30 months!

Today marks our 30 month LIDiversary. Woo. Can you feel the excitement? :P

I added another charm to the bracelet, this time I chose it. I really liked this one (footprints) because Josh keeps saying that the house is too big and too quiet for us. He's waiting for the day that we can hear little feet sneaking down the stairs and getting into all sorts of mischief...

I also chose it because little one, even though we haven't met her, has left a strong imprint on our hearts...

















Since Josh and I are both plague-ridden, we decided to make a cake instead of going out and buying one. We're *that* sick. Sucks to be us.

For those of you who don't know why we have our monthly cake ritual, this is why.

We've been audited!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Josh and I are considering getting new windows in the house. The Ontario government has implemented a program, that if you do repairs to your house (to make it more efficient) they will kick in some money. Pretty nice, huh?

Granted, it's not a lot. To re-do the windows, the provincial government will kick in $30 and the federal government will kick in another $30. So yeah, that's $60 per window. Not great, but it's better than nothing. In order to qualify for the rebate, you have to have an energy audit done. We had this done this morning.

The guy arrived at 9:30 and, in order to run all his tests he had to leave our front door open and blow air in. Not exactly fun when it's cold outside and Josh and I both have the plague...but I digress.

The auditor told us that we have several leaks in the house and the hot air is just going *whoosh* through them. He told us that all but four of our windows are really good but they need caulking done. No big deal. We're going to have to get a new sliding door, two kitchen windows and the window done in "Little Maple's" room. At least that's better than we thought...we were originally looking at re-doing all the windows. Umm, I'll let you all know when I start pooping money. ;)

He also told us that we need little foam insert thingamabobs for all our light switches and electrical outlets...apparently they're very leaky. Who knew?

There are also a bunch of other things we *could* do, but I think we're going to work on the things we *need* to do first.

So, the audit cost $350+GST (Goods and Services Tax) and we'll get back $150 of that through the Province. We have 18 months to do the repairs, if we want...and then we have to pay this guy another $150 to make sure we qualify for the $60/window rebate.

It's neat that we found out all about this stuff, but realistically I'm not sure if it's really worth all the paperwork. In my opinion the rebates should be a bit more...

Oh, and by the way, we still haven't heard back from him.

Sleazy...

No, it isn't one of *those* kinds of posts...

Josh and I are looking into getting new windows for the house and we've had a few estimates already. We had one last week, one yesterday and one today. The guy who came today (and I won't mention their site or the company's name) I wouldn't trust to make a tuna sandwich, let alone sell us windows.

His entire sales pitch was lousy. He told us that they sell two kinds of sliding doors - one that's secure and one that is easily removable for burglars - seriously. He refused to measure some of our windows because he claimed that we don't need them. Umm, no, we actually do...otherwise why would we have him come in? I don't know if he was trying to be our buddy by not measuring them and therefore we'd think he was on 'our side'. Who's the customer and aren't we always right...?

The other two companies that came in each told us the same thing - that our windows aren't energy efficient. If you look at your windows, they should have the year they were manufactured on them. Josh thinks the the previous owners had their "Uncle Louie" put the windows in...and they were done really sloppily. We've got leaks and terrible condensation when it's really cold out.

He told us that the windows were about three years old, yet the other companies told us they were at least ten. Actually some of them are the originals. He also told us that if he replaces the kitchen windows (which are original), that he'd end up cracking our tile backsplash. Now is that a selling feature?!

The other companies said everything would be fine. I get the impression that this company is very sloppy in their installation and he's just covering his ass by saying that.

The weirdest thing is, when he was talking to us he didn't even ask us what kind of style, what kind of glass (double glaze, triple glaze), what it should be filled with (argon or krypton gas), and so on.

We've got two quotes already, and he said it would take him until the end of the week to calculate ours. One of the companies did the quote while he was sitting at the dining room table - it took less than half an hour to calculate and the other sent it the same day.

Oh well, live and learn. We'll still *look* at the quote for comedic value, but we're definitely not going with this particular company.

23 years

Now I'm not sure if any of you believe in this, but take a moment and read these links that I'm putting up...because I'm a little freaked out about it.

Last year I wrote this post all about signs and the significance that I put in them.

If you remember last May I wrote this post, this post and this post all about the bird's nest that I had in my tree. Check out the pics for some uber cuteness. :)

Well, I walked out of my house today and I found that some other birds had taken over the nest. They haven't laid eggs yet, but there were two of them in there. Wouldn't you know it...they're mourning doves. If I get the chance I'm going to take some pictures...assuming they come back again.

Today marks 23 years since my dad passed away...you are missed now and always.

Resurfacing...

A while back, before I had my blog redesigned, I changed the 'comments' thingamajig to something else. I know that Sen was the one that named it, but frankly I've forgotten what it was. So rather than try to figure it out, I decided to have a vote so to speak.

If you can think of anything more creative than 'comments', leave me, umm, a comment. :P

Does this make sense? It's almost 5:00am, I can't sleep and I'm sick...

Vote early, vote often...

*SPLAT*

That about sums up how I'm feeling lately.

The recent batch came out and it went from March 3 to March 6 2006 (for those of you who aren't knee-deep in the hoopla of the adoption process). Woo. What's that? Two days? Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy for everyone getting their referral in this, and every batch, but I just want it to be our turn already. It feels lately like our adoption is akin to "The Song That Never Ends"...it just keeps going and going and going. I really don't want to hear from people that "it happens at the right time", "you'll forget all about the wait, when..." etc., because you know what? It doesn't and we won't.

I'm not trying to play the 'pain game' and say that this wait is harder for us because...The truth is, it's difficult for everyone for their own reasons.

The next batch, if the predictions are correct, will probably only be another day (or possibly two). Yes, I know, some great people are going to be getting their referrals next and I *am* happy for them, but you know what? I want to be happy for US.

We're going to hit our 30 month LIDiversary next Friday. 30 months of waiting. 30 months of wondering. 30 months of what? We probably have another 30 to go before we get our referral (if we're lucky). Who knows?

We.didn't.sign.up.for.this.at.all.

I think I've lost my optimism about this adoption for now. I try to put on a happy face about it, but there are some days, I just don't think it's going to happen, and today is one of those days. I'll probably feel better in a few days, but right now I'm feeling lousy and I'm choosing to wade in the waters of discontent.

Hell, I'm soaking in it.

PIPO has PIPA!

I know I'm late in announcing this. I've been out all day but I ran to my computer as soon as we walked through the door this evening, so I could see little PIPA in her momma's arms. I can't tell you how excited I am for them!

Josh and I decided to go out for the day...we ended up in Paris and London. Well, let me backtrack a bit.

When we woke up this morning Josh was going a bit stir crazy, and he wanted to go out somewhere. We decided to go to Paris and visit the Mary Maxim store. We walked around for a while and then decided to get something to eat. While we were at lunch, I decided to give my "sister" M a call, and we went out to London for a visit. We had a ball together, as we always do. Hopefully she's coming to town next weekend. WOO!