Home Sweet Home

We're in the new house, surrounded by boxes and completely exhausted. Claire didn't want to go to sleep until 9:30, although Nathan was good and went right to bed. Unfortunately, we are lacking in bedroom doors at the moment. Nathan's door is in the hallway leaning against a wall. One of our two doors is MIA, and it doesn't look like Claire's room ever had a door because it's a non-standard height. We'll have to see how we can remedy this.

For now, we've hung a sheet in Nathan's doorway so he doesn't see us passing by, but every noise in the house carries. Things should get muffled a bit after we put a rug in Claire's room and some rugs downstairs. I had to cover a heating grate with one after Dan gave himself a bloody toe when he tripped on it. I also need to investigate spots where nails are coming up through the floors. One hundred years of wear and tear messes up flooring a bit. We'd love to refinish them, but I'm also intrigued by the fact that I can see where the wood floor was formerly painted. There are patches of yellow and green in the living room that have yet to be worn away by the generations who have lived here.

Let's see, what else is wrong. We need to find someone who knows how to hook up washers and dryers, because the connection was odd and the movers didn't do it. We're having an ongoing debate about a funky smell. I think it's the smell of the former dog coming from a carpeted room, but Dan says it's the 20 pigs next door. (and yes, I know the pigs will smell, but I don't think that's what I'm smelling in the family room) The lawn got completely overgrown in the month and a half that the house was vacant, so we need to find someone with a tractor or brush hog to give it a once over. And there are still tons of things in Hannawa Falls, including toothbrushes, the book I was reading, all our artwork, cleaning supplies, cereal, and our cat Sprite. And Dan has to go back to work tomorrow after over a week off. Ugh.

Gotta fill up the blank spaces in my new house

Ten plus years ago, when we last lived in Potsdam, NY, I was passing a tag sale and decided to pick up a table for $5. I then had some fun painting it and stamping designs on it without any clear idea of what I was going to do with it. Shortly after that, our particle board computer desk self-destructed trying to get up the stairs to our Georgia apartment, and the table was pressed into temporary service as a desk. Can you see where I'm going with this?

It's a rotten substitute. The keyboard and mouse are too high, so our wrists aren't at the right level. There are no drawers for pens and doodads. I have to move the keyboard out of the way to have room to write anything. Rotten. But either we didn't have money to replace it or I didn't want to risk another collapse in our next move, so it has remained. But its days are numbered.

We currently have two choices. In column A, there is a new Target store in Watertown, where we'll be on Wednesday for the closing. Since the kids won't be with us, we may swing by and see if they have this in stock for $99.

However, this is the desk that I really like. I'm trying to shop around for a better price. It's either $450 or $300 + $150 in shipping in the places I've found so far. I'm not sure if I can justify that expense right now. Maybe it's time to hit some more tag sales.

Letting my Geek Flag Fly

I did this with the un-purchased house in the Adirondacks too. A complete version of the house we're buying in Sims2 style. The first floor is even to scale. Had some problems with the second floor, because Sims won't let me do the half story that we have there. But the downstairs is taken from the appraiser's measurements, so I think it's pretty accurate. I'm using it as a guideline to tell Dan where I want the furniture to go, since I'll be working on Thursday. I'm a complete wacko!

ah, relief

Things are getting sorted out. We're closing on Wednesday and moving on Thursday. Not exactly the ideal schedule I'd worked out a month ago, but at least we'll get it done.

The problem now is that it's beastly hot, and the worst weather for packing. It's in the high eighties, and without any breeze or air conditioning. We've got all the books and movies packed, I'll think we'll tackle the bathrooms and upper shelves of the kitchen today. The kids are off at the grandparent's today playing with the sprinkler.

We've been debating going to Dan's grandmother's for a get together this weekend if we got things packed enough. But I think instead we'll just try to turn off our brains for a few days and try and get out on a date. I think the last movie we saw was Cars, and it's been even longer since the two of us went. Although the reviews for Pirates and Spiderman are so mediocre, I'm not sure what I want to see.

