Exceedingly Mundane

I need to be catching up on my blog, I need to watch the mountain of shows on the DVR that are mine (cooking, Masterchef, Dancing with the Stars, etc), but all I seem to do is unpack! And then later, try to figure out where I put something! I think I’m going to be doing that for a long time, figuring out where I stashed something in the frenzy that is my unpacking.

Current phrase heard around the new house: “If you were an X, where would you be?” As in, if you were the scissors, where would you be? If you were the bath soap, where would you be? 🙂

Let’s see, this past week has been a blur, which is par for the course. Monday, I went to the old house to clean everything. Suzanne came and helped and cleaned out the fridge for me, and also broke down some boxes that were left in the garage. After that, we came back to the new house (gotta start calling it “home” now! LOL!) and had leftover pizza and then got to work lining shelves. We lined until we ran out of shelf liner. Tuesday, I went to Walmart to get more, a lot more! I think I got 18 more rolls, which turned out to be close, but I bought too many short rolls and not enough longer ones. Anyway, I picked up Rally’s for lunch on the way back, as Tim was busy at work all day Monday and Tuesday with conference calls. Wednesday, I stayed home all day and worked on unpacking, lining shelves, etc.

We got another offer on the house on Wednesday evening. We made a counter offer, then heard back Thursday morning that they did not accept our offer. Our realtor was pretty confident though, that after they had seen other properties in the area in our price range, they might think differently. And apparently, they did, because they made another offer late Thursday. We slept on it, prayed on it, made one final counter for a minor difference, and then had a verbal agreement Friday morning. We went and signed papers Friday afternoon at our realtors office, then went to Ridgeland Specialty Hardware to get the trash bins that should have been installed before we closed, but were not. After that, we came home and did some more unpacking.

Friday night, we went out to have a celebratory dinner and a long over due date night. Tim took me to Two Rivers, which we had never been to before. Tim had a ribeye and I had the grilled redfish with shrimp. Since we were celebrating, we had tiramisu for dessert, which was delicious!

Tim took two more vacation days, on Thursday and Friday. He has been SO wanting to work on his new surround sound, so he did just that. Thursday, I ran to Fresh Market to get the Thursday Little Meal deal (bacon, juice, potato/cheddar/chive pancake mix and some other items), and also stopped at the old house to check the mail. When I got back Thursday afternoon, he had started cutting holes in the ceiling in the great room (five). Friday, he worked on getting everything hooked up to his components, and we were busy Friday with negotiations on selling the old house. Saturday, he worked on getting his outdoor speakers installed on the screened in porch out back. They sound awesome! All of them 🙂 What really surprised me was that he has it fixed where you can listen to one thing in the great room on those speakers, and at the same time, you can listen to a different input of music out on the back porch. Way cool! Saturday afternoon, we also took both vehicles and loaded them to the max at the storage unit and brought and unloaded them here. Exactly what we needed, more boxes! But we are wanting to get that storage unit emptied so we can stop paying a monthly rental on it. We stopped and picked up Sonic on the way home and had a late lunch at 4 PM, ugh, I hate eating that late! 🙂

Sunday, always my favorite day of the week, was a very busy day for us. We made it back to church, after missing last week (which we both hated to do). We started a new sermon series, Next: A Study of Joshua, and had a great lesson in Sunday School. Gail had texted me on the way to church, saying that she was driving down to pick up David, who was flying home from Alaska. He’s been gone all summer, working for Holland in Alaska and is finally coming home. Well, for about 10 days, then he leaves for a month or more to tour Iceland, Europe, and take a cruise from Venice through the Greek isles, Mediterranean, Straits of Gibraltar and back across the Atlantic. That boy has a tough life 😀 Anyway, she said they would come out to our area of town to eat lunch and hoped we could meet them. So, we met Gail, David, Elizabeth, Jeremy, Kathryn, Katelyn, Sam and Suzanne for lunch at Newk’s. Afterwards, everyone came to see the new house and we visited all afternoon, which was great. Elizabeth stayed a while after to grade papers and watch some of the Saints game with us. It was great to hear it in surround sound! The Saints finally won one, beating the Vikings at home, and are now 1-2. After that, Tim and I split up, and I went to our bedroom to watch some of my massive amount of shows on the DVR and he watched an old movie in the den (Vertical Limit, I think).

So, that catches me up for a little bit. It’s Monday morning now and we are working on new routines. Tim is back at work, I’m doing laundry, but we still have a mountain of boxes to wade through and unpack. One box at a time! I need to go to the grocery story today, and one day this week, maybe tomorrow, I need to make a huge run to Sam’s Club. I had gotten low on many items that I regularly buy there, so there would be less to move. Time to start back stocking up (I don’t like running out of paper towels and toilet paper, LOL!)

Hope everyone is having a great day and will have a great week!

To make a long story short, we closed as scheduled (pretty much!) on Wednesday and got moved in over the weekend.

Tim and I had planned to start moving in stuff ourselves on Wednesday night, but after we closed at the attorney’s office and drove to the new house, we found it was still very dirty. I was SO disappointed! They finally got it cleaned Thursday afternoon, so we started moving small things and our electronics on Thursday evening. Friday, we moved our bed, a few essentials and the food. We spent the first night in our new house on Friday, then got up really early Saturday morning. Tim decided at the last minute to rent a truck (which pleased me no end!), and we had to go get it. That turned into another long story, as in, he gets to the place and they are like, sorry, we have no truck for you. Argh. I had to go back and get him and drive half way across town to a different rental place, but all’s well that ends well. We got a Penske truck, got it to the house, where a lot of folks were sitting around and waiting. All of Tim’s family got there early (Terry, Emi, Brittany, David, and Tony, and then Mark and Ethan, Gail and Don, Suzanne and Elizabeth came later). We got the furniture and boxes loaded around lunchtime, then headed to the new house. They all started unloading while I went to go get pizza, chips, fruit and drinks. They unloaded most of the big truck before the guys would stop and eat, they were dedicated movers, I tell you! We were so grateful for everyone who came to help and how smoothly it went. I only have one piece of furniture scratched badly (that we were eventually going to replace anyway), and so far, nothing breakable has been broken, so that is nice to have such a great move 🙂

Tim and I had a long day Saturday. After everyone left late afternoon, we headed to Home Depot to get a dryer cord and back to the old house to visit our dear neighbors and try to clean up the garage. Also, we realized when we got there that we had left a few things out back, so we loaded those up. By the time we got home and unloaded and moved stuff around in the new garage, it was nearly 10:30. I caved and ate a yogurt, even thought I detest eating that late 🙂

Sunday, we decided to sleep in and missed church. We were both so exhausted and I was extremely sore. I hit a new one day total on Saturday on my Fitbit tracker, over 33,000 steps! I cooked our first meal in the new house Sunday morning – scrambled eggs, grits and toast! Tim forced me to dive in and use our new gas cooktop for the first time, and needing to cook forced me to unpack some of my cookware! LOL! Let the unpacking begin! There are boxes everywhere, and we still have the entire storage unit to move here, but we are so happy and having so much fun, that we don’t even care! 😀

Sunday at lunch, we went *back* to Home Depot for a different dryer plug, and Tim got the washer and dryer going late Sunday afternoon. I did one load of laundry and was happy that the laundry room did not flood 🙂 After Home Depot, we ran by the grocery store for milk, juice and some lettuce. After all the fast food, I’m really craving a salad or something healthy, LOL! After that, we watched the Saints lose another heartbreaker (they are 0-2 now, with both losses coming in either the last 6 seconds or OT and being lost by a field goal). Then, we did some hunting, sorting, unpacking and trying to find a home for things here. That’s going to be the hardest part for me, figuring out where to put stuff!

Monday (today) was another busy day for me. I got up early and headed to the old house to clean. I spent about 3 1/2 hours cleaning, and my sister Suzanne came over and helped me a ton by cleaning the fridge and breaking down a bunch of boxes we had leftover, and getting them to the curb to recycle. She followed me back to the new house after we finished, for some leftover pizza and helped me line kitchen shelves at the new place. I did not buy NEARLY enough shelf liner. I’ll have to head back to Walmart on Tuesday for a boatload more, like 12 or 14 more rolls! There are a lot of cabinets and drawers in this new house, hahaha!

Tim is at the old house now (Monday after work), to take down a couple of items, and fix some holes in the wall and paint. He may be late getting in, but I hope not. He went back to work today and had a busy day, conference calls, and more scheduled for Tuesday. I think he wants to take more vacation and get things done at the new house 🙂

Maybe one day I’ll get industrious and take some photos, but for now, just text updates. I’m glad he got our server back online, so I can post to the ole blog!

