All the Yarns!

Today was Yarn Crawl Part II for me. Last weekend I was really good and limited myself to one skein per stop. Today... I was not so good. At the second stop today, I cracked a bit and got two. But on the third stop, I had a bit of an impulse control problem. I got six skeins. Two are for Dan though!

Here's what my final Crawl haul looks like:

In my defense, two of the skeins pictures above were free - one was a Yarn Crawl goodie and one was a drawing prize... because I spent so much. Sigh.

But I did get some lovelies. See? (The peach and off-white yarns that are the third row down are my freebies. Yay for free yarn!)

 
  
 
 

And I mentioned that Dan got some goodies, too. Here are his!

 

Okay, so technically his yarn is still for me but after I play with the yarn for forty hours or so, he'll have new socks!

As much as I enjoyed the Yarn Crawl and having a reason to go drive all over creation to check out different yarn shops, it's probably good that it is over tomorrow. Neither my yarn cabinet nor my wallet can take much more.

Yarns!

Yesterday was the first day of the DFW Yarn Crawl. Naturally, I thought this was a great idea, so today Dan & I went a' crawling. We hit four stores and I was really good - I only got one skein of yarn at each place. But they are all oh so pretty.

      

Yay for pretties! There's at least one more store I'd like to hit (that was closed by the time we got near the area) and honestly, if I'm going to hit that one, I might as well hit whatever else is nearby, right? But that will be next week. Until then, I have plenty of pretty yarn to pet. (And ultimately make some socks out of... one day.)

100% Homemade

For breakfast, I had some of yesterday's peach preserves on some homemade bread.

Delicious! And the preserves turned out nicely thick and well-set. I'm really pleased!

Sticky is Everywhere

We were productive again today! Dan put up the new shade and two sets blinds as well as worked on installing our fireplace screen and I processed about ten pounds of peaches!

I did another batch of preserves as well as some sliced peaches. I'm not 100% sure the sliced peaches will work out, though, as apparently enough water boiled off (& splashed out because my pot was too small but the big pot just won't freaking boil) during the water bath that the very tops of the cans weren't covered by the end. Boo. It looks like all of the lids have popped though, so maybe they are going to be okay?

In still productive but less edible news, I have officially finished my latest pair of socks!

The weather has cooled a tad so it took a long time for them to block (three days!) but they are all done and happy now. They are a little difficult to get over my heel (apparently I have thick ankles) but with a little wiggle they go on and fit great, so I'm pleased with them. I will, however, have to make a mental note to go up a needle size on sock patterns that aren't stretchy (like lace or ribbing) so they go on easier. It's only taken me two pair of hard-to-slip-on socks to figure that out!

Stuff

Because life isn't unfriendly enough right now, when Dan & I got up this morning, Dan discovered that the freezer in our garage had stopped working. You know, the one that we put half a cow into a week or so ago.

Fortunately, we were able to save all of the beef and most of the pork that we had in there. Some of the venison was lost but we did save a few pieces (some that we will have to eat this week). Lowe's was really great, though, and let us exchange the freezer and upgrade to a model that has an alarm on it. Because it would not be fun to lose $800+ worth of cow. Next time the possibility comes up, I'd like more warning please.

My parents came down to let us use their truck for the exchange/upgrade so we were able to get the new freezer in and running today, meaning that all the stuff we had wedged into our inside freezer and stuffed into ice chests was quickly back in a freezing-temperature box. At least that turned out mostly okay.

The rest of the day was hectic (especially after cleaning up after leaking meat - yum) since we had to pick up our food co-op box. I picked that up while Dan was dealing with freezer things and the box was filled with all sorts of goodies. Including eight small bell peppers. Sigh.

But I had promised my parents dinner as thanks for their help and we needed to use some of the pork sausage that had defrosted too much, so I used the enemy bell peppers to make olive and pork stuffed bell peppers. So not only did I get to give our helpers a good meal, I used all of my bell peppers! Yay!

And more news on the cheerful side of things: I had my first attempt at canning today. Specifically peach preserves.

