playing catch up & some pictures

I hate playing catch up from being out of town.

The mountain of dirty clothing that was lurking in my laundry room is almost all gone. I have a working dishwasher now. Alex's room no longer looks to be in limbo, the stacks of clothing have disappeared, the bed resembles a place one could sleep and random things won't fall out of the closet when you slide open the doors. Our living room is also in a much better state now. It no longer resembles a war zone of cardboard and packing paper.

My garage still resembles a storage unit unfortunately. The reason the house still looks like we just received our stuff is because my dear Tom likes to sit and play Saints Row 2 and while he wastes his time away playing video games, I sit on my ever expanding butt and surf the 'net. I find interesting sites here and there, open a new tab...continue surfing and find some great blogs, bookmark...and on and on.

Ah, well....I'll post a few pictures from the weekend. Then I'm removing myself from the couch and hoping that there isn't an imprint from my butt in the cushion when I finally stand up. lol

Alright, that took longer than I anticipated. I wish more of the photos had turned out, oh well, I was having much more fun watching everyone have a good time and having a good time myself to dwell on making sure all my shots were great. I still wonder about this whole professional photographer thing - I really want to do it, I just don't think I can put myself out there enough to do that. Besides my editing skills are really lacking as is any idea of how to go about getting a business started. Wonder if I can run a business out of my house?

We have arrived!

Wanted to update fast. Here's a bit I posted on the family blog yesterday.

I am aiming to update with day-by-day action here soon.

On the move..

Don't have time to re-write a whole post at the moment. I'm so tired I could have been sleeping 2 hours ago.

Find out how things are going here.

Last Sunday in VA

So, it's our last weekend in VA. I had wanted to be able to go out and do something fun, but in the end our procrastination got the best of us and we spent alot of time sorting, organizing and cleaning. The house is by no means ready, but alot of it will have to be done after the house is packed up. It's weird to know that by this time next week we'll be on the road but everything we own is still sitting out like we'll be here in a month.

We have some errands to do tomorrow and hopefully we won't have to run out for anything else. Tomorrow we are also going to take down all the curtains upstairs. I need to finish up (or rather keep up with) the laundry. Alex has a bag all packed up. Tom has his dress clothes and Alpha's ready to go, I have my dress clothes packed. After we run out tomorrow I think I'm going to be able to pack up most of my bag.

Ah, nonsense to all of you I'm sure. It's all just randomness that is running through my mind right now. I did get a layout done today, will try to get the preview saved tomorrow and get it posted. It's the first one I've done in about 2 weeks. Tom and I have been organizing our music and making up playlists for the car ride. We asked the boys if they wanted to go to Graceland and they said they didn't know who Elvis was! So we went on a YouTube search for Elvis clips and finding songs in iTunes.

Well, it's about time I remove my butt from the couch and finish cleaning off my bed so that I can drag my tired butt in there later.

Less than one week

That's right, less than ONE week until we move. As I look around my house I see nothing but chaos. The older boys are getting impatient that we keep putting off doing things with them because there's still just so much left to do. Tomorrow we have promised time after lunch to sit and play a board game or cards with them.

The window on the truck broke again, so Tom spent an hour or so fixing it. The boys helped me clear out the 3 rooms in the basement. Most of the stuff that was in there is still in the main area of the basement, but some of it made its way upstairs. We have to figure out how much stuff we are going to be able to fit in Tom's car so we can fine tune our list of things we are bringing with us. Now it's just down to the little details, cleaning, organizing (what we can without fear of the packers destroying our progress) and throwing away/donating what we don't need.

There was a going-away party for Tom today at Chili's. We walked in and I thought it was just 3-4 tables...I was wrong. There were guys at every table up and down one whole side of the restaurant. Our table had a big bunch of balloons wrapped around a special present from Mark, a handle of Southern Comfort. They also gave him a plaque with an alligator head on it, all the guys signed the back. It was neat to read some of the things that were written to him. I hope that Tom will work with some of these guys again, others can stay here. lol

Ok, it's late and if I'm going to get up and moving in the morning I should head to bed.