Let’s see… Monday 9/8 turned out to be a fairly quiet day. In the morning, I made the rest of the calls and got all of the utilities transferred over to our name (from the builder’s name) at the new house. The water association was a different one than what we are currently on, so I had to drive up to their offices and fill out the paperwork and give them money. I stopped at Kroger and picked up some food from the deli, bread, milk and cereal. We’re eating take-out, sandwiches and cereal at this point 🙂

Tim met with a realtor who had brought his clients to see the house, and he brought out a roofing guy. We knew the roof would be an issue, since it’s original to the house (21 years old), but has never leaked or given us a problem. The roofer guy said it was fine, just old and probably needing replacing. He is going to send another guy out to measure and make a quote to give to the client, who we hope turns out to be a prospective buyer and gives us an offer on the house.

Monday afternoon, I vegged… trying to grab more “calm before the storm” 🙂 I watched/skimmed some shows on the DVR and deleted them. We got busy after Tim finished working and got back into packing mode. I started on the food in the kitchen and he packed his guns and some guy stuff inside. We also packed all the shoes (yikes, we had more than I thought) and other odds and ends in the closet. Every time I think we’re about done, we find more to pack! I’ve still got books in one of the bookcases which Tim says I need to leave out so the house will show better, and it’s driving me nuts to not have them packed up! There’s also a lot more food and the last of the appliances (coffee pot, coffee grinder, toaster oven, etc), and then our clothes and toiletries. I’m just ready for it to be packed, then moved, and then.. unpacked! LOL!

We finally stopped about 11 PM Monday night and I went to read. Tim apparently stayed up working at work, writing a new program for something. He’s trying to get some projects turned in and stuff done before he is off for a few days. He’s going to take off the rest of this week (Wed-Fri) and then play it by ear as to how much he needs to be off next week. We’re very thankful he has a great (and very understanding) boss and they work for a really good company 🙂

Tuesday morning early, I got busy with more housework and cleaning (as we have another showing this afternoon at 3:30. I watered all my herbs and flowers, thankfully most of them are in pots and will eventually be loaded up on some truck and moved to the new house. I will probably need to pull out the sprinklers and hose again and water the grass, but I am hoping it won’t need it soon. I guess I’ll have to drive back and do that at some point, along with a huge cleaning session after we have moved everything out.

I had uploaded some photos of the perennials that are in our yard (but have now stopped blooming), so we could put out to show prospective buyers that the yard usually looks better than it does right now! I went to CVS late Tuesday morning and picked those up and also went to Dollar General and got more smaller boxes (to use in packing the food and pantry). After a quick lunch, I started back packing in the kitchen. I tackled one of the two junk drawers – and boy oh boy! I had no idea of the junk buried in the back! I was in the middle of packing when the realtor called at 2:15 and said “they are sitting outside your house, a little early, is the house ready for showing”? Um, hello, you said 3:30, so we thought we had another hour! Another fire drill, throwing things around, tidying up, turning on all the lights, then headed to the library (for the free wi-fi, since Tim is trying to work and finish a project before he’s off for the rest of the week).

After the realtor finished in the house, we headed home and Tim wanted to work some, but the blind guy we had contacted called and wanted us to meet at the new house to look at window treatments. We went up there and met him for a while, looked at shutter, shades, and blinds, along with some sample books and finally decided. We’re going to do plantation shutters in the great room, keeping room and breakfast room. We’ll do roman shades on the big back doors and over the kitchen window, and regular 2″ blinds in all the other rooms (laundry, bedrooms, Tim’s office and the ones in the hall looking out front). After that, we found more items for the punch list and met with the builder’s helper guy Spencer. We finally finished up about 3 1/2 hours after we got there! We called Suzanne and met her for a late supper at Majestic Burger. I had my regular thing, a grilled mahi-mahi sandwich on wheat and split some fries with Tim. Not healthy, but we’re SO not eating healthy right now!

So, Tuesday turned out to be another busy day! Wednesday, we close on the new house!

More daily ramblings, as we get closer and closer to the closing on the new house (and giving away investing all of our savings for a downpayment!), and hopefully closer to selling our current (aka old) house.

I posted on Wednesday morning 9/3. Tim had a really bad night, Tuesday night, and didn’t sleep much. He’s pretty sick with a sore throat, cold type symptoms, scratchy voice, congestion, etc. I think he got up once or twice during the night and watched tv or worked on the computer because he couldn’t sleep. Poor thing. He won’t take a day of sick leave though, which is why he has more accumulated with his company than he could ever use 🙂

Wednesday turned out to be a nice, quiet day! I kept thinking to myself all day “enjoy the calm before the storm!” I went to Kroger and got a few groceries, then came home and just did some odd jobs around the house, played on my ipad a little, watched a little tv, and basically ignored packing. Until about 4 PM, then I packed a couple of boxes 🙂 We had no showings on Wednesday, so we didn’t have to rush out of the house and be gone, especially at dinner time. I thought I was done with cooking, but still eeking out a smidge more, although what we had for supper wasn’t really cooking. Tim’s friend Tony came around 6:30 to eat, hang out and spend the night, as he has a really early doctor’s appointment Thursday morning. I made tomato soup and grilled cheese, one of my favorite comfort meals. After supper, we were watching NFL Network and got to talking about the house, so of course, we roped Tony into going to see the new house 🙂 We’re horrible!

Thursday started out as another quiet day. I washed sheets and towels and cleaned up the guest room and guest bathroom. Tony might have been our last houseguest in the old house, since I can’t seem to talk Gail into coming before we move 😀 Tim is feeling a little bit better, but digging around looking for OTC meds to take, so apparently he’s not as well as he lets on! We didn’t have any showings, but ended up with another houseguest. Suzanne called around 5 PM and said her power was out, so she was coming over to stay the night. Tim and I worked in the yard till dark. Might be the last time cutting the grass here, without having to load up the mower on the truck and bring it over 😀

Friday morning, I had a haircut appointment. While I was there, Tim texted me that we had another showing Friday morning late, so I ran home to finish putting everything away and tidy up (again!). We were walking out the front door and the realtor and client drove up, that’s the first time that has happened! She didn’t look like someone who would buy our house, and sure enough, about the time we got to a restaurant to order lunch, the realtor texted they were done (less than 15 minutes). Oh well, we had a nice lunch at Krilakis anyway 🙂 Friday afternoon, after Tim finished work, we headed to the new house (yes, again!) to look for more punch list items. I keep telling Tim “they are tired of us adding things to the list” and “they are only going to fix so much”, but he keeps persisting. 🙂 After we got home, we heated up some leftovers for Tim, popcorn for me, and settled in to watch some things on the DVR and clean up a few shows.

Saturday, Tim had an early tee time, but woke up feeling bad still, so he decided not to go play. Which is VERY unlike Tim. Usually if he makes a commitment, he keeps it. But that is indicative of how bad he’s still feeling, if he doesn’t want to go play golf! We had a lazy morning, then got busy with more packing. My inclination is to get everything packed, everything, even though we still have 4 more days to closing and a week before the “big” move. Sigh. Suzanne popped over (unannounced!) around lunch and visited for a while. We packed (and sweated) all afternoon and into early evening. I can tell I’m going to be sore for the next couple of weeks, LOL!

Sunday is SO my favorite day of the week! We are loving church and our new Sunday School group. I told Tim today after we got out, I was just the epitome of happy, because they gave us new Sunday School books for the fall period (“Bible Studies for Life” from Lifeway). I nearly squealed in delight when I was handed one 🙂 I was always a teacher’s pet, you know 🙂 Anyway, we are nearing the end of the sermon series “All In” and had another good sermon from our regular pastor, this week’s symbol was the altar. And he did a play on words, and urged us all to live All-In, “all-tered” lives. Sunday School started in the new book, and this week we talked about church membership, and what it means to be a “member” of a church versus a part of the body of Christ (from Ephesians 2:17-22).

After we left church, we stopped at the auto parts store to get some injection cleaner for the engine of the Explorer, since the “check engine” light keeps coming on, unless we put in ethanol-free gas. Then we went to Taco Del Mar, where we have not been in ages. I had two avocados left at the house, so we decided to pick up enough tacos, burrito (for Tim), rice and beans to go along with the guacamole and chips, to last us for lunch and dinner. I packed all the cookware, all the dishes, all the glasses yesterday, so we are down to using paper plates and plastic cups. We got home late, changed into Saints shirts and started the recording of the first Saints game against Atlanta (which they ended up losing in overtime by a field goal), when our phones started going crazy. We got a text from Tim’s mom that they were headed to town and wanted to catch up and maybe see the house and do some shopping, and we got a text from one realtor, and then a phone call from a second one, wanting to show the house, one at 4:00 and one at 4:30. We finished eating, cleaned up the house, changed clothes, turned on all the lights and left around 2 PM. We met Tim’s family at the outlet mall, where Linda got some clothes for the Gideon meeting and Mitchell got a new suit (he’s going to go back to speaking in churches in the area for the Gideons). I got a pair of black ankle boots for fall/winter at the Clarks outlet, not sure if they are what I want, I might should have looked around more, but I don’t have a lot of extra time right now to clothes shop! LOL! Tim’s family ate before we got there, so we met them to shop, then headed to the new house. Brittany and David saw the house for the first time, and we got to meet Emi’s brother Lazarus, who arrived recently from Mexico. After that, we all headed back to Pearl and shopped for Terry’s store until closing. Tim and I came home, ate leftover tacos and finished the sad Saints game. Now, we are watching Sunday night football. I’m glad football has returned! This is our ONE Saints game in this house, next week we will be watching (hopefully!) from the new house!

