Owning a house sucks

sometimes...

Last week, it got crazy cold here. Crazy cold. I'm talking -30 before the windchill. Yes, that's in Celcius. Cold.

I woke up tuesday morning, went about my morning routine. Pee, flush, wash hands.... oh shit. I turned on the taps and nothing came out. Then I heard that the toilet wasn't filling. My first thought was check the cold water too. Last year our hot water line froze but we still had cold water. Well I checked the cold water tap and nothing came out there either.

Crap Crap Crap.

Sadly, my first thought was, "It's too bad we're no longer in Ontario, I could have someone over here to figure this out for me in no time at all!" But alas, we're not. We're across the country with no one.

Now, before I continue with the story, let me give you some background info. We live in a mobile home. There is a skirting on the home to make it look like it goes right down to the ground, but it's not. There is something like a crawl space under our house. Now, in the winter, it does get cold under there. To combat problems, all the exposed water pipes have something called heat tape on them. Basically, the 'tape' connects to your electrical panel and in the cold months you make sure it's on. It uses the electricity to keep the pipes warm enough so they don't freeze. Everyone still with me?

Alright, so we have no water. I go to the electrical panel and make sure the heat tape switch didn't blow or whatever it's called. Then I checked all the windows to see if we had an ice rink outside our house. (A sign our water pipes burst from the ice expanding) So far so good. Just to be sure I open the front door to double check. I look down, and surprise! There just hanging out of the door are my keys. Well, we have no water, but in spite of my stupidity/pregnancy brain we still have both vehicles in the driveway and all our electronics in our house.

I finally get ahold of my husband and give him the bad news. He's pretty slow and bored at work becuase of the cold weather as well, so I let him take over. He calls a plumber and they say they will be by in the afternoon. Austin and I sit around and wait.... and wait. They finally showed up around 5pm, very apologetic to the fact it's been crazy busy for them. They get under the trailer, then come to give me the bad news. Our heat tape isn't working, it needs to be replaced.

It's also dark out and will take twice as long to actually repair so I make the executive decision to have them come back the next day. Thankfully they were there bright and early. They spent hours crawling around under my house in stupidly cold temperatures and by noon I had water again.

I could have hugged them. I didn't though. lol. Something just shy of $1,000 and I had water again. Yay, but boo to having to shell out the money. That's why owning a house sucks sometimes.

Settling in

Hello everyone!

I havent' had much time to post. We've been very busy settling in. everything is unpacked now, except my craft area which I am working on.

Austin is loving his new home. He's loving the fact that he can now access all the dvd's. I am not loving it. Also, he's figured out he can fit a dvd under the tv stand and under the couch. sigh. I think in the past week we have watched Cars 1,394,828 times. At least. haha.

Dave's mom and dad head home to Ontario today, so tomorrow might be a rough day. I joined a group on Meetup and they have a few get togethers tomorrow so I might have to take advantage of that.

I am hoping to have a few more useful posts coming up, depending on how much time I get. But for now, I will leave you with a video tour of my house.




Hope you all enjoy!

Almost time!

Well, this will be my last post from my laptop in my house. I've taken a quick break from packing to write my last post here before I unhook my internet. Our house is sold as of tomorrow and most of our things are packed and gone. We spent our first night at my mom's last night.... it wasn't fun. Austin definately needs time to adjust. We'll see how tonight is.

I'm slightly sad about the fact that I won't be pulling into my driveway tomorrow, or ever again. it's weird to think about it, but on the other hand I'm getting very excited. We've purchased a place and get posession Nov 1st. I'm pretty excited. I can't wait to see it! lol. I've seen pics online and Dave has seen it in person and he said that I will like it so I'm getting excited to get there. There are a few things I'm very excited about.... such as, the toy room!

Also, I'm super excited about this little area, which will now be known as my scrapbook/craft/business area.

Finally, I think this is going to be awesome to play in next summer, and I can't wait for Austin to be able to get out in the yard and actually be able to run around!

My big plan for after moving is to actually start working on my Creations by Kristin stuff. I have an etsy store but I haven't put anything in there to sell yet. I'm going to start creating a bunch of different things to put in the store and really focus on that. I think that will help me a lot with being in another province by myself without my family around. I will try to update and post things on my blog www.creations-by-kristin.blogspot.com with whatever new things I have.

I have to sign off now, but I will make sure to get online and update for our drive across Canada!!

Big Day!

I'm very excited today!!! I have a meeting with our Real Estate Agent about putting the house up for sale. In some ways I'm kind of excited that we're starting a new chapter, but in other ways I'm sad.

