Friday, December 16, 2005

Happy Holidays

Well friends I haven’t written in well over a month for a mix of reasons. First, our drywaller was weeks late getting to the house and I was too demoralized towards the end of November to write about how God only knew when we were going to move into the house. Talk about bad attitude, I had one. Then I have been busy. At the last minute I was invited by the system to attend a Gaming Symposium in Chicago which focused on gamer culture and what libraries can learn from it in terms of service, programming, and appeal. It was extremely interesting. I had a great roommate with me and we enjoyed a lovely Italian dinner and gawked at an 8 floor Saks.

When I returned (I was supposed to be on vacation that week but waived the first two days for the trip) I immediately set to work packing packing and preparing to move—not into the house, but Mom and Dad’s. It was a four day process and on Monday past Andrew vaccummed and turned in our keys. I have little hope of retaining much of our deposit as a result of some unfortunate incidents with drywall but hope to get reimbursed the rent money we paid in advance for days we weren’t living there.

So we packed up to Mom and Dad’s. Dad Andrew and Andrew’s friend Kevin did the moving. The white pole barn is chock full of boxes and furniture. I am very afraid for my audiobooks and dvds in the little red barn with these horribly low temperatures but there is nothing for it. They will either warm up and be okay or they will be ruined. The most stressful aspect came from the least considered corner—Kitten! We think that even though Chubby was long gone from the house, she could still smell him and tracked through the house sniffing the carpet and the furniture and she just went, well, she went crazed. Absolutely crazed. She would not settle down and would not stop yowling as if she were gearing up for a fight. She kept Andrew and I up all night and ate a whole in Mom and Dad’s garbage bag, ate some left over Salisbury steak and then promptly threw it up.

By Monday evening there was no other recourse we could take, we had to board her. It breaks my heart but she is better off there and goodness knows we are too. She’ll be there total, probably two weeks.

As I write this Andrew is spending his third day off in a row painting the house. The drywall was officially done on Sunday and Dad, my Uncle, and Andrew have been painting and primering away. Since I have had to work all week my contribution has been getting supplies. We will have most of the house painted except for the two second bedrooms but since we are waiting to floor those too we aren’t going to worry about it. I’m very happy with the colors we have chosen so far. We are still split on the family room color which will most likely be me and a friend’s project tomorrow. The downstairs kitchen cabinets have been installed and boy do the look nice. We aren’t going to be hurting for space that’s for sure. The vinyl will be put down today and tomorrow and our laminate has been delivered to acclimate for flooring this weekend. By this time next week all the floor should be in with the exception of the study which Andrew and I are going to try to do ourselves. Our garage door is in but the opener isn’t installed. Things are moving along.


In other news, Andrew passed his second quarter of paramedic school with flying colors and should be receiving his diploma in the mail sometime next week. His Christmas break hasn’t been much of a break but it’s nice to not worry while I am at work, knowing that he and Dad are there getting things done. I think my biggest pre-move projects will be painting the family room and touching up the other rooms, plus I want to stain all the wooden window sills, oak for upstairs and cherry for downstairs. Plus those will need two coats of poly.

The only other news I can think of is that I resigned from my Linworth job at the end of November. The new house is going to take a lot of time and it was just time to reprioritize. We aren’t sending out Christmas cards this year but maybe I will send something out once we are settled in.

Depending on how well I can get my act together I may post pictures of the inside of the house around Christmas.

Thanks for being so patient and all of your kind thoughts, Jules

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