I expect Monday and Tuesday to be very busy… lots of calls to make, I’m sure last minute things will pop up, and we are waiting to hear on the closing time and location on Wednesday. After we sign papers and give them all our money, we’ll get keys and start moving in! The big move is scheduled for next Saturday, we should have a crowd, all of Tim’s family and a lot of mine who are here. We can’t wait!!!

I’m counting down the days to closing on the new house!

Let’s see … the last boring rambling post ended on the Saturday before Labor Day. I posted in the morning, while Tim was playing golf. After I got off the computer, I got in the kitchen and tackled the last great job – starting to pack my kitchen. I made a small dent, packed about 3-4 boxes and partially emptied a couple of cabinets. Still a long way to go, but I hope to get more packed on Labor Day. I got a call from our realtor while I was slaving away, that she wanted to show the old house at 1:30 PM. That was a first, so far she’s just been the listing agent and had not shown it herself. It was a friend of hers, she said. Tim got home from the golf course after lunch, so we got cleaned up and headed out around 12:45. I let Tim pick where to go eat (after all that hard work lugging his heavy golf bag for 18 holes, he should get to pick!), and he picked Five Guys. Not exactly healthy, but still very tasty! We love their drink machines, and the burgers and fries cannot be beat. After that, we left and drove to the new house and met Tim’s buddy Charlie. We spent a couple of hours there, going through the house again and adding more items to the punch list. Charlie works for a builder and has a great eye and pointed out a lot of things we had missed. It was raining when we got to the house (yeah for not having to water at the old house for a few more days!!) and I got to stand out on my back screened porch and see it rain, hear it in the trees, smell the freshness. Bliss, sheer bliss. I told Tim, expect me to be out there quite a bit when it’s raining. Now that the screen is up, there are no bugs and it’s just heavenly. Anyway, after that, we headed back home and settled in. USM was playing on the brand new SEC Network against Ms State, and as I feared, it was a huge blowout. We used to have such a good football team, always having winning seasons and going to bowl games almost every year. That came to a screeching halt two years ago, and our poor Golden Eagles have not won but one game in two seasons. Ms State humiliated us on tv, beating us 49-0. Excruciating to watch, to say the least.

Sunday is always my favorite day of the week! Church, with our regular pastor, still in the sermon series “All In”. This week’s symbol was the yoke, as from Matthew 11:28-30, “come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you… for I am gentle and humble”. Another great sermon. This week in Sunday School, Skip led the lesson rather than Tommy and chose a passage from Leviticus 25:1-7, about the Sabbath and the land taking a break on the seventh year, as well as the people observing the Sabbath. Very interesting discussion and we really enjoyed it 🙂 After church, we texted Suzanne and told her we were going to lunch at Newk’s and invited her to come. She was having a hard time and said she really needed to see us, so she was glad to come meet us. Tim had a bbq chicken pizza, I had a half caesar salad with salmon, and Suzanne got the grilled pimento cheese and tomato basil soup. I can’t wait to be in the new house and it gets to be fall, and I make my homemade tomato-basil-parmesan soup in the crockpot, LOL! We visited a long time at Newk’s, till a little after 2 PM. After that, we came home and Tim did the live draft with our fantasy football league. I decided to let it auto-draft for me this year, I have enough stress with the two houses and packing and moving to worry about fantasy football, LOL! 🙂

Monday morning, Tim had another early tee time. Nothing like waking up at 6 AM on a holiday 🙁 He left to go play, and I started cleaning up the house. We had another showing at 10:45 AM. I have already (after ONE week!) gotten tired of dressing and going to a store to wander for an hour, so I took my Kindle, went down to the gazebo near the lake and read while the house was being shown. Tim called after I got back, and was headed home, after helping a buddy with his golf cart (translation: they had to soup it up!). He stopped and got us Chick-Fil-A on the way home, which was good and also very sweet of him. After eating, he went down to the neighbors to help with his fence, but he’s still not ready for help (which I think means he is stalling, because he knows we are moving in a little over a week!). We ended up visiting with our neighbors for a while, which was nice and might be the last time we sit and visit 🙁 After that, we both got to work packing, me in the kitchen and Tim in the garage. After several hours, our next door neighbors came over to check out our current house, and stayed to visit. We offered to take them to see the new house and we were so happy they agreed, and they said they loved the new house, just beautiful!

Tuesday, we got back to work. Tim woke up with a sore throat, and unfortunately I had packed most of the medicine! Lucky for him I knew where I had put that box 🙂 I got busy cleaning the house, defrosted the outside freezer (MAN, i can’t wait to upgrade to a frost free one), cleaning bathrooms, floors, sinks, etc and basically keeping the house “show ready”. Good thing too, because we got a call from the realtor saying that we would have a second showing this afternoon from one of the ones that came to see the house this weekend. Anyway, I made some supper, early in the day and put in the fridge and I told Tim, this may very well be the last meal I cook in this house! Sniff sniff. We got the house ready and left, and headed to the new house. We were happy to see more of the punch list done, and that they had started to do the cleaning. Also, the gas was on, so the gas lanterns were burning out front, the posts and corner pieces were installed on the front porch and I got to play with lighting the gas burners on the cooktop 🙂 After we got home and had supper, we watched a little tv, then Suzanne came over to visit for a while. She tried to run, but it was raining, so she had to do the treadmill. She’s training for her 10K in November, so she really does need to stick to the schedule of running.

I know these posts are NOT interesting to anyone else. They’ve turned into a diary of what we are doing, with nothing really fun or interesting for others to read. Tim wants me to keep a record of showing the house, and this seemed like the easiest way. Hopefully we can get an offer soon, but if not, then maybe it will show better after we’ve moved out. Anyway, I’m glad to be able to get a lot of things down that are going on. I know as the date approaches for us to close, it’s going to be nearly impossible for me to blog regularly, and I hope that I can remember a lot of it once we do finally get to a point where I can sit down and type it all out on the blog. In the mean time, it’s now Wednesday morning and our day count is down to seven, we are set to close a week from today! Tim and I will start moving on our own after closing and then next Saturday, we’ll have the “big” move. I can’t wait!

More later, as time allows!

This past week turned into a week revolving around the old house. We got the sign up in the yard last Saturday while we were gone to Linda’s, and Sunday we had left the house pristine as we left for church. We hoped we would hear and have our first showing on Sunday, but all we had was a phone call setting up an appointment for Tuesday evening at 6 PM to show the house.

The first “fire” call came Monday morning. A realtor lady was ‘in the neighborhood” with clients and wanted to stop by. HELLO! Tim works from home and we are both here, actually living here. As in, I was cleaning, not dressed, had stuff out, etc. We put her off 30 minutes, threw everything in place, got ready and left. As soon as Tim texted her that we were out, she responded back that they had another appointment and would be an hour or more. Well. My goodness, why couldn’t she have told him that to begin with? We wouldn’t have rushed! Anyway, we packed up and went to the library for free wi-fi. She was supposed to text when finished but after 2 hours, we decided to do a drive by and sure enough, no cars. So, our first experience was not great! We got back, got settled in, and Suzanne came over around 4 to visit. She was having a bad day and didn’t want to be alone. Tim got another call, this time from the realty company we are using, but a different agent, asking to show the house around 6:30 PM. So, another lesson learned, a lot of people look around suppertime, so me cooking dinner at home every night is probably not going to work for a few days or a week or so 🙂 Anyway, Suzanne wanted to go with us, so we ended up going to McAlisters to eat supper and hang out. We did another drive by around 7:45 PM but saw the realtor’s cars, so we dropped Suzanne at her car and headed to Dick’s for Tim to shop. About the time we walked into Dick’s, we got a text from the realtor that they were leaving, so we came home not long after. Two in the first day, I wonder is that about normal? We have never sold a house before, so this is an exciting new adventure for Tim and I 🙂

Tuesday, I got up early to start watering. It took me nearly 3 hours to do the front and back yards. We had had an 80% chance of rain on Monday and didn’t get a drop, but no rain in the forecast for a while, so I had to water.(NOTE to self: you are going to love, love, love having the irrigation system at the new house, no more dragging hoses and sprinklers around, LOL!). The grass looks terrible, hopefully that won’t deter any prospective buyers from buying the house. Anyway, after some cleaning, laundry, running the dishwasher and cooking Monday night’s supper for lunch on Tuesday, we had the house ready for any last minute drop-ins. We had a call around 4 PM, and they wanted to show it last minute, so was really glad to be ready. All we had to do was pick up a couple of items, turn the air down and turn on every light in the house! We went up to the new house and stayed until both showings were over. Then back home for a burger and to veg out a bit in front of the tv.