We're going to be leaving our families. This is hard. They have all been so helpful and supportive of us. Especially when Dave was gone last year. I appreciate everything they did for us and all the help they provided to me. My family, who I have never lived more then an hour away from, will be here while I am on the other side of Canada. It makes me very sad to think about. I'm going to miss my niece and nephew growing up, I'm going to miss my cousin's graduations from highschool, I'm going to miss movie nights with family. Oh how I will miss them. I'm also going at a very tough time. I want to be here for support. I want to have hugs ready whenever they are needed. I want to be able to provide distractions. I want to be able to hold your hand if you need me to. This is going to be very hard for me to leave, and whenever I really start to think about it I cry. (Like I am right now typing this) Just remember, I am a phone call away whatever time that may be and I wil be there however I can.

I am also sad about selling and leaving our first house. The house we brought our baby boy home to. The house we put so much effort into and turned it into a home, not just a place that needed a paint job, un-painted carpets, non 70's carpet, some love and attention and a basement. I will miss the memory of my first smile from austin, the first time I found him naked in his bed because he figured out how to take off his clothes, the living room floor where he first rolled over, the spot by our entertainment stand where he took his first step, the spot by the end table where he walked to me for the first time. Or, how about his bedroom. All the love and sweat and tears put into making that room so awesome for him, something at the time I figured would last for years, but now hopefully will make some other kid excited. I know we will make memories in our next place, but this was our first house. We bought it together. We signed the paperwork the day before our wedding. It truly was a new life together for us. I am going to make sure we have even more awesome memories in our next house.

On another note, today I am exhausted. Austin got up at 2am and was all about partying and playing until I gave up at 4am. not entirely sure what time he fell back asleep as he was in his room, but I know I am tired. Hopefully I can get a nap at some time today.

Woah Busy.

I want to start off by saying a big Huge massive thank you to my In Laws. This past week has been super busy, but It's all necessary. We've been getting the house organized and de-cluttered and cleaning out a lot of crap that we probably should have gotten rid of before but didn't. My In-laws have been helping to get rid of a lot of the crap and making our house look amazing. It's pretty much all ready to go onto the market, and I spoke with our REA today and he is going to come over on friday. I'm getting excited to start everything in motion and start this new beginning.

Dave made it to Alberta. He left Friday morning and got to Edmonton on Sunday afternoon. He hung out with a friend for the afternoon and checked out their new place, fell in love with another place, possibly for us. Monday he went and got the details on his new job, which thankfully is a camp job which means his room and board is covered so until our house sells we don't have to pay for rent and a mortgage.

Austin is still amazing me more and more everyday. I think with me working nights I've been missing quite a bit. I would love to keep him at home with me during the days but I can never sleep at night no matter how much or how little sleep I get the day before, and usually get an average of 3 or 4 hours sleep before I'm up with austin. Therefore he goes to daycare and I get to sleep a little longer so I don't pass out on my desk at work. He helps me with diaper changes by wiping himself (it's definately far from actually clean though) and he is always saying pee pee while grabbing himself. Not sure if he knows it's his pee pee or if he knows he pees in his diaper. He helps get dressed and undressed too. He can take his pants off and put them on and pull them up in the front, hasn't quite figured out he needs to pull the back of his pants up too. He can walk down the stairs. He grabs the railing and goes. Nearly gave me a heart attack the first time he did it, then Dave informed me that he taught him that. Yeah, maybe not the best age to be teaching that one. lol.

Austin is also listening better. If I tell him no or ask him to put something back or away he will do it. He also counts. To the untrained ear though he's just babbling, but it started when we would jump and started jumping in the pool. I would say "ready? 1....2......3!!!!" Now he stands still and in the same tone says 3 words (which I try to remember to record every time he says them and keep forgetting! but one of them is deee) then jumps. I've had to warn everyone that if he is near a pool or somewhere he shouldn't be jumping (like the couch) then to stop him before he hits 3. He has no fear and will do it - especially the pool! We were teaching him he needed to wait for someone to be there when he jumps in the water on the weekend, and thankfuly he is never in the pool unattended. Also, if you are trying to get him to go somewhere just say "on your marks, get set, go!!" and he will pause for 2 seconds then take off running. He's definately a sporty little guy. We just have to remember which ones he responds to, becuase saying on your marks get set go while trying to get him to jump just doesn't work out. Although some days you don't even need to prompt him! this is the video of him in his new big boy bed taken in June.




Another thing my lovely husband taught our son, is how to pillow fight. Thankfully Austin isn't that strong but I'm going to say some day it's going to come back to bite us in the rear. He will pick up the pillow and either smoosh it into you (usually the face) or just throw it at you. It's really adorable now, but I try not to let it happen too much. lol.

well, I've got ot try and get some sleep. I hope to update more soon!