Visitor

We kept lowering the price we were asking for the house in Barrhaven and every time we lowered the price, Vera had to change the feature sheet on the house

Our house is so soundproof that one day Barb was sewing in the basement and didn’t hear the doorbell but she heard someone come in and walk around upstairs.  She was scared.

When she went upstairs, she found Vera coming in with the new feature sheets.  Vera had let herself in with the key from the lock box on the door.

Lotions and Potions

We put everything away when we have an Open House or a showing.  Barb hides all of her lotions and potions under the bathroom sink.

When she took them out and used them, she got confused.  She ended up washing her face with her lotion and lotioning her face with her cleanser.

Interest Rate Program

Julia had tried to put some of her money that she had saved during her school years in a mutual fund.  Unfortunately, the lady at PC Financial told her she could only transfer money out of her chequing account not her savings account.  That was wrong but Julia only put a little money into the mutual fund.

We tried to get Julia to put more of her money into the mutual fund but she never got around to it.  Finally, she phoned again and put more money in but she had lost all of that time when the market was going well and now the market was not doing anything.

Being optimistic that the market would improve, I wrote a computer program for Julia to calculate her rate of return on her investments.  I sent it to her but since then the market hasn’t improved.  My program is instead showing her at what rate she is losing money. 

Burning Smell

We got home after the Open House and had to leave for the afternoon.  When we got home, there was terrible electric burning smell in the house.  Barb realized that Vera had turned on the fan in the family room.  It is a nice fan but we never use it.  I guess the engine was seized up.

Vera said there was only one person who came to the Open House and she left quickly.  Barb thought the lady must have smelt the electric burning.

Barb cut the cord off the fan so that Vera couldn’t turn it on again if we had an Open House in the future.

Free Breakfast

We had an Open House.  So we left the house and decided to go to Broadways for brunch.  We met a friend of mine from fastball who is the owner of the restaurant.  We had a good chat and he even paid for our meal.

Barb left before me and on the way out I met an old friend from Carleton.  He was there with his two kids and had the day off work because he had a root canal that morning.

I told him about Barb’s terrible experiences with her root canals. 

Long Goodbyes

Barb had been in a lot of pain with her teeth.   She went in for an emergency root canal but the dentist couldn’t do the whole thing at once.  When she came home, she was still in great pain.  She took Tylenol and Advil in high doses for a few days.

Then she went back to get the rest of the root canal done. 

A couple of weeks later, she broke another tooth and was in great pain.  She went in to the dentist and he said she would need another root canal on the tooth beside the first one.  He couldn’t do it for a week or so.

Barb was in great pain and could hardly wait to have her tooth fixed even though she dreaded the pain of the root canal.

Finally, she got the second root canal done and the pain wasn’t as bad as the first time.

She kept saying goodbye to the dentist and the hygienists, saying she wouldn’t see them again.  Then the next week she would be back with another tooth ache and need another root canal.

Finally, Barb was able to say goodbye.

Policy Questionnaire

I found an interesting website through Macleans magazine that had a questionnaire to help decide who to vote for in the upcoming election.  You compared two policies and chose the one you favoured.  After you chose 20 or so policies, you could look at a graph to see which party’s policies you are most in favour with.

I did the questionnaire.  Then I sent it to Sarah.  She thought it was good and sent it to a few of her friends.

I got Barb and Laura to do the questionnaire.  They didn’t understand many of the policies.  So I had to explain them but when they completed the questionnaire and looked at the results, the results seemed to make sense to me.  I am not sure if they made any sense to Barb and Laura.

Laura Banking

Laura and I drove back to Ottawa the day after the pole competition.

While we were there, I wanted Laura to open a mutual fund account with CIBC.  I found out that she already had an RRSP mutual fund with CIBC.

While she was on the telephone with the lady from PC Financial, the lady told her she should transfer her money from her Interest First account which is being phased out to her Interest Plus account because she would get much more interest in the Interest Plus account.

Unfortunately, instead of transferring the money, the lady opened a whole new Interest Plus account for Laura.  Laura didn’t figure this out until a few days later and it was too late to fix it.

