March Madness

Well its only the first of the month but I can already see that March is shaping up to be a crazy busy month.  But its a good crazy!  I'm feeling MUCH more optimistic about everything struggle-bus related :-D  Life is moving forward again.  I will be off that bus very soon ... Insha'Allah!

I am an SCO
The biggest leap forward was landing and starting a new job in mid February as a Safety Codes Officer.  The job search was really crushing my soul (and my savings!) but I put it out to the Universe exactly what I wanted, a check list of criteria and this job checks off almost all the boxes.  I've had 2 weeks of really excellent training and I got good feedback from my colleague/trainer and my new boss.  And last Friday was payday (yipee!)  Starting on Monday they are sending me out into the world (or at least the south-east corner of the province) with a truck, a cell phone and a list of inspections ... but in reality, I was already doing my own inspections last week so it won't be a big jump to this next level and having seen how the job really works, I am feeling much more confident in my own knowledge and skills.  I will be fine on my own and I think I will really like it.

Funny story (in a peculiar kind of way): My colleague/trainer and I were toodling down a secondary highway south of Lethbridge when we noticed a mobile home on a farm that appeared to be on fire (the big black billow of smoke coming from the roof was a clue.)  We decided we better check to make sure everyone was OK so we pulled off the highway to investigate.  While my colleague went to check on the people, I called 9-1-1.

911: What's your emergency?
Me: I'm calling about a house on fire!
911: Where are you located?
Me: We are 1km south of Standoff and about half a km off the highway.
911: (pause) That's not a fire.
Me: (standing 40 feet from the mobile home with massive flames shooting out all the doors and windows and thick black smoke billowing from the roof) Umm, no, clearly its A FIRE!!!!!

The dispatcher insisted several more times that it was "not a fire" and when my colleague returned from speaking with the fire chief (who was on site), he explained that the "storage shed" was intentionally lit to get rid of it.  So it was not an emergency ... but it was definitely a fire!

And for those few minutes that I thought someone's home and entire life were burning to the ground, possibly including the people themselves, it was a horrible sight!

Home Sweet Acreage Home
I will be moving to my acreage this summer.  I found a solid, reasonably priced, used double-wide trailer on Kijiji, I put a deposit on it and booked the moving company.  There are still a lot of little details to work out such as approval from the County on the location, logistics of getting the trailer onto my place, utility hook-ups, etc ... no doubt there will be other hiccups along the way (there always are!)  And paying for everything will be a stretch; what started out as an affordable solution to some of my problems quickly moved into "not as affordable" territory once all the bits and bobs and real prices were factored in.  But in spite of all the challenges, it is still the right thing for me long term both financially and personally. 

Good-bye Old Home
And as part of the "paying for everything" quandary noted above, I am putting my house in town on the market.  I had the realtor come by and give me a rough idea of what it's worth right now and I was a teensy bit disappointed.  But it is what it is and its better to make budgets and decisions based on realistic numbers rather than wishful thinking.  So the cleaning, purging, moving, sprucing up has been cranked into high gear.  As well, this realtor provides the services of a "staging consultant" as part of her fee (finally a realtor who offers VALUE for her fee!) so I will definitely take advantage of that!  This is a small house that might only appeal to a small-ish segment of the market but it has 'cute' going for it so a staging expert can only help to maximize that.

Farrier's Report
The farrier came out yesterday and I came to realize that my guys are not so behaved these days and pretty buddy sour.  Cruz was a little bit kicky with the farrier and was quite distressed when it came to be Cash's turn and Cash was out of his sight.  That in turn made Cash antsy dancey whereas he's usually very polite when getting his feet done.  It didn't help that a mini-blizzard was blowing through when we were working on them.  And what I thought was Cruz's quirky, playful personality coming out is more likely a bratty, pushy attitude due to lack of having a job to do.  Unfortunately I haven't had very much time for them and the weather has either been too cold to be out there for long or too warm and muddy to work with them.  And unfortunately my lack of time is not likely to get any better for the next little while.  But I need to devote at least a little bit of time and energy to them and once I get settled out there, I will focus on them much more consistently.  The good news to come out of that appointment is that the farrier is really happy with how Cruz's back feet have improved.  There is still some work to do on his front hoof cracks and again, that is my fault for not paying more attention to him.

Its Not Over Until Its Over
My ladies volleyball league is now into playoffs, single knock-out format and last week we won.  Unfortunately.  Which means I will be subjected to at least one more week of  torturous "hack ball".  I know, first world problems.