I think it turned out quite well. The preserves were nicely thick and tasted delicious prior to being put in the jars, so as long as the whole preservation water bath process of the canning worked, I think this one will be a win. Tomorrow I'm going to try to can some sliced peaches (as we bought 22 pounds and the preserve recipe only used four... though we have eaten a fair number of them, too).

Busy day today. But honestly, maybe it is best to stay busy.

Even Blurry, Olive is Hilarious

Olive is really starting to settle in. She's not quite the lovey kitty she was when she was on the streets or when she first came in the house, but she's calmed down some where she doesn't seem so ADD kittenish so I'm taking that as a step in the right direction.

That doesn't mean, however, that she's still not a bit insane and overactive with toys and other kitties' tails. But it's moved into the realm of funny, not exhausting.

Well, funny at least for the humans in the house. The kitties might have another opinion on that. I'm pretty sure Cocoa does.

I Made a Salad!

Dan and I did the food co-op thing again last week. It's really encouraging my culinary creativity because there are always random food things in there that I've never cooked before. The box we picked up on Saturday had: honeydew, cauliflower, green onions, bananas, pineapple, lettuce, some stuff I'm currently forgetting and some Hatch chilies.

Now, we aren't rabid Hatch chili fans like some folks down here are but surprisingly, I like them. 'Surprisingly' because they remind me of bell peppers. For that reason alone, I've never wanted to buy any, but if they are on offer I will eat them. But I had no idea what to do with the eight or nine we got in our co-op basket. I had defrosted a venison backstrap, so I figured I might as well use them for that. I wrapped the venison in sliced Hatches, then wrapped everything in bacon. Cooked it all up (baked then broiled) and served it with a Hatch cream cheese dip. It was awesome. The thing that made it though was the dip. Dan even gave it five and a half stars (out of five) so I'm happy with it. Pretty good for flying recipe-less!

In case you ever have some Hatch chilies and no idea what to do with them, I shall share what I did (and maybe this will help me remember it so I can repeat it!). I cooked four (cleaned, trimmed and deseeded) chilies in the toaster over at about 375°F until they were soft and the edges were a bit charred (25-ish minutes?). Then I used the immersion blender to blend them with eight ounces of soften cream cheese, a quarter cup of mayonnaise (I would have used sour cream but we didn't have any so mayo it was), some onion & garlic powders and some salt. Then I served that with the venison. Amazing. I even put it on the salad we had (because I really can't figure out what else to do with the lettuce we get from the co-op so yeah, I made a salad even though I'm not a fan of them... at least I also added mushrooms, squash, cucumber and green onion so it wasn't a totally lettuce salad) and it made a great ranch-like dressing. Num.

Sadly, the dip doesn't take a good picture (I mean, it's a faintly green blob), so instead I will give you a fluffy kitty yawning in a box.

ETA: I now have a picture!

Where is My Celebratory Marching Band?

It's the end of an era! Our first home has passed into other hands. That's right, we have officially sold our old house. Eight days after it was listed, it has sold - papers signed, money in the bank, keys handed over, sold.

Honestly, even though proof of this event can be seen merely by looking at our bank balance, it still feels a bit unreal. I feel like balloons should drop from the ceiling or a marching band should stomp through the living room. We were anticipating this long, hassle-filled process but we ended up with a contract on the house on the second day it was on the market and closed on it a week later.

It still just feels unreal. I'm very glad it is real, though! I'm happy! Especially since that means we get to shop around for pool companies now. Yay!

Socks!

My last post I shared a picture of the socks I am working on, but it was kind of an outdated picture. So I thought I'd share the current pic of where I am today.

The leg on one is done so the next step is to get the other sock to the same point, then start on the heel flap. Very exciting! Well, at least to me it is.

Aren't they going to be delightfully obnoxious when complete? The yarn colorway is called Hawaiian Sunset and, I have to say, I'm sort of absurdly addicted to it. I love how it is pooling and the pink is utterly delicious.

Weekend Please!

