RT and I have been moving the past month.  Yes, the past MONTH.  It takes time, and the fact that our old house is just two miles away from the new house, along with the fact the the old house has not sold yet means that we still have lots of stuff at the old house that we haven’t moved yet.  Nothing big - but still lots of little things that we didn’t want to crowd the moving van when we had it last month.

However, we DID completely empty the two storage rooms where I had stored most of my belongings.  One of the highlights of the past few weeks is that I keep getting gifts - gifts of particularly treasured items that had been packed away for the past eighteen months.  Each time I’d open a box, it seemed that I found something else that I was thrilled about seeing again.

(1) My dining room suit - it’s cherry with white upholstered seats - so pretty and elegant.  It wasn’t in a box, but it was stacked in the back of one of the storage rooms.

(2) My paraffin spa - LOVE it for my hands!

(3) The baby doll that the grandgirls insisted on buying for my birthday a few years ago.  My daughter tried to steer them towards a more practical gift, but they insisted that Grandma Carol WANTED that baby doll. . . and they were right - I did!

(4) My Hummel collection - each of them were given to me for special occasions, and it’s so nice to see them again.

(5) My pictures - I have a lot of framed prints that we just stored since RT’s cabin didn’t have a lot of wall space for them.  I enjoy so much the Frace’ prints and the beautiful “Resurrection Morn” print that I received as a gift a few years ago.

(6) My books.  LOVE my favorite books.

(7) My dishes - especially the pretty ones

(8) My antique hall tree - I’ve had it for about 30 years, and I think it’s beautiful

(9) The little figurine that my then 3-year old daughter gave me when my son was born.  It’s a little girl with arms spread wide and the words “I love you THIS much!”

(10) My crocheted afgans - so nice to wrap around me when I’m watching TV or reading a book

(11) My video and CD collections - I’m ready to watch some of my favorites again

(12) My photo albums - from RT’s and my first marriage in 1969 to our grandchildren.  I love looking at all the photographs again.

(13) My little antique sewing kit.  It’s interesting how often I need a needle and thread to do a quick repair on something.  I’ve missed my well-stocked sewing kit.  Now that it’s available, it’ll probably be months before I need it.

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I’ve found that moving can make one’s world quite small.  Things are disconnected at the old house, and we must wait for them to be re-connected at the new house.  The DirecTV folks won’t be at the new house until later today.  That makes almost two week’s we’ve gone without watching TV.  Quite honestly, I haven’t missed it much.  It has made me realize how much of a habit it is to watch certain shows.  It’s not that the shows are so enormously entertaining.  It’s just that we were accustomed to eating dinner and then watching TV - whatever was on.  A similar thing happened with the Internet.   We had DSL problems at the old house that left me internet-less at home for over two months.  I was starting a new job.  So I sure wasn’t going to blog from work.  Now at the new house, we have a high-speed connection again, but I don’t have my computer yet.  So I borrow RT’s when I need to.  Last night, for the first time in months,  I spent about 5 hours working on a project online - and it was nice.  I read blogs that I would normally not read, and I had a blast.  The only negative was that I didn’t get to bed until after 1:30 this morning.  Once in awhile that’s okay.

So without TV and with no Internet for so long, I feel that my world has grown small.  RT and I have been doing more reading.  We’ve taken more walks.  We’ve worked on the house.  I haven’t been able to easily keep up with what’s going on in the world well enough to know of anything beyond my small world to blog about.  I’ve yearned to blog, but my topics of interest have been narrowed down to things related to our moving.

TV will be restored by this evening.  My new wireless computer will arrive later this week, and by the weekend we will once more be connected to the rest of the world.  For now, though, it’s comforting to remain small for a few hours longer.

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We’ve got closets.  What we don’t have are shelves in the closets, and that poses somewhat of a problem.  Thankfully, it’s a temporary problem.  Sigh!  WHY does it cost so much to put a few simple shelves in closets?  It looks like RT and I will be doing the work ourselves.  Even doing it ourselves, though, it’s going to be costly.  As we looked at closet units at Lowe’s today, RT kept declaring, “We’re building our dream!”  He’s like that.  One of the things I love about him is his sense of humor.

We have put towel racks in only one bathroom - and that one bathroom is not the master bath.  So that’s a project that we’ll get around to real soon.

We’ve now spent a full week in the new house.  The newness hasn’t worn off.  I think it will be a long time before we stop marveling every day at the wonder of actually living here.  Our new bed (and mattress and box springs) were delivered this past week.  It is THE most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept on.  Oh. My. Goodness, it is comfortable.  During the day we work like crazy, but we’ve both been sleeping great every night.  Truly - it is one of the best investments we’ve ever made. 

