17 posts tagged “moving”
In the past 15 years, I moved a lot. From home to college to Chicago to the suburbs. From one apartment to the next. Even if I am in a place for a couple of years I need to move the furniture around every once in awhile. I guess that is why it should not be a surprise that I am moving my blog again.
I started Unpublished Opinion on blogger five years ago this week. I moved it to Vox two years later. Now I am feeling constrained by that platform and am moving to Wordpress.
I have no idea how to move my posts from blogger and vox or even if that is possible without doing it one by one, so for now my archives will be elsewhere. (save for my 101 in 1001 list which I need to have with me).
I know the blog is not very attractive right now, but if you are like me you will be reading it in a feed reader anyway, so it might not be so bothersome. I will be working on it, though.
I also have plans for working on a dedicated crafting blog, which I hope will inspire me to get back to crafting and sewing on a regular basis. Unpublished Opinion will become more active now that I have more free time after giving up a (barely) paying blog gig. I will try to write about a variety of things, but you know that it will mostly be about the cats.
I hope you will join me at my new home and I promise not to move again. For at least another couple of years.
Things are coming along nicely at our new rented townhouse. Over the weekend Prince E finished organizing the garage so now we can park the car inside! This is so exciting. We also finally got our cable and internet connection hooked up. We are enjoying lots of channels, DVR, and very fast wifi. Luckily we were able to see Lost with the antenna the last few weeks or we may have gone crazy. Oh! And we have Showtime On Demand and I have been able to watch Dexter season three! (Sorry, shoreturtle! Don't be jealous!)
I also unpacked all the books and DVDs this weekend. I alphabatized them. I also organized the books by fiction/non-fiction, reference (with separate sections for Cars, Cameras, and Cats), and a special poetry section. This is the first time I co-mingled all our books (we had separate shevles before) and it made me smile to see the duplicates that we had. Like the poems of Emily Dickinson.
The cats are enjoying the home, especially the really long hallway that they can chase each other up and down. Fortunately we do not have anyone living under us.
Oh and the laundry! I am loving having my own washer and dryer! All these years I thought I hated doing laundry and really it was just having to deal with people in order to do laundry, like at the laundromat or the in the laundry room of the apartment building. The actual act of laundry is perfectly acceptable and way better than other chores like scopping cat litter.
We got a small dining room table which is very exciting for me because I have always wanted a dining table. We actually ate dinner at it last night! I am not sure how long that will last, though, because you cannot see the television from it.
One of my favorite parts of our new place is our proximity to the forest preserve and all of the wildlife that inhabit it. The last few nights after work we have spotted a lot of deer congregated together near our home. (Last night I counted 15). We have also seen some prancing about in other parts even closer to us. This morning we saw a deer about 20 yards from our front door.
Here are a couple of pictures that Prince E took tonight. You can see one I took last night here.
Everything has been moved to our new place, except for our television, cable box, and modem. We don't get cable/internet at the new place until the first weekend of February, so we are currently at our old place to watch the season premiere of Lost. Of course now they are playing a silly recap, so I thought I would take time to update on the move. (Aside: do they really think that people are going to start watching Lost for the first time NOW, so much that they need to recap all the previous seasons?)
The cats are pretty well adjusted to the new place, although Jiblets is still skittish at the sound of new noises. The first day he was scared and hid in the litter box and then under a low table after we carried him upstairs. Thankfully his strong need to cover Simba's litter box waste pulled him from his hiding spot. When he heard Simba scratching in the litter, he left his hiding place to go do his covering duty.
Simba has been the bravest cat, as I knew he would be. This is the fourth time that he has moved with me, so this is not very traumatizing to him. As soon as we let him out of his carrier at the base of the stairs, he flew up them and began exploring, rubbing his face on every surface.
Eggy has been in between the too, a bit scared, but not so much that she is hiding all the time. She and Jiblets have been enjoying the cat condo, as I am sure they were happy to see it again (we moved it a week ahead of them).
Here a couple of pre-move photos. As we took away more and more furniture, they had to resort to new place to lay.
I recorded some video of their first day at the new place. I will post it once I get it edited/uploaded.
Since our current lease does not expire until February and our new lease already began, we are moving things to the new place gradually, dependent on weather mostly. This past weekend it was fairly warm (for January) and clear, so we rented a cargo van to move some things. Well, actually we rented a 10' truck, which they had given to someone else, even though we reserved it, and ended up with the cargo van instead, but that is another story.
We were able to move quite a lot over the two days (Friday, Saturday) including a bookshelf, chaise, lots and lots of boxes, and many things to go in the garage. (Those things were my favorite because they didn't have to be carried up the stairs).
We also had a lot of stuff to donate to charity, so, since we had the van, we took the stuff over to the charity store in that. We may have been able to squeeze the stuff into our car, but it would have taken two trips. After we dropped the stuff off, I made a comment like "Oh, that was easy!" which I should not have said. Because three minutes later in the Target parking lot across the street, things would become decidedly not easy.
We got out of the cargo van and Prince E yelled "Stop!" to alert me to the fact that he had left the car keys in the ignition, with the engine running, and locked his door. He was so tired after two days of moving (we both were) that he thought he had taken the keys out.
(Incidentally, let's say that you were getting out of your cargo van from the passenger seat and the driver yelled "STOP!" Would your first instinct be to stick your arm in the door you just started closing in order to stop it? Mine wasn't, but to hear Prince E talk it should have been. Instead, I just sort of stopped moving, put my hands up, and let go of the door handle, which caused the door to close just enough that it could not be opened without the key. I suppose I should have risked a limb, after reading Prince E's mind, but that didn't happen).