Gosh, we are still busy. We've finally gotten all of the paperwork done on the house - the survey and related affidavit, seller's disclosure, etc. Otherwise, there is no real new news on the house sale. The buyer had the inspection tonight but haven't heard anything on that yet. Honestly, nothing should pop up (well, a corner spald needs covering, but we had the same thing on this house and it's not a big deal) but I have an irrational fear that they'll come back with some massive foundation repair that's needed and will cost twenty grand or something. It won't happen, but hey, that's why it's irrational. Fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly and a week from tomorrow, we will be down to one house.

In other news, last weekend Dan and I participated in a local food co-op. We got a box of food that included all sorts of goodies like mango, kale and cantaloupe... and my nemesis, bell peppers.

I'm really not a picky eater. I mean, I've eaten pickled baby squid, goat, natto... I do draw the line at eating bugs, but maybe I'm just saying that because I've never been offered any. Anyway, as much as I have a try-anything-twice attitude about food, I cannot stand bell peppers. Just walking by them in the grocery store makes me wince. Their smell. Bleck. Nails on a chalkboard to me. And I was presented two of them in my little food co-op box. But I refused to let them defeat me though. And they didn't.

I stuffed them with pork sausage, olive, onion and tomato then topped them with fresh mozzarella. I was actually pretty worried about how it would turn out, especially with the olives, but it was awesome! I think it was the olives that really made this work for me since it melded really well with the taste of the bell pepper and helped temper them. Dan even gave it a five out of five! Yay! I win! I imagine we'll do the food co-op again in the future so at least I know I can survive if and when we get bell peppers.

Speaking of olives, kitty-Olive is doing great. We had a vet appointment last week and her kidney levels were half a hair high which means she is likely a little dehydrated so we are working on that. She's still out in general pop and doing great. She does like to playfully annoy the other kitties but it's nothing problematic. The other kitties mostly ignore her.

She has amazing energy levels though. As I told Dan, she has three speeds: flat out, passed out and preparing for one of the first two speeds.

In other kitty news, Happy's report from the vet wasn't as positive as Olive's. Her kidney levels were across the board high, as was her phosphate and her potassium was a bit low. Which means she's at the beginning stages of kidney disease. Not surprising given her age but still sad. I'm not overly worried though - Ashes started having decently serious kidney issues when she was the same age and she had another ten years before she passed away. We're going to try out a new food for Happy - canned, even - so we'll see if she likes it and it helps. Fingers crossed!

Earlier, I mentioned that we had found a dresser for the bedroom but were still looking for something for our dining nook. Well, Monday, we found it! I'm really pleased with both pieces.

 

The piece of the left is the cabinet we got for the bedroom - it has socks, underthings, knitwear and our bedsheets. It's not a perfect match to our bedroom furniture (not quite red enough in all lights to match perfectly) but it reminds me a lot of my lingerie chest so I kind of love it. The piece on the right is for linens in our dining room. It needs a little love, but I adore it. I'm pretty darn pleased with our new additions! I am eying a couple of more things for other areas of the house, though, so who knows how that will go.

And in the last bit of news, I've finally been able to pick up my knitting again. I'm still working on my cardigan but I found a sock pattern that needed test knitters, so I'm alternating between the two. For the socks, I'm using some yarn I bought for my birthday. It's delightfully obnoxious.

The pic is a little outdated - I've gotten the full leg done on the first sock and am working on the ribbing of the second. This weekend, though, I had practically zero knitting time. Hopefully I'll have some downtime this week. I can't think of anything other than ironing and cleaning that needs to be done this week, but that could be because I'm a bit brain dead after such a crazy last few days.

Day Two

So... we just accepted an offer on our house.

The other couple wants to close next Wednesday so the option period is short - just long enough for them to get an inspection and for us get all the paperwork together. Which means now we get to hold our breath to see if the inspection finds anything bad. It shouldn't - our house is in good shape with no indications of problems - but there's always the fear that something will pop up.

As I told Dan, I'm trying not to count our chickens before they hatch but I'm pretty much standing over the eggs chanting, "Hatch, hatch, hatch!"

