Kristel @ QCW

The townhouse has been listed as “sold”!  Hooray!  That means there’s no more stupid conditions to go over, sign off on, etc.  I’m soooo happy.  This means that, no matter what, the house is mine.  Well, on the closing date a week and a month today.  I’m going camping with our cubs the weekend before closing.  Hopefully nothing goes wrong and they need to get a hold of me, because there’s no cell reception out at Barber.  But I don’t think anything would go wrong that weekend, though, because from what I’ve heard, it all goes wrong on closing day.  At least Barber has a phone if I needed to call, and my parents know where it is if they have to come out and get me.

On a side note, my living room is slowly filling up with more boxes.  I packed up all my books over the weekend (6 boxes!!!)  I’m thinking of moving onto my linen closet next.  At least packing all the tablecloths (who really needs a tablecloth for 2 months?) and after you guys visit (if you do) I’ll pack all the extra sheets, pillows, etc.  Though the throw pillows might be packed before you get here.  There’s only so many weekends between now and moving day, and some of them I can’t pack on.  Dad’s insisting that I will need “the family” to come over and help me pack that last weekend.  I’m insisting “no!”  Mom’s agreeing with me.  We’re both a little annoyed that he keeps trying to get family members booked for that weekend.  It’ll all be packed if it kills me by the Saturday morning.  Speaking of packing… starting to run out of boxes… again.  Great.  Maybe I’ll see if we can pick some up when we’re out putting a deposit down on my flooring.

It’s getting really hard to tell myself that I’m moving in over a month and a half.  I want to pack everything up now and be done with it.  Problem is, you can’t just do that when you’re going to be here for at least a month.  Surely I’ll be living out of boxes for at least a couple weeks at the new house, so I don’t want to spend a month or so here.  But I guess there are things I can pack now; like the dvd’s, maybe some of the computer games, the stand mixer, summer clothes, formal clothes, the craft stuff, maybe everything but one binder of my sheet music…. guess you don’t need to see this list, eh?

Switched to Rogers for my phone.  They were in the building, and offered me a really big discount, so I took it.  They’re coming to install tomorrow, because somehow they managed to talk me into installing it now instead of waiting a month and a week and continuing to pay Bell $120 a month, even after calling them every other month to fix whatever problem there is on my bill.  (Plus the whole bundling thing saves me some more too)  I know there’s probably better choices, but nearly all aren’t available in my area, nor the one I’m moving to.

Pepper learned to “Come” this week!!!  Okay, so she doesn’t do it if there happens to be a better offer elsewhere, but at least it works for getting her out of the backyard.  Wondering now if we should sign her up for level 2 of obedience classes… but I’m not sure.  For one, it costs $175.  For two, it took us several months after classes just to get the recall.  For three, most in level 2 are tricks or advanced techniques of level 1.  So the real question is, do I want to spend all that money to teach pepper some extra tricks, or just be happy that she knows “drop it”, “come”, & “sit”?

Freecycled my textbooks today; okay, not the computer-related or the astronomy, but the physics, chemistry, anthro, sociology, business, etc. all left.  Freecycle is an awesome thing.  Seriously, go to their website, find one in your area, and use it.  It’s awesome.  Everything is free, people get what they need, and you get rid of what you don’t.  I wish I had more stuff to freecycle… but I’ll probably find some while packing.

As for the service contract, after lots of phone calls, hours of waiting, and I’m sure lots of work on Stan’s behalf, we finally got our hands on the correct paperwork.  Read it over, everything looks fine.  There is a lien on the property for a little over $500, though.  I’m not sure if I’ll end up paying it, or whether it comes out of the seller’s money when I buy it.  Asked Stan; he’ll either tell me or tell me to ask my lawyer.

My apartment’s been rented.  They came through for a second viewing tonight to show her mother.  Then they had to take pictures to email to his mother.  Then they wanted to measure… but forgot the measuring tape.  I would’ve offered, but Clara made a comment to me that, “Sometimes they forget that people currently live here” and then told them she’d see if she could get them a floor plan.  Apparently they’ve lived either at her parents or his for their relationship (they look about my age, didn’t look for a wedding ring) and now finally getting their own place.  Pepper was of course soooooo excited.  So I had to hold her/have her on her leash for the time they were here.

