I know…it’s been a long time. I was going to write yesterday but I couldn’t. I mean I physically could have but I
had nothing nice to say. You see,
yesterday the Red Septic Light of Death came on. This is not your run of the mill yellow warning you will
soon be running out of septic space (no that light came on Saturday) this was
the red light, STOP! do not let another drop of water go down the drains. And to ensure that no water goes down
the drains the water is automatically shut off until the sewage is pumped. So you think well that sucks and I’m
sure some of you think oh well you’ll just have to wait a day or two to
shower. Except, because the yellow
warning light was on we hadn’t showered in a couple of days. I know someone suggested showering at
the school to save water, except neither school in town have showers, the gym
doesn’t have showers and although there is a pool in town and I suspect they
will have showers, it’s not open yet.
It was suppose to open September 22nd, I think they’re saying
next week…we’ll see. (We take a
lot of sponge baths here, readying ourselves for one day when we might be bed
ridden and it be the only way to clean).
Anyway we ended up going to someone else’s house for showers, a
perfectly acceptable thing to do in Salluit, we also took some of her tap water
so we could do some dishes. We
have drinking water on hand here but we didn’t want to waste it on
dishwashing. Anyway the septic
truck came this morning ( I could have kissed those guys for showing up to work
today, not everyone does all the time).
So I’m in a much better frame of mind to be writing today. Today I can talk about all the great
things about Salluit and our new (to us) house. And I believe I’ve promised some pictures of said
house.
So we moved from our apartment to a house across town. We liked the apartment because we liked
our building members and it was very close to school (30 ish steps) and we
lived on the top floor so we had a good view looking over the town towards the
mountains. But the apartment had
some drawbacks. It was small,
Reeds room was right beside…well everything. When he went to bed you had to be somewhat quiet. (He’s a pretty good sleeper, and
we just aren’t that quiet of people), but the doors didn’t block much sound and
so it was almost like you were right in his room. Also we lived upstairs so it was quite the sight watching me
try to take a baby, a stroller and groceries up the stairs. Plus the halls in the building were
narrow so if I had the stroller out, no one was getting by us. But it was home (for a while) and we
were pretty comfortable there.
Here is what it looked like
This first picture is our kitchen Reed was playing with the drawers beside the oven and fell, I took this picture about 1/2 after he fell over. He was quite happy to lay there and "chat". He did finally roll over, get up and walk away. He just needed a break from all that playing. As you can see, the kitchen was not that wide (not even two Reeds).
Here is the living room. We actually changed the furniture around so it made more sense, especially when the tv arrived. This was before all of our stuff arrived and it seems to be the only picture I have of the living room.
While taking the picture above and the picture below I was standing in the same place just pivoting to get both shots.
Now let me tell you why I love the house. It’s two stories, you might think this
would be a negative thing since toddlers like to climb (and fall down) stairs.
We have a baby gate, in fact I brought a baby gate and I just bought a baby
gate from Costco.ca, I love free shipping (but more about that another
day). So the stairs aren’t really
a problem. When it’s Reeds bedtime, he can sleep soundly upstairs, while we watch tv, listen to music, cook,
dance, talk whatever we are going to do until bed time. I’ll admit we don’t usually do a whole
lot of dancing…maybe we should start.
Tyler and Reed making towers with blocks. (This picture is mid move, hence the chaos).
This is the living room and our little thug. The dinning room and kitchen are on the other side of those stairs, I don't have a picture at this time.
I am taking this picture from the dinning room table, if you could see past the stairs you would be looking at the living room. This is Reed and his little friend Liam. Under the stairs is Reed's favourite place to play.
I was worried we would lose the view. But from the upstairs of this house we
have a better view, we can see the bay from our upstairs and the mountains that
surround it, which are actually pretty nice right now all covered with
snow. We also see ugly parts of
town from our upstairs but it’s amazing how quickly you can train your eyes not
to see that part. And it’s pretty
amazing what a little snow can cover up. (A future post will be pictures of the town).
When you come in our house there is a porch, a place to take off your snow covered boots, to hang your huge winter jacket, to store a stroller and big bulky winter gear. I have also found this room useful if Reed is napping when we get back from a walk. This room is separated from the rest of the house by a door so it’s quiet and dark in there with the lights off, perfect for napping.
Our new house is a little bit further from school than the
apartment was it’s about a 5 to 7 minute walk but we are much closer to the
stores. By stores I mean the two
stores in town, the Co-op and the Northern. Both stores have a little bit of everything. You can even buy a 10” compound miter
saw at the Co-op (I know because Tyler wants to buy it, we’re not going
to). They have everything but it’s
expensive. The Northern houses the
post office. When we moved here
the woman who went back south, left us her P.O. Box as well as her house. There haven’t been P.O.boxes available
in town for about 7 ish years now, so we’re pretty lucky to have made friends
with her before she left. She also
left us 20 or so pounds of frozen bananas (maybe more, there are a lot of
bananas here), so I make banana oatmeal chocolate chip muffins regularly. And she left us two sleds. She used them for carting groceries. I will use them for that and for carting a baby around town.
I will (someday) write a blog entry about food and groceries
but for now let’s stick to the house.
Speaking of food, the kitchen is much bigger here and there
is plenty more storage in the entire house. The furniture is in better shape and is much nicer here and
we have a huge kitchen table, we could actually have someone over for dinner
sometime.
The house is on a corner right on the outskirts of what is
called “downtown” Salluit, I kid you not.
Downtown Salluit is known to be loud and boisterous at night, particularly
after payday. We are in a louder
part of town than the apartment, but it could be worse, we could live right
“downtown”. Besides it’s getting
colder so soon the partiers and kids will have to move inside. I suspect it will quiet down as the
temperature drops.
Oh and it’s a 3 bedroom instead of 2. Which means we have a workout
room/office/sewing room/weaving room/spare room.
This one is Reed's room.
The spare room.
And I don't have a picture of our room at the moment but here is our huge walk in closet. (Sorry it's sideways but if I don't publish this entry now, I may never.) It's even bigger than that, there is more closet behind the door.
So if you’re in the area, I can give you a bed. I can’t guarantee a shower, but I can
give you a place to sleep with a great view.
