Puss in ... pumpkin?

Well, I caved, I didn't intend to do much towards the whole business of halloween but today I succombed to pleading from my children and bought a pumpkin.  And as I have nothing else to do, I mean it's not like I've got the removal company coming in tomorrow to pack me up is it?

Anyway, here it is in all it's glory.  So far our "trick or treaters" have been mightily impressed which makes me feel that the effort was worth it, LOL!

Happy Halloween

I know, I know, this is not usually a festivity I celebrate, but when in Rome...

It really isn't that big a "deal" here though, you know.  In fact, our church yesterday threw a Halloween party, partly so the children could have some fun and partly as an outreach to the rest of our community.  The children had so much fun, and me?  I got a great photo opportunity!  Here are my angels before they went off to the party: (there are more photos in the appropriate photo album)

Happy Birthday Hubby

Yesterday was Richard's birthday and because we are up to our eyes with preparations for the move back we didn't really plan on doing anything special.  We did go out for supper with the children though, to Montana's, a favourite of ours.  The girls were especially excited as they know what happens to people who celebrate their birthdays at Montana's - this:

Of course like father, like son:

And here is my man and his children:

Happy birthday, darling!

A good sign?

On early mornings and lack of sleep

Well it's just about 6am and since about 4:50am Richard and I have both been awake.  Both just lying in bed, ignoring each other, trying to get back to sleep, you know the routine.  Eventually at about 5:30am I spoke, stating the obvious, "I can't sleep" to which he replied "me neither!".  We then had one of those lovely chats that you can only have at that time in the morning when it's cold and dark outside and you're snuggled up in bed feeling like you are the only 2 people awake.

The reasons why we aren't sleeping are fairly obvious but to top it off Noah is having real problems sleeping through at the moment.  Today also we reach our final hurdle in the continuing saga of selling our house.  There are 2 things that we have to do to complete our side of the contractual bargain.  First was to have a UV filter fitted, which was duly done on Tuesday.  This basically filters all of the water coming in to the house from our well and sterilizes it, at a whopping 14 gallons a minute, can you believe that?  Apparently if you turn your hose pipe on and run it at full blast it will only pump out water at a rate of 6 gallons a minute.

The final thing we need to do is take yet another water sample and have it tested and provide a certificate showing it has a clean bill of health, ie. there are no longer any bacteria present.  Now, the filter should more than do it's job as the amount of bacteria present are minimal but.... if I've learnt anything in the last few weeks it's to expect the unexpected.  The nice water guy came yesterday and took the sample and we should hear later today whether it's passed it's test.

I don't do early mornings and am a person who needs her minimum of 8 hours sleep but it's so hard to find at the moment.  You just lay in bed thinking about the million and one things that need to be done.  So, here we are, sitting at our his and her computers.  Me updating my blog, answering emails, him, typing up a list of electricals and other stuff we need to sell as we can't bring it back.  Just 15 more sleeps...

All systems go

I know, I've been a bad, bad blogger but life in our household has been extremely trying the last few weeks and by Monday of this week it was touch and go whether the sale of house would proceed.

But the great news is it will and because of canadian home purchase laws the contract is now full and binding and we will be closing on 4th November.  We are all so excited.  I won't go in to details of our well water woes (also known as 'www') partly because it's very convoluted but mainly because I'm just sick and tired of talking about it!

The scary thing is that it has taken so long to get to this point and has been touch and go for quite alot of that time that we haven't felt inclined to start to get anything organised.  We are therefore now faced with having to do a lot in a short space of time.  Oh well, it will be worth the extra bit of stress in the long run and soon we will be back where we belong and can get on with living our lives.

And I've already booked myself in for my first return to the UK crop at PaperArts  on Saturday 12th November!  I'll have nothing to scrap with but I think I might have come up with a solution for that little problem.

That's all for now folks but I should hopefully be back on track now and updating a little more frequently that is until my pc is taken away from me, probably more like ripped from my hands, and wrapped and packed.

Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink!

I have a headache.  I need to take a headache tablet, but I can't.  The problem is, though I have a well full of water, running water in my house, two baths full of water, until I get to the store to buy bottled water, I can't fill a glass and take my tablets.

Why is this I hear you ask?  To cut a long story short our buyers have now had 2 water sampling tests done and there are apparently bacteria present.  Now I say apparently, not because I think their tests are wrong, but that it is extremely easy for the sample to be contaminated at the time of it being taken by the person taking it, in this case their realtor.  Now we are not unfamiliar with this.  When we were buying this house last year we had a water sample test done and it came back with a result of coliforms (bacteria) present at a rate of 4 mpn/100mL (don't ask me what it means but it was fairly low and we were told at the time that it could be a sampling protocol or a lab problem.  We retested and the results came back even lower, 1 mpn/100mL.  At the time we weren't overly worried, our mortgage wasn't in question (any  coliform result can mean that mortgage will not be granted) so we decided to go ahead with the purchase and just keep an eye on things.

We then retested the water again in April in advance of our putting it on the market, thinking that if there was going to be any problems then we would rectify it before putting it on the market.  The results?  Absolutely clear, coliforms, absent.  No worries we think.  Everything's fine we think.  Never, ever be relaxed about anything is my new motto.

The frustrating thing is that the water tests they requested and carried out don't actually tell you how low or high the coliform count is.  The results just say 'present'.  I mean what help is this?  Is this a similar problem to last year or a really major problem?  There is quite clearly nothing drastically wrong with our water.  We've been drinking it now for over a year and can honestly say we have not been ill, and believe me if there were massive coliforms present in the water, we would be ill.

So, no it's 'shock' the well time, which means that it has to be heavily chlorinated, left to 'stew' for 12-12 hours before we start the long process of syphoning off the chlorinated water and letting the well refill again and eventually, hopefully, flushing all the chlorine out.  How long does this take?  We are having the water guy back out on Tuesday to test whether the chlorine is out of the system and take a new water sample to be sent off for testing. 

From what I can gather until the water is out of the system we can't use it, at all, not a tap, not a toilet flush, no laundry, nothing.  I mean it could upset the good bacteria in the septic tank, couldn't it?

Now that would be the biggest irony after all this wouldn't it?  We flush the well but the bacteria are still there but in the process we accidentally syphon it off in to the septic tank and it kills all the bacteria which are needed there!

My last page?

It's getting closer.  Closer to that sad time when I must pack up my scrapbooking stash in preparation of the next big move.  Not to be seen again for what will this time be quite a long time I feel.

So, last night I sat down and did a LO.  It was a fairly quick and simple one but I'm pleased with it.  It's a photograph of all the children taken outside the Maritime Museum in Bermuda.  All of the Bermuda photos hold such great memories for me, I really loved this holiday and we all had such a lovely time.  Not something I thought I'd say after spending a holiday basically all by myself with just the children.  But no, it was truly lovely, relaxing and just, well, just plain great!

So will this be my last page in Canada?  Or will I be able to fit in another one or two to three before the dreaded day comes when I have to pack it all up?  I say me because I don't trust those big burly packers anyway near my BasicGrey, KI, Urban Lily, actually why don't I just say, they aren't getting their big paws anywhere near my paper or cardstock.  Can you imagine how they'd pack it?  LOL!