Jobs are overrated.

By the end of October, I will no longer be gainfully employed. It's going to be weird not having a job to go after 11 years of work. That said, I am not seeing any dark clouds, for the brilliance of the the silver linings!

This is either going to be the best timing in the world, or a curse...we'll find out in due course.

I get 90 days 'warning', after that time I get 8 weeks paid notice followed by a tax free lump sum equal to 18 weeks wages. There's a few options we can follow all of which are extremely positive.
1. We sell the house.
2. If not, I get another job until we do.
3. If not, we have payment protection on all our major bills like the mortgage, credit cards and loans, so we get those paid for 6 months if I'm not working.
4. If no sale and no job, we move to Canada at the start of November, leaving the lump sum in the UK bank account to cover the mortgage and house insurance (which it would for over 2 years or until we sell).

Oh and we have another viewing tomorrow night.

sheadorama.

A little bit of meh, a little bit of whoo

We went out last night for a belated birthday celebration and it just reminded me why I hate going out more than anything. We had a Tex Mex meal which was nice enough then went bowling, but after loving the 1st game, I just didn't give a fuck about the 2nd so I pretty much stopped bowling 3 frames in. It was around this time I'd also decided I'd had enough, call me an old bastard, but I'd rather be at a pub where I could hold a conversation, so I asked around and nearly everyone agreed we'd go to a pub local to me, so I rang up and changed the cab time for 30 minutes.

Somehow between this time and the cab actually arriving everyone became miserable fuckers, so I'd had enough truly then.

Today, I'm back at work...hurrah. We have a meeting tomorrow apparently about possible cut backs. To be honest, now would be the perfect time to get a redundancy package.

Also did I say we had TWO showings today? No, no, no...we actually had three! Jordan just called and apparently the 1st two went brilliantly and she thinks the 2nd couple especially were interested. The last visitor creeped her out apparently, but she thinks he'll arrange another viewing.

sheadorama.

Sterrrrrrrrike Three!

Today has been far too productive. I couldn't sleep last night so I'm bloody knackered. After taking Jordan to work I settled in for a general tidy around before the showing at 11:00. I was expecting three Chinese nationals to arrive, infact 6 turned up. It seemed to go okay, well as far as I could gauge from my limited understanding of Cantonese. They were chatty and seemed to quite like the place but I suppose it's back to sitting and waiting.

I got a call from the Estate Agent too this afternoon, got another TWO viewings on Sunday. I'm working so Jordan is going to have to deal with these ones.

Wish us luck!

sheadorama.

Patience Grasshopper

So yesterday I said I need to start practicing a little patience with the housing market, and low and behold, I get a call today awakening me from my post work nap to advise we have viewing #3 tomorrow morning. Apparently, a Chinese couple want to come and look around...with their interpreter haha! The good news is once again they are in no chain, so I'm going to go all out on this one and hope for an offer.

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

Things seem to have gone a little quiet on the house selling front. Tomorrow will be 7 days since a viewing and no real communications from the Estate Agent other than asking for a little more information, but I suppose that's to be expected...time to cut back on the impatience a little.

Tonight's the last night shift for this rotation so I figured I'd bring in the xbox and have a little play. We have a fully functional 'cinema' with a ceiling projector and about a 6'x9' viewing area. So in true dumbass male style I managed to scare the living shit out of myself playing COD5 and Resident Evil 5 in the pitch black. Sadly the picture doesn't do ANY justice to the atmosphere, but gladly I only physically defecated in my trousers three times. It's nights like this that I actually dig my job. I love the fact that sometimes we get some great downtime while getting paid, sadly the crap we have to deal with normally far outweighs the good times. What was supposed to be an hours break turned into about a 4 hour marathon haha.

