Exceedingly Mundane

Thanksgiving was a very busy, very fun week around our house 🙂 Then, the sickness arrived, horrible black plague that it is!

Let’s see, on Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we had about 16 people here. Suzanne’s son Kirk, his wife Nichole, and their three kids came over to visit. Gail and Don came down from Indianola and stayed with us till Friday. Kathryn, Jeremy, Katelyn, Sam, Elizabeth and David also came over to visit. Suzanne brought pizza and everyone stayed to hang out and visit for a while. It was the first time we had met Isabella, Kirk’s youngest baby, and other than seeing Lillie and Max at the funeral, we had not seen them much, so great to see everyone and catch up.

Wednesday, Tim had the day off, so he and Don went to play golf. Gail and I ran to Kroger for some last minute items and then I spent the next 5 or 6 hours in the kitchen, cooking and preparing stuff for Thanksgiving. I made Chicken Santa Fe in the crockpot for supper for everyone, and Suzanne came back over to eat and visit. Kirk, Nichole and the kids had gone to see his dad. Thursday morning, Suzanne had a run, then came over, along with Elizabeth and David. We all had the normal – turkey (Got up at 6 AM and Tim got it in the smoker), Gail’s dressing, broccoli rice casserole, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls. Elizabeth made pumpkin pie for dessert and I tried a new recipe for pecan pie bars (the first attempt failed, but the second, with modifications, came out great). We all went to see Interstallar at Malco in the late afternoon. Then we came home and cranked up the fire pit for its grand inauguration and had cocoa and roasted marshmallows.

Tim and Don went to play golf again Friday morning, while Gail and I hung out here some, then went to get Margaret’s car over at Nancy’s house. We all got caught in traffic getting home (not Black Friday, but a bad wreck on the highway), and a little bit later, Don and Gail left going home and to the Lamb, Bass, Barger party. Tim collapsed when they left, and admitted he had been sick. He was sick all the rest of Friday, Saturday on his BIRTHDAY, Sunday and on into the next week, even though he worked every day and didn’t take a single hour of sick leave.

I went to Walmart on Saturday and picked up some Mucinex and a few items. I went back to Kroger Monday morning for more meds and some orange juice, clementines and a few things. I was already starting to feel bad Monday morning, but had to get up, since the Lowe’s repair guy was coming to look at the fridge (seal on the bottom freezer drawer has been leaking and holding water). By later Monday, I was running fever and feeling horrible.

We were both sick all week, so it wasn’t very merry around our house. Luckily, we had put up the Christmas trees (two, first time ever, since we had a short brand new one from the old house, and a new 9′ one for the new house, high ceilings) and the Snow Village before everyone came before Thanksgiving. When Tim got to feeling better later in the week, he hung the outside garlands and outside decorations for me. I didn’t feel like doing much of anything until Thursday or Friday. Friday afternoon, we had a new refrigerator delivered from Lowe’s. We had to get all the coolers out and unload everything and reload the new one, that job in itself wore me completely out! Tim took pity on me, plus rewarded himself LOL, by driving us to the gas station at the interstate and getting us Krystal burgers for supper. Hahaha, he loves them and I am still not up to cooking much (tried Thursday night and it was ok, I MELTED my plastic steamer basket that I had used for twenty years on an electric stove, I melted it to my aluminum pot on this new gas stove, sigh). So, I thought Krystal was a great idea!

Needless to say, with both of us sick, we’ve been sitting in our chairs in the keeping room, watching tv and movies. We had a free movie preview weekend around Thanksgiving and so we recorded a lot of movies on pay channels we don’t normally get. We’ve watched The Wolverine, Pacific Rim, The Book Thief, Red 2 and Tim watched Lone Survivor, The Escape Plan and A Good Day to Die Hard. We also caught up on most of our shows on the DVR 🙂 Lots of tv time, snuggled up under blankets.

Today is Saturday and I’m still not feeling great. We are supposed to meet Mark, Amanda, kids and friends later today, they are in town for one of Abby’s cheer competitions. After that is over, we’re supposed to catch up with them and have supper, I hope neither one of us get them sick. AND, I hope we get to church tomorrow, we’ve been sick and haven’t been able to go the last two weeks 🙁

I need to get back into the habit of uploading photos, I know these posts are boring, just an online diary, but at least I’m going to try to keep up with everything going on 🙂

Well, I’ve been absent from my blog for another long period of time, like maybe 3 weeks? Things are just so busy and as much as I want to document them and capture them for my future sketchy memory, I just don’t seem to find the time to stop and blog. Sigh.

