Happenings

Since I don't ever travel anymore (it's been years), the only thing worth blogging about is our little munchkin. I'll just start blabbing, and maybe I'll end up covering other topics. Hope not, but we shall see.

She's going to kindergarten! Our 27-pound weakling is enrolled in the local Catholic school for September. Does she need it? Not in the least, but the program is half in French, so free language training! Free as in we-pay-our-taxes-so-we-might-as-well-reap-our-public-school-benefits-where-we-can. I used to scoff at the idea of junior kindergarten since it sounds like free daycare for people who don't have time for their kids. But sometimes I sit down to a tasty plate of crow, and this is one such time. The cruel taste is mitigated by the prospect of our daughter learning that silly but oh-so-helpful (around here) language. But really, being multilingual can't hurt, no matter what languages.

I make her read random words (in English, for now), and it's surprising what a few simple reading principles can result in. This week's big word was "facility"; if she focuses on one syllable at a time, the length of the word doesn't matter one bit!

Speaking of taxes, I just paid my first property tax bill ever... and that was just the first half. I darn near swooned! Apparently owning a house is a big waste of money... ouch! We'll certainly miss some tiny aspects of renting.

Lily has taken to drawing on the whiteboard. Some serious skills there, kiddo. "This is Rapunzel and she even has glasses!" I would have guessed Olaf, but the specs are certainly impressive. The girls just got back from Ikea (at 9pm) with a big stash of stuff, including a whiteboard easel for our aspiring artist.

We just had a record snow day, with just over 50cm or so in a day. It didn't seem like a whole lot until I went out to shovel it. That was the point at which taking Lily for a walk seemed much more appealing. And this was all well and good... until we got back home, by which time I was too tuckered out to do much shovelling. When Carrie got home later, she wanted to go to the gym. I told to give me a couple hours while I made the car accessible; she took the unintended hint and settled for shovelling a good chunk of the driveway as her workout!

No more front steps.

We love having a garage (that actually gets parked in).

It's surprisingly challenging to keep the driveway two cars wide, but rewarding to come home to a warm view, knowing that the nice clean driveway is worth the sore back and will never warrant buying a snowblower.

Home sweet wintry home.

So I went out yesterday morning, and when I got home the driveway was so slick I couldn't make it into the garage because the car kept sliding sideways. (It doesn't take much for our dumb sealed driveway to slick up; I think I need to burn out a belt sander on it in the spring.) So I pulled the car up as far as I could and left it. A few hours later I happened to look outside... wheee! Nice skating rink.

At least the driveway levels off before it reaches the street.

Would you look at that magnificent beast of ours. Why would we ever want to upgrade to a minivan? We'll have had the car for ten years this summer, having racked up 200,000 km. I guess it's served us well; may the next 200k be equally cheap.

The old heap just keeps on trucking... er, carring? It was shaking/rattling us half to death for most of the summer/fall, so I replaced a part or two. That didn't do it, so I had the pros take over; they replaced a motor mount which alleviated the problem somewhat but methinks a second motor mount needs doing soon. On the one hand this car is ridiculously cheap as far as vehicles go, but on the other hand it's increasingly difficult to spend on repairs far too close to what the car is worth. But we're not ready for car payments (or outright purchases for that matter), so the Corolla needs to last just another 25 years.

I did get roof racks for it last year finally, and I also installed a hitch. A friend very nearby has a trailer I can borrow, though I would rather like to own one myself. All this to say that I'm not helping at all when it comes to our family outgrowing this heap!

The pre-hitch days: 300 pounds of lumber, anyone?

What's new

While I rarely get around to blogging, I always mean to. That counts for something, right?

So let's go back a bit and talk about the fall. You know, when snow was just wishful thinking and we all walked around with toques on in anticipation.

