OMG, I have achieved internet!
Enough of the new house has been put together that I can take an evening off to veg and go putter around the interwebz. Of course, that also means I have SO MUCH to catch up on. Link me to important bits, ppl!
NY, June 21. The packers came and went swiftly, leaving us with a house full of boxes. We decided to sack out on the floor for the evening.
Amazing, how high the boxes got piled. You can't tell, but that pile there halfway blocked entry to the bathroom. Good thing we can wiggle around. :)
We were going to be nice and let Maddy take the couch. She wound up unable to sleep, so we brought her down next to us. Big mistake. She wriggled around and kicked me in the head all night. At least she got a good night's sleep...
She's trying so hard to help us pack up and move things on 6/22...
OMG, our tiny little house looks huge again. And very, very empty. There was something very sad about that.
Waiting to hear from the car moving company. The movers had been swift and merciless, and were done with everything by 1 pm. They had promised between 4-5 pm, with 3 pm at the earliest. Tracking down anyone at their office was a complete pain in the ass, and the boss was an utter tool that couldn't get me off the phone fast enough. They finally arrived at a quarter to 6, and declared that they would have our cars in WI the next day. Which was very WTF for us, because we were told Friday at the earliest, if not the following Tuesday or Wednesday. After pointing that out to the tool on the phone, he left us alone.
Why yes, we departed from NY at 6 pm. And proceeded to drive through most of Pennsylvania by the time we stopped at 1 am. ::waves at mynuet:: thanks for helping me stay awake to keep Jay awake! It was too late to scribble in my notebook, but I was armed and ready to keep up with hc_bingo ficlet ideas.
It was a tight squeeze with all of us in the car and the back crammed full of stuff. But we did it! This is Wednesday, 6/23. It was hot and muggy and we were cramped and sitting all damn day. We also hit Chicago by 4:30 pm, which kinda resembled rush hour back in NY. And we seemed to be driving through the busted part of town, which is rather like busted parts of Queens to me. Go figure. We moved halfway across the country and it looks all the same.
Not the most awesome view, but this is what it looked like for 19 hours.
After two days at the Holiday Inn, we finally closed on our new home. And here it is in all its empty glory!
This is facing our new front door. We don't really use it, since there's an attached two car garage. But it's pretty!
Our new master bedroom. Which has actual master suite dimensions and attributes. For those of you relatively new to this journal (less than 2.5 years), our prior bedroom was an awesome 14'x7'4". It was the master because it was one inch wider than Maddy's room. Contemplate that for a moment.
We ordered a new washer/dryer set and set back to the house to wait for the cars to arrive. The moving company had NO RECORD of where our stuff was. Cue my utter disbelief. I barely paid attention when the lady on the phone mentioned something about a $125/day inconvenience fee. I was was too busy thinking "WTF? Where's my stuff?!?!"
So, without stuff, we had to make do with a local laundromat. It was sad and pretty dumpy, but our clothes were clean. So we all took off to one of the local dog parks. There's a fenceless one near our house, but we don't trust Indy enough off lead to come back when we call. We had a hard enough time in our old fenced in backyard, which we don't currently have. This park is right on the lake, near the lighthouse. It's a long walk to get to the park, but it's beautiful and exercise for all of us. :)
See? So pretty. And the dog park has actual grass in it that gets mowed regularly. Our old dog park was all sand.
The back of our house.
The front of our house. These were taken on July 3, when our stuff finally arrived. In the interim week, I found out that a) our stuff had been thrown into storage (which we never asked for) and b) I really really really hated interacting with the lady at the main office. She told me our stuff had been stored in NY for a week, would be loaded onto a truck by 6/28, might be in NJ by 6/29 and might be in Indiana by 7/2. But because she wasn't sure, she gave me a different woman's contact number to try and get a fix on the movers' location. That woman NEVER picked up her phone and NEVER called me back. I suspected that she was on vacation the entire time. :(
Maddy LOVES being in the yard. And running into the neighbors' yards. Luckily, they're all super friendly and helpful, and think she's precious.
