Home is where your story begins…

…and we finally have one now!  Greg closed on our house yesterday and so last night was our first night as a family in our new house.  We had a special supper to celebrate: marinated pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes, yum yum.  The kids even got to have a little pop, which they were super excited about.  Since we’d been staying with my aunt and uncle and I thought we would be staying with them again last night, I had to run to their place after supper to pick up my suitcase and things took an exciting turn while I was gone.  We had decided to do a load of laundry before I left, so we headed down to the basement with the dirty clothes and figured out together how to run the washer.  At first we couldn’t figure out why it didn’t work, but then we realized it was just unplugged, so we fixed that and thought we were set.  Note: This washer looks like it jumped straight out of 1965.  When I got home from Aunt Melissa’s, the basement door was wide open and there was a funny smell in the kitchen that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  Turns out there was a reason the washer had been unplugged: the motor in it is bad and the stupid thing started on fire.  So after we wrung out the clothes and got wet because the utility sink next to the washer drains straight onto the floor instead of to a pipe, we went upstairs, made some popcorn, cracked open a bottle of wine, and curled up with The Beautician and the Beast.  But not before Greg made a lovely toast that started off with, “To my beautiful bride-to-be…”  I seem to have forgotten the rest of it (I think my brain has shut down for the week already), but it was very sweet and made my fangirlyheart squee like the teaser commercials for the season 4 finale of Bones.  I am so lucky!

Well, I think I’d best leave it at that for now.  More about the new house adventures later!

Four days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

Jerks, and the hotness that is David Boreanaz

Okay, maybe I went a bit overboard with the three-liter bottle of water that I bought this morning.  On the other hand, it only cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.50, which is approximately what I spent on the 24 oz. bottle of Diet Pepsi that I also bought this morning.  And besides, I’m feeling a bit dehydrated.  At least I think that’s why my head has been hurting so badly the last two days.  And since I have awesome things to look forward to tonight, I want to be feeling my best, so.  Time to chug me three liters of water!

I had actually intended to be drinking it all day so that I wouldn’t be lugging a huge bottle around with me tonight (and believe me, it’s a hefty bottle), but I spaced off this afternoon and didn’t break it out of the fridge till after I got back from the mail run a little bit ago.  Fortunately, I have 48 minutes of work, 30 minutes of drive time to get back to my aunt’s house, and then a good hour and a half-two hour drive to get to Iowa City.  That should be more than enough time for me to get that thing gone.

Why am I going to my aunt’s house tonight, you may be asking?  Because the loan officer at the bank is a complete f***ing a**hole who needs to be drug out into the street and shot.  Or at least severely beaten.  This is beginning to sound a lot like the conversation Greg and I had concerning the contractor he hired to paint the house:

K: If I ever run into that sorry SOB, I’m gonna kill him.  *pause*  Yup, I’m gonna kill him.  Jerk.

G: Oh, you will not.  You’ll just give him a really dirty look.

K: *squirming and trying not to smile*  Yeah, probably.  But he still deserves a beating.

G: *laughing*  Do I know my fiancée or what?

Why am I so angry at the banker?  Because we closed on the sale of our house Wednesday evening.  We were then supposed to close on the purchase of our new house Thursday, but thanks to Mr. Painter Jerk, the closing was a bit delayed.  My aunt graciously offered to put us up till we closed on the house and we accepted her offer because we really didn’t have any other choice.  The paperwork hadn’t yet gotten back to the banker, so he couldn’t get it to the closing attorney, so we waited.  Thursday came and went and on my way home, I asked Greg if the paperwork had come in (it was apparently being processed by some underwriter IN OHIO – I know little about all this mortgage business).  He said he had no idea because our lovely banker jerk took a four-day weekend and won’t be back in the office till freaking MONDAY.  So it looks like we’ll be staying with my aunt and uncle at least the rest of the weekend.  See above conversation re Mr. Painter Jerk for my feelings on Mr. Banker Jerk.  Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

So…yeah.  We’ll be living out of boxes for probably the next six weeks or so.  Although I have it on good authority that things will be a little more organized by the time we move in because Greg was planning to work on arranging things better this afternoon since he’s off from work.  He dropped two dressers on his foot while we were moving in addition to stepping wrong going into the house and wound up reinjuring the foot he hurt at work last spring.  He had a doctor’s appointment this morning and they gave him a note that said he’s not supposed to walk on it for the next few days.  I don’t think much will move around in the house before we get moved in and I know much probably won’t get moved before next Sunday when people come over to watch us open gifts.  Apparently that’s what they do in Greg’s family.  So that will be nice to see everyone again the next morning.  Since our reception is only going till ten, hopefully everyone will be fully recovered by the next morning.  And we get to sleep in!  YAY!  I do so love to sleep in.

