Sleep and the Band Aid

Oh, I wish I could sleep a little more. Should try to go back to bed right now, but I know my head will just keep swimming in a sea of plans, responsibilities, what ifs . . .

Hello all. Been a while, once again. I know. So let's catch up.

First off, we're being transferred out of Thompson, Manitoba. We're moving 8 hours south to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. This morning in Thompson it is -1C. In Portage, it's +3. So much warmer down south.

Sold the house in Thompson, officially, last night. But here's the catch. Possession date is November 1. So that means today I must book flights for the House Hunting Trip (HHT according to the RCMP IRP). Must catch said flight Sunday morning and begin house hunting Monday.

If all goes well, we will have purchased a new home by Friday, fly home Saturday and then there are four days until the movers arrive to pack everything up.

In the meantime, we must satisfy all paperwork requirements of the RCMP IRP (Integrated Relocation Program), contact service providers such as gas, electricity, satellite, telephone, internet, mail and everyone who mails things to us. Where's that list??

Must close down life in Thompson, begin new life in Portage. It's daunting, I admit, at the best of times. But to pull it all off in a couple of weeks . . .

It's like a giant band-aid and we're gonna thoroughly test the "rip it off quick" theory. More intense pain, but for a shorter period of time.

Must pull Sonwun from Kindergarten, register him in Kindergarten.

Must empty all gas from gas-powered tools (snowblower, rototiller, lawn mower) for the move.

Must pack for HHT.

Must pack for move. Must make 8-hour drive with two kids, cat and dog.

Must say good-bye to best neighbours we've ever had.

Must meet with mover.

Must find home for dog and cat while on HHT.

Must not go insane.

Sleep would help. Need sleep. Should go back to bed right n . . . .

Let's Make a Deal

So, barring any surprises during the home inspection, we will soon be the proud owners of one of Thompson's overpriced homes.

It came down to two houses. One had a nice interior, but not much of a garage and not much of a yard. The other had a nice yard, good garage, but the inside needed some carpet and other carpentry related adjustments.

Given that winter tends to last for about 8 months here, we figured the nicer interior made a little more sense than a nicer yard that will be enjoyed only from, at best, June to September.

Anyway, it's a two-storey pad; finished basement with a gas fireplace to boot. It has decent carpet upstairs, hardwood floors in the living room, an island in the kitchen, complete with cooktop, and a built-in oven. There two good-size bedrooms for the boys, and a nice master bedroom for mommy and me - and all the bedrooms are on the same floor.

We checked with the local cops regarding the neighbourhood, and we're told it's relatively quiet. There's a good school nearby with a nice playground and the neighbour I spoke to seems nice. As I said before, it's not easy to consider all things that need consideration in a short visit to a new city. But we've done our best. And while we are pleased with our new digs, we find it difficult to celebrate when we feel the prices are just ridiculous. But it is what it is and there ain't much we can do about it.

So what's next in the little whirlwind adventure? According to the IRP, once this deal closes, we need to start getting ready to move. Off the top of my head, that means letting all who need to know our new address, and making arrangements to change our phone, internet, satellite TV and hydro. We must collect our medical and dental records, vaccinate the dog (had to do that anyway), maybe have a yard sale to lighten the load for the move and talk to the folks at the post office.

We are also supposed to start using up our staples and frozen food. Anyone know of any good recipes involving the case of cream of asparagus soup we bought a year ago because it was "such a great deal?"

If you can include a couple dozen frozen waffles and pogo sticks in the recipe, it would be helpful.

Anyway, home inspection tonight, probably meet with home inspector tomorrow to go over his report, and then we head home. After a few days in a small hotel room with two early-rising tots, I'm ready. And after the same amount of time in Thompson, I'm ready to soak up all of the time I can on our acreage in Gimli - before it's all gone.

Offer's In

Good morning and welcome to Day 3 of the HHT.

