Silly ol' dog

Bought Peter T. Dog a new cushion for curling up on the hard floors downstairs during the day. He likes it, except for when he's sleepy. When he's ready for a nap, he prefers the flattened old dog bed, and paces restlessly until I get it for him.


As you can see from the photo though, he doesn't want to completely give up the new dog bed to let Clifford fully claim it, so he lays on both mats, and snoozes happily.

I love my big dumb dog.

Re-connected

Digital cable & high speed internet up & running.

Just in time, too. I've had quite enough of talk radio for a while. It's so nice to be able to pull up weather, news and/or traffic without having to sit through 15-30 minutes of other stuff. It did give me time to start formulating a schedule for cleaning this monstrously large house. (I love the house, this isn't a complaint. More than double the space on 2-1/2 floors just requires a different plan than a 1600sf ranch.)

I'm tackling two rooms today, to see if I can have completely set up - all boxes removed - before school pickup.

Hopefully, that will make for a relatively "normal" day tomorrow, including time to post thoughts on the two audiobooks finished while I was offline. I'm very thankful for Audible - without it, I'd have been stuck with only NPR and talk radio last week. Or, worse yet, my own thoughts.

95% Complete

All moved in to new house. Tiny little bits of order are popping up around house.
They're random, and not in the final state, but it's quite nice to see in the warehouse.

Window seat - perfect for kid's reading time and for Peter T. Dog's important duties of neighborhood watch.

Have been able to walk kids to & from school most days. Two miles for them, four for me. Keeps us all getting a bare minimum of exercise. And makes for very little time in the truck each week. LOVE IT!

Everything seems to be here... except internet service.
Cable company working to install new line to house.

Didn't miss it much the first few days, but trying to handle all the normal email, online bill pay and news / blog reading on the iPhone has gotten quite tedious.

Half marathon tomorrow morning. 7am. In Kennesaw.
Ugh. 5am seems a whole lot earlier tonight than it did when I signed up last month.
Especially when I haven't trained, and plan to lazy my way through the course.

That's enough of the screen tap typing for one evening. I'm off to bed.

Enjoy the beautiful beginnings of crisp Autumn breezes!

Packing Up: The Chaos

The new house is official. The final walk-through had been eagerly and fearfully anticipated, as I was terrified of finding the basement flooded, and having to put the whole thing off until after cleanup, or to start from scratch on one of the backup house choices in the neighborhood. Beyond a little bit of seepage through the door into the unfinished portion of the daylight basement, the house was high and dry.

Closing was Thursday. Beyond a snafu with the wire transfer, it went very smoothly. (Thank you, monster mega-bank, for noting that a large transfer of funds to a real estate attorney's escrow account is an "unusual transaction," and taking the extra precaution to place a hold on the "suspicious activity" until the next day. And an extra thank you for sending notification of the hold AFTER the day had ended for your customer service folks.)

With the movers coming on Tuesday, it's been crazy busy around here since this past Tuesday. Even with the packing, cleaning and closet purging, there's been time for a little bit of fun.

Friday:
DD attended a Japanese themed birthday party, in a beautiful vintage kimono we purchased on eBay.


Saturday:
B1's first 10k - the Big Peach Sizzler 10k. He finished in 58:24, and I'm super proud of him. (Plus, for beating my time, and breaking 60 minutes, $10.)

Sunday:
Will be heading over soon to the local festival, where B2 and I will be serving up lemon twists in the 5th grade booth. That's not so much the fun part, but wandering around after our shift and trying food from the different restaurant booths will be.

Then, it's time to pull holiday decorations from the attic, and make a trip over to the new house with the rest of the toys and games I bribed (frozen yogurt) the kids into packing up early last week. It needs to be out of this house, before they decide they need to open the boxes back up.

It looks like a new house

Things are moving along smoothly so far, plus that's what the home inspector said about the house today. He said all of the updates were very well done, and that everything is clean & well maintained. In some ways, the inspector said this house is better than a new home, because of the higher quality of foundation and walls back when the home was originally built. There'll be a few things in the report, but nothing major. The highlights are:

• Downspouts should be extended so they drain a few feet farther out from foundation.
• Two outlets in front of house are not grounded.
• At some point, an access panel will need to be cut for the master tub
• He couldn't find the pressure valve for the water, but figures it's tucked in the middle of new ductwork
• There are a few boards of siding which should have 1/2-1" shaved off, to get them to full inch away from shingles.

None of those are things which will require major fixes, so closing in three weeks shouldn't be a problem, especially since the paperwork & transferring of funds is done. Keeping fingers crossed the appraisal doesn't come out too far off where it had been appraised back in April.

I'm not a fan of buying a bunch of furniture for a new house, as that is one sure way to blow the budget and open the door for all kinds of unforeseen disaster. I also think it takes time to settle in and figure out what we really want / need for the new space. But - you knew that was coming - I am seriously considering this set of six mahogany chairs, to make a complete dining table. Right now, I move kitchen chairs to the dining table for the kidlets, and use the 4 chairs which are usually set around the table for adults. These are around 125 years old (dealer says possibly 150-meh), and are pretty darn sturdy, without any sway or creaking. Price is marked down to $350 from $500, which was already marked down from original $750... and I like them, so maybe this will be my one rule-breaking purchase?