Wednesday morning I got up early to get started on some housework and get a shower. I didn’t think to check my email for a bit but when I did, I was surprised to find an email from Tuesday night, from our realtor, with the first offer on the house! That was fast, as Tim thought it would be. Of course, it was a horrible offer, $10K under what we listed the house for, asking for several thousand in closing costs, carpet and some other items. Talk about lowball! The realtor also said she thinks another offer would be coming in on Wednesday. We had a showing after lunch on Wednesday, so we relocated to the library again. This was a shorter viewing, so we came back after about 40 minutes.

No showings Wednesday night or Thursday. Thursday afternoon, we met the builder’s help guy (Spencer) at the new house to do the punch list. We walked through everything and ended up with a page and a half of nit picky items. Spenser thinks the house will be ready before the closing date, it’s a shame that we can’t move up the date. They do have to put one final coat on the floors, so there will be another window where we cannot get in the house, boo. After the meeting, we swung through Sonic for corn dogs (for me and Suzanne) and a burger for Tim, then came home to watch the Saints final preseason game. Gail and Don arrived at the beach and FaceTimed with us, to show us the great house they are staying in over the Labor Day weekend with some of their kids and grandkids.

Friday, Tim got off work early… his company usually releases them early before a long holiday. He left to go play golf, but before that, we had a text from a realtor that they wanted to show the house between 4-5 PM. I’m really grateful for a couple of hours notice! I left and ran to Walmart and got some shelf liner for the new house and a couple of other odds and ends. I was glad to receive a text to let me know that they were done, and I could come back! I got home, pulled everything back out, changed clothes, and started cooking supper. So, of course, you see where this is going! I got a text from our realtor at 6:10, asking if another realtor could show it at 6:30. Yikes. I’ve never slung food around in a kitchen so fast! I got out at 6:28 and went to Home Goods to wander around and look for things for the new house. They had a ton of fall stuff and Halloween stuff, and not as much general house things as I would have liked. Tim finished playing golf and drove to where I was and we headed back to the house (it had been nearly an hour, with NO word). We found it empty, so we went in and made ourselves at home! I had to then pull out everything I had hidden, wash dishes, and heat up the food.

Now, it’s Saturday morning and this post is soooo boring! I *know* it’s of no interest to anyone but me, and heck, in two years, I probably won’t care one whit. But today, this week, it’s been an interesting week, so I wanted to document it. It’s Saturday morning, Tim is at the golf course and I’m enjoying some peace and quiet. I wonder if today we’ll have any surprise showings? I will start a new post, to get us through the long Labor Day weekend!

Ha! So I can remember everything that is going on 🙂 I guess I really should make these private, but oh well! Here’s my diary for the week 😀

Monday was busy, we had the glass guys here and they got the three new windows installed on our current house. Tim is still painting the office, but finished up the guest bedroom after the windows were in. He’s still painting late into the night, unless he has to do work “work”. 🙂

Tuesday we hung the new custom blind in the guest bedroom. I could be heard muttering repeatedly “this looks good, why didn’t we do this YEARS ago”? Tim finished up painting in the office. Also touched up window sills in the kitchen and breakfast room and repainted the inside of the back door. I cleaned every kitchen cabinet and drawer with those Mr Clean Magic Erasers. Nearly went through two boxes, those things disintegrate!

Wednesday was a yard day. I spent a couple of hours in the morning watering grass, then at lunch, Tim finished trimming bushes. I cleaned up behind him for nearly 2 hours. Keep in mind, the temps were in the high 90’s and heat indexes in the low 100’s and we were out in midday. Yikes. Wednesday evening, Elizabeth stopped by for a bite to eat, so we had an early supper. I left the dishes and we headed to Lowe’s to get another blind (the first one we bought for the kitchen didn’t fit), some pine straw and a couple of other items to use around the current house. After we got back from Lowe’s, Suzanne came over about 7:30 PM and stayed till my bedtime! She is having a better week, she said, and doing well in therapy. I think it helps her to talk about stuff.

Thursday was another busy work day for Tim, but he didn’t work too late. The flooring guys had told him that we had to stay out of the house until Thursday PM, so we couldn’t wait any longer! We loaded up another load for the storage unit, and dropped that off. It was lightening really bad, but it never rained on us at either house. The floors in the new house look great! We were surprised to see a lot more done, the sod was laid, the fence posts were up (no boards yet), and electricity was on in the house! We were able to play with lights and fans 🙂 After we looked around and took photos, we drove through Chick-Fil-A for late supper on the way back.

Friday was the second meeting with the realtor, Kristi. She came late morning and we signed the paperwork. She planned to come Saturday while we were gone to take photos and get the sign in the yard. It’s official now! Our current house is for sale and we are counting down the days to close and move into the new one. After the realtor left, I went to Kroger for food for us and stuff to take Saturday for Linda’s birthday. After work, Tim took me out on a date to McAlisters, since I wanted to eat light. I had their pecan berry salad, which was delicious. Tim had a grilled chipotle chicken sandwich. After we ate, we ran to Lowe’s for a new American flag and a couple more items and to Walmart to look for a cake for Linda (I didn’t like the choices at Kroger). The lady who writes on the cakes had already left for the night, so I had to run back Saturday morning and get the birthday cake.

Saturday was a busy day, but nice that it was the first time we’ve taken a break from working on the house since July 4th. Tim has worked every night and every Saturday since then on the house. Saturday was Linda’s 65th birthday, so we headed over to celebrate with the whole family. Tim was busy before we left, putting out new pine straw, hanging the American flag, changing out a receptacle and a few other last minute touches. We left mid morning and had lunch with the whole family – burgers, hot dogs, sausage dogs, potato salad, baked beans, greens and birthday cake with ice cream. We had a great day, visiting with Linda, Mitchell, Mark and family, Terry and family (Zack came and brought Kelli and Brittany and David were there too). Jackie, Stephanie, Ramsey, Leila and Rylan came to eat and visit. Mid afternoon, we all went to see the new store Terry is building. We got home in time for me to make ham and cheese paninis and us watch the Saints 3rd preseason game on TV. Oh, and when we drove up, there was a For Sale sign in the yard and a lockbox on the door. Starting to sink in now 🙂

Sunday was probably the busiest day of the week! It started out with church (still in sermon series: All In, this week focused on Matthew 13:44-46 and Matthew 6:33, and the symbol was a treasure chest). Had a really good Sunday School, more people there than in weeks past (and lots of new ones to us), and we focused on Psalm 104:1-5. “Everything in creation is the work of God who loves us”. We visited with another couple after Sunday School, then left headed to lunch. We knew Terry and Emi were coming to shop and thought we would catch up with them at Dogwood for lunch, so we headed that way. Then when we got them on the phone, they were at Northpark and not hungry, LOL! So we stopped at Applebee’s on Lake Harbor and had a nice lunch. I had the Bourbon Street chicken and shrimp with a caesar salad, and Tim had a 9 oz sirloin with veggies and a salad. It was really good and we had a nice lunch together. We met up with Terry, Emi and Zack after that. I picked up a couple of pieces of clothing while out, skirt and shirt for late summer and a jacket and sweater for fall. After that, we ran to the new house, where we met one of our neighbors (Ms Maridine) who wanted to see the house. We stayed a while and looked around and then visited with more neighbors. Got to meet the Williams down the street, very sweet couple with two young boys.

Now, it’s Monday and the day count is at 16 days and counting. We have the first showing on the old house tomorrow evening, Tuesday. Let’s hope this one sells quickly and painlessly! I’m glad I don’t have to keep the house “show ready” for any longer than I have to. It’s already a bit hard to keep it clean and so many things picked up, it’s hard to live and work and cook here with everything put out of sight. Plus, I still have most of the kitchen to pack. Guess that’s the goal for this week, start in hot and heavy packing the kitchen 🙁

Hope everyone had a great week and weekend! Here’s to the week leading up to Labor Day! 😀

Last week’s milestones include getting a closing date from the builder, signing loan papers at the bank and meeting with a realtor to list our current house on the market. Provided nothing goes wrong, we are set to close on Wednesday, September 10. So, a little less than 3 1/2 weeks, or as I tell Tim daily, 23 days and counting. I started out with months, then weeks and am now counting down the days! LOL!

Let’s see, for my memory and to record all that is going on, here’s another long boring recap of last week.

Monday and Tuesday, I don’t remember a whole lot, so I must have just cleaned house, done laundry, etc. I might have packed a box or two, but I still have a lot left to go.