Last night we submitted an offer on the what we consider to be the best of the worst. It's like so many of the homes here in that it doesn't have it all by any stretch of the imagination. But it has some of the things we think are most important. It is still wildly overpriced - but they all are.

What struck me most this morning, as I drove up the road to Tim Hortons, is that many of the houses we looked at over the last two days had alarm systems. Strange that we're leaving a place where, for the most part, we didn't bother to lock our doors. Here, they're not only locked, they're dead-bolted and the alarms are activated. Sad but true.

Anyway, the offer expires at 4 p.m. today. In the meantime, at 9:30 this morning, we will be taking a second look at one of the other potential properties. If the deal on this first house doesn't happen, we move on, check out some more and make another offer. After all, including today, there are only 3 days left in the HHT. Too much pressure for such an important decision, I think.

As for Thompson, it's a little smaller than I thought it would be. Population, they tell me, is about 15,000. But everyone is squeezed in to a tight bit of real estate here. Going from one end of town to the other takes a little less than five minutes. Packed into that space, though, is a Walmart, Canadian Tire, Safeway, Staples, Tim Hortons, Boston Pizza, KFC and a fair number of other restaurants, bars, beer stores and assorted businesses.

Last night we took Sonwun and Sontoo to a playground at one of the local schools. There were a lot of kids there, which is nice to see. Sonwun had an absolute blast playing with the other kids, climbing things, running around like a maniac, falling off things . . . everything he's been denied for the last few days. He's been strapped into that damn car seat since Sunday, going from house to house, not being allowed to touch, not being allowed to run. He was a bomb waiting to go off. I think we'll be going back there at some time today.

Anyway, the boys are up and it's time to get the day under way. Wish us luck.

HHT Day 2

Good morning and welcome to Day 2 of the HHT. Yesterday we looked at about a dozen overpriced houses. The list is shorter today.

I must admit I'm a little shell-shocked. These places we looked at, which have an average price of about $245,000, are old (built, on average, in 1965), in need of work and, in some cases, downright ugly. We found one house that seems to be in move-in condition, but the taxes are ridiculous ($258/month), it has no garage and is in a questionable neighbourhood. And by questionable, I mean it is surrounded by low-income housing which, I'm told, is home to many of the many gang members in Thompson.

I guess it's probably true of any house-hunting trip. You find one house in your price range with a nice upstairs, another with a nice rec room in the basement, another with a beautiful garage and another with a well-landscaped yard. But you just can't find one that puts it all together . . . unless of course you have a good chunk more than a quarter of a million dollars to spend on a house. We don't.

We're not looking for the Taj Mahal here. Just a decent house on a decent street at a decent price with a reasonable amount of space for a family of four. And I'm beginning to believe that, in Thompson, we might as well be looking for the Taj Mahal.

Before I go any further, I should point out that, after 8.5 hours of driving on Sunday, I got about six hours sleep. After a day of house-hunting with two children in tow, I got about 4.5 hours. So if I spell something wrong, or miss a word or sentence entirely, forgive me. But I digress.

The plan today is to look at a few more houses. Two of them we ignored yesterday because they only had two bedrooms on the main floor. We'd prefer three so that we're closer to Sonwun and Sontoo. The third house we plan to see today is . . . you know what? To describe the house for you, I just checked the real estate sheet. There's not a snowball's chance in hell we can afford it. So, maybe we'll only look at two today.

One of the two-bedroom homes we planned to look at today was built in 1969 (40 years old). It's on a 54' X 100' lot and it is 1008 sq ft. Gross taxes in 2008 were $2,919.93. It has oak cabinets in the kitchen, two bedrooms upstairs and one down, two bathrooms and a "fully fenced and landscaped yard." And forgive me for being pessimistic, but I saw several "fully fenced and landscaped yards" yesterday that were, well, mostly fenced and somewhat landscaped. So we'll just have to wait and see. Asking price, by the way, is $249,900.