That said, I'm looking forward to four days off now to relax and recoup.

sheadorama

Asbestos, the choice of a new generation

We had some feedback, on our last house viewing on Wednesday evening. They were in and out pretty quickly, but it seems they loved the house...their problem was with the garage. It's an original build, so dates back to the late 60's/early 70's. Anybody knowing anything about buildings around that time, is aware the old roofs were asbestos panels. Which is fine for what I use it for...basically storing crap and tools, but they wanted to use the garage for storing vintage clothing, which seems completely backwards to me when there's a perfectly functional loft space that won't leave the clothes covered in mildew.

Hell, for a house on the market for 145k, it seems silly to be put off with a 2k garage. Put an offer in and I'll even consider replacing the garage roof out of my pocket...but then again common sense was never my strong point.

We'll find the right person for the house, and hopefully they'll love it. It's going to be tough to sell it to a stranger after it being in our family for some 22-23 years, but I don't really have any control over that and I need to let it go. For us to make this move, we have to sell the house, it's as simple as that, I have to put emotion aside and remember the positives we're going to take from this;

1. We'll be in a place where we want to be.
2. We'll have a decent deposit to buy a place of an equivalent value over in Canada.
3. We'll have enough to replace our vehicles and furnish the new place.

Plus anywhere I can drink a Keith's in the pool is all right by me!

sheadorama.

There's now three people in our marriage

Are any other husbands having to deal with a wife's full blown obsession with Twilight, or Robert Pattinson in particular? I thought the Harry Potter months were pretty bad, but now Jordan has completely become enamoured with this big haired Brit, Emo Vampire (or is Vampyre I can never keep up). It's not something to worry about yet...as I sit here typing she's cutely reading up on all things Blood Suckers and the new movie.

It's a good job I love her, and you know what they say....Love me, Love my undead boyfriend!

sheadorama

One year older, one year dumber

On this day 33 years ago I came into this world, reclining on a wing back chair, pipe in hand sipping from a snifter of Port. Think Bruce Campbell a la The Old Spice Adverts and we're in the same ballpark.

90% of the planets aligned today to give me a cracking Birthday, nice and quiet just how I like it. I awoke with the wife and set off a few downloads, before being presented with my gifts. I got the new Ben Kweller album, and I have to say as it was requested purely on a whim, I'm really impressed. It's a lot more country than I was expecting, but that's never a bad thing. It was a nice find, and I'm very happy. I also got some candy, which I'm sure will go down well over the weekend. I also got my gifts from Louise (my sister) last night, she knows me so well...booze, cash and chocolate!

Today was due to be my lazy day, so I watched a few episodes of Ax Men, played some xbox and napped on the couch. While I was snoozing I got 2 deliveries...The Dave Gorman Collection (A TV series from the 90's about a comedian travelling the world trying to find one person named Dave Gorman for every card in a deck) and the new Steve Earle album "Townes". A tribute album recorded by Steve of songs written by his old time mentor Townes Van Zandt, which brings to mind two of my favourite quotes from Steve and Townes.

"Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that."

which was followed up by the quick witted Townes...

"I've met Bob Dylan's bodyguards and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table, he's sadly mistaken."

sheadorama

Warning...I am teh Emo!

So we had our 2nd viewing tonight and it really bought home one thing to me...I am NOT a salesman so what the fuck am I doing showing people around. Isn't that what I'm meant to be paying an Estate Agent for? I'll be damned if I'm paying them a 1.65% commission to advertise the property only. I can forgive the 1st showing, it was a Sunday, but not tonights. I think I'm going to have to start being stern with them, because if I start things off, with us being the ones bending then they're going to expect us to do all their leg work for them the whole time it's on the market.

Tonights viewing was a complete disappointment, I spent a chunk of the day mopping the floors and moving the dryer back into the Garage, and they came and went within 10-15 fucking minutes. I was kind of hopeful about these guys, 1st Time Buyers, no chain, and they really seemed to not be interested. They said a few positive things about the room sizes and what have you, but I'm not expecting to hear anything from them about a 2nd viewing or an offer.

We also got feedback from the 1st viewing we had on Sunday, and she said to the Realtor that she can see a 3 bedroom house in Garforth for less, in better condition...which is weird because neither our Estate Agents or me can find any 3 beds in the same style for the same money. The cheapest was 10k more, so fuck her.

