skip to main |
skip to sidebar
And I feel like I haven't had a second to sit back and reflect on it (or share it on my blog).
I'm happy to find a free moment today to update on all that's been going on. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share since I currently have no idea where my connection cord for the computer is. :) I'm sure it will turn up soon. Even when I do find it, I didn't manage to take any pictures of moving day or the first few days in the house. Especially last Saturday when we did most of the moving, I was running around absolutely non-stop and my mind was completely not on my camera. Since then, I've tried to take some pictures of the house-in-progress, and I definitely took some good pictures last night at Skelly's birthday party. I really wish I had my scrapbook stuff ready to go!
But....we're in our house! And that's what's really important. We had a little financial hiccup/scare on Thursday before we went in to sign our closing papers. We had been told that we were going to get all $1000 of our earnest money deposit back, but all of a sudden our realtor was calling us saying that lending rules had changed as of August 1 and we were going to have to bring $140 extra to the table and not get that $1000. Thankfully, a few hours of negotiations figured everything out and we did get the earnest money back.
We were originally told that we would be able to pick up the keys first thing on Friday morning when the paperwork became official. Turns out they really meant that we could have the keys as soon as all of the money had been wired and allocated into the right hands. Which meant that Adam had to leave for his training flight before they were ready at 1:30pm and I had to go over with a carload of stuff by myself. About halfway through unloading the boxes I went to flip a switch in the closet and saw that the light wasn't working. Oh wait, none of the lights were working. In fact, the power wasn't on at all. I wasn't about to stick around in a house with no A/C, so I went back to our rental and called the power company. Even though Adam had scheduled the changeover the week before, the guy I talked to said there was no record of any of that. He gave me a new account number and told me that it SHOULD get turned on later that day. The next 2 times I went back that afternoon it was still off (and HOT).
Meanwhile, I got a call from the cable company that they were over at the new house waiting to turn on the cable. I had been told they would come first to our rental house to pick up the equipment, so that's where I was. I hustled over as fast as I could, but it turned out that he couldn't set up our system with the power not turned on anyway. Oh well, he would be back in the area again the next morning.
It was a very draining day and almost nothing went the way that we had planned. But Adam and I were very happy to find at 8:30pm when he was back from his flight and we headed to the new place together for the first time that the power was finally back on. After unloading one more car-full and stopping at McDonald's for dinner we collapsed back at the rental house to rest up for an even busier day the next day: moving day.
Well, I think this is a long enough update for now. I need to get going with Adam to Lowe's to pick up some more stuff for our grill and garage. Hopefully tomorrow we'll go out and buy our mattress and furniture, but I might have time to post about moving day and our week since then.
We're only four days away from moving day, so this is not exactly shaping up to be the most relaxing of days off. I am excited about the idea that I don't have to cram in as much "doing stuff" as possible in the morning and early afternoon because I have to go into work at night. The only possible issue I have is that the property management company has said that they want to show this house to potential renters, maybe today, and I don't know when that will happen. And obviously, the house is not in ideal condition since I've got half-finished projects and boxes piled up just about everywhere, but I'll do my best just to make it as presentable as possible. I've still got a week before I hand over the keys, and I'm not worried about having it perfect by then, but today is another story.
Another little wrinkle in our moving plans has come up, too. Apparently all of the guys that we were counting on to help us move on Saturday have been invited to a wedding that night. So they'll be able to help us in the morning, but are probably going to have to cut and run to get ready sooner than we thought. I think we'll still be OK, since we only have a few pieces of furniture that really need more than just me and Adam to move and we can focus on those first. Let's hope so.
I still have plenty of scrapbook pages to post (according to my photo-organizing software I have 133 since starting the blog), so here's today's batch:
This is just an easy little page about our hike in Switzerland while we were studying abroad. I used a paper that already had a bunch of different stripes, so all I had to do was add the title, journaling and one more brown flower.
I loved this sketch at 52 Sketches, 52 Weeks and I love my page even more. I feel like it has just what it needs and nothing else. And that cute boy in the picture doesn't hurt either.Well...now that my little break for updating is over I guess I'll get back to workin' it. The highlight of my day will be a trip to Walmart after lunch to get some lightbulbs and cleaning supplies. :) Gotta love being a real adult.