Wednesday, we had a busy day. Tim talked to the builder, got a closing date, talked to the bank and got the paperwork cycle going. I called a realtor and setup an appointment for her to come by the house on Thursday. Tim had to work again Wednesday night, starting at 11 PM. I certainly hope his work eases up some in the next few weeks! Thursday morning, we had an appointment at the bank with the mortgage lady to sign the loan papers. Then I ran to Kroger and did the grocery shopping for the week, then came back and straightened up the house before the realtor came at 1:30. We spent time with her and she pointed out almost every picture on my walls (not just family or people photos, but pictures of flowers and beach scenes that I thought I would leave up so it looked like a home and not an empty shell!), and had me take them down. Boy, my house is very sterile now! Late Thursday evening, we loaded up another load for the storage unit and took that. We also went by the house and were happy to see that they had started on the flooring. They haven’t done the staining/polyurethane, but had the floors nailed in. Friday was another busy day. Tim worked a half day. We met Don and Gail at Newk’s for lunch, then the guys went to play golf and Gail and I ran errands. We went to Target, Home Goods and Walmart, and also got a chance to go see Elizabeth’s room at school, which I had not seen. I like picturing where people are, where they spend the bulk of their time! We all went to supper, us, Don and Gail, Elizabeth and Suzanne. We let the guys pick, so of course they picked Dickey’s BBQ. After supper, we went back to the house to show them the flooring and everything that had been done, Don and Gail had not seen the house since it was in the stud phase, waiting on insulation! We got to meet one set of new neighbors, they were moving in that day (8/15) across the street. The husband’s name is Tim, so that will be easy to remember! And they have two kids who seemed like really good kids, so we are looking forward to getting to know them 🙂

It was really late when we left the house, so we talked Don and Gail into spending the night. They left mid morning Saturday, and we got busy cleaning out the rest of the office. Tim started late afternoon painting the office, the hardest room and the one we saved for last! I packed all the pictures and knick knacks the realtor made me take down and did some other odd jobs. I still have to Mr Clean Magic Erase all the kitchen cabinets this week, Tim is doing his BEST to get out of painting those, LOL! And I agree, because I don’t want to empty them this early. We still have some eating to do in this house 🙂

Suzanne came over Saturday afternoon late and trimmed bushes for us, then stayed and had a shower and ate supper with us. Sunday was church and our second visit to the Life Group/Sunday School. We enjoyed both! Current sermon series, “All In” and our pastor is in Luke 9. Our life group is doing 1 Peter 5. Last week was verses 12-19 and this week verses 6-8, which includes one of my favorites “Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you”. After Sunday School (we do them in reverse, church first then Sunday School), we met Suzanne for lunch at Cazadores. I had the grilled tilapia, Tim had a molcajete and Suzie tried the spinach enchiladas. I *might* have eaten too many chips and salsa before food came out!

After a long lunch, we went home, changed, got measurements for blinds and headed out to run errands. Tim had an invite from Kevin to play golf, but he was tired and begged off (HIGHLY unusual). We went to Sherwin Williams and got more khaki paint for the office, to Lowes to get a blind for the kitchen window and have them custom cut a huge blind for the guest room windows (70 inches). We ran up to the new house, but apparently they didn’t work Saturday, since we didn’t notice anything from our last visit Friday night. After that, we came home and Tim had a good nap, since he had to work Sunday night starting at 11 PM.

Now, it’s Monday morning and we’re at 23 days and counting. The glass people are due this afternoon to change out the front windows and also one of the breakfast room windows that we ordered. I’m hoping for rain later, as there’s a good chance today, a slight chance tomorrow and then no rain in the forecast for a week. It’s going to get HOT after this rain moves through, they are predicting 99 and 100 for this weekend. Yikes. Our unseasonably cool summer is coming to a screeching halt about the time we need to get ready and move!

Maybe one day I will do a blog post that is not diary like, just me being able to keep up with what is all going on. I know it’s going fast and a blur and want to get most of it down. I imagine it will be like that for the first few weeks in the new house too, but maybe one day things will get back to “normal” on my blog, whatever normal looks like! 🙂

Have a great day, if anyone actually read this!!

I hope we are at the five week mark, or even less! The last time Tim talked to our builder, he said on one hand, we are 90% complete with the house, but on the other hand, he said September 15 for a closing date. So that should be five weeks from today, or maybe sooner. Tim hopes he is “managing our expectations” and that is the latest and it might, just might, be finished and we can close sooner.

Another busy, really busy week, in the books. It certainly helps that we are staying so busy with so many things, it does make the time go by faster. This past week was particularly rough for Tim. He was still crazy busy at work. He worked so many hours, all day, most every night, most nights till 1 or 2 AM. He was chasing the problem on his new project all week and it was driving him nuts. He told me one day, I’m so tired of looking for a needle in a haystack and not being able to find the needle.

Ok, a quick recap of last week. Tuesday night, we had to go to a family support group therapy meeting at Suzanne’s outpatient facility. I’m not really the sharing with strangers type of person, so this was rather difficult for me. I didn’t really feel like we got anything out of it, the counselor just talked in broad terms, platitudes is what I described it to Tim as, afterwards. They want us to attend the next one in two weeks, we’ll see where we are with the house and if we are able to go. After the meeting was over, I let Tim pick someplace to go out to supper, and he of course picked something really unhealthy! We went to CiCi’s all-you-can-eat pizza buffet and proceeded to pig out. Ugh. It was good, but soooo bad for us!

Wednesday was a busy day for me, which worked out well for Tim, since he was nose down all day at his computer. I got my hair cut and colored that morning, then met Gail, Elizabeth, Katelyn and Sam at Chick-Fil-A. Gail had come down for her second annual day with DeeDee before school starts. She and the kids had a busy day, but thankfully came to our part of town so Liz and I could meet them for lunch. The kids had a good time playing and it was nice to catch up with Gail and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was getting ready for school, which started on Thursday. After I left them, I ran by HomeGoods to look around (I want to buy some things for the house SO BAD, but Tim refuses, saying “it’s more to move, just wait”.) I offered to stop and pick up Tim’s favorite, Dickey’s BBQ. He had “forgotten” to eat breakfast and was a couple hours late for lunch. He gets like that when he is busy working. He did stop work at the normal time since we had an appointment to meet with the hardware people at their warehouse in Gluckstadt. We picked the last of the hardware and also got the name of a glass guy to replace some windows in our existing house. After the meeting, we went by the new house to check on progress and found that they had started installing fixtures and ceiling fans. We also dropped off another load at the storage unit, it is getting full!

Thursday was another fairly busy day. I made a grocery run to Kroger, then Suzanne came over after her treatment and brought a huge bag of clothes that she had bought, to try on for me. She stayed a while and visited, and ended up staying for supper. I fixed an Asian chicken salad for everyone and we had frozen yogurt for dessert.

Friday, I tried to get some things done around the house. I spent the morning dragging around sprinklers and watering the grass, as it has been so hot and dry. The grass at our current house was nearly dead, and we want to try to keep it alive for when we put the house on the market (which we still have not done, with Tim so swamped at work). The glass guy came by mid afternoon to look at the windows we need replacing and said he would get us a quote on Monday. A bit later, Tim finally found a solution to his problem at work. He was ecstatic to finally find his needle and get it fixed! We decided to stay in and I fixed a new recipe from Pinterest, Philly Cheese Sloppy Joes (a big success!) along with some oven fries and roasted veggies. We watched the Saints first preseason game, which they won.

Saturday was a busy work day around here. About mid morning, I cut the grass for Tim, as he had started painting. He painted ALL day. He was doing walls, baseboard and trim in the front hallway and front guest bedroom. The rest of my day did not go as planned (I was going to clean, purge and pack more). Suzanne came over to trim the bushes but it started raining, so instead we went to Renaissance to go to Chico’s, Lucky Jeans and Barnes and Noble. She did great in the clothing stores, but then had a breakdown in Barnes and Noble, too many memories she said. So I drove her back, and we stopped at CVS to get another prescription filled for her. She’s going to have good days and bad days for a long time, I would imagine.

