Down To The Wire

We're getting closer!

So close it's getting intensely exciting... One more weekend in Salem and then we move!

This weekend we are packing everything but our clothes for the week and bathroom stuff. We will be eating microwaveable food only during the last work week in Salem... And a night of takeout.

We are going to buy our furniture and set up the delivery Saturday! I am so excited about that I could pee my pants. This will be the first time in MY LIFE I have bought NEW furniture!

We just have seven, SEVEN more mornings of getting up at 3:30am and leaving the house before 5:00am.... And only seven more early bedtimes.... We will finally be able to sleep in again. And I mean sleep in later than 5:30-6:00am on the weekends.... It's really starting to feel real now that we are so close.

It's almost the halfway point of this week... When you have a schedule like the one we have been keeping since January the work week goes by insanely fast.

Start/aka Monday: Get up at 3:30am; drive to Portland; work; drive back to Salem; make and consume dinner; prepare for next day; in bed by 7:30pm; get up at 3:30am; drive to Portland; work; drive back to Salem; make and consume dinner; prepare for next day; in bed by 7:30pm; get up at 3:30am; drive to Portland; work; drive back to Salem; make and consume dinner; prepare for next day; in bed by 7:30pm; get up at 3:30am; drive to Portland; work; drive back to Salem; make and consume dinner; prepare for next day; in bed by 7:30pm; get up at 3:30am; drive to Portland; work; drive back to Salem; make and consume dinner; End/aka Friday night.

That has been my work week for the last three months, and I really cannot express how freaking ecstatic I am that I will be reclaiming the rest of my life in a week and a half!

Oh the adventures we will have... I hope to be able to post between now and the 9th but who's to say... A lot of it depends on how busy work is... But if I don't just know I have excitement seeping out of my pores!

Jesus Doesn't Love You If You Drive Like An....

Hold your tongue and say "apple..."

This past weekend wasn't TOO eventful.

We got rid of the couches and Collin sold his "extra" PC.

The house looks even more empty.

We had put Spazzer in her room when the people came to get the couches. I forgot that I had left her blinds open, so she watched as HER couches were loaded up and taken away. When we released her she went and looked about the living room in an appalled fashion. She also would glance at us like, "How could you!? Those were MY beds!"

To appease her some Collin and I sat on opposite sides of the now empty living room and rolled a couple of her toys back and forth. It was a nice distraction for her.

To appease her more still we went to Petco on Sunday and got her a nice little bed AND one of those double stacked "kitty condos." We had intended to get one after the move for the living room anyways. This way it is something she can "mark" (== claw) in this house and it will be something familiar in the new living room.

I know... It's disgusting how spoiled the little heathen is...

Twelve... Just twelve more mornings of waking up in the middle of the night for the wonderful commute to Portland.

I know/hope/have faith that the next two weeks will fly by. This weekend is more "tidying" and packing other items as we don't require them to survive the next two weeks. Otherwise it looks to be a nice mellow weekend.

It looks like we are squatting in our house... With the couches gone we have camp chairs to sit in while we watch TV. 

I can't wait for the first weekend in April (AKA the weekend after this coming one). That is when we are going to buy the new furniture and set up delivery. And we will be packing everything except for the absolutely essential clothing and toiletries. Almost everything in the kitchen will be packed at that point too. The only things we will need are a couple spoons, forks and cups, as well as the microwave and the coffee maker.

We are getting so close I can taste it... What "it" should taste like I am not sure.... I just know I am freaking excited... Like a kid the night before Christmas or some other equally awesome event. I am going to be a wreck the next two weeks, aren't I? Just need to keep a level head... I have my lists, so those are comforting. I know what I need to do and when. And a lot of things are already taken care of. Yea, I will be fine... Thank god for Collin... Poor bastard is going to have his hands full the next couple weeks... Oh well, I'm sure he'll manage... LOL

Today is going by soooo freaking slowly... I keep hoping by stating such that I will get inundated with work... That hasn't happened yet... Lame.

This would be one of those days where I would love it if I could surf the interweb at work... No such luck. That is the biggest downside to this job so far.

I guess I can go file.... Can you hear my enthusiasm for it? Can you hear how excited I am to file?? Oh yes, mmmm, filing....

I just vomited in my mouth a little.

It's Friday, I'm In Love!

FRIDAY!

THREE WEEKS UNTIL THE MOVE!!!

ONLY FOURTEEN MORE HELLACIOUS 3:30AM WORK MORNINGS!!!!!

Can you tell I'm in a good mood? This should be a fairly relaxing weekend; just some visiting Collin's family and light tidying/dusting and packing a few more things...

I also need to figure out the "dinner list" for the last two weeks that we live in Salem and the first week at the new place... The final week in Salem will mostly be TV dinner type stuff and sandwiches. The first week at the new place will mostly be quick and easy throw together meals (that won't require much in way of groceries that we will need to move).

We are getting so close! To say I am getting excited is a freaking understatement.

Hmmm....

The time that this is actually posted at is when I am making Friday night pizza. This week is turkey kielbasa sausage, onion, and swiss cheese. Yum! Trust me it is awesome!