Oh yeah. Because we had NO IDEA when our stuff was coming, we went to a local furniture store and bought a new couch, bed and armchair. The saleswoman was so worried for our sakes that she pulled strings to get our stuff delivered by 7/2 instead of 7/7 at the earliest. Figures our new furniture would arrive the day before our prior stuff...
Our basement. The cave. Our prior couch now resides here, and we had plans to create a corner with a couch and TV area, a computer area nearby (to watch TV while on the computer, naturally) as well as play and exercise and maybe party/bar area.
These guys were AMAZING. They put stuff down on the floors and walls to prevent damage, which the NY guys never did. They talked with us and joked around and made sure everything was done right. And when they saw damaged items on pickup in the storage facility in NY, they noted it down and promised to get in touch with someone at the parent company so we can file the proper paperwork to get compensated. If we ever move again, we're using these guys directly, they were that good and proud of their job.
It was a LONG morning. Maddy and Indy were exhausted and hungry. We all went from 9:30 am to 1 pm straight. Maddy had food and a nap, but the rest of us were busy.
Holy crap, my house!
By the time we stopped unpacking on 7/3, we had done the entire kitchen. We'd had an early dinner out as a break, and did tons while Maddy slept. There was only one glass broken out of all the dishes and glasses that were packed for the kitchen stuff. There was some haphazard items tossed in here and there, but it was at least easy to identify where it should go. By the end of the day, there were a few items damaged: our entertainment center (legs broken off, bottom panels cracked), lamp (molded switch snapped off, shade crushed) and books (mold growing on some from water damage to the boxes) were added to the broken water glass. Considering it was approximately 200 boxes/items that were moved, it wasn't a terrible tally. But the entertainment center prolly wouldn't have been broken if the NY guys had done a better job. :(
So the rest of the week, I went to work and finished up orientation and started to see patients. Hell, I asked to see patients earlier than they had planned for me. Tuesday was entirely blank, and there was nothing else for me to do. So I asked for two or three intakes to start me off so I can learn the computer system. It's an entirely electronic record, with local pharmacies hooked into the system so scripts can be faxed or printed directly. And because I'm on the computer all the damn time, I picked it up pretty quickly, asked for two tweaks to the intake form that were done the next day. Woo!
And during the day, Jay unpacked, bought and built new shelves, greeted the arrival of our new washer/dryer and did rounds of laundry. And after Maddy went to bed, I'd help him put together stuff in the basement and try to get it a little bit neater.
Like this! This was July 4th, actually.
Our precious tantrumy baby girl amidst the clutter. She's proving to be remarkably resilient. She loves her new day care. Although she cries when we drop her off or leave her sight, she doesn't want to leave when we pick her up. And once we get home, she wants to run around outside. We've met a bunch of our neighbors this way. :D
We took a break to attend the city's July 4th picnic at noon. Maddy liked the bands playing, and truly loved the playground on the park. The slide and swings are her favorites.
She was tired and cranky by the end of the picnic, and crashed hard when we got home. Which meant we could do more unpacking in peace. :)
Not to mention cutting apart boxes and stacking paper sheets for eventual pickup. Or, as Jason put it, our house is where boxes came to die. :D
Our basement, I think Tuesday or Wednesday this week.
Progress!
This one was taken yesterday. We have achieved a TV viewing corner! And the shelving nearby has VHS's along the wall, and anime DVD's in the shelving. Shelving on the other side holds my paperbacks and manga. Unsurprisingly, even though I had whittled down my book collection several times over the past five years, we don't have enough shelves. Color me unsurprised, even though Jason was shocked. Utterly shocked, I tell you, though I have NO IDEA why. He married a book geek! What did he expect? :)
You can see the floor! We had half the basement cleared out by last night.
Because exercise equipment arrived this morning! Now if I can manage NOT to hit the snooze in the morning, I have 20-30 minutes of exercise I can do every morning before Maddy wakes up. That's my plan, and I'm sticking to it. I swear! :D
This last corner is a mess, still. Though that high stack of boxes there are empty and waiting to be cut apart. And there are a lot of small sized or large sized clothes Maddy won't wear that will go into storage, CD's we plan to put on a CD rack and hardcovers and some of my old college texts that will go into shelving we'll eventually purchase and put along that back wall. Maddy has her own table and chairs to draw and color on, and she has three boxes of books we'll put on a book shelf of her very own. :)
Whew. It's been a long week, guys.