Sunday was by far my favorite day of the week! I spent the entire day with Tim, every minute, so that made it spectacular 🙂 We went to our regular service at church. We started a new sermon series, called “All In” (our pastor has been reading that book by Mark Batterson). This week was “Promotion Sunday” for all the kids moving up, so we thought it would be a good time for us to try our first Life Group! We picked from the list an open group led by one of the staff and it turned out to be a fairly small group, about 10 people this week. But we liked the teacher (Tommy Jarrett) and the passage he chose 1 Peter 4:12-19. We really enjoyed it and plan to go back and try this group again. We had several people tell us that people move around and we can do that till we find one that fits and feels right. We got out a little after noon, so we had a late lunch afterwards at Corner Bakery. I had the turkey on a pretzel roll, Tim had a Steak and Cheese sandwich. After stopping at the house to change, we were anxious to go see the new house! They had not only started on the tile work but it looked to be 40-50% complete. Our tile shower was nearly done and some in the other bathrooms and laundry room. The best part — the granite is installed in the kitchen on the countertops and island! It looks awesome! And the second best surprise, they had started the landscaping out front! Most of the front has flower beds, bushes planted and pine straw in the beds. No sod yet, but probably soon, at the rate they are going. We texted Suzanne before we left, and she texted back before we were leaving, so we stayed (and sweated profusely!) till she could drive up to the house to look around. We came home and waited for Terry and Mitchell to come with the trailer. They were going to load up the old wood from the fence Tim replaced and also take our old patio table and chairs. After they got here, it was so hot, Tim suggested we take them up for a tour of the house, which we did. They had not seen it since it was in the stud phase, prior to insulation and sheetrock. When we were at the new house, it started pouring, so we knew we couldn’t get back and get all the wood loaded. They ended up leaving the big trailer on our driveway and Tim and I (and maybe the neighbor) can try to load it this week for them to come get and take the stuff back. They visited till dark, then headed home, and poor Terry, he called about an hour and a half later and asked if we had seen his wallet. Which I found in a chair, so someone will probably come get that today. i hate losing my phone or wallet somewhere! After they left, it was late and I didn’t really want to cook, so Tim offered to drive us through Wendy’s for more bad fast food.

Here’s hoping that this week is equally as busy and goes equally fast, or faster. I’m pretty antsy these days to get a firm closing date and get busy packing the last of the house to move! 🙂

Another week down, at least we’ve finally pushed through July and are into August. September cannot get here soon enough for me! 🙂 Sensing a theme to these weekly posts, LOL!

Let’s see, by the time the weekend gets here, I can rarely remember what I did earlier in the week. Oh, this was a week with a lot going on with my sister Suzanne. I spent several hours with her on Monday, trying to get her up and out of bed and then she called and got an appointment with an outpatient intensive therapy treatment. I went with her Tuesday morning to the evaluation interview. I stayed with her while she filled out paperwork, till the counselor came to get her, then let her take it from there. She started on Wednesday and came over most every day this week. She borrowed our truck on Friday to move some stuff to her storage unit, and also had a bad night that night. We saw her today after church, had lunch at Corner Bakery. I hope next week gets better for her.

Tim had another busy (aka bad) week at work. He worked late most every day and also at night late (think, 11 PM or midnight) a couple of nights. He only got a chance to play golf one day, on Thursday. After Suzanne borrowed our truck Friday afternoon, he worked till about 6:30 PM, then we went to check on the house. They started painting and have most of the first coat sprayed on most of the surfaces (ceilings, walls, cabinets, etc). They have the outside painted, the cedar parts and also the eaves and door frames around the garage doors. The builder warned us that the painting will probably take 2-3 weeks, but in looking back, the cabinets took 3-4, so I guess that’s ok 🙂 Friday night, we stayed at the new house till nearly dark, then swung by Krilakis for a late supper. I had the regular, lamb gyro with Greek salad. Tim let me snatch two of his french fries 🙂

Saturday, he got up early and went to play in a golf tournament with the church. They played out at The Refuge and Tim and his group came in second! He won a gift card to Lowe’s, which definitely comes in handy right now 🙂 After he took a good nap, he started prepping and then painting up front in our current house. He finished the guest bathroom cabinets and baseboards last week, so started on the front bedroom and hallway. We have furniture all over the house, along with stacks of boxes that need to go to the storage unit. It’s lovely around here right now 😀

Sunday, we went to church, where we wrapped up the summer series on Characters who teach character. Today our regular pastor spoke on Samuel. He pointed out something I had never noticed, that the Bible never says anything bad about Samuel! He talked about his unconditional surrender and devotion and it really struck a chord with me. We will start a new series next week, I guess, they didn’t mention what the topic would be. School starts back this coming week, so the church and life groups will have a new start as well.

We came home after church and waited on Suzanne, and then went to a late lunch with her at Corner Bakery. Tim had pancakes, Suzanne had a scrambler and I had a half panini (California grille, a vegetarian one) and mixed greens salad. I made soft tacos and beans last night, and think I’ll do eggs and breakfast food tonight. Still working on cleaning out the freezer and pantry. It’s hard for me not to buy stuff to replace what I’m using. I’ll have a huge shopping trip once we move and I have the new fridge and pantry. Looking forward to that!

It’s late afternoon Sunday and Tim just left to play golf with Corey at Patrick Farms. Corey flies back from North Carolina every month or two to work and play golf with Tim 🙂 I’m not sure how much golf he’ll get to play this week, so I hope he enjoys today! We’ve got a lot of work to do with the painting, blinds, trying to find a realtor, getting insurance stuff worked out and probably going to pick out hardware. Also, we have to attend a therapy session for Suzanne and I have to get my hair cut this week. I prefer it busy right now though, more to do makes the time go by faster. I’m ready for August to zip by and be ready to move in early September sometime!

Another week down, closer to having the house finished! That can’t come soon enough for me 🙂

Let’s see, the week was fairly quiet. I did housework and normal stuff on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday after work, Elizabeth stopped by and we took a pickup bed full of boxes to the storage unit, then took Liz to see the house for the first time. Wednesday, Suzanne stopped by for a visit.

Thursday, I had returns to make to a few stores. Then, Gail came and brought Sam and Katelyn back to their house, they had been staying with her since the weekend. She came here and we went shopping and to run errands. We ran by Marshall’s and TJ Maxx and bought a couple of small things. Then we stopped at Big Lots and actually found some food items, I was pleasantly surprised at what a large assortment of Bob’s Red Mill products they had. I’ll have to remember to go back there after we move and stock up on a few things. After that, we went over to see Suzanne’s apartment, as Gail had not had a chance to visit her there. We hung out a while, then ran by Fresh Market to get the Thursday Meal Deal. This month’s (July) deal was cheeseburgers. We got 4 burger patties (2 beef, 2 turkey), brioche rolls from the deli, cookies, coleslaw, and slice cheese. Next month’s deal is supposed to be noodle bowls, I’ll be interested to see what all that entails.

Gail spent the night and then headed out Friday. I ran to Kroger and did a big grocery run. Tim did not play golf all weekend, which is very odd. Saturday, he decided to stay here and work on the house. We’re down to the wire to get things fixed up around here to put our current house on the market, before we move to the new house. He cleaned up outside, washed down the siding and doors, painted around the front and back doors and also washed the gutters. I did some packing inside, in the master bedroom closet.

Sunday, I got up and was nearly ready for church when Tim came in the bathroom and said “I do NOT feel good, I can’t go to church”. Which for Tim to say, means he is near death’s door 🙂 He stayed home all day and rarely left the couch. Now, today (Monday) he is even worse with a stomach bug, but is working. Suzanne came over Sunday afternoon and stayed for several hours. She had a setback and is very upset. I went over to her apartment today (Monday) and tried to get her up and out of bed at lunchtime. She is not eating and is very depressed. Before I left, she called and got an appointment at an outpatient counseling place across town, and is hopefully going to be accepted and start a 6 or 8 week intensive outpatient therapy regimen. She is really struggling and we’re doing our best to help her.

We should be contacting a realtor soon, to list the house, which means we’ll shift into an even higher gear. I am going to have to clean more around here, bummer! And have things presentable at a moment’s notice, I suppose. I’m just itching to get a final date on the house and proceed straight to the moving phase 🙂 We ran up to the house yesterday with Suzanne and they had everything prepped for painting but had not started. They had, however, stained the outside doors and they looked really good.

Another week down, wonder how many to go before we have a closing date! At least July is almost over. Oh, and Saints training camp started, so that is wonderful news, LOL!

I’ve posted many times in the past, probably every July and August, about how these are always the two hardest months of the year for me. When I worked full-time, I rarely took vacation during this time, and it was a long time between July 4th and Labor Day. Now that I’m not working, Tim is but plays golf all summer (and we rarely go on vacation this time of year), and the heat is so bad (although this year not NEARLY as bad as normal), the two months of July and August always seem interminably long. And this year is no exception, and probably even worse, since we are trying ever so hard to patiently wait for them to finish with building our house!

We check on the house every week. Tim, usually 2-3 times a week, me usually once or maybe twice. He comes away uber-excited and pumped up. Me, I get dejected that they don’t seem further along and there seems to be *so* much left to do 🙂 It helps that we’ve been taking pictures every step of the way, and sharing them on an IOS photo stream for family, so I can look back to May when it was just dirt, then foundation, then framing and see just how far they HAVE come. But still 😀

We logged another week in the books. Tim and our neighbor Rick finished up the gates and the fence work, so that is now done. It looks really great. I teased them both that we should hire them out, they do really good work 🙂 Tim had a rough week at work, having to work late a couple of nights and having some really bad days where he was chasing problems and on conference calls pretty much the entire day. I hope next week is a lot better for him.

