed Jackie had Greg not quickly pulled him off of her.
The next day, we brought him back to the shelter. I was on the verge of tears the whole time. I had really fallen fast for that dog. I know by all logical reasons, I should've been happy to get rid of him: he tied us down a little, he was apparently moody around people we cared about, he would cause strife with our neighbour, he would cost money, he would be extra work. All of that stuff seems super valid, but as I sit alone in our house, I really would love to have Riot here with me.
We think he was a beautiful dog, and he was super muscular.
He might've been a little bit of a glorified lap dog too.
When we were just slowing down on the playground build, Brendan said we had to hurry and pack up because he needed to be home by 6:30. Then on the way instead of passing by the shelter to drop Brendan off, Greg pulled in the shelter. Apparently the other people had returned Riot almost immediately because he didn't get along with their dog. We got a dog!
I was so excited! Greg and I took him on a walk by Brendan's house, and he was good except for barking at some little dogs. We didn't mind that because we hate little dogs anyways. At Greg's parent's house, we let him run off leash in the coulees. We played fetch with a water bottle and just had a lot of fun. We had to keep him in the back fence so that he wouldn't run away, but all of a sudden he was outside wagging his tail and roaming around. He had just soared over the fence no problem. Then we put him in the little back shed. It's just about 10*10 and made out of plywood. He was fine in there for the night. We took him for a walk and fed him in the morning, but the we got back from work, there was a hole in the bottom of the shed, and Riot was gone. We drove around town looking for him to no avail. A couple hours later, he showed up again! That night we went to Fort Macloud to eat supper with Greg's brother and family and to pick up a 6ft fence/kennel. Then we went back up to Calgary. We set the fence up with Riot on a leash then we all went inside. Riot was very well behaved. We designated one chair in the kitchen that he could sit on while we ate, and he sat there during each meal. We also had one chair in the living room that he could use. He would only go in it. He never peed or pooped in the house.
He was a great dog; however, we made the grave mistake of introducing him to the lady who lives in the basement of our house, Shawna. She didn't say anything to us about not liking him, rather she talked to our landlord and said she would not live in a house with a pit bull as a matter of safety. Our landlord came over and talked to us. He pet Riot and really liked him, but he couldn't get Shawna to agree to let him stay so he said we had to get rid of him. We were so ticked at the whole situation. All of Shawna's reasons seemed crazy to us. There was no way we were going to let Riot escape. We had him tied up AND in his fence anytime we weren't home and in the house when we were. There was no safety issue to be had. Plus, she said she never would've moved in if she would've known a pit bull would be living upstairs. Do you think we love her shitsus who bark for an hour strait every time she leaves the house?
Reluctantly we brought him back down to Lethbridge to return him next time we went down. He convinced us that maybe he wasn't perfect. He growled at Greg's dad and little sister. He also had a problem with Jackie (the dog Greg has always liked). He was fine with Teddy (the dog Greg hates). We found out about his problem with Jackie when suddenly Riot lunged from one side of the table, under it, and on top of Jackie in about a second. He might've killed Jackie had Greg not quickly pulled him off of her.
The next day, we brought him back to the shelter. I was on the verge of tears the whole time. I had really fallen fast for that dog. I know by all logical reasons, I should've been happy to get rid of him: he tied us down a little, he was apparently moody around people we cared about, he would cause strife with our neighbour, he would cost money, he would be extra work. All of that stuff seems super valid, but as I sit alone in our house, I really would love to have Riot here with me.
We think he was a beautiful dog, and he was super muscular.
Crazy how you can miss a dog...especially when you only had him for 2 weeks.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Catch-up time
So, I haven't posted on my blog in a really long time...like 4 1/2 months long time. Oops :). Sorry guys! But hey, at least I got facebook back so I can pretend to update people at least. For the next little while, I will try to blog at least once a week to make up for the past 4 1/2 months.
Wedding:
On July 4, I got married to Greg (he's this really great guy I know). I think we had the best wedding in the world.
Some random highlights leading up to the wedding were:
- Getting to know Gregs family better
- Getting to see all of my siblings, parents, and nieces and nephews
- Getting to see almost all of my Kolk cousins
- Climbing a mountain (not so highlighted if you count the few minutes of thinking thinking my almost sister-in-law was going to die, but hey: still pretty good overall)
- Working 76 1/2 hours the week prior to my wedding (ok, maybe not such a good highlight)
Highlights of actual day:
- Angela doing an amazing job on my hair
- Wendy and Fae helping with lots of little stuff
- Pretty fun pictures
- Mom helping me put my dress on and adding things to my hairpiece last minute
- Dad wearing a tie
- Anna quick feeding me before I got thrown to the photographers
- Watching all 16 nieces and nephews go down the aisle
- Dad walking me down the aisle
- Jonathan and Eric jumping to save our house from falling
- Nate's speech
- The Kolk cousin faces
- April and Shelby doing a fantastic job keeping kids semi-in-line
- The amazing pyramid made by aunts, uncles, and cousins
- Amber and Hetty doing a fantastic job MCing
- The open mic
- Kaylen and Nate keeping me company while I hid from the world
- The Forsters help with everything!