NY, June 21. The packers came and went swiftly, leaving us with a house full of boxes. We decided to sack out on the floor for the evening.
Amazing, how high the boxes got piled. You can't tell, but that pile there halfway blocked entry to the bathroom. Good thing we can wiggle around. :)
We were going to be nice and let Maddy take the couch. She wound up unable to sleep, so we brought her down next to us. Big mistake. She wriggled around and kicked me in the head all night. At least she got a good night's sleep...
She's trying so hard to help us pack up and move things on 6/22...
OMG, our tiny little house looks huge again. And very, very empty. There was something very sad about that.
Waiting to hear from the car moving company. The movers had been swift and merciless, and were done with everything by 1 pm. They had promised between 4-5 pm, with 3 pm at the earliest. Tracking down anyone at their office was a complete pain in the ass, and the boss was an utter tool that couldn't get me off the phone fast enough. They finally arrived at a quarter to 6, and declared that they would have our cars in WI the next day. Which was very WTF for us, because we were told Friday at the earliest, if not the following Tuesday or Wednesday. After pointing that out to the tool on the phone, he left us alone.
Why yes, we departed from NY at 6 pm. And proceeded to drive through most of Pennsylvania by the time we stopped at 1 am. ::waves at mynuet:: thanks for helping me stay awake to keep Jay awake! It was too late to scribble in my notebook, but I was armed and ready to keep up with hc_bingo ficlet ideas.
It was a tight squeeze with all of us in the car and the back crammed full of stuff. But we did it! This is Wednesday, 6/23. It was hot and muggy and we were cramped and sitting all damn day. We also hit Chicago by 4:30 pm, which kinda resembled rush hour back in NY. And we seemed to be driving through the busted part of town, which is rather like busted parts of Queens to me. Go figure. We moved halfway across the country and it looks all the same.
Not the most awesome view, but this is what it looked like for 19 hours.
After two days at the Holiday Inn, we finally closed on our new home. And here it is in all its empty glory!
This is facing our new front door. We don't really use it, since there's an attached two car garage. But it's pretty!
Our new master bedroom. Which has actual master suite dimensions and attributes. For those of you relatively new to this journal (less than 2.5 years), our prior bedroom was an awesome 14'x7'4". It was the master because it was one inch wider than Maddy's room. Contemplate that for a moment.
We ordered a new washer/dryer set and set back to the house to wait for the cars to arrive. The moving company had NO RECORD of where our stuff was. Cue my utter disbelief. I barely paid attention when the lady on the phone mentioned something about a $125/day inconvenience fee. I was was too busy thinking "WTF? Where's my stuff?!?!"
So, without stuff, we had to make do with a local laundromat. It was sad and pretty dumpy, but our clothes were clean. So we all took off to one of the local dog parks. There's a fenceless one near our house, but we don't trust Indy enough off lead to come back when we call. We had a hard enough time in our old fenced in backyard, which we don't currently have. This park is right on the lake, near the lighthouse. It's a long walk to get to the park, but it's beautiful and exercise for all of us. :)
See? So pretty. And the dog park has actual grass in it that gets mowed regularly. Our old dog park was all sand.
The back of our house.
The front of our house. These were taken on July 3, when our stuff finally arrived. In the interim week, I found out that a) our stuff had been thrown into storage (which we never asked for) and b) I really really really hated interacting with the lady at the main office. She told me our stuff had been stored in NY for a week, would be loaded onto a truck by 6/28, might be in NJ by 6/29 and might be in Indiana by 7/2. But because she wasn't sure, she gave me a different woman's contact number to try and get a fix on the movers' location. That woman NEVER picked up her phone and NEVER called me back. I suspected that she was on vacation the entire time. :(
Maddy LOVES being in the yard. And running into the neighbors' yards. Luckily, they're all super friendly and helpful, and think she's precious.
Oh yeah. Because we had NO IDEA when our stuff was coming, we went to a local furniture store and bought a new couch, bed and armchair. The saleswoman was so worried for our sakes that she pulled strings to get our stuff delivered by 7/2 instead of 7/7 at the earliest. Figures our new furniture would arrive the day before our prior stuff...
