Thought Dump Thursday

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Right. It’s been a while since I’m cleared my head of a few things. Let’s begin, shall we?

  • I’m all for sending kids away to grandparents’ houses to give myself a bit of a break. But sometimes I think “Going to Grandma & Grandpa’s” can be seen as more of a reward for the kid than an actual break. For example, my kid isn’t listening, is being a complete crapweasel and is driving me insane. Now, as much as I’d love for someone to whisk her away for a couple hours while I gather my sanity, is that really teaching her that it’s okay not to listen? Usually, the rules, if not already greatly loosened, are thrown out the window, and even if you tell Grandma that your little darling is acting up, they only take that info with a grain of salt …
  • I am thankful for Facebook’s “Unfollow” option so I can sneakily remain Facebook “friends” with someone and lurk about their pages without having to read/see their posts. I can only see a shared post or meme so many times before I want to gouge my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon, ya know?
  • As much as Kyle and I are bummed that our offer got bumped for the house we wanted, we’re trying to find the good in staying where we are for now. Other than not having to show the house anymore (biggest pain in the behind with two kids and two dogs), we’re happy that we get to stay neighbours with one house as well.
  • Once upon a time, I went to school to get a business degree. I switched programs a semester in (after failing two business courses), but one thing I always remembered from my failed economics class is that TNSTAAFL, or “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” In other words, you gotta give something to get something. Quite recently I read about someone getting  a big-ticket item for “free” for selling X amount of products with a multi-level marketing company. I was pretty skeptical of it’s “freeness”, so I did some digging and yup – not “free” in the least. You gotta keep making a certain sales quota or the lease payment is coming out of your pocket. (Which is understandable, or else people would be making the bottom line to get their item and then bailing after they get it.) Anyway, my point is that I wish that there was more transparency in some of these MLM companies, because nothing in life is free.
  • For the first time in a loooooong time there is no campfire ban, and while it’s great that campers are able to roast hot dogs and marshmallows the old fashioned way while camping, I’m been hearing a lot of reports about campfires left BURNING UNATTENDED. *facepalm* Why must ignorant people ruin a good thing? Boo.
  • In light of all the bad luck that Kyle and I have had in the past month, we are amazingly grateful for the little bits of good that we’ve been graced with. We’ve had some great times with family and friends and it makes all the lameness seem a little bit better.

Where do you find the good when things aren’t going great?

Moving (On)

Posted in House Hunting, Life, Moving by

So you know how a little while back I mad mentioned that we had not only found a house but also had our offer accepted? Well, things have kind of gone down the crapper since then …

One of the subjects of our offer was that we had to sell our home before we could close the deal. We had about a month to do so, and we figured we wouldn’t have a problem selling since the market is hot in Kamloops. We listed the day after our offer was accepted and in the first week we had just over a dozen showings. In two weeks, we had about 20 showings but no offers. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not even 2nd lookers. Our hopes were dwindling, but we still had two more weeks to attract a buyer.

Then, we get word from our realtor that the owners of the house we “bought” received another offer but had not yet accepted it. We removed as many subjects as we could, but unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough to let our offer stand. The owners accepted the other deal, and we lost out. Again.

This isn’t the first time our offer on a house has been declined because of the “contingency” clause of selling our house first. There was another house that we fell in love with and even offered MORE than the asking price, but the seller was nervous about that clause and opted for a different offer.

It’s frustrating, to say the least. We’ve thought about just putting our place up for sale to rid ourselves of needing that contingency, but we don’t want to end up homeless, so to speak. What if we sell our place but there’s nothing out there that appeals to us? We don’t want to settle on a new house because we’re forced to move. Renting for a short period of time isn’t feasible with two big dogs and two kids, nor is staying with family. We have a set list of things we need/want in a house, so settling isn’t really an option.

For now, we’ve decided to stay put. We pulled our house off the market and will wait things out. No more aggressive house-hunting, no more offers, no more showings. Unless an absolute home run of a home comes up for sale, we’re tired of the search. It’s depressing and feels like a game we can’t win, at least not right now.

We’re not moving anymore, we’re just moving on.

What I’m Reading: After You

Posted in Book Review, Books, What I'm Reading by

25041504From Goodreads.com:
“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too. Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Just live well. Just live. Love, Will.”

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?

Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.

Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future…

For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.

My review:
Right after I finished Me Before You I just knew I had to read the sequel. More Louisa? Yes, please! Surely the sequel has to be as good as the first book, right? Wrong …

Unfortunately, After You fell short of my expectations. I found Lily’s character incredibly irritating, (“I hate my privileged lifestyle at home but refuse to do anything for myself! Feed me! House me! Bathe me!”) and while I’m not 100% sure why Lou put up with her, I’m sure it had something to do with the fact that she’s Will’s daughter. (Funny how we keep things around out of pure sentiment, like a sweater full of holes.) Lily didn’t help Lou in moving forward from Will’s passing, other than startling her off the roof which lead to Lou’s relationship with Ambulance Sam. In fact, I’m pretty sure Lily’s character could have been removed completely and I would have been okay with that; someone else could have found Lou on the roof and disappeared from the remainder of the book and everything would’ve worked out the same.

This book just screamed, “You can’t help those who can’t help themselves.” Lily didn’t want to do anything to better herself, Lou didn’t want to more forward with her life. Hell, the only person who seemed to be screaming “Carpe Diem” was Lou’s mom, and that was just a weird tangent of a storyline.

All that being said, I didn’t not like After You. It just wasn’t written to the same level as Me Before You. I still enjoyed Lou’s humour, but I just wanted a bit more from it. I’m giving After You 3.5 stars out of 5.