Uh Oh!

So, I broke into my own home today. (I mentioned losing weight yesterday and today being in somewhat better shape came in handy.)  I walked out the front door of my house, after I'd already locked the handle to realize I had no keys. No keys to my car, no keys to my house. The Jeep was sitting in the driveway and it was, of course, locked. I remembered that the deck door was unlocked, I thought. Sweet. I was also dressed for work in business professional clothes. Thankfully, I didn't wear heels today. My deck sits about six feet off the ground and there are no steps that go to the ground.  What to do?  Yup, hopped on the a/c unit, and jumped onto the deck.  Into my house I went, hoping no one saw me.  I then locked the deck door.

One Household

It's official, I'm down to just one residence. Thank goodness!!! Two houses was a pain in the behind, and January was a killer on the budget. I'd planned for paying mortgage and rent, but paying utilities at two places is not fun. My eyes about fell out of my head when I opened the bill from OPPD (power company). So I'll be thrilled to kick $60 off of that bill next month. Especially when they hit me with their "random" fees at both locations.
In related news I'm getting all but $100 of my deposit back. I didn't get the carpets cleaned myself. I'd thought about having a guy I know come and do the job. He owns a carpet cleaning business. But my apartment had a narrow spiral staircase leading up to a loft. Now envision getting carpet cleaning equipment up that after you've already hauled it up two flights of stairs. I was pretty certain he'd want to punch me. I thought it was worth the $100 hit. So I'm looking forward to that money. It'll be great for the trip I'm going on at the end of February.

New Place, Old Place, Some Place

Having two homes is kind of a pain. My lease on my apartment runs out at the end of this month and I couldn't be happier. I'm in the process of cleaning the old place, continuing to purge stuff, decorate and organize the new place and sell some furniture and stuff from the old place. It would be awesome if my two houses, jokingly referred to as my "summer" and "winter" homes were closer together, but they're a 20 minute drive, one way. I left all the furniture that I wasn't going to keep at the old place because I didn't see the need to haul it down two flights of steps and back up another. I also thought it'd be better to have strangers come to my old house instead of my new one. I'm down to just needing to sell off the stupid couch from hell and then life will be good. I've also resolved that if it hasn't sold by tomorrow (Monday) I'm calling a donation place down the street from my apartment and having them come and take it. Then it's gone, I can finish cleaning, get the carpets cleaned and get my massive deposit back.

I Can Do It

I've been living in my house for a couple weeks now. I closed about five weeks ago and have been having a random problem. My garage door has been coming open on it's own. You might think that I'm crazy.  That I leave and just forget to close it, and while that might occassionally be true since I'm not used to having a garage door....this is typically not the case. I sometimes sit in the driveway after I shut the door for about five minutes, checking email, sending texts, checking work voicemail. After I'm sure that it's really shut, off I go.

I thought that I'd fixed the problem about two weeks ago, because I was no longer coming home to an open garage door. I pushed some button on my wall opener. Wahoo! And yet, just to be safe, I continued to lock the door between the garage and my house. So today, I'm sitting in my dining room, wrapping presents, when suddenly, up goes the garage door. WTF??? I run downstairs, throw open the door to the garage look out, to watch the door going up. And then 20 seconds later it's going back down again. Clearly someone else is on my frequency.

So, I decided I'm smart enough to figure this out, right? I dig out the manual, read it over a few times and head downstairs, step stool and manual in hand. Move the car out of the garage. I begin my search for the "Learn" button. The picture in the manual only showed and extreme close up of a button. Clearly, no one has ever seen a button before. Hmm...not on this side, not on that side, or that side. Why wouldn't it be inside?  I have to pry the cover off of one end, hold this button in and wait. The button looked nothing like the picture FYI, thank God it was labeled. Then reprogram the remotes. No big deal, been there, done that. And then moved the car back inside. But here's the thing. I still have no clue if this actually worked. I like to think it did. Otherwise, I have to move all the stuff in my garage inside my house before I leave for trip to Iowa.

Horrible, Awful, No Good, Very Bad Week

Have you ever read this book with the similar title? I've kind of felt like this was the week when nothing would go right.
Here's a quick laundry list:
-The Direct TV guy took an enternity to install my cable on Sunday (after he was 1.5 hours late). I really wanted to take a nap as I was coming down from a sugar high. Amanda and I had been baking.
-My furniture got delivered on Monday from NFM. YAY! Except the boxspring wouldn't fit up to the third floor. So their customer service contacted me, I ordered a split box, and was told I would get a $100 credit and free delivery. It's going to come on 12/29.
-Two days later in the mail, I received a charge for basically a second bed and a charge for delivery. Um, Hmmm....Still working on this.
-Qwest was supposed to come on Wednesday to install my internet, and a package would be delivered for my wireless. I did not need to be home. I was not home. I got done with my afternoon appointments and had a phone call that told me I needed to be home to install my internet. WTF??? Don't know when I'm going to get this done. Maybe next Wednesday.
-And last night, I locked myself out of my house. Pure genius.
-Tonight, when I was making dinner was a minor mishap (they have been getting smaller since the NFM issues), I set the smoke alarm off with my cooking. Which normally wouldn't be a big deal, but I was worried about the sprinkler system. It's only now that I'm remembering that those are heat sensored.
So yes, this week cannot end fast enough. Thankfully tomorrow night is a party at April's. :) And things will get better. I keep saying that, over and over.

Pack it up, Pack it in...