On Wednesday, Kathryn, Katelyn and Sam dropped by after work for Sam to come stay with us, just like his big sister did a couple of weeks ago 🙂 Sam and I had fun, when we spent time together. He was mostly happy to take his mom’s ipad, go in his room, close the door and binge-watch cartoon “movies” or tv shows from Netflix. He could do that hours at a time, unless he got hungry. He never seemed to get bored! If we tried to read a book (he did NOT want to do that!), watch something together on tv or play the Wii together, he got bored in about 8 minutes flat! LOL! We went to the library and got books for bedtime stories, had dinner at Newk’s (HIS choice, surprisingly!) on Wednesday night with Uncle Tim, and then went to check on the house. Sam had a ball playing in the mountain of sawdust in the garage, LOL! Thursday, Aunt Liz came over for a late lunch, then we went to Sam’s Club and Kroger to pick up some things that Sam likes to eat (chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, chocolate chip waffles, strawberries). We ran into Aunt Suzanne in the grocery, which was nice. Aunt Liz stayed for supper and waited for Uncle Tim to finish work late, so he could work on her vehicle when he finished. She was long overdue for an oil change 🙂 It was good to get to see her, and we look forward to seeing more of her as she winds down summer vacation and gets ready to get back to teaching in August. Sam watched a lot of Netflix on Friday, since it pretty much rained all day. His parents and Katelyn came by after work on Friday and we all visited for a while then went to eat. At Newk’s again, Sam’s choice 🙂 He seems to like their free breadsticks and cheese pizza.

Saturday, Tim had an early morning tee time and then stopped by to check on the house again. They are still finishing up cabinets and building the island and his vanity for his bathroom by the office, also known as one of the guest baths. He spent some time helping me visualize the kitchen and layout and where things might go after he got home. I’m still struggling with the difference in cabinets and drawers at the new house, versus what I have here, where it’s located and how I use it. It really helped when he tried to help me see it and work things out in my mind, but it will really just be after we move and get things unpacked and try to live in the space, before it’s actually going to click for me, I think. One of my big failings, I just can’t visualize things until I actually *do* them.

Today is Sunday, so church. Another good service in the same series, Characters who Teach Character. Guest speaker Floyd Vanderbergh, with Strategic Impact and also a member of our church. He spoke on Gideon and his experience from the book of Judges, good sermon. Afterwards, we ran by Kroger, since we were completely out of milk and almost out of bread. I’ve been trying to use more of what i have here, but still need milk, bread, juice, eggs and lots of produce 🙂

Tim is going to play golf later, and right now he is happily watching recorded British Open coverage on the DVR. I saw online today that there are 7 more Sundays until Saints regular season football begins. I cannot wait!

In other news, Tim’s parents left Monday morning on a cross country trip. They’ve been to Memphis, St Louis, Dodge City Kansas, Mesa Verde Colorado and are driving through Nevada today, headed to the redwoods in California. They’re having a great time, I think!

On the home front, I’m going to try to cook more from my pantry and freezer this week. Tonight (Sunday) we are going to have breakfast food. I don’t have anything nailed down, but am tentatively planning meals this coming week of hot italian sausage sub sandwiches one night, salads, oven bbq chicken with coleslaw and baked beans. I probably won’t get to the crockpot red beans and rice (with sausage), maybe next week on that one. And I have a package of frozen ravioli that I am going to use soon. As I’ve warned Tim, I’m spending less at the grocery right now, which is counter-intuitive to what is going to happen – that I’m going to spend a lot more re-stocking things after we move, when we have less cash to work with. But, oh well!

I finished a library loan book yesterday, the latest by Dee Henderson entitled “Undetected” about a US Navy submarine captain and a genius young lady in the field of sonar. Good book, and now I’ve got another library loan, “Missing You” by Harlan Coben. I don’t read a lot of fiction that is not Christian, but he is one I do enjoy. Not sure what I’ll read after that… We’ve got some stuff to watch on the DVR, since we didn’t watch much while Sam was here and Tim has been busy since Thursday watching British Open coverage.

OK, that’s it for another boring weekly update! 🙂 Hope everyone out there (if anyone is actually out there reading this!) is having a great week and weekend 😀

That’s basically the update for this past week: Tim and our neighbor Rick have been rebuilding fences. 🙂

Let’s see, this past week Tim did not play golf once. He played last Sunday, but has not played again. He and Rick worked on our fence and then Rick’s. They have all the 2×4’s up, all the fence boards up now and are working on gates (2 each).

Wednesday at lunch, we drove out to check on the house. Still working inside on cabinets and trim, putting up crown moulding and they had started on the inside brick. Friday afternoon, we got some rain showers around 4 PM, so Tim and Rick decided to take a break. We went back to check on the house, then went out to eat (Chinese buffet!) and to Harbor Freight. At the house, they had finished the inside brick, both the keeping room fireplace and the arch going from the great room into the kitchen/keeping room. They had the outside shutters built, but not installed. I’m hoping for garage doors, driveway and things like that soon. I am hoping they can do some outside stuff while the carpenters are still busy inside. Oh, and Friday evening, they had started on my screened-in back porch! Yippee!

Friday, I ran errands most of the day. I went to Kroger, to Harbor Freight (for a gift card) and the post office and also to Sam’s. Suzanne met me at Sam’s and got a whole cart full of stuff! I hope she has room to store it all 🙂 She also filled up her Toyota with gas.

Saturday was a work day around here. Tim and Rick started around 7:30 AM and finished up about 7:45 PM. I worked some in the attic in the morning (the only time it’s bearable up there), and threw down some stuff to take to the storage unit, as well as some stuff I dragged to the curb for the garbage to pick up. I found my old footlocker and got even more nostalgic and misty-eyed. 🙂 I’ve had that blue footlocker since I was a pre-teen or teen, and it contains papers from my childhood all the way through college.

Sunday was church (guest speaker from a church plant in New Orleans, but still on the same series, Characters who teach Character). The speaker used Jehosheba from 2 Kings 11, who saved the baby Joash from the queen mother Athaliah, who killed all of her grandsons after her son Ahaziah had died. Jehosheba saved the royal line of David, thereby keeping God’s promise, and showed tremendous courage. So this week’s character trait was courage, good sermon 🙂

After church, we stopped by Corner Bakery, but the line was out the door (we were late, had stopped to visit and chat after church), so we went to Walmart instead. I had to get some color safe bleach, mouthwash and I got 2 totes to store stuff from my footlocker in the attic. Since Tim had been working so hard on the fence all week and not playing golf, I told him to pick where he wanted to eat, so of course, he picked Dickey’s BBQ! I have a new plan of action for there, to stay away from some of the meat. I tried a baker (potato) this time and plan to try the Smokehouse Salad next time. I’m still eating pretty bad, but maybe not as much red meat and cholesterol for me. I got the pork tangler potato. Huge baked potato with pulled pork and fried onion strips on top, it was extremely tasty! After our free ice cream, I got Tim to walk next door to Home Goods. I had wanted to look for an Oxo container to store my flax in (I got a HUGE bag at Sam’s, and need something to parcel it out into). I couldn’t find the size I wanted, so I got a glass jar with green lid instead, cute for my new pantry! 🙂

Sunday, we got a rain shower around 1:45, so that sealed it for Tim, he was really too tired to play golf he said. I thought he might cave and go, but after the rain, it was a bit soggier and a lot more humid, so he decided to stay home and rest. After a couple of good naps for him, we rented “NonStop” with Liam Neeson from Amazon video. Good movie! Then we watched an old movie I had recorded on the DVR, the last Twilight one. Then we cleaned up a few tv shows. Oh, and we tried Extant this week on the DVR, the summer sci-fi show with Halle Berry. Tim is on the fence with it, but I sorta liked it. We’ll see how it goes and if we keep up with that one or not.

Now, it’s another Monday and I need to be cleaning house, but I’m very unmotivated. It is hard with boxes and junk everywhere. But we need to get things cleaned up, Tim wants to list the house soon and I dread having to have it ready to show at a moment’s notice. I also hate that he will have to figure out where to go to work if the realtor wants to show it during the day, but that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get to it 🙂 First, he has to finish the gates and call the fence “done” 😀

Oh, and for food, I made pork fajitas last week, chili dogs, and then we ate out Chinese buffet Friday night. Saturday night I made veggie quesadillas. Sunday we had Dickie’s for lunch, then popcorn with the movie, then Tim made us homemade salsa for supper (I was going to do breakfast food, but he said he was fine with just salsa and chips). Tonight I’m making meatless stuffed peppers and a salad, and I will probably do fried rice and potstickers later this week.

Well… I certainly do ramble about nothing! Not much to report, but there’s another week in the books. One week closer to them finishing the house and us being able to move! I’m so antsy and ready for them to just be done already 😀

Or at least, today is hopefully going to be a lazy Sunday!

