So our little man has been growing like crazy. He's so much quicker than Logan was at her age, not to compare because every child is different. I only say that because I'm used to a different pace of development and he shocks me everytime. We took out this gumball machine at the toy library this week for Fox, it's the same one my mom bought for Logan's 1st birthday and it took Logan a while to get the hang of it at 12 months...but Fox has figured it out so quickly. Here's a video of him playing with it (he's 8 months by the way).
Other than that, an interesting thing happened to me last night. I've taken up jogging and I've always said I hate running on treadmills and on Toronto streets and people always thought that was an excuse! Well it wasn't because I am absolutely loving running on an Ocean beach, it's beautiful and since I am overweight right now, the sand is very forgiving to my knees! Anyways I basically run down the beach and then back. As I'm running down the beach, I see a group of people with quite a few dogs. I think to myself this must be some type of dog group. I get closer to the dogs and find it strange that all these people are holding on to their dogs. They all start barking at me which I find odd. I run very close to the water because I have fun when a big wave comes and I have to dodge it. So I am running at water's edge and there's a large piece of driftwood/tree stump. I am kinda not paying attention because of the barking dogs right there and I almost step on the wood and then trip over my own feet and keep running. It wasn't until I was on my way back up the beach that I realize that this large piece of driftwood is actually a seal! I very very large seal! I was about 1 foot away from it and had almost stepped on it! I couldn't believe it! I felt very dumb that I hadn't even noticed it on the way there and hadn't put 2 and 2 together with all the barking dogs. Well I guess I can sum it all up by saying That's New Zealand! It does make me nervous though when the water opens and I can go surfing. Seals aren't exactly friendly, but I think that seals aren't normally on this beach and it was a one-off.
So my 30 years behind segment. We sat down with our neighbours for a cuppa the other day and she was born in Toronto and grew up in Scotland but went to McMaster for Uni. We had a good rant about New Zealand housing and how behind the times they are. Apparently they said things are changing and there are some new requirements for new houses being built. What is wrong with the housing you ask? Hmm well let's just ask what is central heating? They wouldn't know what you were talking about in NZ. Most houses have paper thin walls with no insulation. Remember here you don't have basements so the houses are built on very small foundations which is why when the earthquakes happen you see some houses that have basically been picked up and turned 45 degrees and dropped back down...because the foundation was all of like 1 foot? So most of these houses don't have floor insulation either or ceiling insulation. That is problem number 1.
Problem number 2 is the terrible heating solutions that they've come up with here. Well it's more like what heating solution? I've seen fire places but haven't really seen one's that pump the heat to the other rooms and without any insulation, you'd have to have the fire going 24/7. Then there's portable heaters (oil, halogen, fan etc). Those aren't really a great solution with kids because they touch it and get burned, and also they don't really produce heat to a large area. Then there's my favourite heating non-solution: heat pumps. Basically all a heat pump is is an in-wall heater (some are external that are mounted to the wall) that blows heat with a thermostat. They don't really work well because 1. The thermostat isn't accurate because it's reading the temperature of the room right where the heater is and 2. 1 little heatpump is not going to heat your whole house let alone even the room it's in 3. Apparently heatpumps are incredibly inefficient which leads to crazy power bills especially if you have an uninsulated house. I've read on forums that people building houses here who come from other countries ask them to put in central heating and the tradesmen don't even know what that is. People get by ok in Christchurch or northern cities but what about down in Invercargill? I can't imagine how cold houses down there get!
Problem number 3 is that windows and doors are not made to insulate. Most aren't double glazed and I always see huge gaps in doors and windows here that people can't be bothered to change. I keep seeing these thermal insulating curtains advertised and I just keep thinking "OR you could just put in proper windows". What good does an insulating curtain do when you open it and all the cold air just comes through the window? Although speaking to one NZ couple a few months ago, it seems it is still very very expensive to make the switch to good windows and doors.
So basically our solution to this problem? We almost never use our fancy heat pump (realtors make such a big deal if a house has a heat pump) because it's in the living room and we're really only in the living room during the day and the cold is tolerable with a sweater and slippers. At night however it gets really really cold (It can go to below 0 degrees). Please think about that in Toronto when it is 0 in November or December and imagine that with no insulation or proper heating...COLD, if the power goes out, people could die! We have a portable heater in the kids room and shut the door at night. I hate having a portable heater because it just freaks me out because it's such a fire hazard especially when you have aftershocks knocking it over. We don't have a choice though, it just gets way too cold in there without it. The heat pump won't reach the bedrooms so it just stays off at night. We close our bedroom doors and we had a heater as well. We found an electric mattress pad though on sale for $39 and bought it for bed and I have to say it was the best investment ever! Andrew just rolls his eyes because I talk about it so much, but finally I am actually warm at night! Our rooms stays an ok temperature as long as the doors stay closed and sometimes on really cold nights we have the mattress pad on and the heater on. We have 2 duvets equalling 700gsm of wool in our comforter. So it just shows you how cold it can get here. Luckily I am pretty sure our walls have insulation as well as we're a middle unit so insulated by the other units beside us. I can't imagine how cold it would be in an uninsulated place. brrr!
Anyways that is it for my post! My last and final thing is a prayer request. I explained in a previous post about the difficulty in Andrew finding a job. He's had a couple leads and a couple interviews. Please pray that one of these pans out. One job is working from home again and this time wouldn't violate his visa conditions. It sounds like a great opportunity for us so please pray it works out!
Also for those who don't know about my photo blog...I have started updating it again. Click here to see it!
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