moving ← Nota

Quickie Recap

Jan

2014

I fail at blogging. I got so mad at myself last year for hardly blogging anything at all. I like being able to look back and chart my life. It’s important to me. It shows that I’ve made progress and that I’m not the same person I used to be. Self-improvement and becoming the best me I can possibly be is huge.

Anyway, let’s see here… Christmas wasn’t bad. It was not at all what we expected; we didn’t even see the in-laws that day. No one was doing anything and the husband’s cousin mentioned her family was doing something small and we were more than welcome to come. We did. It was quite nice, being able to relax and just enjoy a low-key holiday with family. Their two girls are adorable. My husband’s aunt and uncle (his cousin’s parents) were there, too.

The in-laws did nothing for the holiday. We told them our plans and they just seemed nonplussed by the whole thing. I really wish that they cared about holidays more. It’s such a downer that a huge part of our combined family could give a crap about the holidays or being together or making memories. It’s really sad. I don’t want any children I have to experience such ambivalence. Family is important–it doesn’t have to be blood relation–family can mean anything, even friends. The fact of the matter is that it is important, especially to me.

The two weeks of holiday were quite busy for us. We were out and about quite a lot. We’ve found that since buying and owning a house that Lowe’s and Home Depot are dangerous places to go! We always come out having spent a hundred dollars or stuff we needed for the house. It’s not all ridiculous spending–we bought a former rental. This place needs a lot of love when it comes down to that sort of thing. It’s amazing what these people tried to get away with!

Speaking of which, our hallway toilet is broke. It’s the most used bathroom in the house (which has two other bathrooms, thank goodness.) I guess they rigged it up wrong and now it’s leaking into the laundry room beneath it. Something about when they grouted the tiles that they didn’t raise the pipe up enough. Father-in-law and husband are planning on fixing it soon.

I’m excited to paint and really customize this place and make it our own. We’ve finally got some of our decorations up. Slowly, but surely, it’s all coming together. It’s just so surreal that we own our own home now.

In sadder news, the husband’s maternal grandpa with Alzheimer’s is now in a home. He broke his hip and is in recovery, but he’s being quite cantankerous about it all. His grandma is horribly depressed because of it and the family seems to be slowly falling apart. It is not an easy situation by any means.

My own grandma was hospitalized again, this time due to her congestive heart failure. The doctors essentially told her, “there’s nothing we can do but make you comfortable.” That’s complete bullshit, of course. She needs to go to a different hospital and not that idiotic hospital full of rejected doctors no one else would hire. Sigh. Convincing her of that is an entirely different story, though.

Mum’s legal situation seems to be coming along okay. Everyone seems to have realized it’s all a load of bunk and are beginning to see the light. She didn’t even need a hearing to claim unemployment, so that’s a small victory. Now it’s just getting them to drop the charges or proving them false in front of everyone else.

My dad’s dad has lymphoma. They thought he had a bite on his leg and had been treating him for it, but it turned out to be cancer. He has dead tissue in that leg from a stroke, so it’s hard to say if it is truly lymphoma or if that’s the cancer spreading. Dad said he’d let me know when he got more details, but that’s crap. I’ll have to try and get him on the phone again. It’s a real shame. We were planning a small trip to Florida, but it will now depend on my grandma’s health. I’d love to get down there, but I don’t want to miss an opportunity to be with her, either. Sigh.

It’s incredibly depressing to realize that there’s a real possibility she’ll never get to see our house.

All of this bad news came on the wake of me (and my entire section) getting a 20% raise. As I tell my husband, I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist; there’s a balance in the world and what goes up, must come down, and vice versa. I’m just looking forward to whatever good news it going to follow up this onslaught of bad.

Let’s Never Do THAT Again…

Nov

2013

Well, we’re moved in. We’ve been sleeping here since Saturday. We moved some stuff on Saturday and then the bulk of it on Sunday. Let’s just say… it was harrowing. I look like I belong to Fight Club. It was mostly just me, the husband, and the in-laws. Two coworkers were nice enough to help us with some of the bigger stuff! We didn’t end up getting a Uhaul like I wanted… so it was quite the endeavor.

