Coming up for air

Taking a bit of a breather from our DYI moving process from our old rented dwelling to our our new place to let everyone know that we have arrived! Meaning that we are now living here at 459 Clyde Street rather than at the old apartment across town. In fact, this is our fourth night here. And we’ve noticed a big  difference already.

Instead of the steady drone of ambulance sirens screaming past, little cars with “blat” mufflers and car audio systems with 15″ kickers pounding our windows and seemingly all night baseball/football/soccer games at the high school that’s located across from our backyard, here at the house we listen to the river across the road, the birds chirping, the occasional barking dog and the sound of children laughing.

Much better!

Unfortunately, were not done yet. We’re just at that point in a move where the bulk of our possessions have been moved to the new premises which basically means the furniture and boxes of basic necessities are in the house itself and the rest of our stuff is crammed into the garage and the rather large tool shed/future workshop behind the house. We figure we have to find a place for all the stuff and/or  yard sale anything we don’t need/can’t find a place for by the time the snow flies or else we won’t be able to get the cars into the garage for the winter.

And the first floor apartment at the house on Union Street looks like a tornado came screaming through which of course means our ex-friend and landlord will be calling us up anytime now saying he wants to show it to some prospective buyers on Monday or something. I wonder if he understands the meaning of the phrase “tough shit”?

Meanwhile, back at our quirky old house with it’s uphill/downhill floors and electrics spread out between 2 circuit breaker boxes and 2 old fuse boxes that we’ll probably spend all summer figuring out what goes where, we’re absolutely loving it.

It’s situated in the narrowest river valley I’ve seen yet that can still accommodate a road and houses on either side. If you backed yourself up against one side of the valley and took off at a good trot (and you were able to trot on water) you would probably attain the other side of the valley in less than 30 seconds without breaking a sweat.

This is probably why our 110 year old house has uphill/downhill floors. The ground in river valleys such as these tend to heave and drop between the below zero weather in the Winter and the Spring thaw. So the shape of the ground tends to change with every year that goes by. That plus I’m sure the valley flooded once or twice in the last century or so which probably adjusted the attitude of the house some as well.

That’s all okay though. With new roofs, siding, insulation, sills and what-not it’s bound to last us until death or old folks home do us part and all that.

Note: I would have taken a few pictures to add to this post but unfortunately, though I managed to find my old digital camera I have yet to find the batteries. Soon though, I promise.

Two days to go. Pack something!

Yup, we’re down to two days and counting for closing on the new place and the start of the long process of moving. Believe me, both vehicles will be fully packed the night before so we can go from closing to the house and start the process. I have this distinct feeling that I won’t be able to see out the back of the old Cherokee for the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Tomorrow afternoon is the “walk-through” just to make sure the house and property hasn’t suddenly taken a hike into the next county or been abducted by aliens looking looking for a good deal in housing. Then, if everything is still in it’s proper place, we’ll head to the apartment  and start stuffing boxes into our rigs.

Knowing us I’m sure we’ll overdo it on the physical end of things so we’ll be creaking at closing time on Friday.

The next few weeks are going to be rather hectic what with moving, setting things up, utilities moved over, etc, etc, so I will probably be away for fairly long stretches of time until things get settled down some (even more than I have already). To be honest about it, short of winning the lottery, I never ever thought I’d become a homeowner again. On the other hand, I’ve always found that what you expect is going to happen and what life actually throws your way is often two very different things indeed.

Note: Please excuse any typos…I’ve been called to supper. :D

Mowing the lawn and shoveling the snow

The weather is turning weird already.

This is rather late as it happened around the beginning of the week but what the heck? With all that’s going on right now I’ll probably be playing catch up for the rest of the summer.

Last weekend, after a bout of unusually warm weather for this time of year, we had two days of heavy wet snow occasionally mixed with rain and sleet. Afterward, somewhere around Tuesday, I found myself in a rather peculiar position.

I had to shovel the snow off the lawn in order to mow it.

The problem was that on a beautiful and sunny Tuesday morning with temps back in the middle 60s I was out in the yard looking at the too long grass that still had banks of snow on it here and there. I had mowed the lawn once already the week previous and, like it always does during the warm weather, the grass was growing a half an inch a day. What’s two days of wet and heavy to Spring grass anyway? Suffice it to say, it needed mowing–badly.

So here I was, out in jeans and a T-shirt on a warm Spring morning with birds chirping in the background and robins plucking worms from the ground, shoveling snow off the lawn so I could mow it later that afternoon. The way the temps were rising it was sure to be dried off enough to run the mower over it by 3:00 pm.

I wish I had gotten a picture of it but since I couldn’t shovel and take a picture of myself at the same time I had to let the opportunity pass by.

Today was near 80. Tomorrow will be in the lower 60s. Snow again on Friday or an inland hurricane on Saturday? Earthquake on Sunday? Will the lawn be smothered in volcanic ash next week? Should I even be asking these questions?

Quick update on the move and an anniversary

Just a quick update for those who may be wondering if I’m ever going to provide an update about the move, the new (old) house, the mortgage, the closing date, etc, etc, before next Christmas.

Well, yes I am but not right at this moment seeing as how we just got back from our anniversary dinner and were both pooped. However, for those who might be interested…

…the mortgage has been approved (yell, clap your hands, stomp your feet, drink beer, play loud music, kiss the person next to you–or whoever)) but we’re  still waiting on the final word of the closing date. We’re still hoping for May 14th as it would give us a full 6 weeks to move all of our belongings out of this place and into the new place plus give this place a good scrub down.

And if The Lady happens to smile upon us we might actually get out of here a bit sooner than that. You never know (may the phone company be with us).

More later.