rolling through, libraries, bikes, and more

Loan application tasks, dental cleanings, weeding belongings, etc... Abigail and I are in checklist mode. Lucky for me, Abigail is a mastermind at planning and writes everything down in transition notebook. Today I will start a 'leaving McGill' and 'transition planning for Baylor.' For Baylor, I am going to try to do it via Microsoft OneNote. Actually i already have this notebook created, it's just empty.  Baylor has the full Microsoft suite of tools available. I am already using Teams with a few new colleagues. Returning from our trip, I am aware of the expectation for both leading and collaborating when I arrive. It's within that framework that I need to plan.   My morning stops at Second Cup are becoming essential.  My saying 'je voudrais un petit café ici' felt special. Here, I take the time to just breathe, sip a little café.  Sitting here, I am fully aware of the blessings that God has provided in coming to Montreal and the promise of more good to

The weekend before going to Waco, we made an offer on a home.   After a few counter offers, we accepted the seller’s last offer.   The timing was perfect in that we arrived on a Thursday and saw the house for the first time.   I could tell that Abigail was relieved finally seeing the home in person.   The home inspection was Friday and detailed a number of major issues.   Abigail was there for the inspections, which would not have been the case if we saved the house hunting for our trip. We asked that the seller address the roof, electrical, and HVAC deficiencies, which they accepted.   Abigail is hard-core was clear that we would pull out of the deal if they were not going to address the roof and electric.   Saturday, Cornelius, Amber, and little Neil came down to stay the night.   We all went to our first Baylor athletic event, the Lady Bears (basketball) won the game as well and the Big 12title.   They are ranked number 2 in the US.   After breakfast, Cristy Nicols, our fantastic

We made another step toward getting a home in Waco.  Even though we have our house hunting trip scheduled for the 27th, we made an offer on our favorite house yesterday.  The stock of homes in our preferred price point is small.  Our list of possible home was around 16 with some of them already going to pending, we starting to get concerned our top choice might not be available for our visit.  The realtor we are working with, Cristy, has been excellent.  Earlier in the week, she facetimed with Abigail, going through the home.  Next Abigail was going to have Neil and Amber go down Sunday, facetime with them as they went through the home.  Yesterday morning, we decided that we didn't need Neil to go and Cristy did another facetime walkthough.  Friday night, we did the electronic signature program sign/initial the offer documents.  Now it's a waiting game.  We will still need to visit other homes on the top of our list in case the negotiations don't work out as we do have a ha

I'm glad the weekend is over. Much of our time was spent together on www.realtor.com reviewing possible homes in Waco and the surrounding area.   At some point the top 15-16 start blending together. Currently there are top choices in McGregor, Woodway, neighborhood of Mountainview, and China Springs. Regardless of where the home will be, it will be a drive everywhere lifestyle, dictating we go back to a two car household. It's hard because some of the hinges we like are in isolated 15-20 new home developments which lack the visual feeling of community. One more weekend of reviewing on Realtor.com then we are off to Waco for the real house hunting with the goal of making an offer before we leave with at least two homes as backups in case the first doesn't work out.

Back in October, I rolled my foot at home and snapped the 5th metatarsal.  I spent 2 weeks on crutches, the 7 more in a boot.  While in the boot, I went back to lifting instead of swimming biking and running.  After the boot came off, I began rehabbing the foot with cycling on trainer at home.  In the last 4 weeks I have been slowly adding walk running to workouts.  The foot itself is getting stronger, but it in no way done healing. It's simply been a tough week.  I came down with a cold Sunday evening, the day my wife returned home from a week away.  Meetings at work and an evening French Class final exam, meant I had to suck it up.  Then I spend two days on the couch with body aches that accompanied this knock me on my ass bug.  Yesterday, my first day back to work was full of meetings and I still felt a little off still on DayQuil (4th day in a row). Mid-morning it looked liked I had enough time to get in my noon recess but I my head wasn't into going to the Y.  Digging