That’s it.

It’s official.

We are DONE with the other house. We have cleaned bathrooms, baseboards, oven and refrigerator. We had carpets cleaned. Mopped, patched walls, did touch up painting and cleaned windows. We replaced light bulbs, and removed every single thing we own. We swept the garage, the porch and did puppy patrol. The house looks beautiful and is move-in ready for new tenants. Of course, with this economy, she might have difficulties getting some, but it’s ready for when she does!!

It feels good.

On top of that, I can’t wait for the deposit back! That’s what we are using to but new bedding, new bathroom stuff and kitchen rugs etc. Whooo hooo! Shopping time! I love shopping. It’s right at the top of my list with reading, coffee and internet… life is good!

We are leaving today for Pinetop. Ski trip. Although I’ve decided not to ski this year. I am just finally getting well, my voice still resembles that of a drag queen and I still cough if move too much for too long, so skiing is probably not the best choice of activities for me at this stage. Instead, I will keep the fire burning, and relax with a book and catch up on some grading and lesson planning while they hit the slopes. This also means that I am the designated cook – sigh. Well it can’t be all benefits right? (Have I mentioned I hate to cook?)

I am also going to take my camera, although my CF card failed and I don’t have very big smart media cards, I’m still going to take it and try to get some good snaps!

Coralora will be skiing for the first time ever! For those of you who don’t know who Coralora is, she is the girl we took in during Ducky’s senior year. Right at the beginning of the year actually. Her parents had thrown her out – and she was moving from friend to friend, sleeping on floors etc. She’s a great kid – excellent student, helps around the house, cooks, follows the rules, works – really a good kid. She has truly become part of the family. Ducky and her attend UNM and both are doing great 3.85+ for their first semester! 

Anyway – Coralora will be skiing for her first time. I need to have Ladybug or Hubby catch that on camera! I think it’s going to be fun. Ducky is coming up on the 1st – with her own crew. We had the condo until the 7th, but Hubby, Ladybug and I all have to be back by the 4th. Ducky is bringing some friends and going to stay until the 6th or 7th. Hopefully that’s not a diaster! LOL

OK, well I have packing and organizing to do. Then there’s a 5 hour car drive to take. May or may not be back on in the coming days – but if I don’t make it on, everyone have a fantastic New Year!

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You know what I hate about moving? That you have to clean TWO houses. Oh boy… what fun! You get to clean the one you are leaving, and the one you are moving into. Both get to be cleaned during the whole “moving” process – which by definition creates mess and dirt. So you clean while you are making messes. Is there anything more pointless and less fun than that? I don’t think so.

I must admit though, that all those years as a military wife really paid off. We managed to move in just one weekend for the most part, without the help of movers, packers and all the other aid the military provides. Thank goodness the girls are old enough to have boyfriends that are old enough to work!!! All three boy friends and some of their friends helped with the BIG move. The day we moved all the major furniture and most of the boxes. We rented a big U-Haul and loaded it flat, took it, unloaded, came back and reloaded – and so it went. By afternoon the guys had most of the furniture at the house and the stuff that went upstairs up the stairs! We paid each one $50.00 and got them lunch and then took the ones who were still hanging with us out to dinner.  All in all a successful move.

Today we spent about 3 hours cleaning the old house. We will go back and finish tomorrow. Really all we have left is baseboards downstairs, sweeping and mopping the tile and wiping down the oven which self-cleaned today.

You know what that means? That we will get our deposit back soon and that we can go shopping for new bedding and bath stuff — Hooray!! This part of moving I do like — the decorating!

This time Hubby wanted to decorate a room. At first he claimed my craft room — but I was like – I don’t think so buster! I asked him what he wanted to do and he said a surf/beach theme room. I agreed to let him do our bedroom. Basically, he suggested the color scheme (which I modified and then picked the colors for) and the basic theme (which I modified again and made suggestions and have basically picked out the decorations for). The main focal point will be…. his surfboard! He’s promised to clean all the groudy wax and sand off before hanging it up. He’d better!  The walls are an ocean blue, the trim a light blue gray, and the accent wall and tray ceiling inset are a dark ocean blue. It actually looks pretty good. So far. I’ll post pictures when we get done. We haven’t painted the bathroom yet, but will continue the paint scheme in there.

