Your eyes are NOT deceiving you!

This really is a new blog entry. I know it's been almost a month, but I blame it all on my camera. I hate not being able to take pictures of what's going on in our lives and without the pictures I don't feel like blogging about it I guess. And I am really just being a big baby about my camera because it does work, it's just the lcd screen that is broken, it's like using my old 35mm again, lol.

So what's been going on at our lives?

We're pretty positive about where our transfer will be taking us the summer. It should be official by April 1st. Since we haven't heard we're NOT going we're pretty sure we are. So since we got the unofficial word a few weeks ago we contacted a realtor about selling our house. There had been a few houses for sale in town, but they have all sold which is great for us. Nothing to compare our house too for one thing, and obviously people are looking to move to this town. We have not signed any papers with the agent yet so we're not on the market and we already have one person who is wanting to see it before it's listed to buy for his company, and our agent has called back to let us know she's had a few calls asking her if anything was coming up in town so the sooner we get it listed the better. That's all great for us. We've been very worried about selling since this house was already on the market for almost 2 yrs about a year ago. No one was moving to town, but I guess now with things booming in the city people are looking for affordable small town living. Our fingers are crossed that this will be a much quicker sale, lol.

So with the house being almost listed we've been doing more home reno's. Last I blogged we had put the laminate floor in the porch and the bathroom was done except for one piece of baseboard (which is still not in, lol). Since then we have put some wallboard up in the basement to make it look more 'finished'. We've also started taking down all the kitchen cupboard doors to strip the layers of paint off and then give them a fresh coat. I've primed a few white and it's hard to believe how non-white they were before. They were a very yellowed white, so this should really brighten up the kitchen. Once they are done, we'll call the real estate agent to come back and take a look and sign some documents. Then I'll be asking you all to cross your fingers for me.

So on the selling end we're pretty much good to go, but the buying end is scary. There is not a lot available in the town we will be moving to so we've been keeping an eye on the mls listings every day and we have local spies keeping their eyes open for the Sale by Owner signs. We also have our eye on 10acres south of town that has been for sale privately. It used to have a trailer on it, so all the hookups are there which reduces the cost of putting a home there by a bit. Right now the owner has someone from Alberta interested in it, and he has first dibs, but he will know in the next couple of weeks if it's still available or not. We had been looking at an old (but nice) double wide trailer to put on the land, but the trailer has since sold and we've since talked to every mobile home moving company and none will move a double wide, so it's not like we would have had any way to get it to the land anyways. At the moment we are looking at the cost of RTM's (Ready to Move) and the cost of digging a basement. It's all so up in the air right now, and it makes me nervous. There are so many unknowns with moving a house to an acreage and digging a basement and connecting the house to power, water, gas etc. What are utility rates like on an acreage, what are taxes? We've asked around and we get different answers from everyone we speak to it seems. Sure it would be exciting to get a new house and live on an acreage but a small part of me just hopes the guy from Alberta buys the land so we don't have to ask the questions anymore. One thing all the people we ask have in common is the belief that now is the time to build an acreage because realty in the area we are moving to is taking off right now and we would stand to make a few dollars when we sold. Arghhhh!!!!

So other than eating, sleeping and breathing moving options not much is going on. We bought a new kitchen table today and Chris is going to pick it up tomorrow which is exciting. We've needed a new one for a while, a long while. I'll take a picture with my crappy camera tomorrow once it's in my kitchen, and maybe in the background you'll be able to see into my kitchen cupboards because half of them have no doors at all, lol.

It's also Beth's 6th birthday on Thursday which is also exciting. We're trying to plan a birthday party for Saturday. Of the 6 classmates she invited 2 have already told us they cannot make it, and the other 4 parents have not bothered to let us know one way or the other. Katie tells me one of the 4 told her at dance today that she is going to a different birthday party instead, but it would be nice if the parent had phoned to let me know. Oh well, we'll make sure it's still a fun day! And I'll force myself to take pictures even though I hate my camera.