Let’s see… since the last time I blogged, we had a celebration for my niece’s birthday (Elizabeth), my sister Suzanne and we had a big crowd here for Halloween. Then the time changed and it became November and I thought I would have lots of time to get caught up on some stuff. Wrong.

Halloween was fun, but a bit disappointing to me in that even though we had a lot of friends and family here to hang out with and for Tim to take trick or treating, I stayed home and only had 2 or 3 trick or treaters. Even less than our old neighborhood 🙁 I know we’re in a construction zone and in the back of the new subdivision, with no street lights, so I know why, but it was still disappointing to buy a half ton of candy and only have the doorbell ring 3 times 🙂 Gail came the day before, and we went shopping and then cooked stuff on Halloween afternoon. She also helped me order curtains for the dining room windows that morning. Gail made Halloween bark and I made taco soup, mummy dogs, Boo biscuits and we had chips, drinks (witches brew and vampire juice) and hopefully everyone had as much fun as we did and enjoyed it. I think next year will be a lot better, most if not all of the houses should be built and we will hopefully be lit with street lights. Kathryn and Jeremy came with the kids, Katelyn was a Zombie and Sam was a star trooper (homemade costumes, they looked GREAT!). Suzanne and Elizabeth came too, and then Tony and Stephanie came and brought Rylan and Leila, and Jackie and Linda came too. This was the first time Linda had seen the house, since she didn’t get to come on moving day. It was great to see everyone and visit, and we hope that next years Halloween is even better 😀

November started out cold, it was cold Halloween night and we had to turn the heat on, really early for us. We’ve had some cold patches and are just coming out of a really cold spell for the last week. Highs in the 40’s a couple of days and lows in the mid 20’s for mid November are really cold for us, and the rest of the country too.. I lost my geranium, basil and pepper plants to the frost, and am trying to keep the rest of my herbs alive on my screened in back porch. We FINALLY, FINALLY, got the starter keys to our two fireplaces on Friday 11/14, so we were able to make a fire. These fireplaces are very warm and efficient, nothing at all like the one in our old house, where it was vented and all the heat just went up the chimney. These are not vented and put out a ton of heat into the room, so we’ve really been enjoying the fireplaces on cold days and evenings. We bought a fire pit at Home Depot and Tim put it together, but we haven’t used it yet. I need to get a cover for it soon.

The weekend of November 8, Suzanne ran her first 10K and Tim and I went to cheer her over the finish line. A pretty cold morning, but she did great. It was Mistletoe Marketplace weekend, but I didn’t get to to go. Don and Gail came after the race so that Don could go with Tim to the PGA tourney, Sanderson Farms, at the Jackson Country Club (Zack got free passes and came to bring them to Tim, great to visit with him, he’s in his first semester of college). Gail and I went shopping and I got some boots, leggings and tunics at Steinmart. I still need a lot of new clothes, especially church clothes, which I went to look for but struck out on. Monday 11/10, I helped Suzanne all day, with her selling the Lexus and cleaning out her storage unit and moving everything to her apartment. Tuesday was Veterans Day and I hated that we still don’t have an American flag hanging at the new house. Still so much we want to do. Wednesday 11/13, I got my haircut and had an “incident”. The color started melting or something weird while I was under the dryer, and it dripped down all over my face and got in both my eyes. My eyes were burning so bad I really couldn’t see. They had to flush both my eyes for several minutes and try to stop the burning and stinging. I had problems with my vision for the next few hours, but thankfully it cleared up after a few more dousings of saline that I got Tim to help me with.

The weekend of 11/15 was fun but quiet for us. Tim finished putting up gutter guards on the house and raked leaves on Saturday, then we went shopping for bar stools. Got three black leather saddle back ones that look great under our new island. Sunday we went to church and Sunday School, but it was sparse, when we woke up it was about 36 degrees and raining steadily. It rained virtually all day Sunday and into the evening, a good soaking rain. We have turned the irrigation system off for the winter, so hopefully the grass and plants are established and make it through the winter.