We turned in our keys today and took one last look at our now empty apartment. It was really bittersweet. That apartment was our first true venture into independence and we were there for four years… seeing it empty was kind of sad. All that remains of us being there are the dents in the carpet. Those will be erased, as will any sign of us ever having lived there. Someone else will come in and it will be as if we were never there at all. Kind of a somber thought.

The new house is great, though. We’re settling in and getting things unboxed. My vanity is finally up! The husband got it for me for my birthday and I can’t wait to get all of my makeup sorted out on it. I’m waiting to take pictures until after everything isn’t a complete mess.

I really wish everyone wasn’t freaking out about the storm happening right now. Actually, I wish there wasn’t even a threat of a winter storm. We’re supposed to leave for Pennsylvania tomorrow! This is our first year not working Black Friday in a long time and I’m already pissed I can’t spend as much time with my family as I want–this storm is only making it worse.

Crossing my fingers and hoping that we can still make it and this is all just one big media shitstorm VS an actual, legitimate storm that will cause damage and prevent me from seeing my family…

Time to take my mind off of it and go pack and then watch some Sleepy Hollow.

This Is It…

Nov

2013

My last morning in the apartment, sitting here, at my computer in the second bedroom that’s been home to my computer for the past four years. Never again will I stumble out of bed here and wander into this room. It’s really bittersweet. I laid in bed for several minutes this morning, just looking around. After this, everything is different and unlike my previous homes… I can never really come back here. This is it. Finality.

We got a lot of boxes moved yesterday, between one of the husband’s coworkers helping and the in-laws coming up late into the evening. Most of the moving is, hopefully, going to happen today. We’re expecting to have most of the big furniture there… but that may have to wait until tomorrow. Computers and bed will be moved, however. Our internet is getting hooked up there today as well.

Loki is freaking out. He was fine until yesterday, when all of the boxes started leaving, and then one of the bookcases, followed quickly by my husband’s desk that he never used. This prompted our cat to walk around, looking terribly confused, and letting out pitiful little meows. I’m probably going to have to drive when we take him to the new house so my husband can sit in the back with him. When we moved here from the in-laws house, it was an hour drive. Loki cried the entire way and my husband kept imploring me to do something. Like what? He’s a cat, he’ll get over it. Cats hate cars!

I need to finish up laundry (we have no washer or dryer at our house yet, sigh), do a last bit of dishes… and then pack up the rest of our clothes. Most of what is left is already packed up or furniture. The apartment is only slightly disturbed right now, but after today, it’s going to look pretty barren.

We also still need to go out and buy a cat carrier, some black trash bags, and packing tape. If the husband didn’t insist on working today (and going in at like 7am), I could have dropped him off, ran to the store, and come back to do packing. Now I have to wait until he gets home around noon. The overtime is certainly nice, if not a bit inconvenient.

I’m going to be absolutely exhausted after today. And crazy. Because the house we bought had been used as a rental and the interior… oh, the interior! They let those people paint however they liked and they were absolutely awful at it. There’s wallpaper to be stripped, floors to be taken up, and paint to be put everywhere. Husband is dead-set on scrubbing the walls. He can have at that, I won’t be! We also need to order a drip tray and panel for the bottom of the refrigerator there. Not sure what happened to either. Not that I mind, it’s a freaking Jenn-Air that’s brand new and cost around $2,000!

All right, time to go take care of the laundry… my next post will be from the house. Wow.

Countdown until November 22nd

Oct

2013

That’s our closing date: November 22nd, 2013. The Friday before Thanksgiving. Yes, I know. We’re insane. Did I mention that we’re going to Pennsylvania this year for Thanksgiving? Got to love rotational holidays, they don’t care about huge life changes like moving into your first house! It’s going to be stressful, but we’ll make it work. We’ll get maybe three days or so to settle in before heading to Pennsylvania.

Today we had our home inspection and the inspector found a lot of stuff we didn’t notice. All of the sinks are leaking. There’s water standing in the dish washer and the garbage disposal doesn’t function. The porch they built onto the house is awful, they didn’t pour the concrete over the bricks, so the seal has broken and now the water just runs underneath and into the bottom floor. That’s going to be something we have to fix fairly quickly…

There’s also the huge issue of exposed power wires being near metal siding to the right (pictured above.) The seller will be fixing that as part of our contract. We’ll hopefully get the three windows replaced, the plumbing fixed, and the outside wiring done all on their dime. The rest is up to us. Whew.