I'm pissed off at myself for being so annoyed so soon, I had completely unrealistic expectations that I'd sell the house in a week it seems. I know that, and I know I should be settling down for the long haul but part of me is already gone, I just want the thing gone and to start again over in Canada.

It's my birthday tomorrow, maybe I'll get lucky and we'll get somebody else interested in the house and make a cheeky bid.

On a side note, Jordan showed me the outfit she got for my cousin's wedding next week and holy shit she looks smoking in it. I love that woman so much, I can't believe we've been married 5 years this October, time fucking flies.

sheadorama

Does a dog shit where he pleases?

Ours apparently does.

Actually, that's not entirely fair...normally he's extremely well behaved and never defecates in the house unless he has an upset stomach and we're not there to let him out. So why, did we nearly have a dead dog in our house this morning?

Let me start by saying, I work shifts....two 12 hour days, followed by two 12 hour nights. I came home after a particularly brutal slow night, walk through the door and the smell just hits me right n the face. There are two things in this world I hate dealing with....shit and puke, thankfully my little angel had decided to leave a present of both....ON THE COUCH! I banished him to his outside kennel for the day and went back inside to begin the cleanup. Marigolds....check, kitchen roll....check, plastic carrier bag....check. I got up all the crap, and moved onto the vomit. Now as I'm sure you all know, you disturb vomit and the aroma just intensifies. The second it hit the back of my throat, I'm hanging out the back door for air, dry heaving and damning Jesus for every putting the thought of owning a dog in my tiny male brain. Take 2 didn't even get as far as touching the potato and carrot laced canine oral evacuation before the above process was repeated.

He used to be so much cuter before he became a shit machine.



Fast Forward to two minutes later and I sheepishly sneak into the bedroom and rouse my good wife to go down stairs and clean up the vomit because I failed as a husband.

BUT - the day does have some good news. We have another viewing booked for Wednesday evening. A couple, 1st time buyers...so I'm hoping they like what they see and put in an offer as we've not heard anything from the family who came yesterday.

sheadorama

You buy one, you get one free...I say, you buy one, you get one free!

Okay, maybe I'm not as generous as that.

We had our 1st House viewing this afternoon, and it seemed to go okay. A very nice lady arrived with who I assume was her mother and young Son. They took a look around downstairs and seemed to quite like the space. The son noticed the important fact, there's room for a small trampoline in the back garden, it's great for your priorities to be like that, I wish mine were that carefree again.


I answered a few questions and let them go exploring upstairs alone, I know I hate being hovered over so figured I'd extend them the same courtesy. All in all, I think her mum liked the property more than she did, so who knows. I'm not overly confident that she'll make an offer, but I guess we have to wait and see.

sheadorama.

Wish me good luck

People always tell you selling a house and moving are among the top three most stressful things in life, along with Marriage and Death. Well fingers crossed we are fast approaching the tail end of the process.

I don't expect people to be familiar with my history, so I'll start at the beginning and keep things brief. I married a wonderful woman who originated from Ottawa, Canada and moved to be with me in Leeds, England. 5 years later, and many evenings badgering her about returning to Canada, we decided that we both wanted to be there, and well...not here.

Last March we started the ball moving and I applied for my VISA via the Spousal Sponsorship route. After the medicals were completed, and the forms sent off...I found myself over 500 pounds lighter in the wallet and with a serious dose of the wait and sees. Luckily, all went well and I was granted the status of Permanent Resident around September '08.

March this, year I became an Official Landed Immigrant of Canada, though still residing in the UK...which brings us to the purpose of this opening Blog.

We have finally completed the necessary work on the house and it went on the market yesterday. A mere 24 hours later, we have our first viewing booked in. Tomorrow @14:00 we will be showing around our 1st visitor. Our Estate Agent is confident of a quick sale, so I guess we'll wait and see.

sheadorama.