Moving: part two.

Thank goodness I had today off from work, as it was day three of all day moving and trip 25 (no exaggeration) to drop off boxes.  However, we are making progress.  Slow but steady progress, and I'm happy we didn't have to rent a U-Haul to do it! 

This is the current state of our apartment:

 

My nightmare exactly.  We are living pretty much like Spartans in messy chaoticness... Sadly it will be like this for a few weeks more before we finally get settled.

Lots happened today.  We had the carpets cleaned and steamed, and the ducts cleaned and sanitized as well.  We also had the range hood and dishwasher installed.  Eeeee!!!! :)  (more to come on this!)  Everything was going smoothly until there was a "hidden surprise"...

FRAGGLE ROCK.  Turns out when the sellers took the fridge they didn't turn the water off all the way by tightening the bolt, and this is what we were left with.  Doh.  Thank gosh Charlie noticed it, and we got a fan to it right away, wiped away the water, and tightened the bolt.  We (by a miracle of only God) had a plumber coming to our house anyway to install the dishwasher, so he gave us some pointers and said it really wasn't a huge deal.  Besides, the fridge will be covering the water stain, anyway.  Crisis averted.  Barely...

While Charlie supervised the contractors, I was busy at work unpacking the kitchen.  We had to put new contact paper in all of our cabinets (because the old stuff from the 80s was just nasty).  And there are a lot of cabinets to contact paper.  The whole left wall, the whole island facing the stove, and all of the uppers.  30 in all.  (Yes I counted).

 

 Every single one needed to be peeled and scrubbed because they all looked about like this inside:

 

 But now they feel brand new!  The sellers even left some random things behind that we ended up putting to use!

The cupboards are full with all over our kitchen goodies that we've brought over.  That gets about a 1/3 of all the boxes out of the house!

Moving: part one.

Moving is a lot of work when you do it yourself! Charlie and I are moving all of our personal items one car-load at a time to the new house this weekend.  I own a Saturn and he owns a Mazda.  Yes, we know we're crazy.  ;)  We are saving the big stuff for the pros, though because washer and dryer + Kathryn and Charlie + 3 flights of stairs = disaster.  Despite this omission, we still have lots to do and a.lot.of.stuff. You don't realize how much you own until you have to move it all in a tiny car.

Lucky for us, thanks to facebook, we recruited some of our friends--and their cars---to give us a hand.  They were bribed with payment in the form of tacos. :)   We worked from 1pm-6pm of straight packing and moving today, and we are about 1/2 done with the apartment. Lots of work, but big pay off with extra hands!

The process went pretty smoothly, except for Luna...our little furry wrench in the whole thing.  But what did you expect?  She is dramatic.

She does not like her disrupted routine, and she really hates the boxes in our apartment.  A lot. So, we had to shut her in our bedroom during the moving process so she wouldn't get squished trying to "save us" from impending box doom.  She screamed and yelped in her warning signal, high-pitched way. It was quite embarrassing, really.

Click to enlarge

But, we made it.  And Charlie and I are going to work more tomorrow.  And Luna will continue to warn us about the boxes.  Yes, Luna.  We know....

Closing

Both the keys are in our hands....we now officially own a home!  Our very own home!  Here is a picture of her I took today.  The door is open.  Why?  Because it's ours!  It feels so surreal.  I thought this day would never come :)

The closing went pretty smoothly.  We arrived around 9:00 to the house, and Brian (our Realtor) had already done a walk-through of the property.  We reviewed all of the items that needed fixing, and everything looked great.  We did, however find a cracked front window that wasn't there before, probably due to all the ice and snow we've been having.  So, we called the sellers, and they are going to fix it for us.  That was a lucky "break" (pun intended) considering we got out on the right side of that one.  Oh the joys of homeownership!

Charlie and I went to Lowe's (twice) today and our Realtor was sweet enough to give us a gift card as a closing present.  How nice of him! :) We already took over two car loads of boxes, too and I've begun to unpack the pantry. 

I took some pictures with my new camera (which I need to put on Facebook because people have been bugging me) but rather than shower you with pictures a made a video house tour!  Exclusive for my blog readers... because sooo many people read this blog.  ;) ;)  LOL.  So, come see the new Casa Snearly.  And excuse my horrible videography skills....I hope the shaky camera doesn't make you sick.  Hehe.



P.S.  I also forgot to show the downstairs 1/2 bath and hallway!  I tried to add a part to the video, but Vimeo says the file was too big :(

Classical music

Today I played my flute "just because."  It was a snow day, my memoria had had enough, and I needed a release.  But it was in the moment as I played a high D above the staff in Spartacus that I wished I had a piano.  I realized that it is one thing I truly miss.  I would have played it all day. 

And so, I leave you with this.  Maybe it will make you wish you had one, too.  This video will change your life...and is one worth sharing....  Watch it to the end.  Trust me on this one :) 

Bread!