Oh!  My yarn that I ordered before I bought the house came today.  I’m so excited, it’s so pretty!  When I’m done, I’ll post my project on here, and not just on Ravelry.

I think that’s it for tonight.  Have to work to get customer off my back.  Even though I’ve been working on getting her site working all today, if it’s not up by tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll start getting some threats.  This would be sooooo much easier if I was allowed to make the site dynamic, but they don’t want to pay for that and it’s not in our budget to convert them for free.

Ok, so I know I’d said that I’d keep up with posting a little better, but you know, a week isn’t too bad.

Michelle & Marisa came down for the weekend.  We had a fun time around the boxes I’d already packed.  The roast we had from Supperworks was amazing!  We also picked up the board game of Ticket to Ride b/c it turns out Michelle and I are pretty much the only ones who enjoy playing on the xbox.  Oh well, now we can play with more than 3 people!  Oh, and we started playing with the double 18 dominos.  (I think our version is a variant of mexican train.  We change the rules a little, and pull 21 tiles since we are starting with 18’s…)  We got through 3 hands (of the 20 hands to complete the game) in about 2 hours… and stopped.  I think Michelle and I are the only ones patient enough to play one game of dominos that takes hours on end with tiles with an insane number of dots on them.  I tried to get them to mix in Munchkin with the dominos, but that didn’t go over well.  (I thought go up a level means you can play an extra tile on  your turn but apparently they weren’t into that, or the extra time, or in Marisa’s case, learning 2 games at once.)

I guess I should probably get into the topic of the post, eh?  So Condo Corp…

I picked up the paperwork from the condo corp on Friday.  Seemed pretty cool that the property manager was only 2 doors down from me, so if I had an issue, she’d be there.  (It’d be a bad thing if I planned on being an issue, but I’m not, so it’s a good thing.)  So picked up the paperwork, and today, met with my lawyer to go over it.  We just skimmed through it, deciding that for him to go line by line would cost $800, and since we could probably pick out the major issues, it’d be be better for us to read it over throughally, and then call him with any questions.  The biggest issue with the paperwork is that they didn’t give me a status certificate.  This is a BIG no-no.  Especially since that’s what I had 10 days to approve.  They gave all the other paperwork though… sort of.  All of the past financial statements are dated in 2008.  And, to make it worse, the reserve fund for the condo corp was under $20,000.  This should definitely be larger for a corp with approx 40 units, each paying $200 a month, and $17,000 of it is supposed to go in the reserve every month.  What could they possibly do that they cleared out the entire reserve?

My lawyer told me to request a status certificate and current financial statements.  So I did.  Stan’s working with the other realator right now.  All I’ve heard is that there doesn’t seem to be any paperwork from 2009.  Hmmmm….  Not sure this is something I should get myself into, no matter how perfect the location seems to be, and how much the house meets my needs…  We’re going to find out from Stan what’s going on at some point, and see what he thinks.  Paul definitely doesn’t think I should go for it if they don’t have the proper paperwork; his words were something along the lines of, “If this is how they manage their company, how do you know they’ll take care of any issues you might have?”

Pepper’s feeling better.  She’s completely wired, possibly even a little stir crazy.  I’ve taken her cone off pretty much all day without supervision.  The insision’s looking good, we’ll see if I get told off by the vet because she’s been licking it behind my back or not.

Been cleaning my apartment.  Giving my super notice tomorrow, so in case she’s going to do an inspection, I want it looking at least somewhat decent.  There’s going to be laundry on the floor because I have to do laundry, but it’s not too bad otherwise.  Maybe I’ll clean my bedroom closet, and then mess it up by putting the laundry on the floor.  Will have to remind myself though that the clothes on the floor aren’t clean…

It’s hard to clean and pack at the same time, but if I’m going to put stuff away, I might as well put that stuff in boxes.  At least the stuff I don’t use on a regular basis anyways.  So now, while I think I’m cleaning, all I see is boxes.  The good (or bad?) news is that I’m running out of boxes.  Soon I’ll have to stop.  Debating packing up all my yarn or not.  Will I knit between now and the end of March?  Definitely.  Will I finish all my current wip’s?  Um, including the blanket, probably not.  Not including it?  Probably… but will I decide to work on the blanket, or go onto a new project?  Hm… I bought new yarn before I bought the house, and while it isn’t here yet, I’m sure I’ll be itching to use it.  But, if I do pack it up, that’s one less thing to pack in March, and it’s not like it’s going to be in a storage locker, at the edge of town, and I’d have to take 2 buses to get there…  so maybe I will.