- Clean-up being miraculously close to finished before we even left
- ...I'll just stop there
After our wedding day, we headed down to Montana for the Hubers family reunion, but on the way, we made a pit-stop in Great Falls to get sleeping bags and camp for the night. We couldn't find a campground to pitch our tent in so we settled for a place up some coulees near a train track. When we were almost asleep, all of the sudden we heard this massive cloud of bugs above us and soon after, we started hearing thunder. We looked out our tent and 180 degrees of the sky was consumed in a huge storm. There was lightning every second. I asked Greg if maybe we should quick pack up and go to the car, but he said we wouldn't have time. After watching the storm for another minute or so, Greg thought of a little culvert with a bike path going through it that we had seen on our way up. We quickly got out of the tent and carried it (still set up) into the culvert.
Again, we were almost asleep when a massive gust of wind threatened to capsize our tent. We quickly ran outside, grabbed out shoes, and pulled the rain cover off (we were under the culvert anyways so rain couldn't hit us). About a minute later, rain did start hitting us even though we were on the far side of the 50 ft culvert. We put the rain cover on top of our sleeping bags so that we wouldn't get soaked and then finally went to sleep.
The next morning, we were expecting the world to be destroyed or something. Well...we were at least expecting some fallen trees and a roof or two torn of houses, but instead we woke up to someone peacefully biking through the culvert. Soon more people were walking or biking through. We decided to pack up. On our way back to the car, we did see one fallen tree. Apparently storms are amplified when you're in a tent. Who knew really? Oh well. It was a very adventurous night and we enjoyed it.
Following that adventure, we went to a little cafe for breakfast than continued our way down to Big Sky for the family reunion. On our way, we went on another adventure. This one came in the form of a detour sign that we followed when we were maybe an hour away from Big Sky. Four hours of beautiful scenery later, we arrived at the reunion. We spent a couple days enjoying time with family being "red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, rednecks," then headed back for Calgary to start settling into our house. We stopped in Lethbridge to see Greg's family, sleep for a night, and get our presents and continued on. We were so blessed by people's amazing generosity and hardly had to buy anything for our house (just lamps, picture frames, and a broom pretty much).
After 2 days of settling in, it was time for life to begin again. I joined Greg and Brendon in building playgrounds. Our first one was a small one in a new development called "Skyview Ranch." Life went on from there.
Wedding:
On July 4, I got married to Greg (he's this really great guy I know). I think we had the best wedding in the world.
Some random highlights leading up to the wedding were:
- Getting to know Gregs family better
- Getting to see all of my siblings, parents, and nieces and nephews
- Getting to see almost all of my Kolk cousins
- Climbing a mountain (not so highlighted if you count the few minutes of thinking thinking my almost sister-in-law was going to die, but hey: still pretty good overall)
- Working 76 1/2 hours the week prior to my wedding (ok, maybe not such a good highlight)
Highlights of actual day:
- Angela doing an amazing job on my hair
- Wendy and Fae helping with lots of little stuff
- Pretty fun pictures
- Mom helping me put my dress on and adding things to my hairpiece last minute
- Dad wearing a tie
- Anna quick feeding me before I got thrown to the photographers
- Watching all 16 nieces and nephews go down the aisle
- Dad walking me down the aisle
- Jonathan and Eric jumping to save our house from falling
- Nate's speech
- The Kolk cousin faces
- April and Shelby doing a fantastic job keeping kids semi-in-line
- The amazing pyramid made by aunts, uncles, and cousins
- Amber and Hetty doing a fantastic job MCing
- The open mic
- Kaylen and Nate keeping me company while I hid from the world
- The Forsters help with everything!
- Clean-up being miraculously close to finished before we even left
- ...I'll just stop there
After our wedding day, we headed down to Montana for the Hubers family reunion, but on the way, we made a pit-stop in Great Falls to get sleeping bags and camp for the night. We couldn't find a campground to pitch our tent in so we settled for a place up some coulees near a train track. When we were almost asleep, all of the sudden we heard this massive cloud of bugs above us and soon after, we started hearing thunder. We looked out our tent and 180 degrees of the sky was consumed in a huge storm. There was lightning every second. I asked Greg if maybe we should quick pack up and go to the car, but he said we wouldn't have time. After watching the storm for another minute or so, Greg thought of a little culvert with a bike path going through it that we had seen on our way up. We quickly got out of the tent and carried it (still set up) into the culvert.
