Not going to the duplex tonight

I am going HOME and unloading my van and making dinner in MY kitchen for P and me. I might even get the table cleared and we could eat our meal at the table. What a novelty!

Last night Rachel and Emily came over and went to town on the main floor with me. They rocked!!!! All the things I wanted to get done, got done and they are awesome!

All that is left to do is clean the carpet on the stair landings (and possibly in the main area of the LR as well), vacuum the basement, scrub out the utility sink and load of the remaining items in the basement and outside. I want to do this Saturday morning and hopefully I can be done with the duplex. A lot of people on the block appear to be moving out. I think the management are going to have a rather rude awakening when they can't keep tenants due to their shenanigans.

Almost there...

I loaded my van full last night and got nearly everything that was left in the LR. There is another load left, but it's mostly bulky items and clothes.

I washed windows upstairs, spackled walls, washed base boards, and mopped the floors in the 3 bedrooms. I cleaned and scrubbed the full bath and was walking out the door at 10 pm. I elected to leave the van packed and unload when I get home from work today. Once I'm unloaded and in grubby clothes I will make my way to the duplex. I'll load up the rest of the stuff from the main floor and start cleaning the fridge, kitchen cubbards, carpet and floor in the DR. I have holes to spackle in the LR and Kitchen as well.

Rachel (who is awesome) is coming over to help me with the kitchen so I hope I can get home by 10. I'll be so glad when this week is over and I no longer have to worry about cleaning up the old place and can just concentrate on the new.

This weekend I'll be transplanting the bushes and perenials to the new garden and cleaning up the yard. It should be the perfect weekend for that. Sunny and in the 80's. Fantastic!

Sewing and Garb room

The upstairs is completely empty. I went around and vacumed all of the floors, woodwork, and registers. Tonight I will clean the windows, spackle the holes in the walls and wash the wood floors. Depending on how long that takes I will then start on the full bath. If I can get that done the upstairs will be finished.

I'm also going to load up stuff from the main floor into the van. Probably my large mirror and the framed pictures. There will be room for other stuff as well.

The rain this morning was a lovely treat, but it woke me up far too early.

A lot is done, but there is more to do

Where to start?

The closing happened and we started moving in on Friday afternoon. As of today 85% of our belongings are at the new place. We paid Two Men and a Truck to move our furniture on Monday and they were worth every penny. My back was at the breaking point after 3 days of being on my feet, moving boxes, climbing stairs and cleaning for hours without a break.

Walk through photos here.

I'm exausted today, but back at work after the whirl wind of activity. It's actually nice to be away from the boxes. P is at home moving more stuff today with our friend Craig and tonight I'm swinging past the duplex to grab more items. I'm swinging by Home Depot before heading home to look at dishwashers and freezers. I'm not looking forward to cleaning the old place. It feels like I've spent the whole weekend cleaning the new place.

Soon

Tonight I'm loading the car with items that I will need when we close the house on Friday (final walk through scheduled at 8:30 am). I keep running through all the stuff in my head and I have already gathered things together to go into the van when I get home.

A good portion is cleaning supplies and personal items. I think that I will be making a run to the grocery store once the fridge and kitchen is clean.

The locksmith is coming the following morning so I'd like to spend the night on Friday so I don't have to get up ungodly early to meet him, but we will see how it goes.

P is attending a wedding on Saturday and I am going to move more boxes, pictures and get started on the wall paper removal. I think there will be a trip to Menards in there.

Well that didn't take long...

short socks
Originally uploaded by Valkyr8

I cast on for these little short socks Friday night, right after I washed and blocked the silk stockings. They were a great little knit and the perfect project to finish out the weekend. 1 ball of the sockata managed 2 pair of the short socks, with just a bit to spare.

Perfect!

Besides, it was the only yarn and needles that I could get to, everything else is packed.....

A metric ton of cardboard has left the building

You know how you buy a new item, and it comes in a box, and you take it out of the box but you hang onto the box cause something might be wrong with it and you will need to return it in said box? Yeah, there are a lot of boxes in the basement that meet this deffinition. 98% of them are broken down and in the back of my van to be taken to recycling. A couple were used to re-pack the item that it came with. A couple were used to pack more stuff in the kitchen.

Tonight I'm packing the pantry and a couple of the cabinets that have dried goods and canned food. Then I'm vacuming and scrubbing said cabinets and closet. The shelves from the pantry will head to the garage along with some boxes from the house and basement. I divested the basement ceiling of eleventy billion spider webs and it is no longer so "Temple of Doom" in it's scope. I also cleaned behind/ under the oven yesterday. ICK! I think I'm going to need to wait and move the fridge once it is empty, but I'm going to clean under and behind it as well.

For everyone who has offerred boxes, really, we are completely solid for boxes. We are not going to bother with wardrobe boxes as we'll just put the hanging items directly into the van and then directly into a closet. There are still empty bankers boxes in the basement that I'm going to use to pack up the food in the kitchen.

I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to pack up Thursday night to bring over on Friday when we get the keys. I think phone, tv, cleaning supplies, laptop, and vacume are first and foremost on the list, but there is room for more things. Next week is going to be very busy!