When she got through to the mutual fund guy, he had to ask her a lot of questions about her financial goals, financial health and financial knowledge.  I had Laura put the guy on speaker phone and I helped her answer the questions.  He recommended a moderately aggressive portfolio which was exactly like mine.  I thought that was great and he complimented Laura on her decision because she was young and her money would grow a lot over her life.

Early Birthday

Daphne, Truman, Sarah and Brianna came to see the afternoon portion of the pole competition.  They arrived early and we arrived early.  Daphne was smart enough to bring a picnic lunch to eat before the competition.  It was great because Laura and I didn’t have breakfast and no plans for lunch.

Between the afternoon competition and the evening competition, we had another picnic and Daphne brought a cake for my birthday.  We took lots of pictures and Sarah posted them on Facebook the next day.  Many of my friends wished me a Happy Birthday even though my birthday isn’t until next month.

Recency Bias

Laura and I went to the pole competition and I saw her friends from Halifax who were competing.  I thought her friends were great but they didn’t do as well as they had liked.  It was strange because all of the winners were the last people in the competition.  Laura’s friend thought it was a case of “recency bias”.  I knew about that from my reading on decision making errors.

Crawl Space

Laura and I stayed in New Hamburg for the weekend.  Laura was quite impressed with the size of our bungalow.  She was particularly impressed with our crawl space.  I told her that was where we kept the dead bodies.

Texting Guy

Laura decided to visit us when she came to Mississauga for the Canadian Pole Competition.  I drove to Toronto Airport to pick her up and it worked out perfectly.  I was a little late because I got stuck in Toronto traffic and Laura was a little late because her flight was delayed.

Then we drove to New Hamburg to stay for the weekend.  Our neighbour had lent us an air mattress because all of our air mattresses were being used to show the house in Barrhaven.

On the way to New Hamburg, we got stuck in rush hour traffic on the 401.  It was stop and go.  Then beside us we saw a guy drive right into the car in front on him.  He wasn’t going fast at all but the guy kept bumping the car ahead.  The car ahead was pushed right into the car ahead of it.  So it was a three car accident.  We saw the guy’s air bag pop out and the car was steaming from a busted radiator.

The guy must have been texting in the traffic jam.  We were lucky he wasn’t behind us.  We were also lucky that we weren’t behind him because immediately the traffic jam got a lot worse.

Stationary Bike

Barb posted my stationary bike on Kijiji.  She immediately got an offer from a guy who wanted to pick it up right away.

The guy came with his son and paid me the full price we were asking.  He said the bike was for his wife.

Later he emailed Barb telling her that his wife just loved the bike.  It was a great feeling to make someone happy.

Sirius

Barb decided to sell Julia’s Sirius Radio on Kijiji.  She posted the add and immediately got an offer from a guy in Winnipeg.  He was very excited about getting the radio because he wanted a backup for his old one and they don’t make them anymore.

Barb and the guy exchanged a few emails over Kijiji.  Then they tried to send there real email addresses but Kijiji blocked them.  Barb tried and tried.  Eventually, she thought of a way to do it.  She put a space between each letter of her email address and it went through.

The guy paid the full $250 Barb was asking.  He even paid for shipping.  He sent Barb the money by e-transfer and Barb immediately mailed the radio to him.  Barb was ecstatic to get $250 for the radio.  The guy was ecstatic to get the radio.  It was a great way to start selling off some of our stuff.

Nice Mistake

Barb went out with a paint number to get a can of paint for the dining room.  Apparently, the machine that they used at Home Depot to match the colour to the number didn’t work correctly for that number.  Barb didn’t find this out until she had painted half of the dining room.

She had painted up to the wainscoting.  Then she went back and got the correct paint and painted the rest of the dining room.  We had a two tone dining room and it looked very modern.

Wallpaper

We only had a few people come to see the house in Barrhaven.  The few who looked at the house said it needed upgrades like hardwood floors and granite counter tops.  I read Barb an article that said that people today would rather have granite counter tops than a roof.  There was no way we were going to put in hardwood or granite.

They also said they didn’t like the wallpaper.  Barb thought that that was something she could do something about.  There was wallpaper all over the house.  We took down all the trim and didn’t have to paint the walls under it.

However, the dining room was completely wallpapered.  It was very difficult to get down.  I helped Barb and it was a good bonding time.  We got it all down in one day but I was up until 4 am.