We’ve completely emptied my two storage rooms.  YEA!!! That’s SUCH a huge milestone.  We’ve gotten the “big stuff” out of the cabin.  When we started to move the furniture from the small guest room at the cabin - the room we rarely even entered, we found that it HAD been entered - and frequently - by mice.  They had eaten through the sheets on the bed (sheets, mattress, boxsprings were subsequently thrown away - they were old anyway), they had gotten into the chest of drawers and eaten through papers and left lots of lots of evidence of their existence.  So we still have THAT to deal with.  Or rather, RT still has that to deal with.  I never particularly liked that cabin, but since I knew my tenure there would be only about a year, I was okay with it.  However, now my negative feelings have skyrocketed.  I’m so thankful to be out of that place.  We not-so-fondly call it “the rat house” now - and RT gave it that nickname - not me.  RT to me earlier this evening, “I’m going over to the rat house to get that clothes rack from the laundry room.”  It’s a little funny.

I’ve been absolutely obsessive about cleaning everything before I allowed it inside the new house.   I vacuumed spider webs and dust off everything that had been in storage.  I checked drawers and under cabinets. 

Tomorrow (Sunday) is my family reunion (my father’s side) in Georgia.  RT and I decided today that we’re just too tired to fly down there tomorrow, spend a few hours and then fly home.  RT has to go out of town for the week - leaving on Monday.  I have to go to work Monday.  And there’s so much to do here.  Mostly, though, we’re both just exhausted.  It’s a hard decision, though, because I try to make sure I do the important things in my life - and family is at the top of the list of important things in my life.  I really would love to see my uncle - my father’s only surviving brother.  Not to mention my mother and my siblings.  Out of the past year, only last weekend would have been a worse weekend for a family reunion.  So we will likely stay home.  Thanksgiving is just three weeks away, though.  So I’ll see most of my family then.

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Yesterday morning when I awoke, I looked out one of the front windows and watched a flock of wild turkeys pecking at seeds through the pinestraw near the driveway.  I looked out a side window and watched four young deer eating acorns under an oak tree.  On the day we moved in last week, a beautiful bald eagle flew directly over our new home, and each day I watch a myriad of birds at our birdfeeders - black-capped chickadees, tufted titmouse, nuthatches, gold finches - and even an occasional red-headed woodpecker.   We are definitely living in the midst of beautiful wildlife.

One of my goals is to photograph all the wonders of nature around me.

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The past four days, RT and I have been slowly emptying the two storage rooms I’ve had rented since July 2006 when I moved in with him.  Fifteen months of paying monthly storage room fees.  Each time we uncovered another item, I was thrilled to see yet another old friend.  It has been like Christmas in October.  My dining rooms suite - I LOVE it!  My curio cabinet, my antique desk - the pretty rose-colored bowl that belonged to my grandmother.  My favorite bedroom suite - my first furniture purchase when I was newly single ten years ago - is now set up in the girls’ bedroom (i.e. downstairs guest room).  I’ve dusted and cleaned, vaccuumed and sorted, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.  And there are still a few more items left.  So Christmas will continue for a few more days.

The past two days I’ve been off work - my two personal leave days for the year.  Tomorrow I will get back into the routine of work.  I sure wish I had a couple weeks at home with nothing to do but work on getting this house exactly like we want it.  It is a lot of fun.  Exhausting, but fun.

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Yesterday we got the final building inspection approved.  So RT couldn’t wait.  Last night he got an air mattress and sleeping bag and slept (very fitfully) at the new house.  I declined the offer because “I” had to go to work today - and ended up working almost 12 hours because I decided to take my two yearly personal leave days on Monday and Tuesday.  So I stayed a few hours after school taking care of all the things I had to handle in order to be out on Monday and Tuesday.

Apparently I was so exhausted last night that I slept through one particularly hellacious storm.  RT said he woke up and heard Jake (our dog) whining.  He went to the garage (where Jake was staying) and looked outside and the trees were actually swaying in circles with the wind.  He heard a tree crash in the woods not far from the house and there was debris all over the driveway.  I was only two miles away at our “old” house, and I slept through the whole thing.  When RT said he was sleeping at the new house, I didn’t even consider it myself because I knew there was just no way I could do it.  I was too tired to do anything other than go to bed and go to sleep.

We have a U-Haul truck and two strong guys lined up to help us move tomorrow (Saturday).  Tonight, I am also sleeping at the new house.  I’ve written about camping before - and this will be similar to that except it will be in a very nice house instead of outside under the stars.  It’ll be similar to camping because we’ll sleep on air mattresses, but we won’t use sleeping bags.  I brought sheets and blankets.  We’ve picked out a new bed, and it’ll be delivered early next week.  Until then we will sleep in the downstairs guest room where there will be a bed after it is moved here tomorrow.  Tonight should be our only air mattress night.

We brought the coffee pot over (my wonderful Keurig single cup brewer), and some towels and toiletries. 

I’m writing this from the new house.  RT got the internet connection set up - and I’m using his laptop while he drives back to the old house to get Jake and a few things we’ll need for tomorow.  My laptop will be here next week.  I know I’ve written this before, but we’ve spent so much time and energy on this house the past year that it seems really strange to have it finished and to be actually living here.  Life is good.