Delays, delays, delays

So, we thought we were going to be closing tomorrow, but it's still up in the air. Our mortgage broker gave me bad information when we were gathering paperwork for the bank two weeks ago, and then she neglected to follow-up with us or her office. So on Friday, we found out we were still missing Dan's Employer verification and on Monday we found out we needed a letter from my Dad to verify some gift money.

We've spent the last three days sending faxes, calling Vermont, and emailing everyone involved to try and get this resolved. At best, it's probably going to take four more business days to close. I wish we could take this problem in stride, but Dan's already arranged time off. And worse, the mover can only move us next Tuesday or Thursday, after that, he's booked for a month.

We might be able to salvage things if the current owner will let us move in on Tuesday no matter what. Hopefully, we'll get some positive news tomorrow.

Another plug for Freecycle

I knew I was a slight packrat, but this is ridiculous.

I bought this dress when I was a bridesmaid in my cousin Jeanne's wedding. I'm trying to remember how long ago that was. Her daughter Maddy must be seven or eight by now. I must have been living in Georgia at the time. Which means this dress, which I only wore once, has been packed up and moved with me at least
1.Alexandria
2.Arlington
3.Germantown Apt
4.Germantown Townhouse
5.Saranac Lake House
6.Hannawa Falls
SIX TIMES. Ridiculous. And, it doesn't even come close to fitting me anymore. But it was always too nice a dress to just toss in the Salvation Army bin.

So today, I posted it on Freecycle and hopefully someone will take it off my hands before it moves a seventh time. (And I may be underestimating that, it could have moved once in Georgia too.)

But do you know what's even worse than me being a slight packrat. Somewhere, in my Father's house, is a nightmare in Mauve lace that I wore to my Junior Prom. I doubt anyone from Freecycle would want that.

Tired

I'm letting the kids destroy the house today. Not that it was in terribly pristine condition before they started. We had a small box full of packing peanuts and they've been tearing those up and making it snow. Now Claire is removing all of the magic markers and crayons from the box I store them in. There are more dirty dishes in the house than clean ones, and I still haven't put away the clean laundry from Tuesday. Ugh.

I'm going to make an attempt to get Claire to take a nap in a few minutes. If I'm successful, I'll then pop in a movie for Nathan and see if he'll let me take a nap too. Then, I'm calling Janet and seeing if she can babysit for awhile tomorrow. It's been a long week.

Another day, another $8,000 in medicine pumped into me

I now have another reason to lose weight. The Rituximab that I took in December has worn off already. Patients average 6 months of relief with it, but my doctor suspects that overweight patients lose effectiveness sooner. The dosage is adjusted for cancer patients based on weight, so it makes sense that weight affects it's efficacy. So I'm upping the dosage on my weekly medicine to compensate, and we'll check on the Rituximab again in September. I had a treatment two weeks ago, and another today. As a bonus, I also got a foot massage and parafin dip from the physical therapist while I was there. Next time, I'm going for the full massage.

Meanwhile, I need to get inspired to exercise and change my eating habits again. But I need the medicine to take effect first, because I'm very stiff these days and have some pain in my ankles again. But summer is here, and we have a wonderful, rural road going past the new house with almost no traffic. Time to go for walks.

Also, I cried through most of Gilmore Girls tonight. It makes me glad that they decided to cancel the show, because that was the perfect episode to end on. I especially loved how Emily was trying to bribe her way into continuing the Friday night dinners and Lorelei completely caught on to her. Very sweet.

Claire's Birthday

Well, I'm still not equaling my Mom in cake decorating skills, but I try. It's gotten harder since my hands hurt if I have to squeeze the pastry bag for too long. But I lucked out this week and saw that the store had some spray on frosting color in blue. So I cut out a picture from Blue's Clues and did a stencil on Claire's cake.