Sports Medicine

Barb was away at a pickleball tournament.  I had an appointment at the Sports Medicine Clinic.  It wasn’t too far away and I thought I knew where I was going.  Of course, I got lost and was late for my appointment.

The doctor saw me and diagnosed correctly that I had skier’s thumb.  It was stretched tendons at the base of my right thumb.  He prescribed a thumb brace.

So I went to the store to buy the brace.  The doctor told me the store was at Lebreton Flats.  So I thought I knew where it was.

I drove through rush hour traffic to Lebreton Flats and there was no store there that I could find.  I drove around and around through rush hour traffic and construction.  Finally, I decided to stop at the McDonalds on Bronson and get directions.  There was a terrible traffic jam and I found out a car had stalled on the road just before the entrance to the McDonalds.

I tried to look up the store on my iPod but the battery was dead.  For some reason, I had my computer with me.  So I brought my computer into McDonalds and tried to hook it up to the Wifi.  I tried and tried but I couldn’t hook it up.  So I asked the manager to help me and we finally got it working.  I looked up the store and found the address and then I got a map.

I finally found the place.  There was a outlet store plaza beside a medical building but it was off the beaten track.  I never would have found it without Google Maps.

I bought a brace and it worked great.  Now I can’t blame my poor batting on a sore thumb anymore.

Pointing Arrows

We had saved the garage sale signs that our real estate agent had lent us a few weeks ago.  Barb decided to have a second garage sale even though she had been so mad after the first one.

At first she wondered why so few people showed up.  Later in the morning, more people came but it was not as busy as the first garage sale.

When she went to pick up the garage sale signs after it was over, she found that she had signs pointing in the wrong direction.  She didn’t know they had arrows on them.

Coffee in New Hamburg

Barb decided she wanted a coffee in New Hamburg on Sunday morning.  Fortunately, we have a McDonalds and a Tim Hortons nearby.

First she went to McDonalds.  The place was packed.  She stood in line for a long time.  When she got to the front of the line, the lady behind the counter told her she couldn’t give her a coffee because the line was only for refills.

So Barb went over to Tim Hortons.  It was crazy there too.  The line was right out the door and around the corner of the store.

She decided she didn’t need a coffee that badly.

Open Windows

Barb was working hard all day painting the house in New Hamburg.  The house was very hot during the day.  So Barb opened the windows.  When she went to bed, she found it was freezing in the house.  She had no warm sheets and the air mattress was very cold.

She will know better the next time we come.

Wrong Colour

Barb bought paint in a big 5 gallon can.  Ali had painted the whole bedroom before Barb realized that it was the wrong colour.  Instead of being white, it was a light green colour.

That wouldn’t do at all but it was too late to start again.  It would have to wait until we come back in September.

Erie

Sarah and Ali came over to our new house for the whole long weekend and helped Barb paint and take down wallpaper. 

Meanwhile, I drove to Erie Pennsylvania to watch a ball tournament.  On the way home on Sunday night, I was driving up the QEW from Niagara Falls and was watching lightning flashing in the sky on the Northern horizon.  I realized that I was heading into a major thunder storm.

I got up Highway 6 to the 401 before I got hit by the thunder storm.  It rained so hard I could barely see the road ahead on me.  Many cars pulled over.  The ones that were driving were driving very slowly with their flashers on.  I didn’t even know where the button for the flashers was in my car.  I punched a number of button and finally the flashers came on.  The rain stopped just about where I was to exit the 401 to get to Kitchener. 

I got back on Sunday night of a long weekend, but even though we had a holiday, Barb was sick of painting and we just drove home on Monday.

Breaker

When we finally got the keys for our new place and drove there, we found that the place was very hot inside and the air conditioner didn’t work.  We were not happy.

Then Barb thought to check the breakers.  She found that the breaker for the air conditioner had been flipped off.  When she flipped the breaker back on the air conditioner began working and the house started to cool down.

Key Problems

Barb had arranged to play pickleball in the afternoon of the closing day while we were waiting to get the keys for our new place.