Gratuitous Sam

This weekend (week, month, any of these work) has been kind of crazy. Dan and I have finally gotten our old house on the market - we even had our first showing today (and we only picked the realtor last night!). The showing went well - they spent an hour at the house - but sadly they want a larger backyard. Yeah, our old house's one downfall. But that's okay, at least it shows well otherwise, right? Eventually we'll find someone that doesn't want much lawn to mow!

We've also finally made some headway in the third bedroom. We've moved all the beer boxes out of there (Dan now has a beer & technology closet in his office) and put up the bed. No mattress yet, but we don't have a shower curtain in the guest bathroom either so it's not like we are billing the house as guest-ready. Hopefully we'll get the guest bath taken care of this month though. I'm sure we'll have 685 other things to do before we get around to the third bedroom's mattresses, though.

Something else we've managed to check off of our list: we finally picked up a dresser for the bedroom.

Don't let Cocoa's expression fool you - she likes it.

We still have our eyes out for one more piece of furniture (for the dining area), but at least our six or so visits to antique stores and malls have paid off with the dresser. It's not been loaded up yet but it's been all oiled and the drawers are back in it, much to the kitties' disappointment.

Speaking of kitties, last night was Olive's first night to remain out after bedtime. She even stayed in general population today while we were out. She's doing really fantastic. She likes to play with gray kitty tails a bit too much (Chloe gets rather squeaky and distressed) but Olive never moves beyond playful pestering when interacting with the other kitties. I think she might actually be making friends with Sam! (Which is good, because when we first started letting her explore outside of her room, Sam liked to go in there and pee on the towel she was using as a bed. I much prefer them playfully batting at each other from opposite sides of a box.)

Friday was a vet appointment for Olive, too. Other than having ear mites, she was given an all clear health-wise. She's now current on all of her shots and has gained a lovely 1.2 pounds since we took her in. She's a little over 8 pounds now, which the vet says is great for her but I'm still giving her a bit extra food at mealtimes since I think she has a little making up to do. Oh, and the vet puts her age at about one year old (younger if her teeth tartar on the fast side). Having such a young 'un around really drives home how old our other kitties are. Bitty, the baby of the family, is nine years old! Chloe is 11! I can't believe that much time has passed.

Speaking of time, I'm glad tomorrow is a holiday since Dan and I still need more time to get stuff done around the house! I'm hoping that my stove hood will be installed, maybe even the thermostat if we are feeling productive after our grocery-related outing (so Dan can see what goodies are offered by the stores now surrounding us). Even if we do get those things done though, our list of to-dos seems fairly never ending. I have hope that we'll eventually settle in though!

Ridiculous Dinner

The past month has been so crazy thanks to moving and related miscellaneous. Dan and I have eaten way too much fast food. I mean, when we are out and about at night, having to make an hour and half round trip to the old house for whatever reason, we've gone for a quick dinner rather than a good one. But as time passes and we get stuff done, we've been able to eat more at home than on the road, something for which we are both thankful.

A lot of my cooking lately has been trying to get rid of some older stuff in the freezer. Partially to cycle through stuff but also because Dan and I are splitting a cow with my parents. Yes. A whole cow. We need the freezer room. Tonight, for example, I roasted a couple of wild pig legs. And since it was easier to eat it off the bone than carve the thing, this was what our plates looked like.

I honestly didn't know how it would turn out, but it was quite tasty. (I rubbed the pork with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and cayenne then put it on a bed of onion, carrot and potatoes with a little beef broth and cooked it at 325°F until it was done.) But mostly I decided to share because... it's a pork leg. On a plate. It makes me laugh.

Slowly but Surely

We are slowly making progress on house things. After weeks of problems, we finally have new locks installed. That's lovely. All the painting is done in the old house and we've had it cleaned and the carpet repair is scheduled for the end of the week. A yard sale and digging up some irises and we should be all set to unload the thing!

In other news, Olive now spends her days out in general pop. She's finished her antibiotic cycle and her stomach is looking fantastic and unlumpy. She still hasn't won over any kitties but at least their displeasure isn't as strong. It's only a matter of time - after all, how can you say no to this face?