Small party this year. I wanted to do something last week, but the time got away from me. And with Dan working so many hours right now (graduations at the colleges and Mother's day) I didn't want to do a big party. Just me and the Grandparents. And lots of new clothes for Claire.

See how they've grown in a year. Actually, Nathan looks exactly the same. But WOW Claire has a lot of hair now. And we've really let the lawn go. Better work on fertilizing at the new house.

I just have to make sure it can vibrate

I'm looking for a cell phone plan again. In the last 10 years we've had cell phones three different times, but we never really got into using them much. The first was a pre-paid plan that we bought on impulse after going off the road one day. Since we only got one phone, we couldn't call each other and never remembered to take it with us. Then we tried again in D.C. and canceled our landline. Still didn't use it much, and eventually decided it was too expensive. Dan got us on another plan when I was pregnant with Claire, but we couldn't get service at our house here, so we canceled that one too.

Since we're moving again, I've decided to cancel our traditional phone and get VOIP through Time-Warner. And get a cell phone as back-up. It'd also be a good thing to have if I get us lost in the woods again. But I'm feeling like an old lady who just doesn't get this new-fangled technology. I'm fairly certain we'll have to go with Verizon, because I think they're the only ones with full coverage here. Do I need V Cast? Bluetooth? 3G? What does it all mean!!!!!

I expect that the most I'll use this phone for is sending Dan a text at work that says MILK. (It's such a pain that he doesn't have a phone/voicemail there) And yet, I can't help wanting to fondle the cute little LG Mint Chocolate with Video Messaging and Navigator.

Another interview

The job interview today was a lot of fun, and interesting. It's an office of four people who coordinate early intervention services for children under the age of six with developmental delays. Autism, hearing and sight problems, speech therapy, etc. They work county-wide with children from birth to five years. My job would be making sure that the employees who provide therapy and services are reimbursed, and that the county is then properly reimbursed by the state. All while making tons of copies for back-up, but also being careful to never, ever, ever breach confidentiality laws. I'd even occasionally go to County and State meetings, it's like an actual career!

I don't want to think about how complicated this month will get if they offer me the job. The woman who's leaving has only a week and a half left. Knowing that I should give notice at my current job, they'd want me to work my normal days off for the next two weeks so I can train with her before she goes, and maybe work Sundays too. I agreed to this, completely forgetting that I have an all-day Medicine Infusion next Tuesday and that Dan is working the next two Sundays with Mom's day and college graduations. Plus, I'll need a day off when we close on the House. Don't ask me where that leaves time to pack. And getting the kids switched to full-time daycare and also moving them to a Potsdam daycare has to be accomplished soon too, although Janet will help bridge the gap for a few weeks.

Finally, will it throw a gigantic wrench in the Mortgage process? I sent back our signed commitment letter today, but there's still a clause that the bank can cancel if they feel we won't be able to meet our obligations. Since the mortgage is almost entirely based on Dan's income anyway, I'm hoping they won't bother doing an income verification for me at the last minute. I'm going back and forth on whether I should tell the mortgage broker, or if it's the kind of things that she needs plausible denialbility on.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

And did I mention that Monday is Claire's b-day.

I didn't want to see Clemens back in a Yankee uniform. Not just because it may hurt the Sox this season, but because I'm sick to death of him. When he retired a few years ago, we baseball fans were treated to a constant stream of "Last game at Fenway", "Last game against Boston", "Last game at Yankee Stadium" (all qualified with an "unless they make it to post-season") And then they made it to post-season, so the adulation started all over again. I wanted to show my respect for a player that was part of the first team I remembered watching as a child, but I must say I was thrilled when he got chased out of his last game against Boston in the fourth inning. Heh.

Ooops

I came very close to being monumentally stupid today. We were out geocaching, in the middle of the woods, when I found that I'd dropped my GPS somewhere. Let's pinpoint the ways in which I could have killed us all.