I've lived in my apartment for almost three years. This is the longest that I've lived anywhere since leaving home in 1997. Every semester in college, I would move to different room in the sorority house and then move out over the summer. So over time, I got to be a packing pro. And then I lived in a few apartments in Ames, did a 3 month at Elizabeth and JJ's (where I didn't unpack much) and moved in with Nikki for 18 months.
Since then, I've had an apartment for six months in West Des Moines and when it came time to leave there, professional movers packed and moved me. Really, really nice. And then when I left Lansing, just under three years ago, the professional movers came in again and packed up all my stuff and moved it again. They raced to see how fast they could pack it since there were four of them. They were done in an hour and a half. I haven't accumulated a ton of "personal stuff" since then, but I have picked up quite of bit of work related material. I have half a closet full, a filing cabinet and rolling cart. Seriously, several trees have been sacrificed on my behalf and in the name of insurance.
I feel so disorganized with this move and it's very frustrating. I typically just box my stuff up/or have it boxed up and run down my list of to do's. Then I'm off to destination B and settle in. I'm tired of having stuff at two places and just want it to move itself the 20 minutes across town. Hopefully in 24 - 36 hours I will feel much better about all of this. Or at least I'll have a box city on my hands. :)

Holy Housewarming!

I traveled back to Iowa for the Thanksgiving weekend and was incredibly grateful by how generous my family was with housewarming gifts. My mom had sent me a few emails weeks ago asking a few questions  about my current kitchen items. After hearing about my cheapo pots and pans and how the handles smoked in the broiler decided I needed something of a bit "better quality."  So, she and my dad were kind enough to buy me a set of 10 pots and pans with lids. With the impending mortgage, I am going to be cooking at home a LOT more and it's going to be nice to have a good set of cookware to use.

Here's the skillet, as you can see the sticker is still attached. And in the back, you can see the new paint for the 2nd floor.

As if that wasn't enough, Friday my aunt asked me if I wanted my Grandma Pugh's stoneware. My maternal grandmother died when I was five, so my memories of her are somewhat limited and unfortunately I missed out on a few traditions. I felt bad that I didn't even offer up the stoneware to my sister before saying yes. However, when I talked to Elizabeth today, she said, "Well, you never got a quilt, and everyone else in the family has one of those." The family tradition you're supposed to have a quilt made for you. I've pretty much given up hope that I will ever see this quilt. So basically, the stoneware is now my quilt. Here is what my new stoneware looks like - considering that it's at least as old as I am, it's held up well. Twelve place setting, and only two cups have chips.

Salad plates

Dinner plates, normally not a big flower fan on things, but I think Grandma did a good job on the pattern.

So after that, I'm already thinking I've made out like a bandit. Saturday morning, my aunt announced that she was going to buy me a housewarming gift - and that she would buy me a mixer - she gave me a price range. I was floored and after trying to tell her it wasn't necessary and getting nowhere... I hopped online and did some bargain shopping. Younkers BF prices were still in effect, plus they had a $30 mail in rebate. I got an awesome mixer for an insane price. It's new and shiny and black, technically "caviar." It has the dough hook, wire whip, flat beater and a pouring shield. Just in time for holiday baking. Normally Amanda and I do holiday baking and make fudge. Our arms get so tired from mixing that we go back and forth. This year, we'll just set a timer. :)

New mixer, better view of the new paint color, raffia ribbon.. It looks lonely. I need to add my toaster.

One Bathroom down, one almost done....

This is a picture that I took last year in Lisbon, that I plan on blowing up to either 8x10 or 5x7 and framing. It's Lisbon's twin to the Golden Gate bridge.

The bathroom pulled together with a couple towels from Target. My sister did some touchup painting on Saturday. When I was doing some packing, I found my old Tiffany's box from a vase I received from an ex-boyfriend a few years ago.

Photo print from the Des Moines Art Festival a few years ago.

Shower curtain, also from Target. Need to find a liner that fits it yet, but it'll be a good week before I'm going to use it so I should be okay. I almost bought a black one, but thought it would be too dark. I'd also like to say that I almost lost the battle with the shower rod. There were some choice words used. I'm debating if I need some type of curtain for the window. It has blinds, but I'm also pretty close to an intersection.

exterior shots

Here are some exterior shots of the house:

The little window is my kitchen window, over the sink. I'm excited to go from, no garage to two car attached garage - just in time for winter. :)

This deck is a pretty good size. My realtor told me that if I want, I can put steps down to the grassy area, though right now there really isn't anywhere that I need to go. Maybe if the commercial lot gets developed into something like a strip mall, or if I frequently start walking to the strip mall on the next block over I will see a need for adding steps.

Amanda and Ellie came to visit on the night of my closing and brought me this flowering plant. My green thumb is pretty brown, but I've managed to keep this alive for almost a week now. My problem is that plants don't talk, so I forget to water them. We'll see if this makes it through week two.

Lists, Lists, Lists

I am more than willing to admit, that I am perpetual listmaker. I'm probably a bit OCD about it if I were to be completely honest. Back in college, I used to seperate my lists into quadrants - school, Theta, personal, misc (random category of the moment). Now, when I've got a long to do list, I break it down into - home/around the house, work, financial, personal (i.e. gifts to buy, pick up drycleaning, etc.)
Currently, I've got a growing list all about moving. Things I need to start thinking about getting done. I'm very excited that with this move I don't need to get new doctors, normally that's always an item on my list.
Yesterday, I called and got the new utilities at the house switched into my name so that the cleaners could come in and clean in exchange for a $50 gift certificate.
I'm up to about 20 items with my list. A  lot of it involves changing my address, switching and canceling service from one location to the next. And then packing, cleaning, and getting rid of things. When you move, what's the thing that you always forget to do?
And now, I'm off to look at paint colors.