In all honesty, though, Olive is kind of a mess. She's only about a year old so she still has quite a bit of kitten in her. Bitty was the last kitten we've had in the house and she's turning nine this year, so it's been a while. Dude, kittens get into everything. She plays with anything and everything, from catnip toys to coaxial cables to the wall. She hasn't fully figured out the lap thing, yet. The few times she's tried to cuddle, she usually ends up draped over both me and the armrest (sometimes with little feet hanging over) and can only sit still for a purr-filled minute or two. Once she's more cat than kitten, though, I think she'll be quite the cuddler.

I'm not fully ready to leave her out unsupervised or at night, but maybe next week. I'd like to see her interact with one kitty without any hissing first. My money is on Sam. We shall see!

Poor Olive

I don't think Olive knows what to do with a house full of kitties that don't want to play with her. She's probably about a year old so still rather kitten-playful but all of our kitties are closer to the geriatric side of things. But Olive just wants to play! She's batted at a couple kitties in an invitation to romp and looks shocked and sad when the response is a hiss. Just now, she loped towards Bitty, ready for some rough and tumble playing. Bitty's hiss made Olive leap backwards and fall on her rear. She wasn't anticipating that kind of response! (Though I'm very glad she accepts it! She does seem to be a timid little girl.) I suppose it's a good thing we have a lot of toys for her to play with.

Interestingly enough, out of all the kitties Sam seems the most interested in her playful behavior. They haven't interacted more than a few nose touches (and one Sam hiss) but he's rushed after her with ears pricked in interest on more than one occasion as she barreled through the living room in play mode.

Who knows? Maybe Sam will end up with a friend. I'll just be happy if no one tries to eat her.

Not a Good Storage Spot

Our new mower came with a keychain.

Dan's response: Oh no! I left our kids under the mower!

What Is That Smell?

Olive has graduated to supervised visits outside of her room! For the past two days she's had short trips out but today she's been out and about for about half of the day.

She's fairly unconcerned with the other kitties. She sometimes wants to sniff them and I think she tried to play with Chloe once (who was having none of that), but for the most part, she doesn't really pay them any mind. Most of the other kitties don't like her getting too close (then they like to hiss at her) but otherwise aren't all that interested anymore. Except for Bitty. Bitty has followed Olive around at least three times today alone just to chatter and hiss at her. It's actually pretty funny because Bitty is so tiny and yet so earnest. You can tell that this reaction greatly concerns Olive.

Or maybe not. Yes, most of her time outside of her room is focused on either following me around, lounging on the rug or viciously attacking something fuzzy or catnip filled.

Health-wise, she seems to be doing really well. Her stomach is still a little swollen and warm but it now qualifies as merely lumpy instead of shelf-like. She can even bend at her waist now, which is very helpful for bunny-kicking catnip sharks.

Once she finishes her antibiotic cycle, I'll take her to the normal vet to get all of her shots. (They couldn't be done before because she had a fever.) Speaking of antibiotics, I hope that is the reason for her current stench. It's not constant (thank goodness or she'd smoke us out) but she does have some pretty bad gas. I mean oh-dear-lord-save-us bad. I'm-tempted-to-air-out-the-house-in-100°-heat bad. It's bad. And yet, it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

Celebrate!

Woo hoo! Thanks to several hours of work (mostly on Dan's part; I was moral support), our garage now fits both cars! Before tonight, my car was the only one with a sheltered home.

Of course, after tomorrow Dan's car will likely be outside again because we are getting out new mower delivered. (Yes, we are still hemorrhaging money. Hopefully this is the last of it.) Then once we sell our chest freezer, there should be room for both cars, the mower, the stand up freezer, the beer fridge and the fermentation fridge. Oh yeah, and two shelves, a push mower, two cabinets and a workbench. And a partridge in a pear tree.

I Nearly Forgot!

I had forgotten that I had a few pictures still on my camera SD card. Without further ado, I give you homeless Dan:

He is now clean-shaven (since he had to go back to work Monday) and I've almost gotten used to it - he looks so young without the beard!