Had my bank appointment today.  Mortgage was approved, and we worked out for me to have a line of credit to do some home improvements, and when I’m done, they’ll send someone in to reevaluate the house, and then they can work that into my mortgage, or I could just pay it back.  So that part’s all set.  Next week is the lawyer’s appointment.  We’re just going over the purchase agreement, and he’ll do his stuff regarding the land transfer, the deed, etc.  Two weeks before I’m out of escrow, I have to go back into the bank to sign all the paperwork, it gets forwarded to my lawyer, and we go from there.  Buying a house requires an unbelievable amount of $$$ saved up beforehand and way too many meetings!

Down to my last box of Scout Popcorn!  Hooray!  It’s good, but I bought waaaay too much.  Oh!  Thinking of my microwave (the link is scout popcorn == microwave popcorn == cooks in the microwave)  new house as a spot for it off the counter!  Hooray.

Can’t wait to move.  Check out the countdown for time left.  It’s set for the last Monday in March.  Obviously, the truck hasn’t been booked yet.  But that’s something I can work out later.

Are you supposed to throw a going-away party and a housewarming party?  Obviously they’d been like a month apart, if not more, but still…  I think the housewarming party will happen for sure, not to sure about the going-away, unless it’s a going-away-and-we’ll-help-you-pack party the last weekend I’m here.  I was looking online at someone’s housewarming, and they had done huge renovations (way above the renovations I’m doing) and their housewarming was set up with every room having a different set of snacks per room, and they had a huge collage of before & after photos in each room too.  It was very cool the way they had displayed everything.  Is that happening at mine?  Well, there’ll be snacks, but knowing me, they’ll all be on the coffee table, and there’ll be just a handfull of before/after pictures per room and they’ll be on the nearest flat surface.  oh, and unlike theirs, mine’s likely to be a 1 – 4 affair instead of a 2pm to 2am drinking extravaganza!  (Well, unless you’re visiting from out of town and spending the night…)

Not finished my knitting for this weekend.  I have a bag and a scarf to finish.  They’re both about 70% done right now.  Not sure they’ll make it.  It’s getting difficult to clean, pack, work, take care of Pepper, and go to all these meetings… knitting’s taking a back seat.  The bag will probably be done, but the scarf is a fingering weight, and it has like 80 some stitches per row, so it’s taking forever.  Probably should go work on that now since it’s not like I’m doing anything productive.

We have a new cub joining us tonight!  It’s his first time to cubs (in general), so he has two weeks to try it out before they decide to pay and he sticks around.  But so far we’ve had 100% of our kids stay, so that’s a good sign.  That puts us up to… um, well, there’s the original 2, and then 1 that came the start of popcorn… and now this kid so thats… 4!  Oh yeah.

Made my two appointments today.  My bank meeting is tomorrow, and the lawyer’s meeting is a week tomorrow.  Pepper’s appointment’s on Friday, I have to give written notice to my super on Wednesday, I have to have my apartment cleaned by Tuesday night…  Buying a house just makes everything way too busy!

I’m wondering what I should do with my textbooks.  Some of them I have used, Java, etc., but some of them… not so much.  Think I can ebay them?  Or is there some textbook donation service thing?  Would they still be any good?  Certainly most have moved on to new editions.  I just don’t want to have to pack them.  If they come with me to the new house, they’re just getting put on a shelf in my office.