1. No one knew where we were. I need to leave a note for Dan before we go hiking so he'll know where we are if something goes wrong.

2. I drove down a road that was marked as "Closed Due to Flooding". My thinking was that as long as I went slow, I didn't have to worry about getting stuck. But I should have learned from the tragedy of the Kim family in Oregon. If you get lost, people won't look for you on roads that are supposed to be closed.

3. We headed out into the woods on something that wasn't really a trail, it just looked like one. I was trying to decide if something that looked like a clearing ahead of us was the actual trail when I realized that the GPS wasn't in my pocket anymore.

4. The only smart thing I'd done was mark the location of the car on the GPS before we headed into the woods. That way, if we got twisted around, we'd be able to find our way back. Realizing that I no longer had the GPS gave me a twinge of alarm at my previous stupid moves. We were not far from the car, but it was very much out of sight, and we'd followed a twisty route as we went over logs and around bushes.

I depend too much on the GPS to sort me out if I get lost. Obviously, that isn't smart. I also have to realize that I could get hurt somehow. I need to be smart and not go on some of these trails without either Dan or Janet with me. There are plenty of places that have regular hikers or ATV users, I need to stick to those and not go bushwacking into the woods.

This trail, which was where we should have been all along, was much safer. And where the kids found lots of rocks to throw.



Now for a laugh. The hike tired Claire out so well that she fell asleep in the middle of a diaper change. I was going to post a picture of her little bare butt sticking in the air, but I've decided to spare her that.

Baseball and Apple Pie

Neither Dan nor I have particularly green thumbs. My philosophy is that I want to plant things, ignore them, and hope they don't die. So I don't think we're ready for intensive gardening yet. But we really like flowering trees and fruit trees. I loved the two big apple trees in the back yard, and the crabapple, dogwood and forsythia in Meriden. And Dan's parents have a very nice sour cherry tree in the front yard.

I happened upon the National Arbor Day Foundation website today and they have a fantastic tree store, which is easily searched by growing zone and type of tree. Plus, every order today received two free forsythia. But that's not all. If I paid for an Arbor Day membership I also got a free Red Maple tree. Cool. So we're going to have all this in our new yard.

Red Jonathon, a late apple good for everything


Lodi, a earlier apple good for cooking. Mmmmm pies


This is a sour cherry. It's pretty, and it combats arthritis.


Pretty forsythia


Lovely red maple


Of course, for the first few years, they're just going to be sticks in the ground. If I don't kill them first. I think there is a forsythia in the yard now that hasn't been pruned properly. And several ancient Sugar Maples. I wish I'd taken a picture of them with the sap bucket this spring. There's a farmer up the road who taps all the trees in the area, boils the sap, and then returns some finished syrup to the tree owners. Yummy!

And just to have my title make sense, GO SOX!

They like me, they really like me

I'm experiencing something completely unprecedented in my 20 years of job-hunting, I'm being sought after. It's very strange.

Way, way back in the fall I took the County Civil Service exam for Senior Accountant. Back in January, they started sending me letters asking if I was interested in part-time work, but I declined. Now they have full-time positions available, and I got a high enough score that I'm being considered for three jobs right now. I've interviewed for two, both in the County administrative office. The third interview is for the school district.

The tricky thing is that of the first two interviews, I think the second job suits me better. Do I dare decline if the first job is offered to me? Also, the first two jobs aren't technically permanent, but the third one would be. And how much should the fact that I love this building and want to work here play into things. You should see the foyer, it was built during the Craftsman period and is floor to ceiling glazed green and yellow tile. Gorgeous. But the third job is closer to the new house and the school the kids will be going to.

Do I need to consult my mortgage broker before accepting a new job? I'd think that a full-time job with 30% more pay would automatically be a plus, but I'd hate to screw up the mortgage if I switched jobs between now and the 24th.