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Update (pre-Diaryland) Life is Good

2002-07-12 - 3:08 p.m.

It�s summertime and the livin� is easy.

Well, maybe not �easy� - there are still things that come up with the house and selling it is still the Sword of Damocles over my head, and I�m still leading a pretty busy life but, man, I sure do like summer. Of course, Ottawa in the winter is no picnic and it all balances out as I spend the winters bemoaning the cold, but it seems that every summer all those long cold nights are forgiven and I fall in love with this city all over again. It�s a fabulous place to walk and bike, I know where to go for the best gelato on a warm evening, which restaurants are best for which sort of cuisine, where to perch and write and people watch, where you won�t get bothered lazing on a blanket in the sun reading, and I actually like the fact that it�s a fit, yuppie-ish place.

So, enough of this idle chit-chat you say, what�s the latest?

My house is at the beginning of the drywall stage and it looks fabulous. The stucco is flying on now that we�ve got dry weather that isn�t stinkin� hot. It�s gratifying to see it go up and look pretty much as I�d envisioned it at the design stage. There have now been a few people to see it (having stairs in really helps) and there seems to be quite a bit of interest. My real estate agent says she�s had requests for further info from about 50 other agents and she gets about 10 to 20 phone calls and emails a day. One woman who saw it last weekend is coming back to see it again. Cross your fingers for me.

I had a bit of a problem with the neighbour that opposed my minor variances this week. Since he�s out of the country and has rented the property out, I sought, and got, permission from the tenants to erect a scaffolding along his side of the building so that the stucco could be put on fairly quickly (the alternative was to hang something off the side of the house for the stucco guys to stand on but that would have been more expensive and taken longer). In return I arranged for temporary on-street parking permits with the city for them. As I understood, and still understand it, the land owner is concerned with things like damage to his property but it is the tenant on a property that has the right to give or deny access to it. Anyway, the neighbour�s mother-in-law, who I met at the hearing and, as it turns out, is doing the dealing with the tenants for her daughter and son-in-law, called me up with all sorts of threats and complaints about the scaffolding. Fortunately it was on the last full day of work on that side and the scaffolding was due to come down the next day anyway. I may have been in the right and done my due diligence but it was an unpleasant encounter and a bad way to start Monday morning and I�m glad she didn�t call the week before. Oh and to top off that bad Monday, J and I were rear-ended in a minor fender bender Monday evening and ended up with very minor whiplash and $600 worth of damage to his rear fender. He missed hockey and I missed the gym as a result. Still, it could have been far, far worse.

I�m really liking my new job. Busy, good co-workers, supportive management, a decent budget, interesting issues that my group deals with, and some travel! I went to Quebec City in my second week on the job and will be going to the Maritimes and just possibly Texas in October.

I�m doing an instructors� certification course all this weekend for the weight-lifting class I�ve been taking for the last couple of years. It�s an endurance-based, choreographed, body-sculpting and toning class. So in other words it�s all about low weights, high repetition. It�s a certification that�s good world-wide since this class was created by a company in New Zealand (called Les Mills International) and has spread to all corners of the globe. They have a group of classes in fact, called Body Training Systems. I suspect I will be very sore come Monday since the class runs from 7:30 am to 5:00 pm both Saturday and Sunday. Who would have thought when I was a chunky kid and then a non-chunky but sports-hating teenager that I�d one day be a fitness instructor? Certainly not me.

When I move into the new place at the beginning of September, J will be moving in with me. It started with the fact that the house he lives in got sold and his lease is terminating at the end of August as a result so he�d be homeless as of September 1st. And for my part, I�d be home-full. So� since we spend a lot of our time together anyway and regularly inflict each other on our roommates� and since NOT moving in together would mean him signing a one-year lease elsewhere� well, it just made sense. And now that we�ve had a bit of time to get used to the idea - oh, and tell our parents (not, I suppose at our age we should be worried about that) - we�re really excited at the prospect.

I think that�s all for now. I�d love to hear what people are up to so drop me a line.

Hope this email finds you well and happy,

Shawna

P.S. I assure you, I will send out an email practically the instant the house is sold.

Before - After


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