We'll also be looking at a newer, two-bedroom home today, in a decent neighbourhood. It looks nice on line, but so many of them have. This one was built in 1990, is on a 60 X 120 lot and boasts 1190 sq feet of living space. There are actually 3 bathrooms, including the ensuite, it has a concrete foundations, 2X6 wall construction . . . blah, blah, blah. Asking $259,900. Oh, yeah, and gross taxes of $3444.60 per year.

Anyway, that's what's happening here in the Hub of the North. Stay tuned . . .

HHT Begins

Well, we made it to Thompson.

Took about 8.5 hours from home, including an hour for a crappy breakfast and a couple of roadside stops to keep the kids sane. Stopped at Pisew Falls for a quick look - beautiful. Ice bridge at the base of the falls, similar to Niagara, only on a much smaller scale.

First impressions of Thompson are not great, I must say. There are a lot of apartment buildings, many in less-than-impressive shape. To be fair, we only got a brief tour on our way to the hotel. We're staying at the Country Inn and Suites and I can't complain about it. Pretty clean, nice suite with separate bedroom so the kids can go to sleep in a quiet area.

We had dinner last night at one of the "fine dining" establishments in town: Grapes. Food was okay, but steady stream of less-than-sobre individuals making their way in and out of the "lounge area," took a little out of the experience.

Today we head out on the first house-hunting expedition. After only about 6 hours sleep, I'm a tad tuckered, but breakfast should remedy that.

Anyway, will write more later as time allows. Also hope to post some pictures for your amusement.

One sold, One to Buy

The HHT is on. After a rather stressful week waiting for the deal to close on this house, we're ready to take on the stress of another deal. Wooohooo!

Yes, at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, one hour before the conditional offer on this house was to expire, I got the call. All conditions removed, papers signed, house is sold. I actually got goosebumps.

Well, with that event complete, we are now planning and completing paperwork for the HHT. RCMP form 4064 has been completed and signed. We have booked a hotel room, contacted a real estate agent, searched on line for homes in Thompson, made lists, scratched things off lists and we should be ready to hit the road Sunday.

The HHT (House Hunting Trip) is described in the IRP (Integrated Relocation Plan) as a five-day, six-night event in the new detachment destination. We have been allotted two days for travelling each way, although we have been told there are not many hotels between here and Thompson that you would want to stay at with two small children. So we will most likely make the 750-kilometre journey in one day.

I was surprised to learn that flying to Thompson was an option under the IRP. But we have decided a road trip just makes more sense for us. Flying would mean driving in to Winnipeg, leaving a vehicle, travelling by someone else's schedule, getting a rental car in Thompson and so on. In addition, while the wife's flight and my flight would come from the "Core Envelope," the kids' flights would have to come from the "Custom Envelope," and we may need those funds down the road for other things.

I guess I should try to explain, as briefly as possible, the funding envelopes. They are they way we get reimbursed for all of the expenses associated with the sale of our house, the HHT, the purchase of a new house and the move. There are three envelopes - core, custom and personal. The core covers all of the big, unavoidable expenditures; real estate commissions, movers, lawyers, hotel rooms, travel costs and so on. The custom envelope is limited and covers "extras" such as having your kids join you on the HHT, upgrading from a compact rental to a minivan, getting an extra hotel room if needed, extending an HHT if required - that kind of thing. The personal envelope kicks in when all the money is gone from the custom envelope. But, and here's the exciting part, we get to keep all money left over in the personal envelope at the end of the game. So the goal is to avoid using any money from the personal envelope. Any money left in the other two envelopes stays in the RCMP coffers. Fair enough.

In any case, as I said, we've opted to drive, leaving Sunday morning and arriving in Thompson Sunday night. We'll look at houses for a few days, choose a couple and make an offer. Wait for the offer to be accepted or rejected or written back, and so on. We'll return next Saturday. We are trying (desperately) to look upon this as a little vacation, knowing that there will still be a fair bit of work and stress involved. But we're trying.

Anyway, I'm taking the computer on the road, so I should be able to keep you all updated as we go. Wish us luck!