Remember three weeks ago when I said I was ready to get going already in moving into the new house? Yeah, I take that back. I'm freaking out about not being ready for moving day on Saturday. I'm still really excited to actually get into the house and start making it feel like ours, but I feel like there's still so much to do and so much that we need to get. Even though we're just moving across town, with all the new furniture and new responsibilities, it feels like a whole new world. Anyway, I've just got to do my best to do what I can before I go to work today. I wish I didn't have to go in tonight (especially since I've worked everyday since Wednesday), but that's just life. I've already taken Skelly on his walk and started some cleaning and some packing. I'm taking a short break here to post this and to watch some tennis we Tivo'ed this weekend, and then I'm right back in it. I've still got lots more pages to upload, so here's today's batch.
I love this one. Other than the fact that I want to fix that loose piece of hair behind my ear. :) I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but I used a whole bunch of travel-themed word-strip stickers I had laying around to outline the blue paper. And I cut the cute little green flourish with my Slice Wedding card.
This page documents a uniquely Floridian experience for us. Letting Skeletor outside at night brings the prospect of letting geckos inside involuntarily. I took these pictures the first time it happened when our friend Will was visiting. I used this page as an inspiration and it came together pretty quickly.
Adam and I went out shopping yesterday before I had to go into work, and we were extremely successful. We found a TV that we liked for a good price, agreed really quickly on a mattress that we liked (and found out it will be 60% off right when we're looking to actual buy it), and even found bar stools, a scrapbooking desk, and possibilities for a grill and patio furniture that we were not specifically looking for. Oh, and we also saw a cheaper version of the sliding-door dog door that we had been considering at Petsmart. And we ordered our little boy a doggy birthday cake. :) He turns two on Saturday, but since that's our big moving day, we're going to have his doggy friends over to the house for a doggy party on the next Saturday. We'll give him some of his presents this weekend, though, like a new ball to play with in his new backyard.
Anyway, even though all that shopping made me pretty tired a work last night, it definitely put me in a good mood. Now all we have to do is figure out if we can afford all of the stuff we saw right away and what are the top priorities. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to consider that while the Hallmark store is empty today. :)
I'm off to walk the puppy and get in the shower before I head off to work. But first, here's just a couple more pages hanging out in my computer.
I used this sketch (from the Canadian site Scrapbook Star) for a page about Adam's "out and back" to Key West. Again, he is nowhere to be found in the pictures. :( You probably can't tell from the picture of the page, but the title is actually glued onto and old button that I found with Adam's childhood stuff. He had tons of really ugly buttons for no reason; they were not special at all. I was going to make him get rid of them when I realized that I could used them to add some dimension to my scrapbook pages. And voila, here it is.
I love this page and the sweet picture of me with puppy Skeletor. I copied this page that I had bookmarked months ago. I'm glad I went back and used it here since I think my page came out very nicely.
That's it. I'm done. No more scrapbooking until I get myself settled into the new place (and I still have no idea exactly how I'm going to set up the space or what kind of furniture I need to buy). I've got less than a week until moving day, and if that wasn't enough to encourage me to pack it all in, I ran out of page protectors yesterday. I definitely don't want to have to move any pages not in protectors, and I don't really have the time or money to run out and get some more right away. So the hiatus begins. At least I have quite a few more pages to share here on the blog, so that might help ease the withdrawal. :) And hey, maybe I'll update here a little more often. But I'm not making any promises.