One nice thing about moving without the military – I get to do whatever I want to my new home. It’s MINE. All mine. My precious.

Sorry, too much Lord of the Rings this week.

Ok, I’m off to get some rest. Went to the movies tonight (Sherlock Holmes, it was good btw) and still have to get up early so I can go get that house done! I don’t want to have to go back there — I want tomorrow to be my last trip. Since I’m still recovering from my sick, I need my sleep! So off to dreamland I go — I bid you all a goodnight!

QOTD:

If you could do your room in any style or theme you could possibly imagine — What would you do?

I apologize for my prolonged absence. I’ve missed everyone! I think once I explain though you will all understand. I know a lot of people have moved on to facebook, and after I visit here I plan on stopping there and saying hello. So let’s do a recap of the last couple of months…

You all know I finally got a teaching job, and that I love it. Here’s where that is at:

Had finals week (for which I had to write the finals – ugh.)

Then report card week followed by parent / teacher conferences. During that was some training and our second Mass (the one in which our class does the readings etc.).

During that entire time we were house hunting. YES! We were finally ready to buy a house – hooray. We looked at soooo many houses. We narrowed it down to two, one which needed the entire inside redone, the other needed the outside redone (yard etc).

We put in an offer on the one that needed the work on the outside (which was my favorite, my dream house really). After some negotiations we finally had a deal. They had a lot of work to do on the inside before closing (the house had been empty for over a year, I’m sure you can imagine the condition it was in). We were scheduled to close the week before Thanksgiving – but alas, it was not to be. We ended up closing the 11th of December.

We painted bedrooms furiously and ordered the carpet to come. Carpet was installed on Wednesday and Thursday the 16 and 17th. We began moving in Friday the 18th. We managed to get almost all of our stuff moved in by Sunday. Monday we did some more unpacking and some decorating. Tuesday we finished our shopping (yes, I know, I was late, I’d been busy thank you…) and Ladybug did some Christmas baking so we would have some goodies. Wednesday, unpacked some more, did last minute shopping, baking and some house cleaning. Thursday wrapped a gazillion presents and finally relaxed.

Friday was Christmas. We didn’t buy any “big” things for the kiddos – just lots of little things, so the tree looked like it did when they were little, with a thousand presents crowding the base. It was really nice and everyone really enjoyed it. Hubby made his first ever Prime Rib (and YUMMM) and we had two of the three boyfriends over for dinner. It was really a very nice evening/day.

We still don’t have cable (don’t ask how I’m connected right now – I’m not proud) because Comcast screwed up again. A long story deserving some righteous indignation, but too long to add to this already lengthy blog. We have been playing board games, watching dvds (Lord of the Rings marathon) and the girls have been enjoying Rock Band 2 which was a gift to the whole family.

Did I mention I got sick the day before we closed? I’ve been sick as a dog and not had any time to slow down, rest and recuperate. Figures huh? I’m trying to rest today – I haven’t kicked it yet and I don’t want to end up with pneumonia again. That really sucked! We still have to finish the last bit of moving (mostly garage and shed stuff) from the old house, clean and get it ready for inspection so we get our deposit back, and then we have a ski trip planned for the 29th through the 3rd. Some time during all this I need to do some grading, some lesson planning and finish unpacking.

See what I mean?

Very little free time.

On the upside, we had a beautiful Christmas, with everyone gathered around. We have a beautiful new house that we are going to LOVE! I have a great job that keeps me busy. And I have a wonderful family. So no matter how busy I am, there are blessing around every corner.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas, and I wish everyone a very Happy New Year!

QOTD:

What was your favorite Christmas gift?