A Cold Snap

We’ve had our first bit of cold weather here in SA.  We had a thunderstorm roll through on Friday that dumped a lot of rained and dropped the temps down into the 50’s.  It was very chilly that day.  On Saturday, the high was in the mid 60’s when Matt and I went to Sea World.  I wore a sweatshirt so it was actually comfortable most of the day.  I got to get some coaster rides in as well.  By the time it got dark, it was pretty chilly.  We left a little before 9 pm.    Luckily it hasn’t been cold enough to turn the heat on.  (I hope the heat works, though.)  It’s a good time of year for my utility bill.  Not running the air or heat means a lower bill! 

It was very lovely to sleep in this morning. I got up around 9:30 and had some leftovers for breakfast. Today I’m going to start painting the loft area.  That’s hopefully one of the last big to-do things on my list that needs to be done so I can finally get completely unpacked.  Though I doubt I’ll ever be completely unpacked.  Matt is moving stuff into my garage.  He has a storage closet at his apartment and is going to give it up to save some money on his rent.  He has a game table that he wants to put in the loft.  I’m going to have to reupholster the chairs, but I think it will be ok once I do that.  Of course it is going to have stay in the garage until I get that area painted and unpacked.  It’s full of my boxes of books and Marvin stuff.

Skipped Scrabble

It’s difficult to have something going on every night of the week.  I was supposed to go to Scrabble practice tonight, but I opted out.  I did meet Matt for dinner at Taco Cabana which has been our tradition for a while, but instead of going to Scrabble I went to the store for some much needed items.  I just finished paying bills as well.  I just made my first house payment.  It was actually lower than my rent payment used to be.  Since I paid off most of my credit cards last month, I actually have a little extra money in my account now.  It’s a good feeling to have a little cushion. 

Believe it or not, I’ve actually been able to do some reading lately.  I am finally reading some of the books I’ve ordered for my library.  I feel like my biggest weakness as a librarian right now is that I can’t truly recommend books I know about to my students.  My goal is to read at least two new books a month.  I’ve also started a library club at school and I have about 50 kids that are participating in it.  Luckily we’re only officially meeting twice a month, but it keeps me busy.  I’m starting a Scrabble club as well, but the first meeting won’t be until November. 

Hanging in here

Well, I guess there’s at least one blog reader still hanging on even though I haven’t posted much. Annie, yes, I’m ok, just staying busy as ever.  When I’m not working, I’m usually doing something else.  I’ve had orchestra rehearsals, band rehearsals, concerts for both, meetings, Scrabble practice, and shopping.  Last weekend I finally bought my dining room set.  It will be delivered next Saturday.  I also painted two more walls of the living room and a wall in the dining area.  I bought paint for the loft area and will try to get to that at some point.  It’s already gearing up to be another busy weekend.  Matt wants me to go to the movies with him and his friend Ira on Friday.  On Saturday we are going Sea World because he got free tickets from work as an employee appreciation thing.  Unfortunately, a cold front is coming in this weekend so it might actually be cold.  On Sunday he wants to go to Austin for a book thing. 

The house is slowly coming along.  Still not completely unpacked, but hope to be there by Thanksgiving or so.  I got some artwork for my walls and I hung the curtains in the living room.  I plan to post pictures once it looks like a house and not a storage facility. 

Still alive…mostly

I’ve had allergy issues for going on two weeks now.  I’m either stuffy, sneezing, sniffly, or congested at any given time.  In spite of this, I’m staying pretty busy which has limited my time in unpacking and working on the house.  I finally got my bedroom unpacked this weekend.  I now have clothes in drawers and I’m no longer living out of boxes for the most part.  I still need to hang curtains in the living room which is on the to-do list for tomorrow.  I also have to paint the loft area before I can unpack the numerous boxes that are up there. 

I had orchestra rehearsal last night and have band tonight.  I’m really ready for a break.  Tomorrow is supposed to be bowling.  As much as I like being social with my co-workers, doing something every evening takes it toll.  Scrabble is on Thursday and I’m not sure what is in store for Friday.  Luckily, Saturday is a free day for me.  Perhaps I’ll get some painting done. 

I’m heading out to band rehearsal early tonight.  There’s a cocky kid that keeps trying to sit above me so I want to get there early and claim my spot at the end of the row.  It might be petty, but since I volunteered to move down to 2nd part, I feel like I kind of deserve to sit on the end. 

