January 2026 in review

This is the thirty-eigth post in my Month in review series.

Month activities

I broke the bleed valve bit on the radiator in our bedroom and caused pressurized water to jet out across the room! We turned off the water and gas supplies to the house and called an HVAC specialist. We had to wait 48 hours for an emergency appointment, while the outside temperature was -30°C. Fortunately, our pipes didn’t freeze; our two little electric heaters were barely keeping the house above +2°C. You can call that an initiation to Winnipeg home ownership!

We discovered The Leaf, an indoor event space and indoor botanical garden. It’s clearly a highly valuable communal resource, great for replenish the soul and morale through winter. We purchased a yearly membership immediately.

We continued doing many trips to IKEA and MCC Furniture Thrift. I am now fixing smaller and less urgent things in the house. It’s coming together, we can see that this house will make us happy. But we estimate heavy work on the house to continue until May. Then we can say we are caught up with property maintenance, and we can call the “moving in” phase done.

Riya joined a pole dance studio, and I joined an aikido club.

We had some friends over for a housewarming dinner! Riya cooked chinese dishes.