We’ve been going round and round on issues with a Christmas tree. Long story short, we bought a new 7 1/2 foot one last year for the old house. We put it up early this year to see, as we were afraid, with the really high ceilings in the new house, it looks pretty puny. So we went and got a 9′ tree at Sam’s Club and brought it home. Unpacked it and it had 2 of the same section in it, which means it did NOT look good! Dealt with the customer service, who finally told me to take it back to Sam’s and exchange it, which we did. Thankfully, the new tree has all the right pieces and looks good. We’ve got the new one up in the keeping room (not decorated yet) and the old one in my craft room, one of the front windows (also not decorated, I won’t have enough decorations for both, so this one will stay empty, just lit for the front window effect). I have NEVER put up a Christmas tree before Thanksgiving and feel sort of bad, like we are robbing Thanksgiving or something. But we have so much else going on and I know it’s going to take me longer to decorate and figure out where to put things in the new house, so I’m getting a head start. Or so I tell myself!

This week has been busy, but nothing too spectacular. My mom’s 90’th birthday would have been on Monday. She’s been gone over 12 years and I still miss her every day, as I do my dad. This is going to be my first Thanksgiving and Christmas without my daddy, and it’s going to be hard. We’ll stay busy though, so that will help. I’ve tried to go birthday shopping for Tim but didn’t have a lot of luck. He is pretty hard to buy for 🙂 I’m trying to get food and stuff for next week. We have another busy week coming up. My nephew Kirk, his wife Nicole and their kids are supposed to come visit Tuesday night, and then everyone will be here on Thanksgiving day. Gail and Don will hopefully come and stay at least one night with us, if not more. We love having company! We are really enjoying the new house and having people over, it’s great to have more room for everyone and not be as crowded as we were in the old house.

Lots going on and I didn’t get any photos uploaded and sized for the blog. I need to get better at that. I’ll try to blog more soon 🙂

Yes, I’m doing it again. At least some blogging is better than nothing, right?!

The weekend of 10/17-19 was a very busy one as we celebrated my birthday multiple times. Tim took off Friday and we went shopping and out to lunch. I got some clothes and had a Hambrosia sandwich at Steak Escape. We met my side of the family at my favorite Chinese restaurant, Mr Chen’s. We came back to the new house (gotta stop calling it that!) and had a cake I had made on Thursday. Chocolate, with chocolate frosting, which would have been good, except that my OLDER sisters put a great big 5-0 in green dots on top and ruined it 🙁 Saturday, my actual birthday, we got up and went to Tim’s parents house. His mom, Emi and Brittany surprised me when we got there, and they had the house decorated with pink and black balloons and lots of banners 🙂 Linda made my special request, egg custard pie, which my mom used to make for me when I was a teenager and in my early 20’s. I hadn’t had one in probably 15 or 20 years and it was delicious! I quickly learned, however, that no one, not one single person in Tim’s family likes egg custard, so I will never ask for that again. We’ll stick to chocolate which I love equally as much (and most everyone will eat!) 😀 We visited all afternoon and headed home, fairly tired. Our neighbors, Becky and Francis, came over late and brought us cupcakes 🙂 Sunday was church, and our Sunday School party. Come to find out that 10/19 is our co-leader Skip’s birthday, so we had chocolate cake again to celebrate 🙂 I had a great birthday weekend. Tim got me a Kendra Scott necklace (thanks Gail!), some Bath and Body Works, and a 3 month subscription to Harry and David’s “Chocolate of the Month club”. That, by far, is my favorite gift! I was SO hoping for a dog, as I got Beau for my birthday in 2006, but Tim is not ready yet to talk about a dog… sniff sniff.

Monday (10/20), Tim was on vacation again all day (all that shopping Friday wore him out, LOL!). He cut the grass for the first time in the AM. Then his buddy Corey W got here about 11 AM for burgers. They had lunch and visited, and then left to go play golf at Lake Caroline. Ms Maridine, our friend and neighbor from the old subdivision, dropped off her computer for Tim to work on and visited just a few minutes. Suzanne was here a while in the afternoon to say goodbye before her trip Wednesday to Colorado. After Suzie left, I got in the kitchen and made a cake for Becky (new neighbor across the street) for her birthday.

Tuesday was my favorite kind of day, a “hanging out around the house” kind of day. We got Boo’d that evening (someone surprised us with a Halloween basket of goodies and we have to pay it forward to two other unsuspecting neighbors in the next 24-48 hours). Tim grilled out pork chops and salmon Tuesday evening, and I fixed pan roasted potatoes and salad to go with the meat.