We drove to the Kitchener Badminton Club and met her friend Paul who had arrived early to play.  He had an electronic key to get in but it didn’t work.  He tried and tried and said that sometimes it takes a while to work.  He couldn’t get it to work.  So Barb tried.

Paul called Patricia who was also coming to play with them.  She had a key too.  She said she would be there in a few minutes.  While Paul was on the phone, Barb got the key to work.

Dress Down Friday

We had heard of dress down Friday but we were surprised to see our lawyer dressed in a grubby tee shirt and grubby jeans when we went to close the deal on our new house.

570 Talk Radio

Sarah told us that since she has been spending her whole summer driving around to construction sites in her car she has started listening to 570 Talk Radio from Kitchener.

We were surprised to find the studio for 570 Talk Radio right beside our lawyer in Kitchener where we went to close the deal on our new house.

Nice Water Bottle

I had purchased water at Heathrow airport when I was there with Sarah.  The water came in a nice plastic bottle.  I brought refilled the bottle and brought it to all of my ballgames. 

One night I left it at the ball diamond and was half way home before I remembered.  I drove all the way back to the diamond and found it in the dark on the bench.

I had the bottle for a few more weeks.  Then on our drive to Kitchener for the August long weekend our air conditioner stopped working.  So we stopped at a Canadian Tire in Kingston to get it fixed. 

They couldn’t find anything wrong with the air conditioner.  I guess the fan had overheated and it had cooled down while we were waiting for a repair man to look at it.  After it had cooled down, it worked fine again.

Not only had we wasted $90 on the non-repair, I left the bottle in the Canadian Tire.

Mr Lube

We went to Mr Lube to get the oil changed in both cars because we had an $8 off coupon.  Barb handed the man the coupon before he started the oil change.  When he had finished, Barb looked at the bill and did not see the discount.  She asked the guy about the discount and he said he had forgotten about it.  Barb thought he was just trying to rip her off.

Leroy’s Warning

We had our first garage sale on Saturday.  Our neighbour Leroy told Barb that she would not be happy about the garage sale.

We sold a lot of stuff but Barb was furious when people bargained her down on the price of things.  She thought that she put a reasonable price on the things and they would offer only half the price.

She was particularly furious with the man who took our antique typewriter for $5 and a lady that took all of her craft stuff for $30.

By the end of the day, Barb’s blood pressure was through the roof.

Pumping and Pumping

Barb asked me to pump the air mattress because it was a manual one not an electric one.  I was upstairs in Julia’s room for a half hour pumping it with my foot.  Finally, Barb came up and asked me what I was doing.  She said that something was wrong.  It shouldn’t take that long to pump up the mattress.  In fact, it looked just as flat now after a half hour of pumping as it did when she laid it out of the floor.

Barb found a nozzle at the head of the bed that was open.  We found the stopper and plugged the nozzle.  Then I was able to pump up the mattress in a few minutes.

Canadian Tire

Barb decided we needed to show the house with four bedrooms.  So I took my desk out of Julia’s room.  Barb set up our air mattress but she needed to buy two more for the other rooms.  Barb was surprised when she went to Canadian Tire to find that Sarah’s good friend Sarah Woodend was there to sell her the air mattresses.

Bad Surprise

When I was leaving the Gil Read Tournament on Saturday night, I found that the back window on the Nissan had been smashed by a homerun.  The night before I noticed that a homerun had bounced between the cars in the parking lot about 40 yards on the other side of the fence.  I should have known that a ball could hit my car if I parked there.

I drove home without a back window.  I was stopped by a policeman.  I thought oh no I guess I am not supposed to be driving without a back window.  But the policeman had only stopped me because he thought the car might have been stolen.  After he checked and found that I owned the car he let me go.

I got home and my neighbour was just coming in.  He helped me cover the back window with a plastic bag because it was supposed to rain hard that night.

Barb checked around on Sunday and found a company that would come and replace the window right in our driveway.  It was covered by insurance and only cost us $140.  By Monday night, I was driving my car again to the ball game.

Junior Champions

I went to the Gil Read Tournament in Carp.  One of my favourite teams was playing there, the Elmira Expos.  I was talking to the coach of the team and told him that I was moving to New Hamburg.  He told me that New Hamburg were the Canadian Junior Fastball Champions.