{Jackpot!}

Funny how a little bit of shopping can make me feel a bit better. lol I probably shouldn't have, but I took advantage of Shabby Pickle's $1 day today. Kits, alphas, elements, 4 pages worth of goodies for $1 each. I limited myself there to just a couple dollars. Then The Lily-Pad put out their BYOC for the month of October. There are so many new things, so I went a bit overboard there. I figure I'll even out for the month when I don't have consistent internet access for a couple of weeks. lol

Now, if only I could get motivated to get the rest of my lengthy to-do list completed. It's 2 weeks from today and our house will all be packed into boxes and onto a moving truck. 2 weeks from today the boys will say good-bye to their teachers and classmates. I'm having a hard time figuring out what I need to pack ourselves and bring in the car. I'm really trying to limit it to a few things for entertainment for the kids, our pictures and scrapbooks, and of course, some clothes. Then I remember the teapot of my great-grandmother's, the crystal glasses from my other great-grandmother, and various other sentimental items that can't be replaced. I think we'll be ok to let the movers pack the crystal and the teapot, but I think I might try to get it in the car if there's room. Like it's going to be that necessary to have those when we move and are without everything else, at least we'll have a pretty teapot and some crystal glasses! lmao

Almost dinner time so I should get something started. I'm hoping to get the desktop cleaned up and backed up this weekend. Then I can stash away the external hard drives. Any little thing to keep it moving, right?

Countdown...19 days

That's right, we will be moving in 19 days.

Today I spent most of the morning making phone calls having utilities turned on and off. All I have left is to call Verizon and have them cancel our service. Tom has to call U-Haul back and reserve a car hauler since that is what we finally decided on (until tomorrow). We even have a California phone number scheduled to be turned on on the 24th!

The ceiling fan in the master bedroom decided that it wanted to be a PITA, on Saturday morning. By PITA I mean popping noises, sparks and suddenly ceasing to turn. So we had to run to Home Depot today to get a new one, we also cut a new piece out of the wall from upstairs, because why would the "white" paint in the house all match? Crazy talk I tell ya. Nothing can be easy for us at this point. lol

We have quite a few small details to work out still about the move. I wish the small details didn't matter, but they do. For instance, finding a hotel in the area for the night of the 17th that accepts pets. Luckily so far I've found 2 and will check the hotel on base tomorrow. Hopefully things will start to fall into place and we can start to feel a little better. As of right now we still aren't sure if TMO is going to change our pack up and move out dates, we won't know until the end of the week. *note to self -- add to to-do list* Such a process. Hopefully things will go fairly smoothly for us soon. We've dealt with enough for a while I think, can we have a break, please?

Monday ramblings

Cute altered notebook idea here on The DigiChick's blog.

A cute sweater that I have my eye on from AE. They are also buy one get one 50% off. Tempting, although I really don't need to be spending $50 on a sweater right now.

Looking for quotes on shipping DH's car to CA has been a headache. I lost the email quote that one company sent me a few weeks ago that was by far the cheapest, but I need to find out if that included taxes & fees. It would figure that is disappeared. DH's been emailing me quotes on & off throughout the afternoon.

I called our bank to see about a personal loan if we end up needing to sell DH's car and we, of course, owe more than it's worth. The countdown to moving is going faster so we need to finalize alot of the little details before we have no internet service and all our stuff is packed up. I need to make a list of things to call on and get set-up for disconnection.

Rambling...again...lol One thing off my mind is that I was able to get through to the new school for the boys & the lady Stephaine was so nice and helpful. I have a list of things we need and thankfully the only thing we have to go out of our way to get is a copy of Anthony's physical. He's already had one though, so it's just a matter of getting a copy. It looks like Anthony will be going to half day kindergarten once we move. I do need to call and double check on when they are due for their next teeth cleaning, I want to get that done before we move.

Ok, ok...going to go now. Start making me some lists.

On the housing wait list

Ok, so since Tom is so super busy each and everyday at work I was tasked with faxing our application to the housing office. So, we are on the list! I made Tom call and verify that they received our fax when he arrived home.

I also ran to Giant to get bananas and 2 liters of Coke for drinks this weekend and to Wal-Mart for the movie releases of the week and a box of diapers for little man. Then I came home and didn't do much of anything else. Oh, wait...I did get 6 auctions listed on ebay. Cross your fingers that they sell, and for a decent price.

I discovered my debit card for one of my bank accounts is missing. Yeah, so I've got to tear the house apart and look for it tomorrow. I also realized that tomorrow is the 'last day' according the the county website to register Anthony for kindergarten in the fall. So, we will also be doing that tomorrow. I'm currently listening to Tom complain and have fits about the trash that is so full that it won't come out of the can without a fight. I wonder if he remembers he's the one that likes to push the trash down to cram more in?

Ok, now to finish this thing...I've only been working on it since about 7:30 or so, it's 11:45 now. So, here are the pictures that I was working on to share. So, since I forgot everything else I meant to blog about, I'll leave you with these. :) The boys decided that I couldn't make Anthony's bed after their bath, so I decided to play with my camera while they jumped and had fun.