In other news, the new neighborhood comes with lots of nature. Apparently there is a family of foxes around, two families of rabbits, three roadrunners and even a bobcat. We've seen the roadrunners in the yard (lots of times) and pictorial evidence of the bobcat (from a different part of the neighborhood) but the other beasties remain elusive. There are smaller, less exotic things that we've run into, though. Caterpillars (a ball of which managed to clog the spout of my watering pot - twice), hornets (or wasps - honestly, I get them confused but Dan's gotten stung on the foot and we've killed a few of them inside the house), really huge spiders and little lizards!

And speaking of wild beasties, Dan and I have added another one to the inside herd. Say hello to Olive.

The swollen, lumpy belly is not actually lactation-related as it may look. It's mastitis - inflamed (and slightly infected) mammary glands. When we found her, she was skinnier than she is now (as she's now had almost a full week of regular meals), infested with worms and her stomach was harder and even more swollen. As part of treatment, she's been dewormed, spayed and is on both pain killers and a two week cycle of antibiotics. Hopefully the stomach will be back to normal in another week or two. About which time we will see how she does interacting with the other kitties.

Yes, we are now back to seven. But it's all good - the new house is so much bigger, the concentration of kitties is much lower. We need to increase our numbers just so we can raise our chances of finding a kitty when we need one.

New House Happenings

Moving is such a beating. Sadly, it's a slow, drawn out beating. Dan and I have a super-long to-do list going (well, combo to do and to buy lists) and it seems like we mark one thing off just to put two in its place. Install the faucet? Check. Oh, but now it is leaking. Put on the list: go to the store, get an o-ring. Reinstall faucet.

Sigh.

On the plus side, we are totally on the downhill portion of the adventure. Super-colorful bruises are starting to fade (though magenta is still easily visible on my knee at least but the majority of our bruises are now green), 98% of the boxes are unpacked (and most of the unpacked things have new homes) and the kitchen is officially cook-able (which is fantastic because we have had way too many meals out lately. We are both sick of it.)

Unfortunately, we still have a fair number of things at the old house to deal with (a few things are still there (Christmas decorations, Dan's brewing stuff), we need to do some cosmetic touch ups and give it a thorough cleaning) as well as a few things at the new house (we need to find a dresser, install the stove hood and put together a bookshelf we got at Ikea). But most of these remaining bits will be further stretched out as Dan's time off of work ends day after tomorrow. Also, normal life things must resume. Like laundry and mowing.

Speaking of mowing...

That right there is Dan, post-mowing the yard. Can you tell why I listed both laundry and mowing together? The back yarn in particular is somewhat patchy and very dusty.

Also, we have almost an acre now yet poor Dan? Push mower. Happily, one of our neighbors came over to help mow. In fact, Dan said the neighbor got all of the front yard save some edging work and the least dusty part of the back yard. Did I mention that the neighbor has a commercial zero turn mower? Dan totally has mower envy. We do plan on getting a riding mower but I can tell you right now it won't be a commercial one. Though depending on how long Dan can wait to get a mower (i.e. until we sell our house) he might be able to get a zero turn model.

Anyway, I still have yet to send out my new address to folks, something I had hoped to get to earlier in the week. But moving is completely beating us up. For example, I'm not entirely sure what I've written in this post. But I've felt guilty about being unable to respond to emails and send an address update so this is my offering until life has less box-related insanity.

Have You Seen The Scissors?

We have officially moved! It is amazing how much stuff we have - we were a bit insane to move it all ourselves. Lesson learned. The sheer quantity of stuff meant the move took two days - and there are still some things left at the old house. (Little things, though, like my plants and Dan's beer brewing stuff.)

The new house is lovely. Actually, it's really a big giant mess with boxes strewn everywhere but we are slowly making it home. And once it is home, it will be lovely! Sadly, the kitties are having to stay in the craft room so they don't get lost amongst the boxes, but fortunately the room is quite large so they aren't suffering much. They are just lonely. I keep hoping that we can let them out soon, but at the pace we are going it will likely be Wednesday or Thursday. Poor kitties.

Both Dan and I are fairly exhausted (and pretty dang bruised, too) even though we had great help during the move. It seems like we aren't making progress with the unpacking, but we are. We are, dammit! We even found all the proper plates and flatware such that we didn't have to eat out today at all! That's the first time in almost a week. We are so freaking tired of fast food - and even restaurant food has lost its luster. (Not that we are big eating out type folks anyway.)