We then contacted Target security, who called the local police. They came out and said they could not open it because it was a rental car and we would sue them for damage. Then they told us to call the rental company. We did and they gave us the name of a locksmith company which, after we called them, we learned they did not service the town we were in. We called the police back and they gave us the name of some man. I am not sure who he was, maybe a former cop, but he showed up in his big white truck, with a southern accent, and jimmied the lock open in 15 seconds. By that time it had been over 30 minutes and we were frozen, despite having taken turns going into the store to warm up. He told us it wasn't cold. Repeatedly. He annoyed me. He gave us a "deal" and charged us $70. I have no idea if that was a bargain or a rip-off, but we really did not have much choice.
Rescued, we finally returned the cargo van. We were so exhausted by the ordeal of the move, the heavy lifting, the lock-out, that we both slept until 7:30am on Sunday. That has not happened since...well, ever.
The best part? We get to do it all again this weekend! (well, hopefully not the lock-out part)
Today I began what will be a long process of going through things to decide what makes the move to our new apartment and what does not. I had to go through my clothes, which was a bit sad because I have gotten a bit too chubby for a lot of them. I am going to hold on to the more expensive items (like suits and dress pants), but will be parting with the smaller-sized cheaper cotton tops and shorts.
I also went through a pile of old paid bills and bank statements. The pile moved with us when we came to this apartment more than two years ago. Do I really need to keep the electric bill from January 2005 when I no longer even live in that apartment? And why did I keep all the RSVPs from my wedding? I mean, I understand sentimentality and all that, but do I really need these things?
I am also donating some more books to the library, although not too many, as I did the bulk of the sorting of those several months ago when I donated a whole bunch to the library.
Next I will be tackling the extra bedroom/storage room and I imagine that I will be getting rid of a lot things in there. I still have boxes in there that I have not unpacked from the last time we moved. I do not even know what is in those boxes. It is somewhat tempting just to get rid of them without looking inside, but my curiosity will get the better of me. Plus, what if I left cash in there or something? I know that once I start going through them I will get sentimental and not want to part with things. Like the plastic cup I got from the last basketball game I went to in college. How can I throw that away?
* And I mean "fun" in the most sarcastic way possible.
Prince E and I will be moving into a new place in a couple of months. Although our hope of buying a home did not work out this year, our new place will be an improvement over the apartment we are currently it. We will be renting a townhouse (for less than we pay now) and will be getting a garage and IN UNIT LAUNDRY. I want to snuggle the laundry machines. We will also be glad to be rid of our neighbors who use the parking lot as a trash can and the hallways as playgrounds. I will miss being so close to a 7-11 though. Although I put in unit laundry way above Slurpees on the coolness list.
- In the Sci-Fi original movie, Ogre, which I watched recently, I could not get past the fact that the ogre wore a loin cloth. Where would he have gotten clothing?
- I don't think I have seen a more disgusting commercial than the one for some cleaning product where the woman cleans her kitchen with a raw chicken. (To demonstrate what you are doing if you reuse a dirty sponge). The commercial makes me gag and I honestly have no idea what product it is for. Great marketing.
- The Tigers were on ESPN today. I watched the Cubs over the weekend. Spring training is good for me, too, because I need to relearn the sound of a hit that is a fly out and the sound of one that is a home run. Otherwise I say "Yay!" right before the opposing outfielder catches it.
- Would you rather live somewhere that was always sunny, but never got above 40 degrees or somewhere that was always above 65 degrees but was always cloudy? More and more I think I would choose the first one.
- When I moved here in August 2006, I didn't have a land line. When I needed to add one in November 2006 for work, I couldn't find my cordless phone/answering machine. Well, actually I couldn't find the main part, but I did find second handset, which is useless without the main part. I bought a cheap ($15) phone in its place. Yesterday, I was searching through a big pile of bags/luggage in the closet looking for a bigger duffel bag and guess what I found in one of the bags? WHO PACKS A PHONE IN A DUFFEL BAG WHICH IS PACKED IN A SUITCASE??? Well, me, apparently.
At this time of the year, there are lots of articles and television specials about the past year, which name the best, the the worst, or the most interesting events. This has gotten me thinking about this year from my perspective. It was quite a year, with a lot of changes. Below is one post per month, what I deem to be the biggest event of each month (or at least the most interesting post). Please check them out so you can get an appreciation for why this was the most exciting (and exhausting) year I have ever had.
We had car problems.
We climbed 680 steps to the top of Oakbrook Tower.
I broke a tooth (post includes picture!)
I recorded a podcast while running the Shamrock Shuffle 8k.
We spent Memorial Day weekend biking Lakeshore Drive, going to a chocolate festival, and visiting Milwaukee.
We had more car problems.
I had a scary wedding dream.
We moved to suburbs, after I had lived in the city for six years. It was hard to say goodbye.
We got married.
We went to Hawaii.
We adopted Jiblets Kitty Pie.
I contemplated how much cats are like children.
So what will 2007 bring? We are going to be staying in the same apartment, because I told Prince E I cannot move again until I forget the pain the last move caused. The pain still lingers, so we aren't going anywhere. I am hoping to start doing podcasts again, if only for my own benefit (and my mom who is a devoted fan). Every year since I was about seven, I have had the same New Year's resolution: Don't worry so much. I really doubt I will ever be able to keep that one, but I do hope that I will learn how to relax a little more in the upcoming year. I want to start running again, which is easier said than done. We are planning a spring trip to Washington DC. I would like to try to start saving money for a house, but I have a spending problem. Overall, though, I just hope that 2007, the year in which I shall turn 30, is a happy year for me, the Prince, and the kitties.
