Well, today was yet another day full of learning experiences, and a sore ear after holding the phone to it for nearly an hour! We figured it'd be good of us to inform all you out there who are building, of a few little technicalities that (thank goodness we thought about them when we did) really need to be done early in the process! The wonderful task of calling all the electrical, gas, phone, etc. companies and updating your address with them. I had a class from 9-11 this morning, and was kinda hoping to come home and have a little nap before returning for my second class of the day at 5pm, but instead, Jason and I spent the majority of the afternoon on the phone with companies like Enmax, Telus, Shaw and ATCO Gas. Of course, our scenario was even more exciting as we had to add my name to all the accounts.

Since we were married, we've slowly been changing all my cards, accounts, etc. to have my new last name on them, and this was yet another step in the right direction! Enmax was great, but needed Jason's permission to have me added to the account, ATCO was really great too. With the condo we're in now, part of the condo fees we pay include our gas & water bills, so we've never actually seen a statement from ATCO. Well, instead of telling me to jump through dozens of hoops, the kind lady at the call centre for ATCO simply opened a new account for us, took down our new address, and proceeded to fill me in as to what kind of service they provide, what we should expect to start seeing on our bills, and other assorted tidbits of information! Telus took a while, as for some reason, the street we're moving onto isn't in Telus' directory yet! Strange though it may seem, as there are people who have already moved in to their homes on our street. Anyway, the gentleman I spoke with was very gracious, and sought out the listing elsewhere, and proceeded to update our information, and we added a second line so that we can dedicate our current number to Jason's business. The most frustrating part in all of this, however, is the fact that because we waited until two weeks till our possession, Telus is so booked we can't get our lines installed until Feb. 8th. As you know, our possession is January 31st! We're postponing the move to the 1st and 2nd for school and availability reasons, but still - a week without phones! CRAZY! Thank goodness for cell phones, I guess!

Shaw was really easy too. Jason bought me a DELL computer for Christmas, and with it came 3 months of free Shaw service, so we arranged a time for Shaw to come out and run a cable (we'll miss our DSL!! :-( ), and the good news is that they'll be out on the evening of the 2nd, ensuring that we're not totally cut off from the world, and we will still have email and Instant Messaging services available to us!

All in all, the advice we would send out to those of you who are building, and your possession dates are drawing near, make sure you don't wait to start changing addresses over, and especially phone service. Telus seems to be unusually busy these days, and the earlier you book your appointment to have them come out and install your phone lines, the better chance you have of ensuring you're not without phone service for more than a few hours!