Jobs, daycares, homes and more

I have been pretty delinquent on the blogging lately, I know. I'm not sure what the excuse is, but there are many possibilities:
- since being in NB, I have to share the MacBook again (and Trev likes it very much!)
- until Saturday night when Randy fixed it, we couldn't get the wireless router to work, so we were tied to a specific spot on the couch to tie into the modem - and let's face it: kids don't let you sit there for long... :)
- my computer time has been more focused on looking at houses on mls, looking for jobs on several sites and watching kijiji like a hawk for a daycare for Nicholas

Anyway, a short update on what's going on at the Mason home.

We had a nice and busy Christmas. It was perfectly crazy. But come the 29th or somewhere around there, we were very happy to find ourselves alone - just the 4 of us - to have a bit of a quiet day. Great to see everyone and be with family as much as we were, but also nice to find ourselves on our own in our new home.

Trev has been back to work since Jan 2nd, so we're basically back to normal life. A lot of people ask us how it is to be here and we both answer basically the same way: it's pretty much the same as before! Our days are basically the same as if we were still in Brockville, but we're in a different house and Trev's in a different job. The rest is basically the same at this point. The weekends are a little different, I suppose, as we do see our family more, but basically it's the same routine for us. One thing I need to do a better job at is finding Christine some friends her age. Even at daycare, she seems to be prefering to spend time with adults vs. kids her age, so I really would like to find her some buddies to have her engage in play with kids her age. She really misses her friends (Nicole, Jacob, Katelyn, Samantha, Maya, Tash, to name a few).

So now that the house is officially sold, we have all kinds of money in the bank and have zero debt! Wow! Kind of nice! But I look forward to not being in this house, mainly to not have to hear people living underneath us. The house we're in is ok and I quite like the location - woods all around us, etc. But the family living below is always fighting and screaming at each other. When they're not doing that, the idiot is playing video games very very loudly or playing his stupid electric guitar. Lucky for us, they haven't been paying their rent and are being evicted (effective the 22nd). It may be a nice quiet place later this week - crossing my fingers. We haven't gone to visit any houses yet, but I'm starting to itch. I want to go see in person the houses we've been looking at online. There are a couple that may be right for us, and we may look at buying and doing some pretty major renovations (ie: new kitchen) before moving into it. We have until June 1st in here, so lots of time unless we do get into those renos, then I think we should be getting onto that planning! We'll see what happens there.

On the daycare front...Nicholas is still 17th on the list at the daycare we really want (where Christine is going), and there's no movement planned that they know of. Because of this, I had contacted someone out in the boonies that was opening a daycare in French. Unfortunately, I didn't call quite early enough...I had a spot there until June when another child was supposed to start, but the mother ended up deciding to take the spot as of now, so I lost my spot. So I now had to start looking for real. I wish I'd known earlier! Oh well...turns out daycare in Fredericton is pretty hard to get, so daycare providers are basically able to say "I have a spot open now, so I want to fill it now". Unless you're willing to start paying right away, the spots are easily filled. So I've interviewed 2 places and have 2 more to interview this week. The first place was horrible! I wanted to cry as I left, thinking of the poor kids who actually go there. And then I wanted to shower and scrub all the scum off me - I felt so dirty from being in such a gross and dingy place. Anyway, if that was the only place for Nicholas to go to daycare, we were going to go in debt as I would be staying home. Man that was horrible! The second place is pretty good. Close to here too so that was good. I still want to see what the options are so we'll visit the two places this week and make a decision at that point. Hopefully someone else won't have snatched the place I want before I get back to them again!

Christine is settling in fairly well at her daycare. She's not always eager to get there, but seems to have a great time when she is there. She's been coming home singing all kinds of new songs and is generally pretty happy. We had a few days of horrible behaviour, but I think she's back to normal now. Hopefully she'll make some good friends at daycare and maybe going every day (vs. every second day or so) when I start working will look like a more set routine and she'll more happily go and stay. We'll see. She's only been half-a-dozen times so far.

On the job front: who really knows what's going to happen there. I'm getting the run around from the consulting firm I'm supposed to start with regarding a start date. They're being more non-commital than ever and really pissing me off. They've also been doing a bit of song and dance around paying for the move (Trev hasn't gotten the money back yet) so not too impressed. Anyway, that has definitely given me more energy to find another job. I had an interview last week and should have a follow-up day of interviews this week or next for that. We'll see. I'm looking more broadly than I had been before, so if you know of anyone looking for someone in Fredericton (or area), let me know!! Based on that though, it looks like I'll be home 'til very close to Nicholas birthday! Not financially good, but I'm not complaining too much! :)

Nicholas is continuing to do quite well. He walks around holding on to whatever he can and really does get around quite a bit. He loves the bath (the excitement on his face when it's bath time is hilarious) and has discovered, much to my dismay, that there's also water in the toilet...so the lid is always closed and the door to the bathroom now has to be too! Frig. He's been pretty whiney lately, but not sure if it's teeth, his ears, or his wanting to be more independently mobile that's his problem. Hopefully a short phase. The male readers in the group will be happy to hear that more often then not, his right teste is back in the scrotum. Still need the other one taken down, but at least the one that was down before seems to be rectifying itself. No news yet on the operation - another reason I'm happy to not be working yet as I'll have to take several days to go to Ottawa for that when the time comes.

Well, I better get back to the job search. Hopefully I'll get around to writing a little more often so that they get back to 2-minutes vs a long winded novel. Until next time...