The French doors leading out to the deck from the kitchen need replaced as they’re rotting. I won’t cry over this one little bit. I wanted to replace them as soon as I saw them! It’s mostly a faux French door, with only one actual door, the other is a window. I found some much prettier (and cost effective) ones I plan on nestling into that spot.

The deck requires some TLC, as well. The previous owners of this house fancied themselves DIY-ers, but they didn’t have the skill and they were incredibly lazy. Anyone with some sense of construction can glance at this deck and tell you two things: one, it would never pass inspection as there are gaps in the stairs with one side railing (needs both) and two, the deck isn’t supported in the center. Yikes. There needs to be a beam coming down from where the stairs meet the deck itself at the top.

The fencing in the yard makes me want to weep. The old west might be to some people’s fancy, but not mine. Ugh. There’s an entire section missing. You can see it in the shaded area towards the right. The yard is overgrown, overrun with weeds and clover, and just needs completely redone. Should be a fun undertaking. One we’d do come Spring. It’ll have to languish until then! The fencing doesn’t even cover the entire property line, which is just odd.

There’s a lot of work to be done in this house, but it’s kind of exciting. It will take us some time, but we’ll get to mold and shape the house into something we love. I’m sure it’s going to be stressful, though. Home projects are expensive and we’re already being forced to buy a washer and dryer right out of the gate. That’s around $900-1,400 right there. The porch also needs redone ASAP… I don’t even want to estimate the cost of that!

It was kind of weird leaving the house. The next time we see it, we’ll be moving in. We can’t re-enter the property again after this. I’ll be excited to see the fixes. I’m already making a blueprint in Photoshop with an attempt to situate our gigantic couch and bits of furniture. It’s going to be very sparse at first.

The next thirty days are going to prove interesting…

Same-Old Christmas Obligations

Dec

2009

christmastree

Is it just me or does it not feel like Christmas at all? We’ve got the tree up, the windows and porch decorated… but it still doesn’t feel like December or Christmas. Maybe we need to spend more time out and about. I love going to the mall and stores during Christmas, all the decorations and the music. We’ll need to do that, I haven’t had a good, no-rush shopping day in a long while.

Since we don’t have a lot of money this year, we’re going the “thoughful” gift route. I’m planning on sending my grandma a nice little centerpiece and then a card for both of them with some mushy stuff written in it. They’re suckers for that kind of thing. For my mum, since she has no pictures of Kia, I was going to get a good one printed out, frame it, include a card and mail it to her. Dad is still up in the air, as are the in-laws. No clue what we’re doing there.

Not really sure what to get the husband. We agreed we’re not going “all out” this year on one another like we did last year, but I still want to get him something nice. With our funds combined now, though, it’s trickier. I found a really awesome deal on a $100+ electric razor he’s wanted (we’re talking like $40!), but that’s more a gift for me because he’ll be better shaven. I want to get him something he can enjoy, too… will have to think about it more. Wish he hadn’t rushed and bought that one game he wanted.

I doubt he’s given any thought to my gift at all yet. Not because he’s careless, he just… doesn’t think. It’ll probably hit him the weekend before or something.

Tomorrow, I have to get my teeth cleaned for the first time in years. I am dreading it. I have false surfaces that are on their last legs and I am so worried she’s going to pop one off by accident. I know they’re going to tell me I need a dozen things capped and fixed, but we can’t afford it right now. I’m only going through with it to appease the husband and everyone else nagging me. He has to get a filling tomorrow, too. Our appointments are at the same time and that means a half-day for him. I wonder if I can convince him to spend the rest of the day shopping since we’ll be down that way, anyway.

He put everything in my new, full-sized tower today, too, while I napped. I’m so tired lately, even if I get a full night’s sleep, I still want more. Anyway, everything is working fine, but damn this tower is loud and cold… my poor legs are freezing! We forgot our SLI bridges at the in-law’s, so we’ll pick those up tomorrow, too. My other tower was too small to handle SLI with two huge cards and my hard drives. They’d fit, but overheat. Everything should be fine in this one.

Time to check on the husband… he’s baking Gateaux Bon Bon things he learned to make in French class in High School for the Christmas thing they’re having at work.