Hurricane Watch

Posted on August 4, 2008 by steve

It’s that time of year again when, driven by the warming Atlantic and Caribbean waters, the frequency and intensity of Atlantic Hurricanes is increasing. Hurricanes usually begin as low pressure troughs off the west coat of Africa and head west at a leisurely pace. Most of these low pressure troughs fizzle out but some build into fearsome storms. Dignity is in the shooting range so the hope is that she will be missed as she was last year. I keep my eyes on the NOAA website with morbid curiosity.  CatCo have a storm plan and Nanny Cay is pretty safe.  Nevertheless, being passed by by all the seasons storms would be the best outcome.

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Moving in

Posted on August 2, 2008 by steve

Today was Sam’s moving in day. We filled the van with furniture and his electric piano and set off for New Brunswick. He was supposed to have emailed us his address and meet us at 11:30am but we received no message nor answer on his phone when we called. We decided to go to where Ben was staying and found them both fast asleep having been out the night (morning) before. Sam’s place is only a mile away from Ben’s which is great as this will allow Ben to keep and eye on Sam. Ben fled the nest 3 years ago so is somewhat independent – at least as far as a 20 year old male can be.

When we saw the place Sam chose we were quite surprised. His room is a converted attic. Not too many places you can stand up in but the floor area is huge. We put the van load of furniture plus another van load of stuff from Ben’s basement and the place still looked big. Even with all that in there and his bed laid out he has more space than Ben has in his entire room. I suspect Ben will be spending a lot of time round Sam’s.

This has worked out very well. Sam has a great place where he can hopefully settle into his studies. He has his brother nearby for support and (again hopefully) positive influence. He’s been given an old computer onto which we’ve set up Skype with a camera. That way we can stay in touch when we’re apart. Need to do the same with Ben. We’re quite relieved he has a place that suits him so well.

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Sam has a home

Posted on July 31, 2008 by steve

Got another call from Sam today. After yesterday I wondered if it would be more bad news. Turned out he was quite excited by the fact he had found somewhere he felt acceptable and had a possibility of getting. He had a few questions to ask me to help him decide on the place which he eventually did. Long and the short of it is he’ll have his own place to stay as of tomorrow – August 1st. Another round of furniture/stuff moving therefore looms this coming weekend.

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Another detail to attend to

Posted on July 30, 2008 by steve

I got a phone call from Sam this afternoon.  He had been rear ended while waiting for a gap in traffic at a junction.  The main news was that he and his passengers are ok.  The rear of his car is all smashed in and he can’t open the boot/trunk.  Fortunately all the lights work so he can still drive the car.  So now we’ve got another track to follow.  Timing is a bit tight as we need to wait five days for the police report before we can engage our insurance company to open up a claim with the other drivers insurance company.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that the other driver, who appeared not to speak a word of English, was in fact insured.

In the meantime, to keep our readers as entertained as we are, here are a few pics I took with my phone when I saw the car a little later.

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5 days on

Posted on July 30, 2008 by steve

It’s now 5 days since we sold and left our home.  The strange thing is that none of us so far miss it.  I certainly believed that at some point some form of separation would be felt by now.

Looking back, the exit started a long time ago.  Putting the house on the market in some ways marked the time it ceased to become our home.  Right from that point we were geared to sell and move out.  Upon engaging the realtors, the first two weeks the effort was aimed at staging the house making it as appealing to sell as possible.  This include depersonalizing the home – the removal of photos from walls, etc.  The idea being that you want viewers to be able to visualize the home as theirs and not feel a visitor.  Once we had a buyer, the effort was non stop sorting out all the issues and selling the contents.

So perhaps we didn’t leave 5 days ago, maybe it was in March when we started our prep.  And maybe that’s why we feel the way we do.

In exactly two weeks I will be jobless as well as homeless – like Helen.  That hasn’t sunk in yet either.  It all seems a bit surreal.

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