Well, according to the weather report, tomorrow is going to be a snow day.  So, what do southerners do when it's about to snow?  They buy bread!  I call this a sickness: "Snowcondria."  LOL.  We followed suit, but we didn't buy bread but we decided to MAKE IT!  That's right.  From scratch!  Thanks to this baby:

I was given a bread maker years ago as a "moving away" gift.  I hate to say it, but like our crock pot, it just sat in our closet, collecting dust.  When we moved to North Carolina, I had all the intentions of using it, but after trying to give it a whirl, I realized that the kneading blade was missing. Only the most important part of the bread maker!  It's funny how that big honkin' thing can completely fail without a 1 inch long piece of metal. 

Because we are moving and cleaning out the apartment (thank you Craigslist!), Charlie and I decided that it was either time to use it or sell it.  So, we looked up buying a new blade online, but they were about $15 plus shipping: kind of expensive for a fleeting "lets try this out" idea.  Then there was amazon.  I love amazon.  I would marry it if I could marry a website.  We found a bread kneading blade for just $3.95.  Plus, using our giftcard from credit card points, along with some other purchases of things I needed, it was totally free shipping.  Can't beat that.

Let's go bread!

I read the directions carefully and realized that messing up the bread maker is actually pretty easy to do.  I should say, screwing up your bread is pretty easy to do.  There were 2 full pages of "troubleshooting" and dos and don'ts.  Sheesh!  I had wanted to try a gluten free loaf, but knowing how testy that dough is, I decided to do a dry run with actual flour in case I totally screwed up.

Here's what I used:

Oil, bread maker white flour, yeast, salt, and sugar.  Pretty simple!  The booklet said the key was measuring everything correctly and using fresh ingredients.  We had everything in house except the yeast and bread maker flour.  It's a pretty cheap baking project.

And here is my 1.5 lb. loaf of bread after 58 minutes of baking goodness!  Looks legit, right???

We were so pleased how the loaf turned out.  I can't believe I didn't screw it up!  Charlie will use it throughout the week for his sandwiches.  Bring on the snow!  Hopefully there will be a gluten free loaf for me in the near future....

Stalkers

Yup, that's us.  We are the creeper type.

Charlie and I decided around 8:00 pm on Saturday night to walk Luna by our soon-to-be-new-house!  We wanted to stalk it again.  We pulled up, scanning around for our "maintenance issues" to see if they had been fixed.  And then, Charlie said, "Behold!  Look at the garbage pile!  They are cleaning out the garage!

Sure enough, there was a lawn mower, a chair, some boxes, some tools.  I'm not going to lie, I considered garbage picking.  Just for a second.  But, we really don't have much room for anything in our apartment right now (post about this to come later) and it seemed like a sketchy idea.  Plus, that would be weird to garbage pick from our own house...right?  Yeah, it confuses me, too. 

Anyhow, we snapped this corny pic.  Excuse the blurry, crappy i-Phone (gag!) picture.  (This is where I insert how my Droid camera is so much better, but I'll spare you).

Pretty soon we will be taking legit pics of the inside that aren't covered by a veil of darkness...

January 2011

2011?  What!??!  Already?  That's weird to write.  I swear I still feel like it's still 2009.

 Haha.  I guess you can't wear these glasses in 2011 (or 2010 for that matter) because the "1" would just make it look weird... I know.  I'm the weirdo who would think of that.

So, here is where I say my New Year's resolutions!  Here were my resolutions last year in my tell-it-like-it-is post.  Did I keep my resolutions from 2010?  Let's find out...

Resolutions 2010:
1) Turn off the TV before bed and read instead-- helps me learn and makes it easier to fall asleep!
Fail 1.  Not so much.  I do read before bed, but much of the time, I'm in the middle of a good show, and I just can't turn it off.  So I leave on the T.V.  in the bedroom.  I mean... it's there!  Right?  It lulls me to sleep...

2) Turn out the lights/gadgets when I leave a room--ECO-friendly and saves $$$!
I am actually getting MUCH better at this. I guess because I'm more conscious of it?  Or maybe because we don't have that many lights?  Or maybe it's because I'm cheap.  That could be, too.

3) Walk Luna to the "far" poop plot on Saturday and Sunday-- A little extra exercise adds up over the course of a year!
Charlie takes Luna out to poop in the morning, and I guess we've "sort of kept it" because when she poops at night she is usually on a walk.  And a walk is far better than the far "poop plot!"  Okay, okay, enough poopy talk.

Well, as we ring in 2011, here are my NEW, better resolutions.  I'm 2 for 3.  Let's see if I can make it 3 for 3 by 2012!

1)  Finish my thesis THIS year, so I can get my Master's sooner.  Well, like we've established, I'm cheap, so I'm sure this will be a huge motivator. 
2) Wear sunblock on my scar every day!  I just got a mole removed, and I know this will be hard to remember, but it's important so my scar doesn't look worse!  Weird, but important.
3)  Stress less, laugh more.  I think that one is simple enough :)

Happy New Year!