A New Life Begins

Well, it's been a whole week since I've done any blogging. I had grand notions of sitting down each night and recapping the day in all it's glory and thus following every step of the moving process in a neat, orderly fashion.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This past week has been a flurry of chaos. Fun chaos, but chaos just the same. Because on top of moving the 8,000 pounds of belongings that I own to a new location, we also have Vacation Bible School at the church this week. And my birthday is tomorrow. And we're going to Cedar Point on Friday. And I had to put my car in the shop. Twice.

I'm a little tired.

Soo, tonight I really need to get my banking account for the bank that's loaning me the money for this nice new house set up, so I don't have a lot of time here either. However, I will be back to recap the madness of the past week...

I'm sure you won't want to miss that!

Signing off (for the first time) as a new homeowner in my own place...

The End Of An Era

Tonight I'm sentimental....and probably a bit sappy. Just to let you know before I get into this. Don't say I didn't warn you...

If all goes as planned, this will be the last night I catch my snoozes in this apartment. You know, 13 years is a long time to be at one place. And even though I'm more than ready to move on, I still need to take a second to say goodbye.

So, I'm thankful that I had a safe, affordable place to come home to every night. And the neighbors were nice. Mostly. Except for whoever it was that left a nasty note on my car one time. But, that's times past now...I'll try to leave the grudge behind.

So tomorrow a new chapter begins. No more fighting for a parking spot on the street. No more scraping layers of ice off the car every morning while I nearly get run down by maniacal drivers who won't slow down. No more hoarding quarters like a raving lunatic so I can do my laundry.

I will be able to vacuum my floor after 10:00 and not worry about waking up the neighbors! I will be able to play my piano without the headphones! I can do jumping jacks and run in place all I want! (HA HA...like that's actually gonna happen!)

I can't wait.

(By the way, did I mention before that I really Thank God for all of this?)

Life is Good

Today I'm a packing fiend. I've officially reached the "organized chaos" stage, which actually is quite a step up from just plain old "chaos". Onward I trod...

Today 3 of my good friends from high school were in town, so we met and had supper together. Then we tried to go break into the house. It is a bit comforting to know it's a pretty sturdy little place. I actually did call the owners to see if they cared if I showed it, which they didn't at all...except they were at Cedar Point today, and didn't seem too willing to drive an hour or so back here to bring me the keys. I just don't understand what's wrong with 'em...

I also still have about 7 or 8 loads of laundry I need to do. I have a feeling some of them might have to wait for the new washer and dryer. I can hardly wait to christen them!!

Otherwise, today is a day I've just been noticing a few things that I feel the urge to share:

• I hate it when my DVR doesn't record a show I really wanted to watch
• I hate it even more when my DVR only records 14 minutes of a show that I really wanted to watch
• I also hate trying to get a little tiny spot of dried milk out of the bottom of a glass
• It's really not a good thing when you open up a butter bowl expecting to get butter only to discover it contains the left-over navy beans you fixed 2 days ago....which apparently you also forgot to put in the refrigerator (talk about rank!)
• It's also not a good thing to discover that your only loaf of bread is green
• It's been a blessing to me that the weather has been unusually cool...since I didn't bother to put the air conditioner in my window this season
• It's kind of odd to see your life sitting in a pile in the middle of your living room
• Greased Lightning is the most wonderful cleaning agent I've encountered in a long time
• I own way too many clothes

Life is good.

Hey....I'm Buying A House!!!

Today I got another call from the banker. He said he had some news for me.

Hallelujah and Praise The Lord.....THE GRANT CLEARED!!!

I'm giddy.

Thursday we close. That means I have tonight and tomorrow, plus about 2 weekdays for all practical purposes to get this place tidied away. And call all those places you have to call to get things set up.....Electric/Water/Sewer, Cable/Phone/Internet, Gas, Trash....what am I missing?

I guess I'll figure it out when I get into the house and the flip the switch for it and it doesn't come on, huh?!

So, as you can see, don't have a lot of typing time tonight. I have a feeling that the next few days are going to be a virtual whirlwind.

But a fun whirlwind....

(And just one more time....Thanks God! Very much!)

Just Stuff...

Well, I just bought a washer and dryer.

I also finished all my first-time-home-buyer counseling today.

Mom went to an estate sale and bought a couch, chair and loveseat.

She also bought a snow shovel and yard shears, but she thinks she "might just hang on to those."

My boss brought me 4 plastic tubs for packing today.

I have packed all of my storage containers away and now must either eat all of the food that I make in one setting or throw it away.

If something happens that this house falls through, I've got a world of a mess on my hands here.

(I'm sure it's gonna all work out though...eventually)

Show Me The Money!!

As you know if you've been following along on this little journal of my life, I'm in the house buying process. We've been sitting in the same stagnant position for about a month now, which is.....the loan's approved, the grant's approved, the appraisal is good - but we have to wait for the grant money to get here.

These are the times that try men's souls...

Or mine, anyway.

So today was the call I've been waiting for....I finally hear from the banker. The money's here!!!

Well...not exactly.

There's a question about my eligibility because they think I may be over the salary limit. However, I'm really not. It just looks like more because of the profit sharing check we received in April of this year. My banker's statement was "We figured that's what it was. We half expected they might question that."

I'll admit, it took all of my being not to scream into the phone "THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU ADDRESS IT UP FRONT WITH THEM???!!!"

Instead, I said..."So, will this be a problem?" (Ah, sweet deception...) He tells me the same thing happened to his son and all they need is a statement from my Company explaining that.

So now we wait again...

He thinks though we should hear in a day or two about the funds, and closing will probably be next week.

Good grief...I gotta kick the cleaning/packing bug into high gear...

Mosquito Madness

I just came home from our monthly Ladies meeting at the church. This month was hosted by one of our members at their house in the country. It was a lovely setting...tables with cloths and flower vases on them, nice place settings laid out, and a wonderful buffet of food. It was lovely.

Then THEY showed up.

Mosquitoes. Dear lord...the mosquitoes. The UNBEARABLE mosquitoes!!

Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised to see symptoms of malaria soon. I better start reading up on what those are...

This is twice now in one week. On Saturday Adam was in the Big Ball tournament for Bicycle Days. We headed there after the parade and were there until after 11:00 p.m. So for the first 6 hours, we sat in the mostly blazing sun. I got cooked like a little lobster. Even the top of my head was throbbing. Finally, the sun heads down for some relief.

Then THEY showed up.

Are you seeing a pattern here??

Ah the joys of Ohio...

Giant blood-sucking creatures in the Summer...

Allergies galore in the Fall...

Rain and tornadoes in the Spring...

Ice, snow and freezing temps in the Winter.

Now...why on earth wouldn't anybody want to live here?!

On a completely unrelated note except that I somewhat mentioned it earlier in the blog and I wanted to stick a few more photos on it... here's some shots of Bub's Big Ball team this year....Sluggin N Chuggin. They ended up third overall....not bad!