Live Alive
Time really, really, flies when you're busy every single day of the week. September suddenly turned into October and soon November will be here. In the last month or so a lot has happened, keeping me away from updating. The biggest change is that my mom, Juan and I finally moved out of our old house and into a new house. Given all of the trouble we had finding a buyer and a home to move into it was a pleasant surprise when everything fell into place. The people who ultimately brought the house had been looking at another house, when that deal fell apart our house was on the market so they made an acceptable offer. As for our house, one that we had been looking at for quite some time went off the market, then came back on the market. We had a few disagreements with the sellers on urgent repairs needed, but ultimately worked a deal out. Despite months of packing, the move was pretty stressful and disorganized.
The move took place last Tuesday in anticipation of making settlement on Wednesday afternoon. We legally weren't allowed to put any of our things into the new home although it was unoccupied. To further make things worse, the buyers of our home were held up during the settlement process, causing us to have to wait for more than five hours before my mom was free to make settlement at the new place. So the moving truck sat full for five hours and there were still more things to be packed. It wasn't until nearly 6pm that the truck was moved, everything was dumped in the new house (I stayed behind at the old house to clean and prep things to be moved), and the final load was retrieved. By the time the truck was packed it was after 9pm and my friends had to either leave for work or school, leaving us with a full truck. We missed the deadline for returning the truck and had to keep it an additional day.
When the time to unload the truck arrived my mom's boyfriend found two odd-jobs guys to move everything into the house. Fortunately, one of the guys was in need of money and offered to return to move heavy furniture, put up pictures, put together beds, and other little odd jobs. As of right now there are still lots of boxes that need to be unpacked, and thanks to the work that needed to be done around the house (new carpet in some places, electrical and heating work in others) I'm not even moved into my new room. The internet was turned on last Thursday but it was only today that I got my desk and computer set up.
So far I like the new house. Everyone in the neighborhood minds their own business, and even the next door neighbors are fairly friendly and quiet. There aren't any houses across the street thanks to a major intersection. Fast food restaurants (which I want to avoid after eating out of them for the last few days) are literally two minutes away on foot. Even my DSL connection is faster here, as I'm connected at 3MBPS, versus the 900K at the old house. My cellphone also gets a signal just about everywhere in the house as well.
Unfortunately, getting the repair work done wasn't without incident. It took the heater repair men three days to change over the old oil heating system (lined with asbestos of all things) to natural gas. The job was supposed to be finished in a day or two. In the process they also broke several of my mom's pictures. Luckily the glass can be replaced in them, but the jerks didn't even mention the fact that they broke the pictures. If that wasn't annoying enough the technician from Dish Network came to set up our satellite, and cracked a baseboard in the process with his drill. The real offender was when he asked to use the bathroom in the basement, used it twice, and literally left it clogged with his crap and toilet paper. He closed the seat cover and left us to find the mess long after he left. My mom eventually unclogged the toilet and decided to file a complaint. Since then a claims representative came to assess the damage, toilet has been fixed but someone should come out to fix the damaged baseboard, as there was no reason to drill through it instead of under it.
Otherwise, the house is slowly coming together. Once all of the repairs and upgrades are finished here's to hoping that I'll be able to spend my free time any way I want to. Sadly, that day is still off by a month or two.
The move took place last Tuesday in anticipation of making settlement on Wednesday afternoon. We legally weren't allowed to put any of our things into the new home although it was unoccupied. To further make things worse, the buyers of our home were held up during the settlement process, causing us to have to wait for more than five hours before my mom was free to make settlement at the new place. So the moving truck sat full for five hours and there were still more things to be packed. It wasn't until nearly 6pm that the truck was moved, everything was dumped in the new house (I stayed behind at the old house to clean and prep things to be moved), and the final load was retrieved. By the time the truck was packed it was after 9pm and my friends had to either leave for work or school, leaving us with a full truck. We missed the deadline for returning the truck and had to keep it an additional day.
When the time to unload the truck arrived my mom's boyfriend found two odd-jobs guys to move everything into the house. Fortunately, one of the guys was in need of money and offered to return to move heavy furniture, put up pictures, put together beds, and other little odd jobs. As of right now there are still lots of boxes that need to be unpacked, and thanks to the work that needed to be done around the house (new carpet in some places, electrical and heating work in others) I'm not even moved into my new room. The internet was turned on last Thursday but it was only today that I got my desk and computer set up.
So far I like the new house. Everyone in the neighborhood minds their own business, and even the next door neighbors are fairly friendly and quiet. There aren't any houses across the street thanks to a major intersection. Fast food restaurants (which I want to avoid after eating out of them for the last few days) are literally two minutes away on foot. Even my DSL connection is faster here, as I'm connected at 3MBPS, versus the 900K at the old house. My cellphone also gets a signal just about everywhere in the house as well.
Unfortunately, getting the repair work done wasn't without incident. It took the heater repair men three days to change over the old oil heating system (lined with asbestos of all things) to natural gas. The job was supposed to be finished in a day or two. In the process they also broke several of my mom's pictures. Luckily the glass can be replaced in them, but the jerks didn't even mention the fact that they broke the pictures. If that wasn't annoying enough the technician from Dish Network came to set up our satellite, and cracked a baseboard in the process with his drill. The real offender was when he asked to use the bathroom in the basement, used it twice, and literally left it clogged with his crap and toilet paper. He closed the seat cover and left us to find the mess long after he left. My mom eventually unclogged the toilet and decided to file a complaint. Since then a claims representative came to assess the damage, toilet has been fixed but someone should come out to fix the damaged baseboard, as there was no reason to drill through it instead of under it.
Otherwise, the house is slowly coming together. Once all of the repairs and upgrades are finished here's to hoping that I'll be able to spend my free time any way I want to. Sadly, that day is still off by a month or two.