So the idea was that we’d get past the dark dreary glop of winter. Marsha would finish her stint at H&R Block. And then it would be a calm glide down to summer with a quick visit with a couple of friends in June and then our vacation in July. Lots of relaxing on the deck, and walks on the beach. All very restful.

Ain’t working out that way.

First winter has not really left. Oh it’s warmer but much like last spring, the rains just aren’t letting up. We get a day here or there but overall it’s been lots of damp, lots of rain, and not much opportunity to relax on the beach.

Then in preparation for the trip this summer we took the car in for service. How bad can an oil change be? Well, the oil change wasn’t too bad, but with the new tires, the alignment, other repairs, and such it set us back nearly a grand. On top of that our mechanic told us that “oh I got some bad news” (imagine him speaking with a fairly thick Romanian accent.) “The batteries in these cars, they wear out. You got, I’d guess, somethink like a year before they fail..poof. Then the car is junk because the replacements, they are like $12,000. You’d better start planning for that.” He went on to tell us about how great small diesels, like the Volkswagen or Mercedes models were, clean, great mileage and very reliable. This was very alarming. Alarming until we remembered something and checked into something else. First, we looked on the web. Our Prius has another two years on the drivetrain warranty so even if the batteries do fail we’re covered. Also Toyota is still saying that they have never had to replace a battery because it’s worn out. Even the ones in taxies last and last. We’re still getting ~50mpg highway and everything else is solid. Then we remembered something. He is a certified Mercedes mechanic. There’s nothing wrong with that, except he’s fairly often shown a strong preference for German cars. He seldom has anything good to say about small cars and especially Japanese cars. So after a moment of panic we got past that crisis. As Marsha said “Let’s just drive it until it falls apart then figure out what we’re gonna do.”

And speaking of the car, our insurance was up for renewal. We went in and as we’re talking to the person she asked us a few questions. Then she said that because our circumstances were different our premium would change. Then she got on the phone with the head office and they haggled back and forth in code for a while. (Ok it wasn’t really in code but so many insurance abbreviations, acronyms, and shorthand were flying back and forth we had no idea what they were talking about.)

We knew this was not a good sign.

Then she hung up the phone and announced the verdict. Our premium was going down by over a third and because we’d overpaid last year we’d be getting a check for a third of last years insurance premium in the next couple of weeks. You could have knocked us over with a feather. All hail ICBC, (the Insurance Company of British Columbia). As we walked out of the office the sun came out and birds started singing (all true). It was looking like the start of a good weekend.

And we need one. You see, for those of you that haven’t heard, we have the house on the market again. We found another place we love. This one is even better than the townhome we made a play for last fall. It all started as we were looking for a place for Barbara to move to. We came across a house for sale with a decent view, in Lantzville, within walking distance of the beach. We put down an offer but someone else got it. But then we saw a place a few doors down that had a BETTER yard, a BETTER view, a BETTER deck, and a BETTER price. They even had a telescope like mine set up on the deck. We put in an offer and they accepted it. The only condition on the contract is that we have to sell our current house. So, in the last week we’ve been painting and cleaning and packing and moving stuff to the garage. The rooms look fairly stark, but the house seems huge. The cats are nervous, both with the changes, and with our habit of grabbing them without warning and taking them on one or two hour road trips (they just don’t understand showings). They know something is up and they don’t like it. The thing is, when they’re stressed they shed so there’s more for us to clean, which freaks them out even further. The cycle goes around and around. This weekend we have two open houses scheduled so there’s no rest for us. We’ve also been meeting with the Credit Union to get the mortgage lined up, appraisals done, inspections done. If you’ve ever bought a house you know there’s more wood in the paper required than in the actual house.

So wish us luck.

Doug & Marsha

PIX: House pix, yes this will likely jinx the deal. Quality is not as good. I used the iPod rather than our big camera. Less obtrusive.

The view off of the deck. It was a cloudy day but you can see a bit of the view.


The natural stone fireplace


The front of the house