Wednesday was another busy “be gone most all day” kind of day. I went to our old subdivision to return Ms Maridine’s computer that Tim fixed. I had to go to the tax collectors office and get a tag for the truck (even though we never received the renewal notice in the mail. Not getting mail is a whole other story, and not a good one). I also went to Walmart and Dollar Tree to fix Boo baskets for two neighbors. Boo’d Tim and Becky and Brian and Jill late afternoon, before they all got home from work (you’re supposed to Boo them when they are home, ring the bell and run, but that won’t work with our setup here, we can easily be spotted!). Tim started installing speakers in the ceiling of the keeping room Wednesday after work. I was staying out of the way, in our room trying to read on my Kindle and it started having problems, freezing, rebooting, having to download the complete library. Then would read a page or two and it would freeze again and start the cycle all over. I tried several things and finally got online about 10 PM and ordered a new Paperwhite, set to be delivered Friday. Sigh. I probably should have called Amazon customer service, but I just wanted it DONE and wanted a new one 🙂

Thursday was another mostly hanging out at home kind of day. Tim finished the speakers in the keeping room Thursday evening. He got his cooker out of the attic and boiled peanuts on the back porch, first time ever trying that (Note to self, 1 hr and 30 minutes in his cooker, lots of salt, turn off and let sit for 45-60 minutes). I made butternut squash soup in the crockpot (for me, Tim won’t touch the stuff) and then fixed breakfast food for both of us for supper. Our new neighbor Autumn brought over “Mississippi Roast” for Tim to try, which of course he did. I didn’t even think twice about making that recipe when I saw it online, because it has pepperoncini peppers in it, and I do NOT do peppers in any form 🙁 Of course, now he’s wanting me to make him one!

Friday, we turned the irrigation system back on and ran the sprinklers in the yard for probably the last time. It’s been cool in the mornings most all week, been in the 40’s but it is warming up again. AT&T Uverse guy came in the AM to replace the wireless receiver in the keeping room that was not working. I waited impatiently all day for my new Kindle to arrive and it was FINALLY delivered by UPS at 3:35. I got it setup and going in about 10 minutes and am happy so far 🙂 Tim offered to take us out to supper, so I didn’t have to cook! We went to Bill’s in Flora and tried it for the first time. Nice laid back atmosphere and good food. We both had fried catfish, next time Tim wants to try a steak and I may get either fried shrimp or shrimp and grits. We stopped at the new Livingston Mercantile on the way home to look around, as it has just recently opened. Bought a Sasparilla drink to try, something new. Came home and watched TV in the keeping room!

Saturday was a GREAT day! We slept a little late (getting too old to sleep very late, I keep waking up!) and then went for an exploratory walk in subdivision. We looked at several houses, stopped at the clubhouse to visit with Bradley, Kelly, Cage and Hutt. Then, we walked around the new area, just dirt before paving the new area behind us. We got back late morning, almost too late for breakfast, but I just called it brunch and fixed us some eggs, bacon and grits 🙂 We hung out in the keeping room a while to watch some TV and part of the movie Frozen. We worked around the house and watched college football most all day. Tim fixed us some salsa and queso for snacking on, I miss his salsa!

Sunday was another busy day. Church, still in the series “Next: A Study of Joshua” and then our Sunday School group. We couldn’t stay and visit, had to hurry and drive downtown to Sal and Mookie’s and meet Don, Gail and Elizabeth for a birthday lunch for Elizabeth. We had extremely slow service and ending up being there over 2 hours. Gail and Liz shared a pizza, Don and Tim got burgers and I had a grilled shrimp panini. After, everyone came here for the strawberry birthday cake (Liz’s favorite) Gail brought and ice cream. Gail and Don stayed and visited until dark, and Liz stayed for the game and to spend the night. The Saints beat the Packers (finally, they seem to only win at home!) on Sunday Night Football. Elizabeth got up early and left for school from here. We are SO glad she is coming to see us more in the new house 🙂

Monday (10/27) was a busy day with contractors at the house. Tim is back on the bandwagon with getting sub-contractors back here for items on the punch list. The electrical contractors came and fixed the items on their list, including getting the oven moved so there was no gap. Josh the trim guy came and knocked out a lot of items, including my drying rod, robe hooks and towel bar. He also worked on the front door lock, but couldn’t get it fixed. I got online and pre-ordered the new Amazon Fire stick since we have the TV setup now in the keeping room, but it’s not a smart TV like we have in the great room. That will let us watch streaming stuff through Amazon Prime in the keeping room. It won’t come in until December, but I guess that will be like a Christmas happy! LOL! For supper, we had leftover pulled pork (from Sunday night’s Saints game I had fixed) along with the homemade buns I made Monday. Lots of leftovers here 🙂