I can’t believe that I’m getting married in EIGHT FREAKING DAYS.  Apparently I love caps lock today for expressing myself.

Tonight’s mah party!  Woo!  I don’t remember the last time I was this anxious to get off work.  But I think I’ll have to get gas before I head back to Grundy because my needle was getting into the red lines.  Poo.  I want to get back to Grundy so I can freshen up quick before Jenny gets there.  We had planned to meet in Reinbeck, back before our closing got pushed back to next week.  The sellers’ realtor went into orbit when he found out and I really can’t blame him because I was about ready to join him in the icy blackness of space.  It’s bad enough that we are currently t.v.-less (because I feel guilty about hijacking my aunt’s t.v. to watch Bones, Glee, and Defying Gravity).  Well, actually, I forgot all about Glee the other night, so thank God for Hulu queuing it for me.  We managed to catch Bones last night and I felt less guilty about it because Aunt Melissa went to the homecoming coronation and Uncle Tim was out with the bees, so it was just Greg, Tom, and me.  And David Boreanaz.  I saw a lovely picspam on LJ this afternoon that featured all sorts of lovely screencaps from last nights episode and it got me all excited all over again.  *sigh*  But I digress.  I will be relying on Hulu for this week’s episode of Defying Gravity and also next week’s Glee because, assuming that we get to close sometime in the next week, our cable won’t be hooked up till Thursday the 24th.  I love how specific Mediacom was about when they would have someone available to install our new cable service; I believe they said it was sometime between one and five p.m.  At least we’ll both be in town Thursday afternoon so one of us can run over to the house and let them in.

Twenty minutes left!  The excitement, she’s a building!

Eight days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

Moving!

I hate moving.  And yet, here I am, at it again.  We bought a house a few blocks away from where we currently live and I’ve been so stressed out about the whole thing (and the wedding being so close and all) that I done gone and gave myself a good case o’ the hives.  There’s a blister on my toe so big that it looks like my toe is trying to asexually reproduce.  I wish it would pop already so that I could rig some sort of bandage and get the itching over and done with (it itches like the crazy dickens).  This whole thing has just been a nightmare, from the initial offer we got on our place to the possession date of the place we bought and all the hoops we had to jump through in order to get early possession.  And when I say there were hoops, boy, were there ever hoops.  We were supposed to have gotten possession Saturday and then we planned to move all weekend.  Instead, thanks to the house painter we hired to make sure the new house passed the VA inspection not doing his job right the first time and then taking his sweet time to fix what he screwed up, we didn’t get possession of the house until about half an hour ago.  Greg’s folks came up to help us Sunday and so we got quite a bit packed and loaded into the trailer they brought up with them, but we’ve been packing like crazy ever since trying to get the rest of it all boxed up and ready to go.  We didn’t quite succeed and so I imagine the rest of the morning was spent packing the remains of our stuff (I imagine because I couldn’t take off work, so here I am, sitting at my desk, while Greg moves heavy things).  Once I get off work, I get to run home and help.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get everything moved tonight because we won’t have help tomorrow and there’s no way Greg can move some of that stuff by himself.  Besides, we close on the sale of our house at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning (or at least that’s the plan), so we have to get it all done tonight.  I will be so glad when it’s all done with.

We celebrated Tom’s birthday Friday night, even though his birthday was Saturday.  We took him to Chuck E. Cheese, which was fun since I hadn’t been there since sixth grade, but also REALLY loud.  Loud was not what I wanted Friday night, since I had stayed home sick with a raging head cold.  We managed to round up my dad, my aunt and uncle, and my step-grandma for the party (my sister had to work and my cousin had band bonding – it’s a Wartburg thang) and had a mostly good time.  I say mostly because I think we all left with headaches and also because my dad lost one of the wheels for his walker, so he’s back to using his cane.  He’s far too wobbly with just his cane, so I feel bad that he lost that wheel, but it was held on with a twist tie instead of the nut that was supposed to hold it in place.  What happened to the nut, I have no idea, and I need to look in my trunk to see if the wheel is somewhere in there, though I doubt it is.  Anyway, the kids had a blast and I had fun watching them play.