Well, back to the coal mines. Or at least the boxes. I hope to be able to finish the kitchen tomorrow. I only have a couple of more kitchen boxes so it's totally doable! (How did we get so much stuff?)

Insanity

I've officially hit the wall.

Today, we spent the morning packing up some then went over to the new house for the DSL install. Which took a lot longer than it should have. Which meant Dan didn't get to pull the cables for the house networking and speakers. Currently we are back at our (old?) home, packing more. Well, I'm taking a mental health break because this is what our kitchen looked like about thirty minutes ago.

It's kind of insane. Since that picture was taken, I've taken care of the under the sink stuff and the junk drawer while Dan has barreled through our daily use glasses and plates and is now working on my teacups.

I, however, have hit the portion of the program where I am so amazingly overwhelmed that I have to walk away for a bit. At this time, alcohol is usually imbibed. (Fortunately, the booze has not been packed.)

Now that I have distracted myself with blogging, though, I can go once more unto the breach... at least for a couple of boxes. I'm also thinking it is a good time to get the Malibu rum out.

Frustrations & a Birthday

Happy birthday to me! I'm the big 35 today. I feel like I should be all adult-like and whatever by now, but... nope.

Big plans for this day? Well, yes. For my birthday, we got a house.

I think both Dan and I are cycling between exited and overwhelmed. Because OMG, moving! We are doing 'THE BIG MOVE' on Friday, after which we will have officially changed residences, but gah, the work required to move! And not just packing (though that's a joyous kick in the teeth). There are a number of things at the house we want to fix up either before or right after we move in - paint touch-ups, a crack in a cabinet, change out dishwashers (yes, I'm taking my beloved Bosch with me)... Nothing huge, just a ton of little things that will manage to suck up massive amounts of time.

And, here's where the frustration comes in, we have to get all new exterior doorknobs. After closing when we got the keys? Well, "the keys" turned out to be a single key for the front door. And that single key doesn't work on the other two exterior doors. Apparently, the sellers packed the other keys and put them in storage. Nice. And we need those keys to change the cores in the current locks. Well, we don't need them, need them. We could always pay a locksmith to pick the locks to change out the cores - it'll only take about 45 minutes to an hour per lock (and we have two deadbolts and two locking handles across three doors). I'm sure locksmiths are super-cheap when you have them come out for four hours at a time.

Yeah, new exterior door handles.

Also, we did our walkthrough Saturday. The sellers weren't exactly kind moving out but whatever. Touch-up paint will fix that. However in between the walkthrough and closing, the spring on the garage door broke. So we get the keys (sorry, key) and go to the house and the garage door won't work. Fun, huh? Naturally, the garage door is not covered by the home warranty. We went ahead and got it fixed (I seriously feel like our bank account has sprung a leak) and our realtor is seeing if we have any recourse about getting that reimbursed or anything, but honestly, I'm not going to hold my breath.

So yeah, the whole broken garage door, key-not-keys and "hey, look! they banged into the door pretty bad here while they were moving their stuff out!" wasn't the most exciting way to start the new home-owning gig, but whatever. I think once we get our stuff in there and start to get all settled in, we'll forget all of the initial frustrations and just be really pleased at our new place.

To end on a happy note, I will share pictures of the two rooms about which I'm currently most excited.

 

The left picture is the living room which I enjoy greatly. Open floor plan, big windows (on the left wall so not visible in the picture) and (engineered) hardwood floor. The picture on the right is a big empty room. But that big empty room is going to be my room. Okay, okay, I get to share it with the kitties (their jungle gym will be in there) but that is my future crafting room. So excited about that. (Placement-wise, it is through the French doors on the left side of the living room.)

Of course, I'm excited about the kitchen/dining area and Dan's office, too.

 

The kitchen needs brighter lights (which is actually a general rule for me and lights anyway since I tend to go for supernova level of brightness) but I'm excited about it. And I'm really happy for Dan to have an office all to himself and not have to share with my crafting stuff! I'm sure he's pretty pleased, too!