Tuesday (today, whew, finally caught up!), I got up and went walking, about 3.4 miles. Right after I got back, the plantation shutter guys came. We had been waiting since mid-September on the shutters, and when they came, he said, “this can be good or this can be bad”. Tim was like, did we get blue shutters, trying to make a joke. Then he proceeded to tell us that they had ordered the wrong CUSTOM shutters, and would offer us a $500 discount if we would accept them; if not, we’d have to wait another 8 weeks for them to order them again. They were NOT what I wanted, not what we ordered, so we are going to wait. Sigh. Tim and I are both very disappointed 🙁 The plumber also came by, to work on the drain problem with Tim’s copper sink. The insulation guy came by, but we couldn’t convince him we needed more insulation in one area of the attic, where the house seems to be getting a lot hotter. Sigh. I guess it’s always something with houses, new or old!

OK, I guess I’ll try once again to “regular” blog and not this daily running diary format. I don’t have a lot of hope in that right now! Halloween (this Friday) is going to be busy this year! We are so excited to be having a lot of people coming, should be about 17 of us if everyone comes who says they are. I’ll be busy with that Friday and probably doing last minute food shopping on Thursday. Not sure about this weekend, maybe I’ll do another diary post soon! 😀

I keep promising myself I will actually blog, and here I am again, just doing a snippet-a-day diary-of-our-life blog post. Things are still just zipping along, with not a lot of time to do things like read, blog, catch up on the DVR, etc. Oh well, maybe in January! LOL!

Let’s see, last week was another blur. Thankfully, I had a draft post started, where I could jot down tidbits every day or so. Here’s what I came up with:

*Monday (10/6/14) I went grocery shopping at Kroger. When I got back, the carpenter was here, replacing all 4 screws in every drawer in the house (except for the two that they managed to get right). I found the screw issue when I started to line drawers, and nearly cut my finger on a screw sticking out of the side. Every drawer now has holes where the screws came through, but at least no one will cut a finger now when they reach inside a drawer. For supper, I tried something new, a chicken parmesan meatloaf, along with mashed potatoes and salad.

* Tuesday, I was home all day, cleaning, doing laundry and I probably unpacked a box or two. 😀 For supper, we had sausage dogs with peppers and onions, with oven fries and fruit. Tim stayed up till 2 AM installing the shower door in guest bath. It’s a bit short, but looks great! He’s a much better worker than anyone who worked on this house! LOL!

* Wednesday was a very busy day. I had a haircut at 9:30 AM, then I met Gail for a few minutes, before we went to Hamil’s to meet up with Suzanne, Tim and our cousin Scott and his wife Karen. Now, that probably sounds normal to most people. For Tim, seeing cousins is an everyday thing, he grew up with like 27 first cousins. But for me, I had never met any of my cousins. My dad was estranged from his only brother, and for years, I didn’t even know his kids names. The youngest is Scott, who is older than me but younger than my middle sister Suzanne. He and his wife drove down from Colorado to see parts of the South and visit places his dad had grown up. I think he was as curious about us as we were about him! It was WONDERFUL to meet him, and I hope both his dad and mine would be glad that it finally happened after all these years 🙂 After a long lunch visiting with Scott and Karen, Gail, Suzanne and I left to go shopping (we went to Barnes and Noble, Walmart, and the dollar store). I got home late, but made a quick supper here for us and Suzanne (roast beef paninis with salad and chips), while Gail went to see Sam for his 7th birthday. After that, Gail came here to visit with us and Suzanne and stayed overnight, leaving early Thursday AM for her Bible study. See, busy day!!!

*Thursday was a recovery day! From being gone so much on Wednesday, I was craving being home. I did laundry, cleaned house, and spent the afternoon making beef stew and homemade bread for supper.

*Friday, Zack and Kelly stopped by mid-afternoon on their way to the fair, and Tim left to play golf at Deerfield. After he finished playing golf and came home to clean up, we drove to Ridgeland to meet Suzanne for supper at Papito’s Mexican, then we all made a quick run to Sam’s for a few things.