Again, we were almost asleep when a massive gust of wind threatened to capsize our tent. We quickly ran outside, grabbed out shoes, and pulled the rain cover off (we were under the culvert anyways so rain couldn't hit us). About a minute later, rain did start hitting us even though we were on the far side of the 50 ft culvert. We put the rain cover on top of our sleeping bags so that we wouldn't get soaked and then finally went to sleep.
The next morning, we were expecting the world to be destroyed or something. Well...we were at least expecting some fallen trees and a roof or two torn of houses, but instead we woke up to someone peacefully biking through the culvert. Soon more people were walking or biking through. We decided to pack up. On our way back to the car, we did see one fallen tree. Apparently storms are amplified when you're in a tent. Who knew really? Oh well. It was a very adventurous night and we enjoyed it.
Following that adventure, we went to a little cafe for breakfast than continued our way down to Big Sky for the family reunion. On our way, we went on another adventure. This one came in the form of a detour sign that we followed when we were maybe an hour away from Big Sky. Four hours of beautiful scenery later, we arrived at the reunion. We spent a couple days enjoying time with family being "red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, rednecks," then headed back for Calgary to start settling into our house. We stopped in Lethbridge to see Greg's family, sleep for a night, and get our presents and continued on. We were so blessed by people's amazing generosity and hardly had to buy anything for our house (just lamps, picture frames, and a broom pretty much).
After 2 days of settling in, it was time for life to begin again. I joined Greg and Brendon in building playgrounds. Our first one was a small one in a new development called "Skyview Ranch." Life went on from there.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Rain
Rain. It's a topic that has been put into many songs. Each of which reflect a certain mood, feeling, or situation. Here are just a few of these songs and my current reaction to them.
- "Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day." That is not accurate. In fact, I'm happy it's raining today. It gives me a chance to do some stuff that I really need to get done rather than going in to work.
- "And the radio just keeps on playing these songs about rain." Also inaccurate The radio here in Starbucks is actually playing happy little Indie/pop songs.
- "Chocolate Rain" I wish. Also, I miss my little sister April. I was there for her grad, but I missed her open house and I just feel like we haven't talked tons in quite a while. When she showed me this video, I thought it was so random and fantastic - much like April.
- "It's raining. It's pouring. The old man is snoring." Well...this is kind of backwards and made about the wrong gender. In fact, it should say - "It's raining. It's sprinkling. The youngish girl is snoring." The reason fro this switch is, I slept in until almost 10:00 this morning where my oma (an "old (wo)man") was up bright and early figuring out all sorts of stuff with her water.
Now, I know there are many more songs about rain, but those are just the first few that popped into my head. Currently, I am sitting in Starbucks in Lethbridge because it was the easiest coffee shop with free internet for me to find. I am figuring out some little details for my wedding and hoping everything just is really easy. Problem is, I am too scared of it being all confusing and just deciding that eloping is a great option to actually get down to it and plan. I guess maybe I should at least give a solid attempt at planning a ceremony before giving up.
- "Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day." That is not accurate. In fact, I'm happy it's raining today. It gives me a chance to do some stuff that I really need to get done rather than going in to work.
- "And the radio just keeps on playing these songs about rain." Also inaccurate The radio here in Starbucks is actually playing happy little Indie/pop songs.
- "Chocolate Rain" I wish. Also, I miss my little sister April. I was there for her grad, but I missed her open house and I just feel like we haven't talked tons in quite a while. When she showed me this video, I thought it was so random and fantastic - much like April.
- "It's raining. It's pouring. The old man is snoring." Well...this is kind of backwards and made about the wrong gender. In fact, it should say - "It's raining. It's sprinkling. The youngish girl is snoring." The reason fro this switch is, I slept in until almost 10:00 this morning where my oma (an "old (wo)man") was up bright and early figuring out all sorts of stuff with her water.
Now, I know there are many more songs about rain, but those are just the first few that popped into my head. Currently, I am sitting in Starbucks in Lethbridge because it was the easiest coffee shop with free internet for me to find. I am figuring out some little details for my wedding and hoping everything just is really easy. Problem is, I am too scared of it being all confusing and just deciding that eloping is a great option to actually get down to it and plan. I guess maybe I should at least give a solid attempt at planning a ceremony before giving up.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
House Hunt!!
Fun facts to start this blog:
-I haven't blogged in over a month so I might be rusty (not that I ever got good at it to start)
-Calgary has a less than 1% vacancy rate in the housing market
-Average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment or house is around $1500 per month - utilities questionable
-Greg and I are getting married it July...that doesn't leave loads of time to find a house
-Waiting lists are generally about a year long.