I’ve started picking out colours for my house — this can’ t be normal.  But they all have such fun names!  My living room I’m thinking “sisal”, it’s tan.  The accent wall is going to be red, “covered bridge”.  The hallway I’m thinking a beige, “hemp seed”.  The kitchen, I’m thinking green.  The one I like is called “bed of ferns”, it’s kind of a muted green, but it’s definitely a little dark.  The downstairs bathroom we colour matched to one of my paintings, it’s ice blue/gray, “beacon gray”.  Upstairs, in my bedroom, I’m thinking a medium gray, “escarpment”  Mom says it’s way too dark, but it’s my house, and I don’t want to paint everything some shade of light beige or off/white.  The one room that will be is the guest bed, and it’s called “inukshuk”.  The office, well, I haven’t picked a colour yet.  I’m not painting the upstairs bathroom or the basement, at least not yet.  Maybe if it’s in my budget to put in a nice deep tub next year, then I’ll redo the tile in the bathroom and can repaint.  The basement is also a next year project.  The pub table will be down there though, and the stereo, and the bar fridge… and probably the games too.

Ok, just realizing the time and I have to be out of here in an hour, so I really should get moving.

Trent calls…

Trent: Hi, as one of our treasured alumni –

Me: Treasured?  You never return my calls.

Trent: We assure you, you’re very important to us.  <<Insert stuff about how alumni helps with putting out good programs, making the university pretty, etc. here>>

Trent: … so we’d appreciate your continuted support –

Me: — Continued? –

Trent: — So can I put you down for $1,000?

Me: <<Click>>

Seriously, you never return my calls.  You never call when I have money to donate, only when I don’t, and when I do, and call to make said donation to your fund, you don’t return my call in the first place!  Sheesh.

Today was busy.

Got up early, took the d-o-g out, made all sorts of notes for things I’d need for the rest of the day, and got ready to go!

Mom picked me up and we went over to look at how much it’ll cost me to do the living room, dining room, part of the front hallway, and the master bedroom in hardwood.  We’re talking roughly $4,000.  It was an awesome deal on hardwood, though; and we did over estimate how much I’d need.  Seriously, if you’re buying hardwood, it definitely pays to order from what they have in stock.  If you’re buying in Guelph, The Carpet Store on Speedvale is the best for your buck.  We also worked out the price for carpet up the stairs, that hallway, and the office & guest bed.  It’ll be rouhly $1,000.  So hopefully the bank does give me at least an extra $5,000 for home improvements.

After the hardware store, we decided to go to the paint store to start looking at paint chips.  Okay, so it’s probably very early to start looking into that, since unlike hardwood you don’t have to book someone to measure, then come back and install, and if they have the exact wood you want in stock, to have them put aside some boxes for you until nearly April!  (We’ve already planned for the painting to be done the week of the 15th, the hardwood guy to measure the 17th, then the hardwood install guy to come back the following week, and then for him to be done before I move in sometime march 28 – 31)  Anyways, so I have the colours picked out for the downstairs bathroom (to match my painting) and the guest bedroom.  I’m in the process of picking out a painting for my living/dining and the red/orange for my accent wall in there.  Oh, and then the kitchen, which I think will happen after my living/dining, and of course that pink room needs to be something else!  I’d tell you my thoughts, but I don’t really have anything substantial, other than NOT PINK!

After paint, came lunch, lens mill, pick up pepper, go to moms, hang out, then go out to roots for Canada sweatshirts, only to find that we’d have to be an infant under 6 months to buy one that would fit us.  Then to Old Navy, and the only sweatshirts they had only had a maple leaf on and an even bigger “Old Navy”… not something I’d put in the Canada section.

After that, my day gets boring.  Dinner, mom spilling lasagna in the oven, knitting, playing with Pepper, coming home to an ambulace, a fire truck, and two police cars… and finding nothing and no one in the hallway who could tell me anything.

Planned Sunday School tomorrow too.  The theme this week is “Promises” and they want a craft… sooooo…  I figured that since I have the Grade 3 & under class, we’d draw pictures of a promise we’d like to make (clean our room, help with dinner, be nice to Kristel…) and then we’ll make a frame out of popsicle sticks and they can then bling them out.  It is amazing how many Promise Crafts there are that require writing!

I’m not sure I used enough exclamation marks… please, allow me to add a few more

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently he signed at 2, and Stan email me, but I never recieved the email, so I was freaking out all afternoon/evening for nothing!

