Caught up...

I think I've finally caught up with blog posting. Mostly. I've posted about all the new places we've been in our Chicago blog.

Things are going well. Nothing too disappointing, though I have given up on not wearing ear plugs to bed. Noises just wake me up. Here is nowhere near as bad as our last house though! Not even close! There are no crazy UPS planes dive bombing the house here and no gaggles of sorority girls stumbling home drunk at 4 AM.

There are trains, but they are fewer and farther between (and not quite as noisy and much more useful; Tony will be taking one to the office and to the airport). The worst thing is actually these two attic vents on the outside of the house that someone had the crazy idea of locating outside the master bedroom. When the wind picks up (and it does that a lot around here, so far as I can tell), they rattle. We're going to see if there's a way to reduce the rattling. If there is, then I probably won't even need the ear plugs anymore. That'd be nice.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow I need to get a lot of things done. Shoot, I needed to get a lot done today. So far today I've closed out my PO Box, gotten my car title fixed, picked up more cat food & confirmed that the food I have is not part of the recall (same plant but different date ranges), had lunch, and picked up some additional U-Haul boxes. Also did the whole email/phone call thing with our realtor, the buyer's realtor, our realtor up in Illinois, our cleaning lady, and the closing title lady down here. And some packing and laundry. More packing to do later tonight. And get a check from the buyers for the furniture they bought.

Tomorrow I need to:

• get a key to Missy
• take care of a bunch of banking stuff
• drop off a load of stuff to Goodwill
• possibly drop by the dr. to authorize a copy of my records
• wash the last load of clothes

And, of course, finish up any last minute packing. I hope that's it. It always seems like there is something more. Oh yeah, need to go by the store and buy some more cat litter, I think.

Right now I just might take a wee bit of a nap.

blogerator

I keep debating about starting up a new blog -- a private one. Blogger has that feature now where you can block your blog or just allow only certain people to view it (they have to log on). Sometimes there are things I want to kvetch about and I don't really want to do it in a public place. Sometimes I'll write about them in my offline journal -- a real, honest-to-goodness diary. But I never remember to write happy stuff in it, so then it just winds up being a really depressing thing to thumb through. I dunno.

I think I am going to start a new blog for our move to Chicago though. Kind of like what we did with our Louisville blog. It was really handy -- people/family could keep up with what we were up to and we could use it as a reference to all the places we'd discovered. I had been thinking about just adding that stuff to this blog, but it doesn't really go somehow. I can move the few entries that I made about restaurants to the new blog.

Esp. since I want to be more structured and consistent with my writing once we move. This is kind of my writing / hopes / dreams / fears blog. Maybe I'll go really crazy and post my word totals for the day. Then people can yell at me when I don't write. heh.

Yikes. Kind of crazy, isn't it? Maybe I should just go back to the whole paper & pen thing and not worry about keeping this stuff online at all.

Rain, rain

It's very nasty out today. I was going to go take care of my title (the state screwed it up) today, but I don't really want to venture out. So I'm taking it easy and just doing some more packing. I think I might need to go out tomorrow and get a few more boxes. I'm not sure yet. I have about 4 half-full boxes, but I'm not sure yet what the heck I can fit in the top half. We're down to weird-shaped stuff.

Counting down...

We're definitely at the counting down stage. And the "oh-geez-where-do-I-put-all-this-miscellaneous-junk-that-won't-fit-in-a-box" stage.

We have a lot of stuff.

Too much stuff.

We've purged some and we really ought to purge some more. I have a whole car load of stuff to take over to Goodwill. Need to find out where I can donate old eyeglasses too. I know there's got to be a place somewhere I can donate them. And old cell phones. Though I don't know if I should leave my old one in my car for when we sell it, since it works with it. A junker cell phone though, it's pretty much seen its last call.

Did have a pleasant surprise today. A guy came by to buy our old air filter / purifier. I'd had it listed on Craigslist for $100. They sell new for $399 or up. He gave me $120 for it and I ran after him to tell him he gave me too much and he told me he did it on purpose and to keep it. Wasn't that nice? It was a good deal, but still. That's rare for someone to pay you more than you were asking for something. And nice, especially since a different guy was supposed to have come at 10 AM today for it and didn't show at all, no phone call, nothing. So I'm glad this guy got it instead. He had a cute little daughter.

The kitties are definitely freaking out. They are running out of places to sit, what with us selling furniture and moving stuff around. Grace is sticking to me like glue, yowling her head off for attention. Harley just looks at me accusingly, like he's saying "What have you done with all of my stuff??"

Packing, packing, and more packing

We have a lot of stuff. We're getting rid of quite a bit, but we're actually to the point now where some of it I'm just packing to deal with later. That means 3 boxes marked "Misc. Crap -- Stuff to File Later." The third floor is just about done though, including the attic space. Just need another box or two to finish it off. And I'll pack up the desktop computer sometime next week.

On the second floor, not too much to do at all. Just the bathroom stuff (next week) and two mantle's worth of knick-knacks. I'd packed up just about all the clothes earlier when we thought we'd be moving to a temporary apartment.

Been getting rid of stuff via Craigslist too -- some for sale, some for free. I posted up free magazines and was amazed at how many people responded to that. Wound up giving them out to 3 different people, including, coincidentally enough, the wife of a guy that actually got up all our leaves this past winter. Small world.

May be selling the file cabinet and fountain too. Someone should be coming tomorrow for the file cabinet. Not sure about the lady for the fountain. She emailed asking if I'd take $130 and then haven't heard back since I responded to her.

Kicking up all the dust has been killing my allergies. And my back is getting worn down every day. Taking a pill during the day now too, not just one at night. But trying to hold off until I need to take one. Trying not to move too much, but just stacking boxes and and moving stuff around is getting to me. Doesn't take a lot these days. I'm broken. But mostly it is going okay.

Hopefully the car will be done soon. Kind of one funny thing -- they'd put the wrong car model number on the new trunk lid. So it said SLK 230 instead of SLK 320. I was like...uh...that'll be a problem whenever we want to sell it or trade it in, dontcha think?

The house is officially sold to Cartus, so we should have the equity check very soon. The rest of the relocation money we don't want paid out until after we move --- KY taxes are killer. Illinois is much better. I'm guessing it is better all the way around, so far as I can tell.

Cat Pictures. Just Because.

Gracie about to go medieval on somebody. Or, at least, it looks that way. It was probably just her getting up and leaving because Harley wanted the pillow and she didn't want to fight. She's a lover, not a fighter.


And here's the two of them in their belly-up, worshipping the fire pose. They love to lay down in front of the fire. Note the two separate quilts for them to lie on. I made both of those and I guess they assume I made them for them.