Since Carrie had some time off, she took it upon herself to get some painting done. And I happily let her do it; painting is the absolute worst. I helped with fun things like removing shelving or hardware, but that's about it; she got to do the actual painting. Oh, and all the removal of old paint from existing trim. The inconsiderate louts who'd painted inside this house last didn't put much stock in finesse. Or second coats, for that matter.

Anyway, the dust and fumes have long settled, and Lily is the proud new resident of a pink bedroom, my office is freshly redone, and the guest room and master bedroom have been revived. Even the hallway and stairway upstairs got a repaint when Carrie's parents came over for Christmas. All that's left to do upstairs is the bathrooms.

How lucky is this kid? She gets her own bathroom.

One thing I have learned: paint is ridiculously expensive. Or at least it can be, and the kind that Carrie has decided works for her is not cheap. So it was with great joy that we learned of the mis-tint pile: some paint stores have steeply discounted gallons of paint that were returned for one reason or another. There may not be much variety for colours, but we found two reds for the guest room that happened to fit well. She mixed them together and had two gallons for $15. Sure beats $130!

After the move Lily's room started without a bed, but we eventually found a used one for her to fall out of, uh, I mean enjoy. She did fall out a fair bit at first (THUD! ...and she'd just climb back in without really waking up) but that has mostly ended.

A bit of pink.

We found an old church pew that fits very nicely in our entrance hall. It's very solid and has nice details; it could use a bit of work (notice the water stain) but we're in no rush to refinish it.

Carrie and Lily made it out to BC twice in 2015, making Lily much better travelled than myself lately. It was the first year in many that I didn't visit BC at all. (Buying a house didn't help.)

We put Lily in ballet a couple of months ago. It's a class offered by the city and costs a whopping $27 for 10 classes or so. She loves it! We haven't bothered to get her the legit ballet garb, but we make do.

While she's at ballet on Saturdays we tend to whip over to Costco. Yes, as suburban dwellers we've joined the obligatory craziness. Hard to get in and out of there in half an hour, but we manage... although doing this every week is getting expensive. Turns out ballet classes aren't as cheap as we thought!

Lily likes Costco, but her all-time favourite store is Ikea. The post-shopping ice cream probably doesn't hurt!

Winter did arrive, albeit a tad late. It came in with a bang and has since forgotten to keep up the pace. Not much snow left here, but we take advantage when possible.

A new year already

Happy new year! Where the does time go?

For the first time in many years, we spent Christmas at home. Carrie and Lily went to BC in mid-December for a funeral, and shortly after they returned, her parents came our way for a while. We're fortunate to have plenty of room to host now; my parents came for a visit in November and we expect more family in a couple of months.

So, Christmas in Ottawa. A green one, no less (very rare). We put up a real tree for the first time. It's almost nicer than the fake one we've dealt with for years... except the part where a million needles fall off every time you bustle past it or look at it funny. Oh, and I threw it to the curb this evening. As I shoved it out the door, there went the other 90 million needles, all over my floor. (Yes, we watered it, but our tree didn't seem to know the rules.)

Our little princess is all about dressing up. You can't be a princess without fancy clothes, and you can't make it through a day with wearing a couple of varieties of princess garb. Methinks she's becoming a tad vain, what with having to be beautiful and not ugly all the time (and "beautifuller than you Dad!"). Well, I'm hurt; regardless, it may be time to take it down a notch.

But it's not all fun and games. We do drills on rhyming, synonyms, our street address, addition, vowels, spelling and reading. Last month, she (of her own volition) grabbed a pencil and drew the numbers 1 through 10 on the back of an envelope, about seven of which were quite legible (albeit mostly backwards). A few weeks ago she sounded out a word I'd assembled with fridge magnet letters. With some coaxing she can spell and read quite a number of three-letter words. She's a little confused about the silent "e" and double letters but takes it all in stride. I want to take advantage and put her in piano lessons and have her learn five languages, but I should probably let her be a kid for a while yet, n'est-ce pas? Ah, the pressures of an only child...