And, I promise, I will very soon write about things other than the new house. 

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I can’t believe I am finally writing these words, but  . . . THE HOUSE IS FINISHED!  Okay, that’s a VERY mild exaggeration.  We still need to put shelves in the closets - and there are still some towel racks and toilet paper holders to install.  However, today will be the final electrical inspection - followed by the final overall inspection.  If it passes those two inspections, then RT and I plan to move in tomorrow…maybe we’ll wait till Saturday since I have to work tomorrow - it all depends on how the inspections go.  There’s still a little cosmetic work to do on the fireplace…but RT will make quick work of that.  Oh yes, and we need to get a mantle.  Ha!  After all the pages and pages of “things to do” we’ve been working on since last December, this little list seems meager and insignificant.

The shoe molding I mentioned in the previous post took THREE days to complete.  It looks good, though.  As with anything, now that we’ve done it once, if we ever needed to install shoe molding again (heaven forbid!) we could do it much more quickly.

After over ten months of working practically nonstop on this house, it seems unbelievable that it is finally finished.  And, I have to say, it is beautiful.  I can’t wait to move in!  It has truly been a labor of love on the parts of both RT and myself.

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As soon as church was over today, RT and I headed over to the new house to put in the shoe molding. Ha!  I thought that MAYBE we’d spend the better part of the afternoon taking care of that chore.  I was wrong.  It is now 10:00 p.m., and we just got back from working on it all afternoon and evening - and we probably have about 1/3 of it finished.  There could NOT be anything more tedious than putting up shoe molding. 

Each piece must be cut precisely.  I did most of the measuring, and RT did the cutting.  Even with measuring as precisely as possible, we still had to re-cut many pieces because of the various angles.  The bay window was a nightmare. 

So first thing in the morning, guess what we’ll be doing.  The sad thing is that we’re putting in the closet shelves ourselves, too.  I’m afraid that might be another long and extended project.  Thank goodness I’m on fall break Monday and Tuesday.  Maybe we can get it all done.

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It’s one week until we move into our new house - just about three months later than we VERY optimistically had hoped.  It took a little over ten months from the time we broke ground until we’re ready to move in - and that’s fairly typical of new houses.  We just got very eager initially but soon settled down to reality.

Here are some pictures I took today:  This first picture is of the front porch.  The rails were added this week.  We still need to clean off the front porch, but I think it still looks really good.

This next picture is of the fireplace and the balcony.  If you notice the shelves on either side of the fireplace - those were some of THE most time-consuming and laborious things in the house.  The cabinets are still not finished, and they began installing them the first of July.  Hint: Don’t ever use Kabinart to make and install your cabinets.  The final product looks good, but there are still things that aren’t right about it.  We’ve spent a lot of time and energy and money undoing some of the mistakes.  The installer’s name is Kevin - so we’ve dubbed all the cabinets with their assorted issues as “KevinArt.”  I love the floors - they’re cherry, and they’re still very shiny from the three coats of polyurethane that were put on them this past week.  Also notice the fireplace - which I’ve shown here before - RT built the fireplace, and it is beautiful.

This next picture is of the kitchen and cabinets.  I tried to get the granite to show up well, but you really can’t tell much about it.  I LOVE the granite we chose for the kitchen.  It is a pattern called “Juperano Gaviota.” Notice that the cabinets are still not completed.  Oh - did I already mention that?

And here’s the final photo for the day - the divider between the kitchen and the great room.  You can see the foyer and front door in the background.  The “radius” is in the center.  The house plans called for a rectangle, but we made the edge curved to match the balcony that is right above it.

Ron and I had a good day.  We installed 25 doorknobs on the inside.  RT got to the point where he could install one in less than four minutes.  Of course that was with me anticipating which tool he needed and having it ready as soon as he needed it and then helping him hold the various pieces of the doorknob still as he drilled holes and put in screws.  Still - that was pretty incredible timing.  One more doorknob to install tomorrow, and we’re done with that particular chore.We really enjoyed our late afternoon.  After finishing the doorknobs (except the one we have to buy tomorrow), we planted over 120 bulbs (tulips, jonquils, dutch iris and others) that we’ll enjoy in early spring.  We also planted two flats of pansies that we’ll enjoy between now and next spring.  It was so nice to do something with no pressure to complete it.  Tomorrow we will plant a lot of irises and lilies that two ladies in our church gave us.

We are really looking forward to moving in next week.

Jobs that will be done this coming week:  Tomorrow RT will cut and install the shoe molding throughout the house.  I will finish up the towel racks, toilet paper racks and door stops.  On Monday, the glass for the shower will be installed, the final work on the alarm system will be completed, the final touch-up painting will be done.

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We’re down to the last couple weeks before moving in!  Now I’m ready to start looking for blinds.  In my previous few houses I ordered blinds from justblinds.com.  They worked out really well.  I’m checking other online sources, though, to see if I can find a better deal.

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