New Cell Phone

I was in the habit of bringing the cell phone to my fastball games.  Unfortunately, I put it in my back pocket.  One day I sat on it and broke it.

So Barb looked on Kijiji to see if we could buy a new cell phone.  We found a guy who lived in Barrhaven who was selling a phone just like ours.  I went to his house to pick it up and pay for it.  He was selling about 5 cell phones.  So I bought two. One for me and one for Barb.  I brought them home and found out the one had the wrong power cord.  So I couldn’t charge it.

I went back to the guy’s house and he gave me the correct power cord.  And then I went home and charged the cell phone that I was going to use myself.

When it was charged, I found I couldn’t use it because I needed a password.  I contacted the guy again and he asked his daughter but she didn’t remember the password.  So I went back to the guy’s house and got my money back.

We were glad that he lived in Barrhaven.  It would have been ridiculous if I had to drive across town to get to his house so many times.

Silver and Bronze

Barb won one silver and two bronze medals in Kitchener.  She was very disappointed because she usually wins Gold.  Again she felt her partners let her down.

First Showing

While Barb was away at the pickleball tournament in Kitchener, we had our first showing.

The lady who came to look at the house said she didn’t like the wallpaper.

Cupboard Space

While Barb was in Kitchener for a pickleball tournament, she took some time to see our new place.  We had not seen it in real life.  We had only seen pictures on the internet.

Barb was impressed with all the cupboard space.  She thought we didn’t have to throw all of our stuff away.  In fact, we had so much cupboard space she thought she might store some of her fabric in the kitchen.

Lamp Ball

Barb cleaned everything she could think of.  She even took down the doors of the laundry room and pulled out the washer and dryer to clean underneath.  She asked me to help her put the doors back up because it was very difficult for one person.  While we were putting the doors up, we hit the lamp ball in the hall.  It fell on the floor and we were relieved it didn’t break.  Then because it is round, it rolled on the floor into the hall and hit the bench and broke into pieces.

Real Estate Agents Visit

When a new house goes up for sale, the seller’s agent arranges a day for the other real estate agents to come to look at the house.  So the day was arranged.  Barb was playing in a pickleball tournament that day.  I had to get up earlier than usual and get the house ready.  Then I went out for a couple of hours. 

No agents showed up.  I guess they do everything over the internet these days and don’t go to the showing any more.

Facebook Advertising

Barb got the good idea to post the listing of our house on Facebook.  We were able to just put a link of the MLS listing on our home page and a picture of our house came up.

Barb Spying

We had our first Open House.  We had to leave the house for two hours.  So we decided to just go to our next door neighbour’s house.  Barb sat in the front room with our neighbour and spied on the Open House to see who was looking at our house.  She expected some of our nosy neighbours to come but they didn’t.  In fact, nobody came to the Open House.  She was very disappointed but she thanked our neighbour for the use of her house to spy.

Laura Wins Silver

Laura had traveled all the way from Vancouver to Halifax to compete in the Atlantic Canada pole competition.  She spent a month practicing her routines.  We were very happy when we saw on Facebook that she had won Silver in the Pro Category and Bronze the Doubles.  She also won the Best Tricks award.

Volleyball Friends

Barb hadn’t told her old volleyball friends she was moving.  She wanted to surprise them.  Unfortunately, our neighbour Julie Dustin met with Linda Becker and Jane Marie Obst and told them before Barb could tell them.

World Champions

I had spent the week watching the Fastball World Championships from Saskatoon on the internet.  Finally, Barb decided to watch the last few games with me.  She thought the Canadian pitcher was crazy the way he jumped off the rubber when he pitched.  It was very exciting to see Canada win the Gold Medal.  One of the Canadian players hit 3 home runs in the championship game.

Canada Dave

Barb and I went to Dave McAleer’s annual Canada Day Party with Barb’s old tennis friends.  Barb gave Dave the autographed Roger Federer cap that she won at the Phil LeBlanc Tournament a few years ago.

We were at the party for quite a while and Barb never told them that we were moving.  Finally, Debbie Pinder asked what the “really big news” was.  Barb asked her how she knew about it.  Debbie said she had met our neighbour at the grocery store recently.

Barrhaven is a hard place to keep a secret.