39 Belleview

It was a week before our partially-planned move, and a friend said "Hey, let's move you tomorrow." He spoke of the holiday Monday. To our amazement, things kind of took off from there, and the next day we were moved! Not bad results for a holiday, and for not having to rent a truck, and for not having been prepared packing-wise.

A few days before, we'd taken possession. Time to try the key and take a picture.

That wasn't so bad. Then we stepped inside. BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Uh-oh.

Well, good to know the alarm works. I hustled the girls outside before the blaring began and then set about trying to disable the dumb thing. A code would have been helpful at this point. Instead all it took was a few calls and emails to the realtor, the former owner, the lawyer, the security firm, and anyone else I wanted to make aware that our moment was being ruined by a noisy alarm. In the end, a callback from the security company walked me through disabling the alarm without a code. Hopefully I can rig it so the next thief who breaks in isn't able to use the same simple techniques...

Back to being moved in. Home ownership... what a glorious feeling! We love the space and have no regrets (yet... check back after our first mortgage payment), although we miss our old appliances, which were much nicer.

Our entrance is very spacious. We'll have to get a rug and some furniture to liven it up at some point.

The staircase to upstairs is kind of front and centre, but it's not a bad looking one.

Our sunken living room adjoins a dining room, and both are carpeted. I'm not sure who decides that carpet in an eating area is a good idea, but I imagine we won't be eating there much. And the living room, well, Lily has the place to herself (and her toys). The family room is plenty big for us adults to hang out, and we don't have enough furniture to go around besides.

The family room has two skylights at the end, providing much light. The wood floor is nice but not too forgiving in terms of seeing scratches. Between trying to keep carpets white and hardwood unscratched, I will go grey in no time at all. Stupid home ownership!

There is a weird bar counter between the family room and the eating area. We very much disliked it at first, but it does have its merits: it's easy to reach whilst sitting at the table. And beyond that is a nice roomy kitchen, albeit with appliances we're not thrilled with. Something to save up for, I guess.

The combined length of the family room / eating area / kitchen is 44 feet, and we love how open it feels.

Lily enjoyed her "pool" in the ensuite while we got around to buying a plug for her own tub...

And then there's the garage. We've been quite happy with having a carport for a number of years, but a two-car garage? We certainly spoiled ourselves on that count. May we curb our junk collecting enough to always fit the car in it. I didn't have a tennis ball handy to mark where to stop when we pull in, so currently a roll of masking tape at windshield level is doing the trick. We'll see if it's there in 10 years.

The back yard isn't huge, but it will suffice once we clear it up a bit. With the patio, some trees, a massive rock slab, randomly placed flower gardens, and a swing bench, we'll have to do some figuring on a new layout. The patio is old but big and in decent shape. There's an in-ground sprinkler system I have yet to try out. And the fountain pool (pictured below) got ripped out shortly after Lily fell in; no need for such hazards in my lovable-yet-clumsy-child's yard thankyouverymuch.

I've bought a mower and various other homeowner stuff, but we're going to need so much more. I just finished putting a trailer hitch on the gutless car, so at least we can borrow a trailer when we buy big stuff on Kijiji. Like a bed for Lily. Until now she's slept in her crib; in the new place we purposely didn't set it up, to force us to buy her a new bed.

Birthday

Lily got to celebrate her third birthday at the new house. She had four friends over. She's older than two of them, but I think they're all bigger than she is. Notice the lovely fruit bouquet on the table behind them; her mom is quite the artist!

Cupcakes are easier than cake!

Time to kill the piñata. A couple of girly swings...

A few more, with mom's help...

Skip a few rounds that included the other kids and perhaps a hockey stick... Success! I think. Not sure if this is before or after it rained candy. No pictures were possible during that stampede.

Lily loves puzzles and fairy or princess (or fairy princess) outfits, and she was spoiled with both on this occasion. Happy birthday, honeybunch!