Winter of my discontent

Have I mentioned recently how much I dislike winter? It's only mid-December and I'm already tired of shovelling snow, bundling up in a parka, mitts, and toque just to take out the garbage, chapped lips and dry hands...  Well, you get the picture. We had a couple of reasonable winter days, meaning overcast, not too cold, and no snow.  However, on Wednesday, a Colorado low moved in from the southeast, and another storm came from the northwest. Here in the city we didn't get as much as other areas did, but there was another 3 inches on the ground when I got out of bed Thursday morning. I had shovelled the inch or so that accumulated by Wednesday afternoon when I returned home after the stitch and chat.

Alright whine over...nothing I can do (yet) or anyone else can do to keep this from happening. I did enjoy our stitch and chat this week; S has returned from Arizona and the lady (Io) I've been meeting with, while she was away was there too. Poor S, she arrived back in Regina the day that the windchill hit -48C. Things haven't improved much, as her car wouldn't start, the picture on her television has gone wonky, and some forms she had sent into to a provincial department were rejected because her cover page said 16 pages, and there were 17 attached because one page was duplicated. You'd think someone on the receiving end would be able to remove the duplicate, but apparently not, and she has to resubmit the documents.

She brought along a couple of knitting pattern books she no longer needs/wants and gave them to me. The patterns are lovely, meant for older children (8-16) and adults. I'm sure I'll be able to use them as Eli keeps growing. Funny that! S also brought a piece of knitting (a UFO) that was tucked away in her closet in Arizona. She had lost the pattern, but we were able to identify it as the moss stitch and with a Google search had the pattern figured out. Io was was finishing sewing buttons on kitchen towels, and then brought out her embroidery. She's making a set of tea towels that are likely to be gifted to her granddaughter.

I had my crocheting with me. I pulled a couple of balls of yarn from the stash and started working on a lap blanket. I'm not a fan of the colors but I need to use up the stash and they do look bright and cheerful together. 

The sugar cookies and red velvet mini-cupcakes were iced and decorated early one morning. Two of the sugar cookies broke as I was working on them, so they and a cupcake were that morning's breakfast. Breakfast of champions? Probably not. :) On the weekend, I had finished the peppermint sandwich cookies. They're tasty, but not nearly as good as my sugar cookies. I'm not sure what I did differently but man, oh man, are they good. 

I've finally caught up on my updates on Ancestry this week. I was thinking I might cancel my Newspapers.com subscription but received notice that they've added a number of additional newspapers from Scotland. I'm hoping I might find mention of some of my ancestors, though it is much like looking for a needle in a haystack with the last name of Stewart. Recently, I picked up a book "Online Genealogy", which I've skimmed and I think may help me identify other sources for searching. At the moment, my hopes are pinned on DNA testing. My adult children purchased the kit for me as a Christmas gift, and it arrived a couple of weeks ago. I've mailed it off and received an e-mail this week that it has arrived at the lab. Results are expected with 6-8 weeks. I'm hoping against hope that this information might be the key to finding the links to origins of various family members.

The other (and much more exciting) thing I worked on this week was preparing for my January cruise. My travel agent L and I had a chat Thursday morning and went through her checklist of things for me to remember and consider. She is truly amazing and is so detailed oriented. L was concerned about my airline e-tickets as they have my first name and only my initial for the second name. This doesn't match my passport which has both full names. We went through the list of things to be saved to my phone and items I need or want to have in printed form as well. I was a bit ahead of her on that as I had the printouts and had updated the electronic documents before our call. 

I made a call to the airline and confirmed my full name is in their system, but the tickets will show only my first name and initial. To be certain, I asked the agent several times, and she confirmed it will not be an issue at the counter. My next call was to the hotel to confirm my reservation. I booked through Airmiles, a third party booking system, and wanted to be certain there was no hiccup. Several years ago, I had used Airmiles to book a New York hotel, only to learn on arrival that they had no reservation for me. I had to pay $400 room for the night. On returning home I contacted Airmiles and eventually learned that the booking had been made for February instead of September! They reimbursed me for the cost of the room, but I'll never book again without following up directly with the hotel to confirm.

I pulled out the suitcase and carry-on bag, and went through my summer and "cruise" clothes. Yes, I have certain items I only wear when I'm cruising. I'm hard on my everyday clothing, so I keep some nicer pieces for my trips. This is a 14 day cruise, with an added travel day at the beginning - I always fly in a day ahead, in case there are delays. I've learned to pack enough clothing for 7 days, along with a few nicer items for evening wear, not including the travel day clothing. The ship has a DIY laundromat that I'll use on a sea day. We have eight sea days and four ports and full day transiting the canal. I do enjoy sea days! One port that was initially on the itinerary, Nicaragua, was cancelled - no reason given, but I hadn't planned to get off the ship there anyway. It would been a long bus ride to the nearest city and none of the posted excursions looked particularly worth the travel time and money to me.

Friday, I ran out to pick up a few groceries to get us through the next few days, and more cat food and bird seed. The birds and the squirrels have been inhaling the seed and at least one rabbit is enjoying the feed too. He/she leaves behind evidence of their visit. It was out in the front yard the other day - looks pretty healthy doesn't it?

No curling streaming this week, though there is an event in Japan that I'll be keeping my eye on for the scores. I'm planning to relax this weekend, watch some sports, catch up on PVR'ed television, and continue crocheting the lap blanket. I better not have to shovel any more snow! Shouldn't have to, as the weather forecast is for more cold weather. I'll end this post as I started...I hate winter!

Have a good week ahead everyone.

Damn HGTV

I blame HGTV with all of it's shows that have the sellers spending thousands of dollars to renovate their homes while buyers point out every fault.  We've reached more than 25 showings (includes the 12 who came for the two open houses) and not a nibble in sight.  

So this afternoon I had a conversation with my agent and I asked him to be brutally honest with me.  He advised that at the price I'm asking, potential buyers are expecting to see new paint with brand new flooring throughout.  I'm not prepared to spend the money - in reality I don't have either the savings or sufficient credit to pour a bunch of money into the house in the hopes that I'll make at least a portion of that back.  So tomorrow we'll do up the paperwork to cancel the first listing and set up a new one at a much reduced price.  

A close friend recently had her home appraised, unfortunately because of an impending divorce, and her home was appraised at the amount I currently have mine listed.  But her home is bigger, has a large yard, and has new windows and doors, in addition to other updates.  That was the eye-opener for me as I had to realize that I won't get out of this house what I've invested in it.  In fact the new asking price will be several thousand less than I paid for it in 2010.  Sadly, because of the glut of properties on the market and that I haven't been able to invest as much as buyers would expect the value simply isn't there.

But when I think back, to the old house I realize I'm still ahead of the game.  I bought the 920 square foot, three bed, 2 bath property in 2000 for around $80,000.  I sold it in 2010 for nearly 3 times that much!  Today similar properties are on the market well under $200,000.

So despite the fact I'll "lose" money on this sale, I am certain I will still recoup the down payment I made on this house, plus a decent portion of the principal payments I've made over the past nine years. (This is the net amount after commissions and legal fees).  

While I could wait for that perfect buyer, there is no guarantee that house values won't drop even further in the next year.  In fact, our local real estate board is forecasting another 4% drop in the next 12 months.  With that in mind, coupled with my desire to move on, I'm prepared to swallow this bitter pill.  It is going down much smoother because I realize unless I go back to work I can't afford to do the changes most buyers would expect.  AND there ain't no way that's happening, I can assure you of that!

I'll be back in a couple of days with an update on the rest of my week.  Have a great rest of the weekend everyone!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Why yes, that is snow!  Uggghhh.