During exams this year, Greg and I had 2 major methods of procrastination: playing Ticket to Ride online and trying to find a house or apartment in Calgary. We got really good at Ticket to Ride, and really frustrated with the housing market in Calgary. By the time summer break hit, we still were at a loss of what we would do for housing after getting married. We got on a couple waiting lists, but nothing looked the slightest bit promising.
After a while, one of my relatives suggested that I ask my cousin Willow if she still has an apartment in Calgary. I asked, but she said she had good renters and if they moved out, she would seriously consider selling it. Then, at Mr. Beekman's birthday party, Tricia (Greg's sister) said that on of her cousin-in-laws had a house that they were just renovating. We asked her to put in a good word for us, and almost a month later, they got back to her saying that we should contact them.
This news was fantastic to us because it gave us a glimmer of hope in spite of our increasingly desperate situation.
The next day, Willow texted me and said that her renters were moving out at the end of June. That now meant that we had 2 places saying that we had first dibs. We were very happy!
The house has a basement sweet for $900/month (plus 1/2 utilities) or a main level for $1,100/month(plus 1/2 utilities). Willow's house was $1300/month.
Today, we went to view the upstairs of the house (the basement sweet doesn't look like it would be open by July). We got to the house before the landlady and just looked around outside. The windows don't look great, and the yard is a mess, but we could see a lot of potential. There is even space where we could maybe fit a garden in consecutive summers. Once inside, the bedrooms and living room were far bigger then expected. Even the kitchen was quite spacious. The dining room was small, but it could easily extend into the living room if we were to have a lot of company. There is a laundry room that would be shared with whoever may be living in the basement.
The only thing that seemed to be problematic is the sad fact that temperature has to be agreed upon by the people living in the basement and us meaning that our winter utilities will likely be higher than they would be if we had complete control.
With that 1 drawback, we decided to take it! We can gain possession around mid-June (possibly having to pay rent for the whole month, but oh well).
Oh, and fun fact: we might get a puppy! We're allowed to have a dog, just not multiples (sorry, Maggie, Darwin, and Sam might be out of luck when it comes to visiting us).
I am super excited! I can't wait to move in and make it home - a home that I won't have to move in and out of yearly. Greg and my first home. I can't wait!
-I haven't blogged in over a month so I might be rusty (not that I ever got good at it to start)
-Calgary has a less than 1% vacancy rate in the housing market
-Average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment or house is around $1500 per month - utilities questionable
-Greg and I are getting married it July...that doesn't leave loads of time to find a house
-Waiting lists are generally about a year long.
During exams this year, Greg and I had 2 major methods of procrastination: playing Ticket to Ride online and trying to find a house or apartment in Calgary. We got really good at Ticket to Ride, and really frustrated with the housing market in Calgary. By the time summer break hit, we still were at a loss of what we would do for housing after getting married. We got on a couple waiting lists, but nothing looked the slightest bit promising.
After a while, one of my relatives suggested that I ask my cousin Willow if she still has an apartment in Calgary. I asked, but she said she had good renters and if they moved out, she would seriously consider selling it. Then, at Mr. Beekman's birthday party, Tricia (Greg's sister) said that on of her cousin-in-laws had a house that they were just renovating. We asked her to put in a good word for us, and almost a month later, they got back to her saying that we should contact them.
This news was fantastic to us because it gave us a glimmer of hope in spite of our increasingly desperate situation.
The next day, Willow texted me and said that her renters were moving out at the end of June. That now meant that we had 2 places saying that we had first dibs. We were very happy!
The house has a basement sweet for $900/month (plus 1/2 utilities) or a main level for $1,100/month(plus 1/2 utilities). Willow's house was $1300/month.
Today, we went to view the upstairs of the house (the basement sweet doesn't look like it would be open by July). We got to the house before the landlady and just looked around outside. The windows don't look great, and the yard is a mess, but we could see a lot of potential. There is even space where we could maybe fit a garden in consecutive summers. Once inside, the bedrooms and living room were far bigger then expected. Even the kitchen was quite spacious. The dining room was small, but it could easily extend into the living room if we were to have a lot of company. There is a laundry room that would be shared with whoever may be living in the basement.
The only thing that seemed to be problematic is the sad fact that temperature has to be agreed upon by the people living in the basement and us meaning that our winter utilities will likely be higher than they would be if we had complete control.
With that 1 drawback, we decided to take it! We can gain possession around mid-June (possibly having to pay rent for the whole month, but oh well).
Oh, and fun fact: we might get a puppy! We're allowed to have a dog, just not multiples (sorry, Maggie, Darwin, and Sam might be out of luck when it comes to visiting us).
I am super excited! I can't wait to move in and make it home - a home that I won't have to move in and out of yearly. Greg and my first home. I can't wait!
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