For anyone who’s interested on the specs (shortform this time… I’m sure you’re sick of hearing of all this by now)

• Asking price was $134,900; purchased for $130,000
• Listed two weeks ago today
• Townhouse
• Natural Gas
• 3 bed
• 1.5 bath
• Fully Fenced Patio
• Condo fees $200/mo; includes cable, parking, & water
• Appliances included, though probably replaced within the first year
• Freakishly old furnace, probably being replaced next winter
• Built in 1974
• Two storey, plus finished-ish basement
• 1 parking space + 1 visitor’s pass
• Yes, it’s a 5 minute walk to the Louttet’s, 10 to my parents.  When you don’t have a car, this is a good thing.
• It’s also within 5 minute walk to grocery stores, shoppers, winners, zellers, etc.
• 1,050 SqFt above grade
• 1 god-awful pink room that’s not staying pink.

Mom & I are looking at flooring & paint tomorrow, so I can see how much it’ll cost me, roughly, so I can start budgeting, and have a more accurate estimate for the bank when I ask for my mortgage.  I’m thinking hardwood in the living/dining.  The kitchen & front hall (and the current dining) have a linolium floor now that looks in good shape, so I’m not going to touch that, at least not until next year.  Upstairs in the bedrooms, will depend on budget.  If my budget’s good, probably hardwood, if it’s not so good, probably a laminate.  (Floors that aren’t carpet are a lot easier on allergies, plus a lot easier to clean.)  The kitchen window out front, and my bedroom window need to be replaced too.  If there’s anything left over, I might go into replacing some of the old appliances.  (I only kept the appliances so if I don’t have the budget, I don’t have to figure out life without a fridge, or a stove, though the washer/dryer situation wouldn’t be an issue.)

Monday have to call the bank & lawyer.  My funds from my mutual fund doesn’t go in until Tuesday, so we’ll have to see about that.

Friday I notify my super.  They need 60 days notice, and if I’m moving in March, I have to notify by the end of January.  Friday Pepper also has her check up.

Okay, so I think I’ve made probably half a dozen phone calls, not to mention just as many texts, a tweet, updated on my Facebook, and now this post.  So mostly everyone knows at this point.  If I missed you, consider yourself notified as of this post.

We’ve talked it over, and I don’t think I’ll take his original offer.  Maybe if it hasn’t been sold in another month, my offer will start to look good…

Haven’t heard anything from Stan, and he’s been really good about talking to me the instant he has news.  I’m just getting really impatient.  My offer expires in 3 1/2 hours, this guy doesn’t have a lot of time.  Maybe he’s hard to get a hold of, or maybe it’s already been signed, it’s just either Stan or Gia is out of the office, or something…  or maybe he’s just playing with us.  Gah!

On a side note, Pepper’s much better today.  With her cone off, she’s back to herself.  With it on, she’s bored and just sleeps.  So if I can watch her, it’s off, if I can’t it’s on.  She can’t jump up on the couch/bed with the cone on, which can get annoying because she jsut sits there and barks until I get her.

I’m still waiting for the call to tell me that he’s signed or not signed.  The suspense is killing me, but it’s all part of the game, right?  Do you think he’ll just wait it out and assume that I’d take his first offer?  Would I?  Hmm… the extra 1000 could buy a lot of paint, and the carpet needs replacing, and it probably could buy a new window for the kitchen…  So maybe, maybe not.

Do you think he googled me?  And at least found my Facebook & Twitter?  Hm, do you think he’d read my twitter?  And now is holding out on purpose?  That wouldn’t be good, considering we all know I want him to sign for the 130,000.  I totally googled him.  There isn’t as much on him as there is on me.

All this waiting is making me nervous, and every local call that comes in, I wonder if it’s Stan, then find out it’s not, and totally disapointed.  I’ve even started cleaning out my big closet, and packing stuff as I go, and then throwing out the stuff that’s broken, or not reusable in anyway, or just not worth someone getting it from a charity…  And I’ve thrown a lot of boxes in there.  Some of them now are useless, and I need to figure out how to get them down the shute (i’m thinking xacto knife) and some of them are already claimed for something else (like my ceiling fan.)  Do you think we need to pack up the lights?  Or just take the bulbs out, and be careful moving them, and then I won’t have to disassemble the ceiling fan or my kitchen table lamp.  Speaking of lamps, my kitchen light is out again.  I don’t know what it is, but I have to replace the bulb in there at least once a year, and they’re energy efficient bulbs!