Oh, I have to tell this story about me and Skeletor that happened earlier this week on Tuesday (mostly just for myself, I don't want to forget). We've had a fair amount of rain on and off this week as the remnants of Tropical Storm Claudette came through, but I really wanted to take Skelly on a walk that morning. I even checked the radar on Weather.com before we left and thought that we would be fine. Unfortunately, it started to POUR when we got to the top of our street (a little more than five minutes from home). Skeletor hates the rain and getting wet, so he was really antsy. I decided to start jogging with him to get home a little faster, but he wanted to RUN and was pulling hard. Halfway down our street I decided to let Skelly off the leash to run his little heart home. He bolted out ahead of me, but I could see him fine. Just like I thought, he knew exactly where he was going and turned at our driveway headed straight for the front door. The funny thing is that the loud rain had woken up Adam at home and when he realized that we weren't at home he knew that we must be caught outside somewhere. He was about to get in his car to come find us, but when he opened the door, Skeletor ran right up to him. I was still about 2 houses behind so he didn't see me yet, and he was REALLY confused for a minute. Maybe I got struck by lightning and Skeletor ran to get help. Anyway, we all made it home safe, even if we were SOAKED. Skeletor was really unhappy with getting so wet and he spent the rest of the morning wanting to be really near to us. For awhile, he would whine if one of us wasn't physically touching him.
Other than that, here's a couple pages to share.
I like the way this page turned out with the same picture 3 times. I think it does a good job highlighting the pink shirt in the middle one. I used the same idea that I used for this page I made earlier this summer because I really loved the way that one turned out.
And just a little something for Adam's Air Force book. This is him at his scarf drop last summer (hence the Randolph paper). I think it's a cool picture, but all he says when he sees it is that he looks "totally bald." He's really sensitive about that. I think he's silly.
Only one week until we sign all the paperwork and officially buy our house! We still won't be able to take possession of the house until next Friday, but since we couldn't find a time for everyone to meet on Friday, we're going to have the walk-through on Thursday afternoon and then go straight to sign everything. I'm super-excited since it means we get to have the house ALL day on Friday. :) We're still planning on getting the U-Haul and doing most of the moving on Saturday so we'll have friends free to help us, but we might take a couple car loads of boxes over on Friday and claim it as our own.
I do want to apologize for being distracted from pretty much everything else by this whole process, and I promise that soon I'll be able to focus on things like blogging, scrapbooking and running again. I need to remind myself that no matter how much changes, life goes on. I know it's going to go on with or without me, and I'm definitely ready to hop back on soon.
Anyway...I do have some backlogged scrapbook pages to share, so what am I waiting for?
A simple layout of some young European travelers that I hardly recognize. Especially that guy with the super-short haircut. :)
I like this page based on the sketch for mixer #22 at Mix it Up! I didn't actually play along with the whole challenge (to use stars made out of 5 different materials) since I didn't have a lot of embellishments around and I like the way my page looks without them, but I did use the sketch pretty much exactly as it was. I LOVE the pictures of Adam in bed on Thanksgiving morning.
Yesterday and today we got a little taste of what life is like taking care of two puppies. Mike and Lauren went to New Orleans for the night, so we've been watching Jack for them. It's been working out pretty well; the only thing that's really tough is letting them out since we don't have a fence here and we only have one tie-out cable. I think it will be fun to have Jack stay over again once we've moved into the new place with a fence (and hopefully soon a doggy door). It's good practice if we're seriously thinking about getting another puppy for ourselves (and I think we are).
We left the little boys at home for a little bit and went to the movies last night, too. I definitely recommend that you go out and see District 9. It was a really interesting, unique alien movie. Even if you don't like alien movies, you should see it.
Finally, I promised in my last post that I would update on my scrapbook pages: today is day 123 and I have...123 pages! Yay! I don't have to work until 4pm today and we've just gotten back from taking the puppies on a walk, so hopefully I will have some quiet time to do a little bit more scrapping today. Probably next weekend I'll have to pack my stuff up. :( Until then, here's a couple more pages to share:
This page got a weird shadow on it when I photographed it. In real life, the blue background is all one color. At first, I only made this page with the title and the woven looking paper, but Adam told me it looked too bare, so I found the yellow flowered paper and cut out some of the pattern to give it a little something extra. I think he was right, I like this better now.
This is a cute little page of Adam's friends and flightmates on their snorkeling trip in Key West. I wish that he had gotten someone to take a picture of him, but it's too late now. My favorite part of the page is the layered circles with "08" inside.Alright, now it's time to watch some women's tennis (woo US Open Series!), get in the shower, find some lunch and then get some packing done. Plus, find some time for scrapbooking. Wish me luck.