*Saturday, Tim had an early morning tee time, so I stayed home to pick up the house, and then do more unpacking. Tim came home for a late lunch (leftover sausage dogs), then we both got out in the back yard and worked on raking leaves. We watched the MS State game after that (they beat #2 Auburn and are now the #1 team in the country, something that has never happened!). We made nachos for supper, then watched stuff on DVR and also some of Ole Miss-Texas A&M game. Lots of college football today 🙂

*Sunday is my favorite day of the week! We went to church (still in the series “Next: A Study of Joshua)and then Sunday School. We didn’t linger to visit, since Tim had a 12:50 tee time. I went to Kroger, then walked around to look at a few new houses in subdivision. Elizabeth came over for supper (she very graciously agreed to stop and pick up the pizza we ordered at Dominos) and she spent the night with us.

*Monday, Elizabeth was here most of the morning, then she headed to school (even though she has the day off for Columbus Day). It was cloudy all day, and then we had strong storms in the PM – wind, rain but nothing any worse. I had been looking forward to a rain storm, so I could sit out back on my screened in porch and watch it rain and the wind blow in the trees. I did, and it was marvelous! For supper, we had a true Meatless Monday… I made eggplant patties, sauteed cabbage and sesame green beans for supper. Yummy. While it rained, we stayed in and watched some shows that are piling up on the DVR.

OK, that about catches me up! Today is Tuesday, 10/14, and I did finally drag my lazy butt out of bed this morning and go walking. It was 59 degrees when I left and I was nearly chilly! I’m SO looking forward to fall and having more time at home. We’re going to be busy this weekend, with lots of fun stuff going on. More about that soon!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

I am so happy to be back to some sporadic walking, in the new subdivision. I’ve mapped out a route, and it’s about what I want to walk, in the 3.2 to 3.4 mile range. I didn’t get a chance to go Monday morning, since we went to close at 8:30 AM, so I headed out Tuesday morning. Tim took the day off from work, and left to go watch our nephew Zack play in his first collegiate golf tournament (he didn’t shoot well, must have been the pressure of his uncle there, LOL!). I was out walking when he left, but my stomach was not feeling great, so I flagged him down and got him to drop me back at the house. Not feeling great, I made a tragic mistake. See, I wear my FitBit One (it’s very small) clipped onto my bra or sports bra. I took a shower and tossed my dirty clothes in the laundry basket, and then later decided to do laundry. See where this is going…

I discovered my FitBit still attached to my sports bra when I took it out of the washer to hang up to dry. Completely dead. I put it in rice and left it about 24-36 hours. After that, it needed a full charge of course, and I had high hopes that it would be ok. My hopes were dashed though. It is not holding a charge and runs down in just a few hours. Also, it doesn’t sync anymore on its own, I have to force a sync to get the data uploaded. Sigh.

So, I emailed Fitbit. Explained that it went through the washer, my mistake, and I had tried the rice trick and was still having trouble with it. They immediately emailed me back, asking for purchase information. I sent them that (Tim bought for me last year before Christmas, so it was just under a year), and they emailed right back, saying they would ship me a new one for free. Talk about great customer service! They answered me promptly, offered me a new replacement, and I got an email this morning that it had already shipped. So, next week I should have a new one, hopefully that works and can track my steps and sleep. Hooray!

Kudos to the Fitbit people 🙂

Let’s see… I keep saying I’ll make some kind of interesting blog post, but still, I keep just jotting down what we do every day. My own online diary… B O R I N G! I know, but still a lot going on and it’s all I can do just to record some of this for my horrible memory 🙂

Last week was another busy one, but another good week. On Monday, I ran errands all day. And by all day, I definitely mean all day, I think I went to 7 or 8 places. Walmart, Home Depot, the dollar store, Kroger, Sam’s, Ace Hardware, the bank, the post office and the old house. The Sam’s Club run was, as I had predicted, monumentally large! I had gotten low on so many items, and didn’t even get everything on my list, but still had an overflowing large buggy. Glad to have the pantry and new kitchen to stock up for!

Tuesday and Wednesday were relatively quiet days. I tried to mostly stay home unpacking. Tuesday morning I got up, made myself some coffee and sat out on my back porch, trying to catch up on my Bible reading. I’m SO far behind. I would say that I enjoyed the peace and quiet, but there’s construction all around us, so I heard all of the trucks, machines, equipment and workers. Still, it was very enjoyable! Wednesday was the home inspection at the old house, and Tim got a long list of nit picky items that will need to be addressed. He played golf Wednesday though, and had fun 🙂 Wednesday, I made red beans and rice for supper, which was good.