It's Like Going Into A Night Club Called Balls Deep...

Now, I realize I have kind of slacked off the last week. I had more than enough "free" time on Friday at work... The only problem was our computers were all down... Since Thursday afternoon. Blessedly they were functional (moderately) yesterday.

Last week we posted the couches on craigslist, but sadly they still reside in my living room... Which is fine for now. They need to go by the twenty sixth, I'd prefer if they were gone by the twentieth. C'est la vie. Worst case scenario is that we will have to borrow my FIL's truck and take them to Goodwill. If they aren't gone this weekend we will repost them as free. (I really don't want to move them ourselves; even to Goodwill... They are freaking heavy as sin.

This time change BS has been more brutal than normal for me. One, instead of getting up at three thirty we are in a way getting up at two thirty. I know, technically, we should be getting the same amount of sleep if we are maintaining the same bedtime... True, but not as easy as it sounds. With the time change it means that it is still slightly light outside at seven thirty when we are trying to convince ourselves it's late and we need to go to sleep... Yea. Kind of sucks... Especially when you consider that over the next three and a half weeks (until we move) the days will just get progressively longer and longer.... Thanks once again to our esteemed former president Bush... (He's the one who changed WHEN we change the clocks forward and back...)

This last weekend Collin and I spent the entirety of Saturday cleaning, and I mean DEEP CLEANING, the bathroom (Collin), laundry room (me), and the kitchen (me). When I say deep cleaning I mean cleaning EVERYTHING, including the walls. I even pulled out the washer and dryer in the laundry room and the fridge and stove/oven in the kitchen.

Some of you may be thinking, "Why would you do your move out cleaning SOOOO early?!" And I will be kind enough to answer you now. This way all we have to do is easy tidying up between now and then and we won't have to stress over it.

At this point anything we don't use at least every other day (except for a few items that I know WILL be used in the next two weeks or so) is packed. The house will look even more empty once the couches are gone... There will most definitely be pictures of that.

I can't believe how close we are finally getting to the move. The sucky part is that try as I might I am stressed about the move... It's natural, even the best and most well planned move is gonna create stress in a person. What makes it worse for me is that it is causing my psoriasis to flare up... As it is trying to go away... I am confident that once the move is over and done with my psoriasis will clear up nicely, until then I will survive as I have before...

I frequently find myself day dreaming about the new place. It's nice, but my brain is still trying to make it smaller than it is... Weird, right? As far as I knew that's not how the human mind works...

I just got my insurance paperwork!!! This is the FIRST job I have had where I get ANY kind of insurance coverage (and it's really good, my employer pays for all of my medical and dental, except ten dollars a paycheck). Yea, I am excited.

Now to go over all of it with Collin...

*****NOTE: this was typed two days ago.... I just now felt like getting on the lappity top to post it.............

There Is A Pirate Elf That Lives In My Chest

The house is starting to look very bare...

We have packed just about everything that we can pack (that we don't require to survive the next month). We've been really smart about labeling and grouping the boxes.

We have also Goodwill-ed at least a third of the stuff we had in the house. I am fairly positive that we made our last trip to Goodwill yesterday. We got rid of Collin's nasty beat up, falling apart desk, and our old vacuum.

We do and do not have a lot to move... I am sure when we are loading the U-Haul, and unloading and carting all of it up stairs it will start to seem like a ton of stuff. The only BIG items we will need to move is the bed, dressers, my desk and the book shelf. Oh and the chest freezer which is smaller than our washing machine, so it's not really that big...

I am eager to get rid of the couches but in the same breath I would like to hold on to them as long as possible. They are rather comfy, and I like being able to curl up on them when we get home... BUT they are absolutely NOT coming with us when we move. Hmmm.... I know if I put them up on craigslist this week, my luck they will be bought right away. Yet, if I wait it'll probably stress me out and no one will buy them until we get down to the wire... Or worse still no one will buy them and we will have to take them to Goodwill. (I am thinking via my FIL's truck...) I will have to ponder this further....

Yea, I think we are going to post them tonight... Or at least this week... I just have a feeling... Someone out there is looking for some super comfy (slightly beat up... we have a vicious beast after all) ivory colored heavy duty couches, and I have them to sell! They have served us well, and they were great starter furniture, but a new chapter warrants new furniture!

I think I will also try and get around to taking and posting some pictures on FB of the progress of the house. I shall title the album: "The Move 2011" and it shall be epic!

Collin and I got the respective "go-aheads" from our bosses so that we can just take the eighth off entirely which will help us immensely! And, it also means...

ONLY twenty three more super early mornings and long ass commutes... Thank goodness!

My Life Is Now A Major Motion Picture

What a Wednesday...

I am still slightly dazed.

It ended up being one of those days that was unexpectedly busy (which is good... I mean it's good to be busy. Busy == Job Security). One, it was V's Friday so she was at her twenty hours around noon or so. Two, C was dealing with some stuff and ended up going home early (around half past twelve). This left me by my lonesome self, and I had a decent amount of work to deal with.

Today, other unexpected things happened as well. But first I must explain a little background.

