Happy Canada Day/Happy 4th of July

This has been quite the week! I don't even know where to begin....

The first few days after getting back where ok. I had some cleaning up and laundry to do. I got out for a run and Jeremy and I hit the gym. By Tuesday, the new neighbors that were to be moving in stopped by wondering where our landlord was. We had been trying to call him too as were Amanda and Matt since they were moving out. I ended up having to give the new neighbors the old neighbors phone # so they could work it out themselves. So, Tuesday night, the new neighbors pulled up with their uhual and started unloading around 10pm as Matt had to pack up most of the last bits of stuff they had. Before long, the house was filled with smoke from their cigarettes! As some of you know how much I despise cigarette smoke, I was not happy, but of course I didn't get a chance to talk to them for two days, so we had to suffer thru a smoke infested house and it's still lingering. By the time I talked to the new neighbors again, they had decided to move out. The basement is still not 100% completed from the reno and there is now mold in the bathroom and one of the bedrooms. In the meantime, Matt and Amanda still have stuff here in the yard, left all their garbage in the garage and some animals gotten into it and spread all the dirty diapers around the floor. Also, we let them use our new grill for Reid's birthday party over the weekend when we were gone and they left burgers on it and the grill just covered with barbecue sauce and and inch of fat drippings on the bottom of it. So, last night Jeremy and I had to scrub and scrub it so we could make an attempt to use it again.

My other task I spent working thru this week was trying to get the truck in order. I mailed the Florida plate back to Jeremy's mom Monday morning and had to 2-day priority mail it for $54! However, come Friday morning when I checked, it had just gotten into the US! We had to rush it since she is to be out of the house today and we didn't want it lost in the mail going to her Florida address since she won't be there for a little bit yet. Long story short, she did finally receive it on Friday, 5 days after I mailed it and I complained to the post office, but they told me to complain to the postal service thru the phone so when I called them, they told me I had to wait until it arrived to complain to Fed-Ex and see if maybe I could get a partial refund for it taking 5 days rather than 2! I have yet to make that last call, but I'm not expecting to get anywhere with Fed-Ex. While I was dealing with the postal service, I was also trying to work on getting a way to get the truck to a garage so it could have the safety inspection done on it before we can get it licenses. I had made an appointment for Friday at Canadian Tire so on my way in to work Thursday, I stopped at the DMV(not called that here, MOT? maybe) to see about getting a temporary license for a day so we could drive it to the other side of Pembroke for the safety, but they told me Jeremy had to sign for it since the truck was going to be in his name. So, I called Jeremy and he managed to make it into town Thurs night before they closed to do it, but they rejected issuing him a temp license since he didn't have a stamp in the bottom corner of the importation form stating that the truck had gone thru a safety inspection! So, I called and called every vehicle place I could to see how we could get around this and after talking to numerous people that couldn't tell me anything or know anything I found one guy that told me this is a catch 22 and there's no way around it. The only thing we could do was to tow it. Imagine a towing fee for a 30 min one-way drive! I finally called Canadian Tire to see if they could offer my any suggestions and I finally got thru to them and they gave me a place in town that's actually right around the corner from us that can do inspections, so I canceled the appointment with them and made a new one for next week in town. We just have to figure out how to get it ~ 2 blocks. Much easier! So, hopefully come next week, we'll have the truck figured out and licensed.

However, in the meantime, Jeremy's old green jeep broke down. He was looking at it Thursday and the heater valve broke off and coolant came spilling out. So, that was out of commission Friday so he had to, thankfully, take the red jeep to work and I didn't work, but was stuck at home with two non-drivable vehicles sitting in the driveway. I walked down the street to the Napa auto parts store and was able to order the part and we picked it up this morning. Jeremy just got the new place put back in and his jeep should be ready to go!

Our next problem is trying to find a place to live. Since we hadn't been able to get a hold of our landlord, we decided to drive by his other house he was going to let us rent. Turns out someone just moved into it last week, so that option is out. They also told us he's in Jamaica two weeks. We are at our last options now, but one add did show up in the paper so we have an appointment to look at a house in Chalk River, but the rent is more than what we're paying for here and we don't really want to live in Chalk River as there's only maybe about 100 people and nothing but the lab there. I guess Jeremy would be close to work. But, we can't be picking as this may be our only option. We did just look online and are thinking if there might be a possibility of buying a mobile home in the trailer park in town since we have no money for a down payment on a house and there are no places for rent that accept pets. (that is unless Jeremy decides to sell the truck he just got and we drove back from his mom's, we'd have a little bit to put towards a down payment). What to do?!?!?!?!?! All this is just draining all our energy and the thought of moving is overwhelming! We've managed to fill up this 3-bedroom house and now have three vehicles, a boat and a canoe in the driveway, and two cats and a dog! We really like living in Petawawa as well since it's a good spot in the middle of the area and the base is here with the gym and hockey, the river is down the road with a free boat landing, and Lee and Kharren are here.

My last thing I want to add is on Thursday when I was talking to the new neighbors downstairs, a deer came trotting around the front of the house, walked along the side of the house by the driveway, went to my bird feeder, stuck her head up, tilted it and stuck her tongue out to lick the bird seed! We were only about 10 feet away! This is the second deer I've seen since we moved here! It was unreal.

Jeremy's giving me a funny and frustrated look so I'm going to sign off now and hopefully some of these problems will subside soon. We're hoping to get the canoe out this weekend and give that a shot. I only have 5 hours of work next week - Monday morning so I'll have lots of time to work on other stuff around the house. If I don't start getting more hours and we end up in Chalk River, I don't know that I'll stay at Home Depot. It'll cost more to work than what I make.