Since the closing is delayed until next week....

I thought I should brighten my day by finishing my silk stockings!!! Yay!!!!

They are so pretty.

Utilities

I have set up new services/ transferred services to begin on or after our closing. We are keeping our current home phone number so those of you who have it, you can still use it. Of course our cell phones will still be functional as well.

Lots to do.

Busy weekend

The weekend was very busy at chez "trying to move 8 years of accumulated crap to a new house". Oy Vey! The basement.....there are no words.

Saturday P and I tackled the garage. We loaded both vans with stuff, including the 4 benches for the vans, and headed over to M and V's place to unload in their garage. We swung by the Sprawl and sat and drank orange juliuses in the courtyard and people watched. It was very entertaining. We got home and I continued to work on the garage. I took down shelves, I took down the brackets, and I threw out various crap. There is now a little pile of stuff that it earmarked "see if people want this". I think the barrier sections are going to temporary housing this week so we can start moving more things out to the garage from the basement.

P worked on the basement and I helped at times as well on Sunday. We moved a number of the shelves and storage grids to the garage. I broke down cardboard boxes and bundled them. We moved an old stationary bike and dresser to the curb and it was dutifully swept up by the neighborhood by this morning, thank you neighbors! We had friends over last night for grilling out/ drinking a random keg of beer from the basement and burning a pile of wood. We had a lot of fun. We had a surprise guest while we were sitting out.

A hummingbird came to my delphinium while we were sitting out Sunday evening. I don't think I have ever seen a hummingbird in our back yard before so I was completely dumbfounded. If I had known that there was a possibility of attracting them I would have been putting out nectar years ago. It was a female ruby throated hummingbird. So cool!

In other exciting nature news, Lenny provided us with the carcass of a dead baby bunny Sunday morning. I guess that is his answer to the obvious lack of food in the house. Specifically the smaller amount of food in his dish. Poor thing.

This morning we began the continuing saga that is the new home. We started the weekend with good news on Friday. Fannie Mae (who owns the house) finally got off their sorry asses and signed the addendum for the purchase agreement, a copy arrived for our agent who sent it to the credit union so they could process the mortgage, and the subs have started on the pipes this week and promise to have the work done by the 15th. Unfortunately the credit union does not have enough time to process everything and still meet a August 15th closing date. They are now saying August 22nd, which cuts our move time in half and curtails any projects that I wanted to do before moving into the new home. This sucks huge balls and I am pissed as hell with Fannie Mae for being a sorry ass tool and sitting on their hands for as long as they did. That whole company can rot! Our credit union is trying to do everything they can to have the closing before the 22nd, they cannot guarantee anything.

I swear I am not going to be at ease until things are signed and there are keys in my hand. I can't even plan anything cause every time I do my timeline gets f'ed up by ya heys who can't find their ass with both hands and paperwork. Anyone who still is interested in coming to clean, we could use your help on Friday the 22nd, unless I hear otherwise. Obviously this is what the news is today, we have found that anything and everything can change the next day, or even later the same day.

I don't ever want to do this again.

Heel flap!

I reached the heel flap this morning. It's possible I could be turning the heel tonight at knitting, which would be awesome.

I rode my bike into work this morning and still arrived on time despite leaving way later than usual. Good thing I peddled my ass off.

Knitting rutt

My yarn is packed for the move so naturally I am desperate to cast on a new project. It doesn't matter that I don't have any time to do this. It's just that I am SO BORED with the silk. Ugh.

The leg decreases for the calf shaping is complete and I have 14 repeats of the pattern left before I start the heel flap. It's possible I could have it finished before the move, but highly doubtful as I need to focus on getting everything geared up to make the move as seamless as possible.

I'm just hoping we have running water in place when we are scheduled to close.

Yearly check up

Both kitties are in good health and continue to provide daily love and amusement.


Lenny gave us a bit of a scare last year with abnormal urine counts and he was placed on a special diet for cats with kidney issues. Looks like that worked as his count is bang on this year and the vet is very happy. We are changing his diet just a bit by adding some wet food to his dry. He put on a pound over the year, which is usually frowned on by the vet, but considering his possible kidney issues gaining a pound is excellent news and further indication that his health is excellent.

We're continuing Frontline for both of them this year. Heartworms and kitties are not a good thing.



Nehemiah didn't gain any weight, but he didn't loose any either and at 16 lbs, he is overweight. The addition of the wet food to the dry is mostly because of our attempt to drop his weight by 3 lbs. Despite his bulk, he is in good health, although I think his joints are a bit stiff. Now if we could just figure out a toy that keeps his interest so he can get more exercise. The cat is way too mellow.

After the vet we stopped at the eco place in Eagan and dropped off a defunct video player, compact fluorescent bulbs and cans of paint. It was good to get that out of the house. We stopped at Hovies and grabbed breakfast for the road. Fantastic hash!!!

Last rent check

Dropped it off this morning and skipped back to the car to drive to work. I can't be done with this place soon enough.