And more Frustration!

I never imagined moving here would be THIS much work and be full of so many headaches! I guess we were in for an adventure!

Saturday, we took Hayde for a walk and picked up the part for Jeremy's green jeep that I had Napa order Friday. We also ended up driving into town to find one more piece of tubing before Jeremy successfully fixed the jeep. We then decided we'd try out the canoe. We took it down to the Ottawa River boat ramp down the street and put it in the water. Hayde came with of course and it was our first test with her full grown. We had taken her out twice in Madison with my parents canoe when she was only about 8-10 weeks old. That time, we put it in Lake Kegonsa and she had jumped out and Jeremy had to jump out after her and after that she climbed in my lab because she was cold. This time, she's full grown so we hoped she wouldn't try jumping out and dumping us in the process! It was a cooler day, windy and cloudy so we were dressed warmer and I didn't particularly want to experience going over. Thankfully she behaved and didn't attempt to jump out (maybe being in the boat with us fishing helped her understand she's not to jump into the water). She did get up and try to walk around a few times or just to resit herself. I told Jeremy to stay by the edge where it was shallower just in case. All-in-all it was successful. We paddled upriver and into the Petawawa River and back. Later that evening we went over to Lee and Kharren's since they had some friends over from Quebec.

Sunday, we put the boat into the river and did some fishing. We both ended up catching a small mouth and Jeremy got burnt! He's been really suffering from the itches all night and decided to drive himself into work today in case he was going to have to leave because he couldn't stand the itching! I'm not overly sympathetic since he could have avoided some of this. He and Lee have decided to start carpooling at the end of last week to try to save money. I don't know why they refused to do this earlier since both Kharren and I kept suggesting it.

Later Sunday afternoon, we drove up to Chalk River to look at a house for rent. It turned out it's almost the exact same layout as Lee and Kharren's house they bought. We'd be taking over a lease from the woman currently there since she just bought a house. It's a brand new house that was just finished this March with 4 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, open concept upstairs with a living room dinning area and kitchen and a rec room downstairs. Two bedrooms on each floor, a nice porch at the back and a decent sized yard that should be landscaped in the next month. She's asking $1200 a month which is pretty steep for Chalk River and more than we really want to pay, even if it'd be a 10 min drive for Jeremy to get to work, I would probably end up quiting at Home Depot since I wouldn't end up bringing much home after a 45 min drive one-way (especially if I'm only working 5-8 hours a week!). We came home completely clueless as to what we wanted to do and went back to the paper/internet to see if there might be any other listing - which there weren't. So, we've been sitting on this since Sunday. It sounds like rentals are in a stalemate right now since the military does all their posting in August so there's a huge rush of people leaving and people arriving looking for somewhere to live right now and nothing budges. The military must have about a 6 month waiting list for the people just being posted here to provide them with housing, which of course they can't wait 6 months to find a place to live! I'm not sure we can wait until August to see if something starts moving and hope that there are more places to open up.

In the meantime, I did find about three other places to call - two of which don't have anything and one that we're going to look at tonight. It's a 2bdrom in a 4 unit complex between Pembroke and Petawawa right on the highway for $700 a month. When I talked to the landlord, he said he was just given notice his tenants were to be moving out a few days ago and have already had 30 viewings of the place and has a total of 6 people in mind to pick from, but he's going to keep showing it thru the end of the month and then make his decision. Wow! He asked what we were looking for and I told him, but then added we'll have to take whatever we can and he said that's what everyone was saying. He also doesn't really want pets, but will accept them with a steeper security deposit to cover any damage they might incur.

Along with making some of these calls, I made a call to a mortgage broker that Lee and Kharren went thru with their house. He came over last night and talked to us for an hour and a half to see where we stood and what some of our options might be for now or later. I guess the trailer idea is out of the question since the guy leasing the land refuses to sign one necessary piece of paper the bank needs for a trailer mortgage and in the end we'd end up paying as much of a down payment as we would for a cheaper house. So, he went thru our info and it looks like it all comes down to we could do it if we had either 5% down payment out of only our hands or a 10% down payment from our hands or if an immediate family member was able to gift a portion of the 10%. Otherwise, we, or should I say Jeremy has, all the necessary paperwork and income to do it. So, he was going to give our name out to some realtors to contact us if we are interested in looking to see what's available if we can come up with a down payment. Even if we moved in a year, we might not come out ahead, but most likely the way things have gone in the last year, we'd come out even or worst case, just under even, BUT, we wouldn't have thrown out all that money in rent. Too many decisions with too many unknowns! I just wish I had a job to make things much easier and we'd be much more tempted to stay. What to do?

Now, on to the truck! I took it in yesterday around the corner for the safety inspection and as soon as I took it in, the guy said I'd have to take it to Canadian Tire for another inspection of which they check to see that everything meets Canadian standards(ie with daytime running lights, a child tether, etc) and he can not do this. His inspection is just to make sure it's safe and drivable. The only thing he found was it needed new wiper blades. He also ordered the running light module and child tether for us. While it was at the shop, I went back and called the RIV (registrar of imported vehicles) to AGAIN check with them about the inspection. After a lengthy conversation, I finally got out of them it needed an importation inspection and they only contract out to Canadian Tire to do this. We also needed a second form to take with us to the inspection. No where along all my previous phone calls to every other vehicle/importation place that I had called 4-5 times already did they ever say this! So, I had to call Canadian Tire again and make a second appointment with them to do this importation inspection. So, I'm guessing the inspection we just had done is of no use to us and we'll have to pay for that and they'll redo the entire inspection plus at Canadian Tire. They also sent the form to Jeremy's old university address so we never would have received it. They also mailed it on Monday after I had called on Friday to verify all this and they told me we'd have the form Monday, but of course they hadn't mailed it until Monday. I'm getting so frustrated with all the non-sense of running around making call after call and getting no direct answers! So, I have to pick the truck up today from around the corner and then we'll drive it in to Canadian Tire tonight for them to do the inspection tomorrow and THEN let's hope it'll be ready to be licensed! We ended up finding Jeremy's old WI license and put that on the truck for the time being. Then I guess we'll see if Jeremy wants to try to sell it to get money for a down payment! However, his green jeep is having trouble starting now and smells of gas. So, can we afford to sell the only reliable truck that would last us many more years with two old jeeps of which one continues to have problems and the second that SO FAR works?

My goal for today - look for and apply to jobs, search the MLS for houses, pick up the truck and hopefully get a run in with Hayde while it's not raining and assume things will work out. Still no word from our landlord as we try calling him a couple times a day.