Fredericton

I'm remiss in my posting, but the week just blew by!

We arrived in F'ton on Monday evening, 17 March, and were met by our realtor and host, K. On Tuesday we had the most beautiful blue sky day. Perfect for our first stroll to the back of the lot. P and I wore snowshoes as w/out it was easy to sink to at least knee high. We met the builder and talked about the siting, etc. We also realized that if we position things right, and the property behind us remains empty, we have a bit of a view to the river. After picking up lunch, we went back to K's house and spent several hours with the builder getting questions answered, etc. Later that afternoon - at least I think it was that afternoon - K and her husband, H, occupied 7YO for a couple of hours so that P and I could look at flooring, etc.

On Wednesday we visited more stores, including the place from which we'll get the woodstove, and had lunch with the fellow from whom we may be subletting this summer. Then we visited the school that 7YO will attend. They call it "Little House on the Prairie with electricity." It has about 100 students, one class per grade, and is just down the hill from the property. 7YO has been attending a French Immersion school here and we debated his continuing, but that decision was made easier by the province's (unpopular) decision to cut early immersion. Perhaps I can post on that another time. What really upset me is that they are also cutting early core French so we'll have to find a tutor, lest he lose what he's gained these past two years.

We did a bunch of running around on Thursday; had to make a trek to Chapters, of course, but also found some building materials (e.g., tile) that we love. On Thursday evening our hosts invited a law prof and his wife, recently retired from the library where P would like to work, as well as a couple of others to dinner. When these guys do dinner it's a four hour event. No kidding. They are both professional and avocational foodies. As in January, it was awesome.

Friday was a holiday so we just hung out, packed, worked on housing info, etc. 7YO got to see more deer hanging out in the back yard and play with our hosts' dogs. I think he was just in heaven.

On Friday night we opted for a hotel so that we would be closer to the airport as we had to get up at 3:15 to make a 5:45 flight. We did so and while waiting at the gate the flight was cancelled for mechanical reasons. I about had a meltdown. But, they got us on a flight to Ottawa with a connection to Toronto, reasoning that we were less likely to get stuck on Toronto than F'ton. There wasn't another flight available from F'ton that day and with the weather there was a chance that the next morning would be problematic, too. So, by 10:30 am we were in Toronto. But, there were no more flights to Minnesota on Saturday so we stayed at the airport Hilton courtesy of Air Canada.

We went to a place called the Playdium so that 7YO could have some fun and then hung out at the hotel. But, the highlight of the delay was, as you likely have already seen, is that we got to meet Tom and Emilio of Canadian Hope! They drove out to the hotel and picked us up and off we went for brunch. Not that you have any doubts, but they are just as fabulous as I imagined they'd be. We're looking forward to being able to see them in the Maritimes this summer!

Our flight left around quarter to 5 Sunday afternoon and we were back at our house by about 7 Sunday evening. Not quite the 10:30 Saturday morning that it was supposed to be, but well worth it having been able to meet the guys.

This morning I had a meeting with my dean to talk about options for some distance teaching following my sabbatical and while I don't want to post details here, I am comfortable saying that things look promising for my being able to work for the university while remaining in F'ton. Fingers crossed. He's going to walk it through the VP's office, but doesn't imagine a problem.

That's about it for today. I'm exhausted! More as it happens!

Crash and Burn

Oh, where shall I begin?

Without posting details that are better left confidential, the first thing on my list would be to note that there was a job possibility in F'ton that evaporated. Not filled by someone else, but cancelled for bureaucratic reasons.

The second thing would be that I found out yesterday that I will not be getting any funding from one of the sources to which I applied. And, I'm more disturbed by process than outcome. I found the list of 2008 recipients on the web! But, I've heard nothing directly - not from the funding source and not from my nominator.

I'm actually okay with both of the above as I really want to take a real sabbatical and focus on the research project and have some time for my own health, etc., but the latter would have been nice.

I'm also still waiting for the bureaucracy to take care of the fact that my contract letter for an overload was never processed and, therefore, I was missing about $600 extra dollars from my paycheck. C'mon people.

Then, this morning, as P and I stopped for bagels, there were the headlines of both local papers. One, referring to the housing market, said, "Sinking Fast." The other said, "Credit mess means Twin Cities homes selling for less." Nice. So, here we are.

I have done incredibly well with the uncertainty of everything up to this point, but I'm now kind of hanging on by a thread. For some bizarre reason I keep thinking way more optimistically than is typical for me. But, yeah, I'm pretty much freaking out.

The good news, as I've said before, is that we can easily rent the house, though we'd have to refinance to do so. So, we'll see what the next month brings, but, man-o-man, I can't wait for it to be July so whatever happens has happened!

In her dreams...

Well, I have a few minutes before dashing out again so I thought I'd post a brief update.

We listed the house on Monday, 25 Feb. We had the realtors' open on Tuesday, the 26th. Between Wednesday and Saturday we had six showings. On Sunday, the 2nd of March, we had an open house. Seventeen groups showed up; good for this market and time of year. There was a repeat showing on Monday. On Friday, we got an offer - don't start clapping. She offered 13% below asking. Yeah, right. Not even in this market. Our realtor said that normally she would just say something like, "Thank you for taking the time to present the offer, but we're not interested." But, the market being what it is, she suggested we counter with what we would actually accept, telling her that was the best we could do. So, we did. And, we've heard nothing so I'm sure she walked/balked. Otherwise it was an almost perfect offer - cash, no inspection, etc. But, she did want a slightly earlier closing than we'd like. That we can live with - for the right price. But, since we're already losing money on the deal, we can only go so low. And, only 10 days into it, not a chance we'd take something like that. I'll refinance and rent before we get that screwed.