Thursday, I finally got my rear in gear and got out the door to go walk for first time in the new subdivision. I will have to work on a route, and learn the distances. Later that morning, we met with the landscape guy at new house, as I had a lot of questions about the plants (what are they, how to care for them, how to prune them, when to prune them, etc, especially the roses they planted out front), and Tim had questions about the irrigation system. Tim spent a big portion of the rest of the day on the phone with items from the old house inspection. After work, he headed to Lowes and then the old house to work on items on the old list that we weren’t going to get an electrician or roofer to handle. He got home really late, after dark and was exhausted. He had eggs, sausage, grits and homemade biscuits to look forward to, so that helped a wee bit 🙂

Friday, I got up and went again on a walk, and found a new route! I mapped out some streets that gave me about 3.2 miles, which is about what I like to walk. After I got home and had breakfast, I was talking to Tim and saw a white blob fall out of the sky and land on our driveway… A weather balloon landed on the house!! Tim climbed up on the roof to get the deflated orange portion down, and we put the recorder box in a prepaid mailing envelope attached to it, to mail it back to NOAA. It was pretty cool! Tim spent more phone time, working on items for old house (termite inspection, electrician and roofer), and then after work, we both went to the old house to finish things up (last cleaning, Tim fixed the washer spigot, cut grass, loaded up the mower and weed eater, etc). After that, we came back home (to the new house, can’t call it that much longer!) to meet Gail and Don and then go eat a late supper with them and Elizabeth at Majestic Burger. Don and Gail spend the night, so were our first houseguests at the new house!

Saturday, Gail and Don left early for a soccer game for Katelyn and I asked to tag along (Tim stayed here to work in the garage). Katelyn did really well and scored two goals! After the game, Gail and I dropped Don off at Lake Caroline to play golf with Tim, and then we went shopping. I got a few new things for the house (sponge holders, cast iron griddle, drawer organizers, new rug for front door, two fall wreaths). Poor Gail got to drag around with me from store to store, looking for doo-dads that I wanted. And this was just the tip of the iceberg, there’s still SOOO much more we need, especially shower rods. No one can come stay and take a shower in the guest bath, since I don’t have a rod and curtain or a shower door yet! After shopping, we met the guys for a very LATE lunch at Jason’s Deli (3:30 PM, I was beyond hungry, and fairly irritable!). Don and Tim stopped by the old house to spray a wasp nest, then they went to get the treadmill from the storage unit. Don and Gail headed home, and I know they were exhausted, because Tim and I both were!

Sunday was church and Sunday school. Then, we stopped on the way home at GermanFest (in Gluckstadt) for brats, sauerkrat and shish-ke-bob. We used to go every year when my dad was alive, but had not been in the last couple of years. The sign said 28th annual, and I didn’t realize it had been going on that long! We got enough for us for lunch, and us plus Liz for supper. We had a late lunch, and watched some of the Packers/Bears game after church, then we went walking down the street to look at new houses. We stopped to talk to the neighbors two doors down, the first family that moved in on the street, but we had met everyone but them 🙂 We visited a long time, maybe a couple of hours! Then, we came home to meet Liz and watch the Saints/Cowboys game on Sunday night football (my poor Saints, they can’t win this year, boo hoo)

Monday, we were up early to let Liz use our shower, then get ready to go to the closing. We closed on the old house today, and have now ended that chapter of our lives. I miss the old house, it was the house my parents helped me get when I was still single, that I had when I met Tim, that he came to live in with me when we got married, and where we had lived all of our married life until a couple of weeks ago. A lot of memories there, but it’s time to put that in a box on a shelf and move on to the next chapter. We have a beautiful new home, and as of closing, we now own only ONE home! After the closing, Tim came home and went back to work and I went on another large grocery run. We went after work to get the last load of stuff from the storage unit, so we could close it out by the end of the month. It will be nice to not have to pay for that every month now! Our garage and dining room are our storage units now, LOL! I fixed chicken fried rice and egg rolls for supper, yummy. I’ve been craving Chinese food for quite a while now, can’t wait to go soon.

And, that ends this portion of my boring daily life and my modified online diary! Poor blog, you are pretty neglected except for these daily snippet posts 🙁

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! 🙂