Six months!

I can't believe that I've been here six months - to the day today - already. Time has certainly flown by. Looking around the neighbourhood, things have changed quite a bit. With the warmer weather here (more or less), construction has started up again all around me. Foundations are being dug behind me; the townhouses across from me are almost finished now; homes along the surrounding streets are being completed and even occupied now.

With the warmer weather also comes new challenges inside the house. For example, my quest for window coverings must now be prioritized... having a lot of windows is very nice, but not having air conditioning will require me to keep the sun out as much as possible during the day. The summer will also no doubt change my diet somewhat as a hot bowl of soup just isn't as good when it's already 35 degrees inside. Then again, I'm looking forward to finding a summer replacement for the oh so economical bowl of soup - ideas anyone?

Finally, the nicer weather will hopefully coax me outside of the home and into the town I now call home. I just finished looking through a tourism booklet I picked up some time ago; there are a lot of nice historic buildings to see, some old pubs to sample, and parts of town that I just haven't visited yet. Also, if I get around to it, I'd like to get a bike to tour around with as well. Driving by areas is nice, and you can always stop to explore, but seeing the city on foot or bike seems much more personal. I've found a local bike shop... now I just have to get over there one weekend!

And to my readers: thanks for visiting over the past year. It's always nice to hear some feedback from people and know that someone is listening. Since I never got around to having an open house party over the past six months, I may just use it as a loose excuse for a gathering. So, if you haven't had a chance to get out this way yet, this may just be the reason you're looking for.

Have a great week everyone and I'll be back again soon.

And you thought eMail spam was bad?

Who needs a mailbox these days? I think my day would be more productive if I put a garbage bag at the front door instead... at least it'd save me the trouble of throwing out every little piece of junk mail I find tucked in my door frame, door knob, or even taped to the door itself. Apparently, buying a new home is like a giant neon “please try to sell me stuff” sign, blinking away day after day.

I've been here just about six months now and am still receiving the same ad for water softeners. Considering the water in this area, if I didn't have a water softener installed by now, water would not be able to penetrate the lime-encrusted piping that was brand new just half-a-year earlier. So stop sticking these ads in my door!

Worse than that, my phone number hasn't even made it into the phone book yet (at least, I don't think) and yet I'm getting people calling me at home already. Last week I had a wicked flu - which explains the lack of an update last week - and yet still, with barely a voice to say “hello”, some voice on the phone tears into their rant about something over the sound of their radio, or crying baby, or dinner prep, or some combination of all three. I usually try to “no thank-you” my way out of these conversations, but this time I finally just had to hang-up. I'm sick, but even if I wasn't, I'm not buying crap from you over the phone!

And finally, I had some guy come to try and sell me some sort of gas price guarantee the other day. He didn't get it when I tried to send him away. Just kept asking about my gas bill, and blah blah blah. I asked him for a card so I could look into it later and he just looked at me with a blank stare. His best argument for why I should just sign with him was that someone else on the street had just signed up for it. Did he think that if they'd just run themselves over with their car, I'd sign up for that to?

On top of all this crap, I still have enough ways to spend money... and that's just looking at house-specific needs. I'm not ever going to buy anything from some random person just showing up at the door or cold calling me on the phone. Except for Girl Guide cookies. But otherwise: no, nope, no way, not gonna happen, never, no.

So, like you do with eMail spam, all you new-area home buyers can look forward to manually moving the same crap that you have no interest in from one place directly into the garbage (or recycling) day after day while you try to get on with your own life.

Yup- this is one of those rare posts detailing the dirty underside of new home living. The stuff nobody tells you. But now you know.