Just got a call for another showing tomorrow. So, we keep our fingers crossed and I watch my blood pressure go off the charts. Keeping the house "show-ready" with a black lab mix and 7YO is no easy task. It was -1 F this morning, "feels like -14," so not exactly the weather in which someone wants to go house hunting either. But, spring will be here someday.

Other than that, we're just waiting for a week from Monday when we leave for F'ton. Hope all is well in your world - and that it's warmer!!

Invasion

Rather than post a long comment over on their blog, I thought I'd post something here in response to the Leap Day post by Canada Calling.

On Monday, 2 October 2000, P called me at work to tell me that someone had broken into our home. We'd hired a friend, A, to let our dog out mid-day. She had walked into the kitchen via the side door and, knowing how neat we are, knew something was wrong. There was food on the counter and there were bags on the floor. She called P- from our phone - and P told her to get out of the house. We raced home and met A, as well as the police.

We didn't have a security system and - don't you know it - for the first time ever I had left a first floor, back of the house, bedroom window open. There were half-full duffel bags - ours - open on the floor. Clearly A had interrupted them and they fled the same way they had entered. I say "they" because I am sure that someone was playing lookout while other(s) packed.

Our insurance claim was for about $10,000. A lot for us. We both lost diamonds that had belonged to grandparents. I lost one grandmother's wedding ring, another grandmother's charm bracelet, my own charm bracelet from high school, class rings, and a baby necklace that I'm wearing in a photo taken when I was about a year old. We lost all kinds of other jewelry. Fortunately we were wearing our custom made bands at the time. And, my baby bracelet got stuck in the seam of the box and was still there, alone.

They didn't get to the family silver or my 35 mm. They didn't get the brand new TV/VCR. But, they got lots. And, they went threw our closets. Stuff was strewn all over our bed.

In addition to the jewelry, we lost the obvious - CD player, CDs, stereo receiver. We also lost clothing, a leather jacket, shampoo out of the shower, a hairbrush, a 500 count bottle of ibuprofen, food out of the fridge, a bag of Halloween candy... And, our luggage. They had to pack in something. They even lifted the tray of flatware right out of the kitchen drawer.

But, here's the weird thing. We had hundred of dollars of unopened baby clothing, toys, blankets, etc. that could easily have been returned to Target, etc. They didn't take one single thing that was baby-related. Some might say they were guys who didn't realize how much that stuff costs. I've always thought that a woman was involved - they did take women's clothing, hairbrush, etc. - and that that was where she drew the line. No baby stuff.

We had to chuckle - we had to - because we don't keep alcohol on hand, no cigarettes, no drugs, no weapons. They took a pizza out of the freezer and left it on the counter. It was vegan. We were glad that, once they realized we were GLBT - hard not to figure that out with a huge "March on Washington" poster hanging - they hadn't vandalized us just for fun.

Our dog was crated and they gave him a few Frosty Paws and dumped a small bag of biscuits in his crate. The cat was probably hiding. We were grateful they didn't harm our pets or let the dog out to run.

Between being obsessively detail oriented and really organized I had every little detail for the police report, claim, etc. We had been grocery shopping the day before and I even knew that they took a block of cheddar! But, even with all the jewelry detail and serial numbers, we never recovered a thing.

This was actually one of the events that put me on the road to being pretty anti-consumption or "it's just stuff." I had to be glad that our pets weren't harmed, that A wasn't harmed, that the house hadn't been trashed. Although I still wish I hadn't lost the family stuff, I can't take it with me. Right? Going to Mississippi after Katrina and clearing someone's house of everything she owned, and leaving almost all of it for the trash collector, was another pivotal event. It's just stuff.

Now, we have a security system, but we joke that there's nothing left to take. Of course that's not entirely true. But, it is true that we have no more grandparents' jewelry. Anything we have of value - that is capable of being replaced - can be replaced with a trip to Best Buy.

Let me note - I'm not writing this to say that such an event is a non-event. It's huge. Trust me - going to bed knowing that they had been rifling through the closet that afternoon was just, well, yuk. I thought I'd post this to let CC know that at least one other in our blog community knows what it's like. And it sucks.

In meeting with our builder I mentioned that I wanted double hung windows; the kinds with the little "locks" so that you can open the windows from the top. Small community or not, I don't think I'll ever sleep alone with a window open from the bottom. I haven't since I lived in Boston and experienced a break-in. Everything leaves its mark. Time marches on, but not with the windows open.

It's March!

I can't quite believe that it's March. We've had six showings of the house since Wednesday and there's an open house tomorrow. Fingers constantly crossed. Ankles, elbows...

It's been a couple of weeks of, "I can't complain." A good friend of mine from grad school had his childhood home, where his father still lived, burn to the ground. His father was gone at the time so he wasn't hurt, but lost everything. A friend from law school went into labor at 20 weeks and lost one of her twin boys. Then it stopped and she hasn't yet delivered the other. If he can hold on another four weeks things will look better. Little Samuel weighed only 10 ounces when he came. That afternoon another friend from law school emailed that her mother had had a massive stroke and wasn't expected to make it. They had her on life support while A and her husband made the 8 hour drive to be with her. So, all in all, even when yesterday I was having such a bad day, I just kept thinking about how it wasn't really that bad at all.

In other news, well, there isn't any. It's all about living in the "perfect" house - as in perfectly clean, perfectly organized, etc. Kind of how I lived when I was single. Ha, ha. But, no more.

Two weeks from Monday we head to F'ton. Looking forward to it, but I'm sure I said that already. Hope all is well with you!