If you're familiar with "The Devil Wears Prada" (book or movie) you will understand what I am about to say... In many ways my new job shares several parallels with "Andrea's." I work for a highly respected person, who is set in their ways. I have now worked here for two months. The owner of the company has only been in Oregon (== here at the factory) three weeks of the last two months, but in that time I hadn't hardly been acknowledged as being within his realm of existence. Much like "Miranda Priestly's" presence within the office warrants subdued behavior and more formality, so does my company's owner's presence at the factory. If his stuff isn't where he thinks it should be... Yea... Just think of the scene from "Prada" when Miranda wants to know where her lunch is... Or the Harry Potter books for her twins. The only difference is that this is not a fashion magazine and the head honcho looks nothing like Meryl Streep...

You get the picture.

Back to today. The owner came in this morning in a rarely-seen good mood. So much to the point he not only acknowledged my presence, but he told me instead of C that he was expecting a call around ten (kind of reminiscent of the Andrea/Emily dynamic, right?). He also took time to explain why this call was "special" as opposed to the other salesmen trying to call him and claiming they know him personally.*~*~*~*~ Yea, there are other similarities too, but alas my train was derailed when I had to finish some reports and am typing this chunk now as I sit at home preparing to post this.


It's official, I have reserved our U-Haul! Yay!!! Just twenty seven hellacious workday mornings left! Yay!

Crow Cow

Holy schnikeys it's freaking March!

Now I can truly say that we are moving next month. It sounds so much closer now. Opposed to (when it was still February) saying we are moving in April. Yay!

Had another splendiferously full weekend. We went to see Collin's parents and he fixed their computer for them... Yea, my MIL + the interweb == BAD. It was a good visit. My MIL was having a fairly good day.

After we were done there we went to see his grandma. We finally got to tell her we found a new place and that we were moving. She is happy for us. The downside is that (because of all the stairs) she wouldn't be able to visit us. I should explain that she is wheel chair bound. I'm sure we could get her up the stairs but yea.

When we got back to Salem (Collin's grandma is in a nursing home in Canby) we had some lunch and then I decided to vacuum the couches. It wasn't nearly as scary as I had expected so that was nice. We also took down the remaining few pieces of wall decor except for the clock in the living room.

I kind of lost track of time so we skipped going to the mall that afternoon and just made for the coast. We attempted to visit my family but pretty much the whole house was sick so we opted to wander the mall before meeting K and Miss for dinner. It was destiny that we decided to go to the mall. We wandered into the Kitchen store place and meandered through the aisles of various kitchen paraphernalia. Just as we were about to leave the store Collin noticed a cheese slicer hanging amongst the other multitudes of kitchen gadgetry. And this wasn't just any cheese slicer; it was an old school style all metal cheese slicer (like the kind my parents had when I was a kid). We had been looking EVERYWHERE for one of these damn things! Collin snatched it up and we bought it like it's hot (sorry, I get a little nerdy about kitchen stuff sometimes). Then  we wandered the mall a little longer before deciding we had had our fill of crackheads and tourists.

A short while later we met my girls at the 60's Cafe for dinner. The food was good, the conversation even better. I always love getting to see my best friend and her always amusing daughter!

Before we left I decided that I really wanted a milkshake. The 60's Cafe was infamous for making these killer awesome (and huge) milkshakes back in the day. I mean they literally came in TWO cups. So I had Collin order us one and request that they split it in two cups so we could each have our own. Yea, I was shocked and appalled at what was brought to the table... Two, not quite full eight to twelve ounce cups (kiddie sized)... What the fudge?! Mind you, this milkshake cost $5.75.... I could have bought a tub of Tillamook ice cream (or TWO) and thrown it in the blender at home and come out with a pitcher sized milkshake for what they charged. Sheesh, super lame... My younger brother put it best, yet another reason NOT to go back to Lincoln City. I wish we could have taken snapshots of each other's expressions when we gazed upon the lackluster remnants of some childhood nostalgia. The upside of the tiny overpriced shakes is that: One, less unhealthy caloric intake, and Two, I WILL NEVER BUY ONE AGAIN!

We made our way home and decided to rearrange a couple of things. The idea being to start condensing things into a couple of areas as more and more stuff is packed. For the most part we are getting to the point where we will be packing everything but what we need to live day to day. Honestly, I think we have already packed the majority of our stuff other than our clothes and the kitchen... I plan to tackle the kitchen this weekend. I have already packed some of it up when I was "Goodwill-ing" stuff earlier.

Oh, yea... That's my major task for this weekend... After I pay bills and file everything I am packing everything from my desk except stamps, address labels, a couple envelopes, and any paperwork (which is all conveniently in a folder) that we need readily available for the move.

Ooooo! Another thing I need to take care of this weekend; I need to call the Comcast rep for where we are moving, ask him a couple questions and set up our appointment for when we move. AND I need to reserve our U-Haul.... I might do the U-Haul after I post this. Hmm... Decisions, decisions. I also need to get our beast in to get her claws trimmed in a couple weeks.

Freaking responsibilities.

Sheesh.