Well, I'm going to go back to being lazy and trying to ignore all the packing we have yet to do. It's my birthday, after all!

SO CLOSE!

You may notice the countdown a couple of posts down. Today is closing! Rather, today was closing! Yes, we have closed! All the paperwork is signed and our downpayment is all in. Now we are just waiting for the lending agent to double check the paperwork and okay the release of funds. Hopefully this will happen soon and we'll have the keys to our new house tonight!

OMG, we just bought a house!

This Is Not July

It has rained every single day since Saturday. Earlier this week we even had a few days with highs in the 70s. Normally, we don't even have lows in the 70s at this time of year. Seriously, what is up? Stop it!

News!

Our closing has been moved up!

We are still going to move the big stuff over the weekend, but now we'll have a few more days to migrate over some smaller items and Dan can run speaker cables and whatever else, so hopefully the "big move" weekend won't be quite as insane.

Yeah, who am I kidding? Moving is always insane!

Cute Kitties are Cute

The kitties are still enjoying our current hoarding of all the boxes we come across. They are going to completely adore the unpacking process. So many empty boxes!

Speaking of packing, I've been doing a handful of boxes every day for the past week or so. Today, though, was a super-productive day. I lost count after I packed up 12 boxes and that all happened before Dan was off work and able to help take care of a some things in the guest bedroom. Once he got involved, at least four more boxes were packed and we even took apart the guest bed!

We've still got a lot of stuff to pack, but most of our books, files, a good portion of our linens and most of the guest bedroom are all packed up. Barely a dent has been made in the kitchen though (I think we've packed one box of kitchen stuff). Hopefully this weekend we'll get to the china and some lesser used stuff. It's really amazing the amount of stuff we've accumulated in the past decade.

Also, the closing countdown I posted earlier might not be accurate anymore. The seller asked if we'd be willing to move closing up! Not sure by how much though. Financial paperwork could be where it needs to be early enough for closing to be a full week ahead of schedule, but the seller's realtor doesn't work on weekend (seriously) so I'm not sure if we've missed the window to make that happen. We shall see! And entertain ourselves during the wait by packing!

Getting Closer

Boxes

Oh my! We are moving at the end of the month! It's kind of hard to believe, but we are definitely getting prepared. We've been collecting boxes to pack in and I've even packed up a handful.

Most of our moving boxes are in the garage, but the few I've gathered from Costco have been hanging out in the kitchen. Which means the kitties are enjoying the influx of boxes to play in.

If moving wasn't such a stressful endeavor and full of unkitty-friendly change, I bet they would enjoy the process just for all the different boxes.

Ear News

Yesterday was Bitty's appointment at the kitty dermatologist. I totally didn't know they had those, but yep, they do. It seems mostly dogs go to dermatology vets, but Bitty still got great treatment. In fact, the mass in her ear that we were worried could be a polyp or deep infection (or worse)? Turned out to be a mass of hardened ear wax! (There was some long, multi-syllable words that the doctor used to say what it was but ultimately it boiled down to hardened ear wax attached to ear ear.)

It took some wax-softening drops and three ear flushes to get it out, but the wax came out leaving a sparkling ear with no ear drum issues. Yay! The doctor showed us the ball o' wax after it was removed and it was HUGE. I mean, I'd think it was big if it came out of a human ear. To have come out of a five-pound kitty's ear? ENORMOUS. There was a small amount of blood on the part of the wax ball, which was what was visible, and I think that made it look non-wax enough that our regular vet was thrown off.

But yes, good news! No polyp, no billowing ear drum, no spreading of last month's tumor. Ear wax!

Of course, the bad news is that Bitty has a bit of a yeast infection in her right ear again. Dr. dermatology man said that was most likely a reaction from some environmental allergen and is why she gets ear infections all the time. So we've got some drops that she'll be on for ever and ever (if they work) to see if we can eliminate the reoccurring infections.

Not the most fun outcome - Bitty certainly doesn't handle ear drops well - but I'd much rather take regular ear dropping over all the bad things the ear wax could have been, so I think it is a good trade off.