Between the wedding and the moving preparations, I’ve hardly had time to post lately.  I’m really looking forward to our honeymoon in two weeks so that I have a little bit of time to just relax!   Unfortunately, our plane leaves in the middle of the night.  I voted for staying up all night and sleeping on the plane ride, but Greg is more partial to the “Let’s Just Go to Bed at Six O’Clock at Night” school of thought.  Either way, I will be so loaded up on Dramamine that I’ll probably sleep through the whole thing anyway.  I’ve never flown before and I’m a wee bit nervous; there have been entirely too many plane crashes recently for my comfort level.  Also, we went on a ride at Adventureland last summer and he said if I couldn’t handle it without getting sick, there’s no way I could handle a plane ride and I’ll take his word for it.  Example: Tilt-a-Whirls make me sick.  Like throw-up sick.  Also, so does the Galleon (aka big, swinging pirate ship of doom).  I have a weak tummy.

I can’t believe that September is half over already!  What happened to the summer?  It seems like just yesterday was Christmas and I was newly engaged and now…I’m getting married in ELEVEN DAYS!!!  On another bright note, Friday night is my bachelorette party and my bridesmaids (aka my besties) and I are going to rock Iowa City till we can’t rock anymore.  Woo!  I might be just a tad excited to spend the evening with mah gal pals.  It should prove an excellent way to unwind after the hell that has been the road to new homeownership.  Also, it will be tons of fun because whenever the four of us get together (and, let’s face it, the only time the four of us have all hung out together since middle school was at my bridal shower last month), we always have a great time.  So!  Am super excited/psyched/tickled pink/etc.

And now I suppose I should find something to do, like file things, or something.  After all, I am supposed to be working.

Holy crap, only eleven days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

I have to fix my pants!

At least, that’s what my son just said after I told him to go put on short sleeves (he came downstairs in a turtleneck and it’s supposed to be 80° today) and put his pants on the right way (they were on backwards).  He came to ask if he and Rachael could get out of their rooms, where they were serving quiet time after spending the morning arguing.  I already have a headache thanks to looking up all my internet lovelies with no glasses/contacts, so I really didn’t want to hear them yell that they were telling 50 times.

Oh, good, I’m hearing laughter now instead of, “You can’t come in my room ever again!” and “I’m not ever saying I’m sorry!”

So it’s been a stressful week and it’s only going to get worse.  I can’t wait till October.

And now to make a trip to Eldora…

Fourteen days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

I guess it’s been a while…

I can’t believe it’s Thursday already and this is the first time this week, nay, this month, that I’ve posted.  I was doing so well with posting regularly!  Well, it’s been a busy week.  Sunday was my bridal shower.  We went to church, then came home and got ready for the shower, then went back to church to set everything up for the shower.  Then I had introductions to make (Greg’s cousin is singing “Ave Maria” and my aunt is playing the piano) and I had to show off the sanctuary and the piano so that rehearsals could occur.  The shower was a lot of fun; lots of people came and brought really nice gifts.  And desserts!  Yummy, yummy desserts.  Then when everything was done, we cleaned up and went home.  Once we got home, it was time to change out of my awesome new dress and unload the car before helping Greg with some house projects that he wanted to get done (like installing a new mailbox and fixing a couple of boards on the house and the garage).  Sunday was a busy day.

And then came the work week.  We spent Monday and Tuesday unloading bookshelves and carting things into our conference room in preparation for the carpet installers who arrived yesterday to replace all the carpet in the office (except for what’s in the conference room).  There was also other work to be done, so it made for a busy couple of days.  The carpet guys came yesterday to work on Jim’s office and the front entryway, but then they decided that they wanted to rip out all the carpet at once and so we had to kick it up a notch and get everything out.  A lot of it went into the conference room and a lot of it went into Randy’s office because his carpet is on backorder, so they won’t be doing his office for a while.  Some things also went downstairs, but there was still a lot of furniture left to be moved out, so we rented a U-Haul truck to store things in until the carpeting is completed.  I missed out on all that fun this morning; Beth said she didn’t see why both of us needed to be there all day today since we couldn’t do anything (even the server was shut down and moved, so no internet or email or PCLaw or anything), so she said I should just come in between 12:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. and then she’ll go home this afternoon.  They moved the furniture and the server and everything out this morning.

I moved things, too, though: I moved my butt up and down on the stairmaster, and I moved my torso up and down doing sit-ups on an exercise ball, and I moved my legs on the exercise bike at the gym this morning after I dropped Tom off at school.  I was ambitious this morning!  But now all that glorious ambition seems to have faded away as I got home and promptly sat down on the couch, which was a very bad idea.  I should have just gone upstairs and folded the laundry like I intended to do this morning.  Now I need to hop in the shower, possibly stop by my sister’s place for a quick convo about some farm land, and then grab a bite to eat before I head to work.  On the other hand, if I see Martha now, I won’t have to spend so long over there later, which would be great because then I can get the laundry folded tonight.  We’ll see what happens.

But for now, I really must get in the shower.  I feel really icky.

Twenty-three days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.