Yet another post for yoru reading pleasure.

Hey there.

So what’s changed over the past little while since my last blog…

We bought a car. A nice little 2003 Kia Rio for driving to and from work and driving around the city etc on weekends and stuff. She’s a nice little car. Gold in colour. No power steering, cd player, and I think that’s about as fancy as she gets.
So we then tried to insure her. Here’s where some problems began… Because I have been living in Australia for a few years, my license expired about 4 and something years ago. So I have to re-write the beginners test (passed easily on Friday). And then take the road test again. Which will be done in Yarmouth this coming Thursday. Note that I live in Halifax. Anyway though, The Wife and I are moving through this pretty quickly because it will cost us thousands of dollars (unfortunately I am being very literal) to insure us for the most basic of insurances for a year. However, with a valid NS driver’s licence, we get it for under $800.

Hmmm.. Ya it’s a no-brainer. So we are moving as fast as we can to get our NS driver’s licence.. And since the earliest I could get my licence here in Hfx is sometime in April, we are going to Yarmouth to do on Thursday. Much sooner.. And I am praying to God that we both pass.

How embarrassing would that be to fail!!! I have been driving since 1993!!! Oh ya, and when I passed the written test, I was offered a temporary NS license, and that it would be subject to the conditions of a beginner’s license… Like driving with someone who has had more than 2 years driving experience. I laughed and said no. I mean really, I have a valid International Driver’s license which entitles me to drive for a year as long as my Australia one is valid, and my Australian license is valid here anyway for a short period of time. Why would I opt in to getting a license which restricts me to driving with someone with over a decade less driving experience than myself.. Man it was hard not to laugh at that moment.

Even now I suppress.

And suppress some more.

Oops, there it goes… I lost it.

(UPDATE: since I am quick to write, but slow to post, I did the driving test, and passed with no problem whatsoever, so I have a valid NS driver’s license. The Wife was pretty nervous but she did well and passed with some pretty colours. So all is well in the world and you can sleep in peace.)

Going to look at some houses tomorrow too (Well last Tuesday, about a week ago). A few in Dartmouth, and a few in Timberlea. I am kind of leaning toward Timberlea at the moment as the house looks alright.. Especially after I give it some good lovin’. Paint and a few other bigger jobs. But I think that one of the main things I like about it is the price and the location as it will leave us with a very manageable mortgage, the street is full of owner occupied houses, it’s not too far from work, and the downstairs is laid out really well for Rebecca to do child care (babysitting; see previous post). I think that the only issue we are having is that the school is really big, and we don’t know what (or if) there is a demand for child care in the area. I imagine that there is, and I believe that The Wife will be able to get kids. Anyway though, my Parents are coming up tomorrow to have a look with us because we love the second opinions.

We even got my Dad to look at the car with me before we bought it… In fact, we even got them to pay for it for us!! So how’s that!!! Na.. we’re not that bad… I just couldn’t get money out of the bank on Saturday, so Dad gave me a loan which I paid back immediately with a lovely cheque…

A cheque which for some reason made my bank limit the amount I could pull out of a cash machine to $220, making it pretty hard for me to pay my student loan of $335 a month hard over the counter at the Royal Bank when they could only take cash from me. But that’s a different problem and pain in the bum.

So what else has changed…

We bought a house. Funny because it was one of the houses we looked at last Tuesday with Mom and Dad. And not the one we asked them to come up and see.. This is why we get the second opinions! Well we are in the process of getting it, but we have been approved for financing, and the house inspection was yesterday which turned out alright. We’re moving to Dartmouth, which I always kind of considered the New Jersey of Halifax. But now I think it’s alright. Kind of have to don’t I? But it’s a really nice house. We don’t have to do anything too major to fix it. Just some little tiny things for longevity purposes, and we may want to start thinking about fixing some of the windows. But besides that, the house is in great shape. Nice wood floors, nice paint on the walls, nice landscaped back yard, or at least it looked that way in the pictures!! It was still covered in snow! We picked this one because the mortgage is only a little bit more, but it’s finished, better demand for child care in Dartmouth than in Timberlea… And the amount of work required in Timberlea kind of cancelled out the when the Dartmouth house is finished… So Dartmouth, here we come. For your own info, our new home is kind of in the back-end of Dartmouth just before Cole Harbour. We checked out the school and it looks good, so we’re a happy family!

Works going good. I have some footing and I think that I kind of know what I am doing. Still hate the cubicle thing, and I am really starting to miss having internet access on my laptop while at work. I really need to check a few things right NOW but I can’t because all the internet accessable computers are busy. Apparently, there is some hold up with the stock from the suppliers supplier (ie Microsoft). I’m not too happy about this at the moment though.

I need things.

I have needs.

I need to do work now.