Our basement. The cave. Our prior couch now resides here, and we had plans to create a corner with a couch and TV area, a computer area nearby (to watch TV while on the computer, naturally) as well as play and exercise and maybe party/bar area.
These guys were AMAZING. They put stuff down on the floors and walls to prevent damage, which the NY guys never did. They talked with us and joked around and made sure everything was done right. And when they saw damaged items on pickup in the storage facility in NY, they noted it down and promised to get in touch with someone at the parent company so we can file the proper paperwork to get compensated. If we ever move again, we're using these guys directly, they were that good and proud of their job.
It was a LONG morning. Maddy and Indy were exhausted and hungry. We all went from 9:30 am to 1 pm straight. Maddy had food and a nap, but the rest of us were busy.
Holy crap, my house!
By the time we stopped unpacking on 7/3, we had done the entire kitchen. We'd had an early dinner out as a break, and did tons while Maddy slept. There was only one glass broken out of all the dishes and glasses that were packed for the kitchen stuff. There was some haphazard items tossed in here and there, but it was at least easy to identify where it should go. By the end of the day, there were a few items damaged: our entertainment center (legs broken off, bottom panels cracked), lamp (molded switch snapped off, shade crushed) and books (mold growing on some from water damage to the boxes) were added to the broken water glass. Considering it was approximately 200 boxes/items that were moved, it wasn't a terrible tally. But the entertainment center prolly wouldn't have been broken if the NY guys had done a better job. :(
So the rest of the week, I went to work and finished up orientation and started to see patients. Hell, I asked to see patients earlier than they had planned for me. Tuesday was entirely blank, and there was nothing else for me to do. So I asked for two or three intakes to start me off so I can learn the computer system. It's an entirely electronic record, with local pharmacies hooked into the system so scripts can be faxed or printed directly. And because I'm on the computer all the damn time, I picked it up pretty quickly, asked for two tweaks to the intake form that were done the next day. Woo!
And during the day, Jay unpacked, bought and built new shelves, greeted the arrival of our new washer/dryer and did rounds of laundry. And after Maddy went to bed, I'd help him put together stuff in the basement and try to get it a little bit neater.
Like this! This was July 4th, actually.
Our precious tantrumy baby girl amidst the clutter. She's proving to be remarkably resilient. She loves her new day care. Although she cries when we drop her off or leave her sight, she doesn't want to leave when we pick her up. And once we get home, she wants to run around outside. We've met a bunch of our neighbors this way. :D
We took a break to attend the city's July 4th picnic at noon. Maddy liked the bands playing, and truly loved the playground on the park. The slide and swings are her favorites.
She was tired and cranky by the end of the picnic, and crashed hard when we got home. Which meant we could do more unpacking in peace. :)
Not to mention cutting apart boxes and stacking paper sheets for eventual pickup. Or, as Jason put it, our house is where boxes came to die. :D
Our basement, I think Tuesday or Wednesday this week.
Progress!
This one was taken yesterday. We have achieved a TV viewing corner! And the shelving nearby has VHS's along the wall, and anime DVD's in the shelving. Shelving on the other side holds my paperbacks and manga. Unsurprisingly, even though I had whittled down my book collection several times over the past five years, we don't have enough shelves. Color me unsurprised, even though Jason was shocked. Utterly shocked, I tell you, though I have NO IDEA why. He married a book geek! What did he expect? :)
You can see the floor! We had half the basement cleared out by last night.
Because exercise equipment arrived this morning! Now if I can manage NOT to hit the snooze in the morning, I have 20-30 minutes of exercise I can do every morning before Maddy wakes up. That's my plan, and I'm sticking to it. I swear! :D
This last corner is a mess, still. Though that high stack of boxes there are empty and waiting to be cut apart. And there are a lot of small sized or large sized clothes Maddy won't wear that will go into storage, CD's we plan to put on a CD rack and hardcovers and some of my old college texts that will go into shelving we'll eventually purchase and put along that back wall. Maddy has her own table and chairs to draw and color on, and she has three boxes of books we'll put on a book shelf of her very own. :)
Whew. It's been a long week, guys.