Making progress

I’m slowly getting things unpacked, but it’s not going as fast as I’d like – but that’s just because I’ve been pretty lazy.  Today was the first cold (really cool) day we’ve had in San Antonio and it was just one of those stay in bed and nap kind of days.  Of course the more I unpack, sometimes the bigger mess is made.  I still have the dilemma of deciding whether I should pain the loft area.  If I do, I need to do it before I get all my books and stuff set up in there.  But if I paint, I will have to paint the entire upstairs area (outside of the bedrooms) and probably down the stairs as well.  The other issue is deciding what color to paint. 

Tomorrow my garage door opener is getting installed as well as my new dishwasher.  I will have to take off from work in the afternoon for the dishwasher install because they aren’t coming until sometime between 2 and 5.  Matt has a doctor’s appointment so he can’t be here then.  But that means perhaps I can get more stuff unpacked and some curtains hung.  I think I’ll have to make some curtains for the dining room and kitchen because I haven’t found anything that I like.  But there’s no major hurry – no neighbors behind me. 

Moving Sucks

But moving in the rain sucks even more.  Of course last Friday the heavens opened up.  Originally a teacher from the school was going to bring his truck and trailer, but the rain started pouring right about the time school got out.  I called and cancelled him coming and went to plan B which was to rent a Uhaul truck.  I tried Budget truck first, but they were all out.  Uhaul had a truck so Matt took me to get it around 5:30.  Matt and Jason loaded the truck when I got back but then they had issues unloading some of the heavy items.  They couldn’t really get some of the big items upstairs so I was stuck with those being in the garage.  They worked hard, but were pretty exhausted by 10:30 and had to stop.  At that point, I still had about 70 boxes left in the rental house along with the couch, washer and dryer, tv stand, and a few other large items.  On Saturday it still rained.  Josh and I loaded the truck with more boxes that morning and unloaded them, but I’m so badly out of shape that it completely wore me out.  We went to lunch and then I talked to Matt’s friend’s mom, Cathey, who was trying to find me some movers to hire.  She couldn’t find anyone, but gave me another number to call which was a service provided by uhaul so I called it.  I was able to get two guys to help move on Saturday evening for 3 hours for $155.  I had to go back and forth with uhaul to keep the truck another day, but got everything worked out.  Hiring those guys was the best decision I made in this whole process.  They came and loaded the 14 ft truck completely full in about 45 minutes.  When we got to the new house, they moved all the big furniture upstairs for me and unloaded the truck in a little over another hour.  They hustled and did a great job.  I tipped them $50 extra. 

On Sunday last week I cleaned the rental as best I could in the 8 hours I had after church.  I left my keys and a note at the house.  The rental company will have the carpets cleaned and deduct the amount from my deposit.  I have slowed unpacked but still have a ways to go.  I got the kitchen done by about Wednesday.  Today, I worked on the living room while the cable was getting hooked up.  I’ve spent about $2500 at home improvement stores purchasing a refrigerator, new back door with pet door (and installation), a new dishwasher (to be delivered and installed on Monday), and a garage door opener (to be installed Monday).  The pets seem to enjoy the new house and like having their pet door again.  It is a relief to sleep at night and not get up multiple times to let them out. 

Work has actually been pretty productive as well.  I’ve been weeding books in my library and getting other things done this week while the book fair is going on.  I was off campus at a meeting today and got to leave a little earlier than usual.  Of course the cable guy was running late and didn’t get here until 6:45.  He was here until about 8:00 because he had to run another line in my back yard and then bury it.  But I have cable and internet now which is a huge relief. 

Tomorrow I’m looking forward to sleeping in and then getting more of my bedroom set up and unpacked.  I’m still debating whether I’m going to paint the loft area because if I do that, I need to do it before I put a bunch of books on the shelves and such.  I also need to hang a lot of my curtains tomorrow since I don’t have blinds.  I do have curtains in my bedroom, but would like to get the living room curtains installed. 

I do love my new house.  The stairs take a little getting used to – especially when you forget things either up or down stairs and have to make multiple trips.  I love that my kitchen is really big and I have plenty of storage space – though it has filled up quickly.  My living room isn’t huge, but is just the right size for my furniture.  My computer desk is toast after the move but I probably won’t replace it.  I’m going to buy a treadmill and put it in my office instead.  I really need to lose some weight and I realize out of shape I am after this move. 

So that’s the update for the past week.  It feels good to finally be able to blog again!

Brief blogging break

It's going to be difficult for me to post for a few days as I will not have Internet at home until Friday. Right now I'm posting from my iPhone which is a pain. I had to install chrome on my phone in order to post and typing is slow going. Thank goodness for auto correct as I'm making a lot of mistakes. In brief summary, I got moved and it was a complete hassle thanks to the constant rain this past weekend. I'll write all the details when I can post from my laptop.  Hey, it's not like I was blogging regularly anyway, right?