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January 1, 2001
Hey everyone,
You know, it irks me to no end when diary writers let weeks or months go by with no new entries. I always think – why bother writing if you don’t want a timely chronicle that you can look back at. And here I am – three weeks and no new entry. Pathetic really. I have not had computer troubles, and I have not really been ill. That’s the only reason’s I’ve been late in the past. I must do better – for my own scrapbook and for those who might be following our story!
I have always frequented the many diary sites on iParenting – and I read the diaries or boards as a break in my busy day at work. Or as something to do on the slow days! But they’ve changed our Internet policy at work and we have a limited time online. Since I do use the Internet quite a bit as a research tool, I have forced myself to lay off my online escapes at work. I may have the chance to glance at a diary or two, but I will save my browsing and posting for home. Unfortunately I have not had much time in my evenings lately, so that’s the reason for my absence. I feel like an addict in withdrawal.
A New House
The primary reason for my evening business has been the decision made last month to build a new house and sell our current house. I swear we have been looking for a year, trying to decided if we wanted to stay in Calgary, and if so, where we wanted to live. We finally made our decision when housing prices in our current neighborhood started to drop. We live in a really good neighborhood for those who want to work downtown and in the four years we’ve lived here our house value has skyrocketed. And I think it’s plateaued (is that how you spell that?). Anyway – we think we’ve chosen a new neighborhood with the same upside potential – and it will reduce our 40 minute commute to a seven minute commute!
We have had the devil of a time settling on a plan. We wanted four bedrooms, and we were baffled at why all of the homes in Calgary seemed to offer only three. Finally someone explained it to us – lots are so darn narrow here that to squeeze four bedrooms on the top floor makes all the rooms small. So we decided to custom design a home with all the rooms we want. The top floor has three bedrooms, and ensuite and a main bath and a bonus room. These bonus rooms over the garage are very popular in Calgary. They were built on the premise that kids, primarily small children, do not like to go to the basement to play. The main floor will have the double garage, a laundry room, an office, formal dining room, kitchen and eating area and a great room. We are putting a raised ceiling in the basement and there they will build a guest room and ensuite and a quilting/crafting room for me. Instead of thinking about finishing the basement later, it will be finished to the same specs as the rest of the house with an open staircase to make it seem like part of the house. The house takes up a stupid amount of our postage stamp lot – but like I said – I think this neighborhood has a really cool wow factor and we think will also have some great potential.
I think there are two types of home buyers out there – resale and new home buyers. I don’t know anyone who flips between the two! I LOVE building new homes. My parents would build new homes every few years. We had our current house built. I love picking out every little detail from the cabinets to the colour of the grout around the fireplace. I love that everything is so clean and new and fresh. But there are definite downsides. One – the teeny lots. Even million dollars homes are built on miniscule properties. Second – trees – what are trees? You also have to live with mud and construction for a couple of years, but I am so used to I actually find it comforting to wake up to hammers and saws.
The really scary part for me is selling our current house. PLEASE let it sell. We are putting it up right away as we do not want to end up with two mortgages in six months. I am willing to move to short term rental in between just so I don’t have that worry. Since we do have six months we are trying the “For sale by owner” approach for a couple of months, and if it hasn’t sold we will go with a realtor in April. We have spent every night in the past couple of weeks making our house look like a showhome. We do not have a lot of clutter – I am not into knick knacks. But our closets were packed, the cupboards were a mess and our bookshelves are crammed with books. We are almost done now. We had planned to put the house up this weekend, but we decided to get a handyman in to fix up some of the small things that need repairing, so we’ll wait another week.
Turning 31
I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and I turned 31. I am officially into my thirties now. I think the thirties are a great time. Of course I will probably say the same about the forties and fifties! I am somewhat settled in my career, I am happily married with one child and a nice house, pets, the whole nine yards. It’s a good time. My birthday itself completely sucked sue to a hell day at work. But then the next day I flew to Ottawa for a whirlwind visit with the folks. Actually – I was more a workhorse than a visitor! They built a new house (I told you they liked to do that!) and I came and helped them paint and move. I discovered that I should stick to painting closets, but I am a very organized mover. I also got to have a birthday dinner with a bunch of girlfriends and on Sunday a couple more came over and we watched the Golden Globes and ate take-out Chinese. None of them have kids, so they didn’t understand quite how rejuventating a weekend like that can be! Sam and DH had a really good weekend, Sam was in excellent spirits and they both had a lot of fun. Sam isn’t attached to one of us over the other, so he has no problem when I leave. All the same – it was very exciting to see him when I returned home!
Sam
Sam is doing well. He keeps getting ear infections every few weeks and I presume this will keep happening until he gets into the Ear, Nose and Throat dr. on the 25th. Poor guy – the worst part is that he hate the meds, they give him the runs and he won’t eat even treats. Sam cannot afford to not eat. We go to the dr. on Thursday to discuss his nutrition. He’s small, but not painfully thin – but they don’t like that he’s losing weight consistently. He actually ate a tad better up until this latest ear infection (on Friday) so maybe he won’t have lost this week?
He is talking and talking and talking some more. The only letter he can’t say is “L.” I thought I’d share some Sam-isms. They may not be that scintillating to you – but I thought I should write them down somewhere as I find them cute/amusing:
1) I think Sam listens to me. Lately whenever I tell him to clean up he turns to me and says, “quite the mess.” And usually this is followed by cleaning!
2) Sam will sometimes eat Cheerios and he asks for them by the colour of the box! He will ask for “greenios, yewwowios or bwownios.” It took me forever to figure out what he was saying – and now I think it’s cute! Should I be correcting him on this?
3) I was getting dressed the other day when Sam carefully watched me put on my bra. I wondered what he was going to say, and I laughed out loud at him when he said, “What mommy doing? Mommy wear bewwy gwasses?” I guess a bra looks like glasses, but I hope it’s not on my belly!!
4) I went to get Sam out of his crib the other morning and he was sitting there all prim, waiting for me to arrive. As soon as I walked in he said, “fresh water pease.” Cracked me up!
TTC
Well, not much going on here. I decided to do the temp thing this month, which I haven’t done since the first few months we tried to conceive with Sam. I suck at it. I can never remember to take it and then I can never remember to write it down. I’m sure I’ll get better. My temps don’t looks o good this cycle so I am not optimistic, but hopefully I’ll see a pattern soon.
My dr. decided last November to get me into the Fertility Clinic here in Calgary. It’s a six month wait so she thought I should get on the list. After Christmas I just had this paranoid fear that I wasn’t on the list so I called the clinic and found out that indeed that had not received my requisition. I was SO livid. And glad I called. So in the New Year they put me on the list – I lost out two months of waiting.
Well, I’ve written a novel. I will have to be more diligent next time so I don’t fall so far behind.
All the best,
Jenn and Sam
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