Had another busy week, just to hit the highlights:

Monday, we met with the carpenter, his boss and our builder at the new house for a couple of hours. They asked more questions than I knew how to answer about the size, dimensions, placement etc of cabinets in the kitchen and master closet. I’m basically getting Tim to help with that! I liked the layout of cabinets in the other house we are basing our house on, so I was going by that. I really liked how the laundry room was laid out. When we got up there Monday afternoon, they had already started the laundry room and it was different. So, different is fine! Just make it efficient and give me as much space as you can! I did talk to the builder about adding me a small linen closet in the space outside the master suite. It will only be 14 inches deep, but hey, I’ll take it. Ok, I just now went and measured my cedar chest, the one my parents gave me on my Sweet Sixteenth birthday. It’s 13 1/2″ deep, so now I’m even happier. Will give me more space for extra pillows, blankets and the quilts from my grandmother and the one Tim’s Mamaw made for him that we sleep under every winter 🙂

Tim laid out the master closet, with two built in dressers and one shoe rack (that’s what the builder calls it, we called it shelving, LOL!). He went by the house a couple of days later and didn’t like the second built-in, so he had them take it out and go back to rod space. We’ll have to share that one built-in dresser and the shoe rack, but oh well. We’re used to sharing, as we are in such a small space right now. I will just be really happy for a place to put my purses and all of his golf hats! LOL!

Wednesday, I got my haircut and ran errands. I still miss my dad every time I go for a haircut, as I always, always, without fail, went to see him on those days, when he was living here in the assisted living place. I’ve been thinking about him and my mom so much these days, since they helped me buy this house, and raised me in one house all my life. Bittersweet, that’s our key word.

Thursday, I spent most of the day in the kitchen, and Friday we went to Mount Olive to Tim’s Aunt Becky’s house for the annual Fourth of July get-together. Had a great time, as always. This year, I finally got my camera back out and took a lot of photos. That nostalgia stuff with missing my parents and moving out of this house that I’ve lived in for 21 years is till going strong, so I want to take a lot of photos of family at all times of the year, especially holidays. I posted a lot of them on Facebook, so I won’t post any here.

Biggest news that day – Brittany and David got engaged the night before! We’re so excited for them 🙂

After we got back on Friday, Tim went to Lowe’s and bought a new refrigerator for the new house. I had picked out a Whirlpool Gold french door style to match all the new appliances. We were originally going to get it at the builders supply place where everything else is coming from. But Lowe’s was having a sale through the holiday weekend, and it was 800 off regular price, and 400 less than what they quoted us at the contractor place. So Tim talked to them and they are going to order it, and store it until we move in September. How awesome is that?! I had no idea Lowe’s would do that. Tim went ahead and got an extended warranty on it, just in case. He also went for his main purpose -to buy a load of lumber to rebuild the fence.

We started on that Saturday morning. He tore down the old fence at our current house, and had bought posts and concrete to redo those, but decided to go with the ones already in place, as they look fine. He hung all the 2×4’s and then started on the dog ear boards. He got the front done, but we have all the back and Rick and Sharon’s side left to do. He is playing golf today (Sunday), since he doesn’t work on Sundays, but says he won’t play golf again until the fence is done! So, WOW, I will see a lot of him for the next few days, hahaha!

We were both exhausted last night by the time we stopped at dark and picked up all his tools. I was already sore and hurting, and today is no better. I’m just no good with manual labor! I’m so glad we’re having everything contracted out at the new house and there are no DIY home improvement projects on my horizon. Tim loves them, but me, eh, I do not. Anyway, we went to church, then for a late breakfast/brunch at Waffle House, then stopped by Kroger for milk and produce. Now, Tim is playing golf and I’m trying to be lazy! (Note for reference, the Lake Caroline clubhouse burned yesterday, July 5th, big loss). Been shredding old papers, stuff from the 90’s and 2000’s. I’ve shredded two full garbage bags so far, so I think I’m done for a bit! Need to still go through more magazines, I’ve got a huge pile left. And most of the house left to pack, but today, I think today I’m going to take it easy. 😀

Update: Tim called about 6:30 and happily reported that he shot his lowest score ever, a 70 at Lake Caroline! He was so happy and said all he wanted to celebrate was a burger at 5 Guys! LOL! I didn’t want to eat that bad, but he was so giddy, that I couldn’t turn him down. So we had a nice dinner at 5 Guys to celebrate!

Time for my weekly update as to what we did in the week past… boring, I know! But it helps me keep up with what’s going on 🙂

Last week we stayed pretty busy again. Wednesday, we met with the decorator who works with our builder, and spent pretty much the whole day picking out items for the house. First granite, then tile, backsplash, travertine for the master countertops, carpet, etc. Then fixtures, lights, fans, faucets, sinks, toilets, etc etc etc. Long day and I hope everything turns out ok. Tim picked the light fixtures for the foyer, dining room, breakfast room and the pendants over the island. He sees things better than I do, so I trust his judgement 🙂 We took the standard set of appliances that our builder uses. We picked out a fridge, but are probably going to end up getting it on our own from Lowe’s.

After we finished, in a nice soaking downpour, we met Kathryn and Katelyn in Clinton and brought Katelyn back with us, to stay till Friday. Katelyn got to pick what she wanted to eat and do while she stayed with us, so she picked pizza for supper Wednesday night. We all ate the pizza buffet at Pizza Inn near us, then went to check on the house. Katelyn was the first one to see some of the brick installed! They had the back screened in porch done, and some along the back. After the house, we ran by Lowe’s to look at refrigerators. We found one quite a bit cheaper than at the contractor’s place, which really surprised us.

Thursday was a busy day for Katelyn and I while Uncle Tim worked hard (he had a project going in this weekend, so had a lot of work to do on Thursday and Friday). I talked to Katelyn Thursday morning about what we were going to eat for lunch and dinner and found out she didn’t like those things! I thought all kids liked grilled cheese, but she vetoed that for lunch, so off we go to Kroger to stock up on things she liked to eat. We got hummus, carrots, Twizzlers, hamburger buns and meat, doritoes, cherries and a lot of other fruit. Aunt Stacy wanted to watch the USA play in the World Cup match, so we did that when we got home. After the soccer match (which we lost, 0-1 to Germany, but we’re still not eliminated!), we went to feed the ducks and geese. After that, we went to visit Aunt Suzanne and her cat Swatch. After that, we stopped at the library to get a new book to read at bedtime 🙂 Katelyn picked “Henry, the Dog with No Tail”, which was quite good! Katelyn watched some streaming kids shows while I fixed supper (Uncle Tim was at the golf course till dark) and we had supper. After a bath and the bedtime story, she got a good’s night sleep. She’s a very good houseguest 🙂 We stayed home on Friday and played games and Hayday on the ipad!

Friday night, we met Jeremy, Kathryn and Sam at Pizza Inn (yes, again, it was Katelyn’s pick and Sam was all for it, LOL!) and had supper. Suzanne came and visited with us while we all ate, then we all went to check on the house. Unfortunately, with the rain, they had not done anything since we were there Wednesday night, boo hiss. Jeremy, Kathryn and the kids visited till late, so it was great to see them and catch up.

Saturday was a busy day. Tim had an early tee time (7:20, so he left around 6:20) and shot a great round – he shot 71 at Lake Caroline! He had lunch with the guys he played with, and I had some fruit, carrots and hummus after he got home. I had spent the morning packing while he played golf. I got about 12 boxes packed and Tim helped me tape them up and get them stacked in the dining room, waiting for a trip to the storage unit. Tim went out to cut the grass, and it started raining before he was quite finished. I went out and helped for a while, picking up stuff he had trimmed and picking up golf balls in the back. We both got a bit damp (me, damp, Tim, soaked) 🙂 Saturday night we stayed in, and had leftovers (popcorn for me), homemade ice cream that I made and watched stuff on the DVR.

Sunday was church, brunch at Corner Bakery. Tim had a tee time for 2:30 with some buddies, but his parents had called Saturday late to say they were coming to town. So, I planned to go meet them for lunch and shop with the girls while the guys went to the new Harbor Freight. However, Tim’s buddies had other stuff come up too, so he ended up not going to play golf and went with me to meet his parents and Terry and Emi. They ate at Zaxby’s, while we visited with them. After that, we split up and the girls went to the mall and Tim, Terry and Mitchell went to the tool store. After the mall, the girls stopped at Walmart then we all met up at Sam’s. I had a few things to get at Sam’s so we shopped while Terry stocked up for the store. Emi had brought us tamales that her friend Rosie had made, so we had those for supper when we got home (along with guacamole that I made). We watched more stuff on the DVR and then Tim had to work starting at 11 PM.

Today is Monday and Tim has a busy day at work. We are supposed to go meet with the carpenter sometime today to go over the cabinets, closets, etc at the new house. It seems that the rain is going to stop for a few days, I think it rained every day last week, so I will have to get back into the habit of watering my flowers and herbs soon. Bummer. 🙂