Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Home at Last!

Sunday night we spent our first night in the new house we had owned for a month. By the time we actually stayed here, most everything we needed was here and put away, which is a good thing. I admit that I was losing my usually exceptional patience with the constant driving back and forth and ending up at the old house each night, but overall I am very glad that I didn't push the old guy into moving in before he was ready. Now he can never say that I rushed him into doing something he was not ready to do. I think that he got ready a lot faster after the cable was turned off on Thursday. After 3 evenings of watching old movies on video, he was ready for his cable television again, I'm sure. Tomorrow they will come and install our new custom window shades, and that will make us both more comfortable here. The drapes we have at the front windows are filmy, and they don't afford much privacy.

Of course, this is not to say that we are done with the old house-not by a long shot. There are still boxes sitting in the middle of the floor waiting to be transported here for storage. There are places where years of accumulated dust needs to be cleaned up. There are leftover odds and ends that must be disposed of, either in the garbage or the Goodwill bags. So we still go back and forth--we just end up here! :) I must say after a particularly grueling day today on which the old guy rode his tractor around the field cutting grass, and I packed boxes, cleaned out closets, filled garbage cans, and packed up the truck, only to have to take it all out and unpack it when I got here, I am whipped. I know it wasn't easy bouncing around on the tractor for 3 hours in the heat, but I still believe I had the worst of the work, especially since I unloaded the truck and unpacked the boxes by myself after we got here while the old guy hung a picture and fiddled with a cabinet bracket. I can honestly say that I have had enough of this and just want it all to be DONE! I am hopeful that by this weekend, it will be. Then we can get back to a normal routine with home-cooked and nutritious meals and time to pursue leisure time activities. Life is good now, but it will be better then!

When all the rooms are unpacked and arranged, I will post a photo tour. Just waiting for the last piece of furniture in the last room...

Monday, May 12, 2008

The Neverending Story...

No pictures tonight. We are still in the moving process, and it's really beginning to wear on both of us. EVERY day since we closed on the house over 2 weeks ago, we have gone 25 miles to the new house with a backseat full of stuff. We spend a few hours there putting the stuff away and then return here, where our bed is still in residence, and our cable is operative. We have had a few furniture deliveries, measurements for shades and area rugs, and a trip to Alissa's to pick up furniture that we bought down there, including a new bed. The bed was assembled by our intrepid son and daughter-in-law the very evening we brought it home, and it sits in splendor in the bedroom sans mattresses. It will be at least a week before our sons can get together and move the rest of the furniture out of our old house, including the mattresses. So today we decided to get new mattresses, which will be delivered Thursday. One problem solved, but we still can't stay there without cable. Terry is television-dependent, and without the cable, we can only pick up one channel, the one we watch least. He'd never be able to survive.

I had been hesitant to call about the cable before we were going to be staying there because that's an expensive bill to pay for two houses. So I called about the cable last Monday, thinking they could get it done in a week, and I was told that because this home is a new construction that they would have to send someone out just to see if cable was available to us. I assured the man on the phone that it was, as I felt the builder would not have put several cable outlets in if it weren't, and there is a box in the yard that says "television" on it. He said that nonetheless someone would have to check it out, and they couldn't possibly do that before May 14, still 2 days hence. After he has checked it out, I'm to call the cable company again and make an appointment for installation. The man wouldn't go ahead and schedule it while we were on the phone. He did assure me that it would only be another day or two, but we'll see. I am hoping we get to be living in the house by this time next week, but I'm not holding my breath.

Of course, once we are staying there, we will still have to come back to the old house to finish getting odds and ends and cleaning up so that our son and daughter-in-law can start moving their things in. It just seems that no matter how much I do or accomplish, more and more needs to be done. Both Terry and I are wearing down and have sore spots in parts of our bodies that we weren't aware existed. Both of us fall exhausted into bed each night and get up tired in the morning just to start all over again. One of these days it will all be done, and we will be able to relax and just enjoy our beautiful new home. It can't come soon enough for me. Surely, this neverending story will have a happy ending sooner or later--sooner, I hope! :)