We are 97% moved into the new house. Mom and John spent their entire day and night with us on Tuesday to help move the big stuff and also to hang out at the sports complex during soccer. They fed us pizza, too... many many thanks AGAIN to Gramma and Grampy.
The kids are loving the freedom of having a place with no people on the other side of the floor, ceiling, and walls. LittleK and R are sharing a room, so that their grumpy night-owl big sister can have total privacy and sleep-in mornings. We are already having problems, though, with the water heater, and will likely have to go WITHOUT hot water all weekend until the man who installed the heater can get back to town to fix it. The driveway is slicker than a hockey rink and the mamavan cannot go up it, even with a new transmission. Other than that, the house is a cozy little place of our own and we love it.
We're trying to get out of this apartment tonight and tomorrow, and now have just the annoying last bits of clutter to clean up.
I've got to hurry off to get LittleK from school so I can get back here and emotionally separate myself from yet another pile of useless junk.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
miscellaneous
Happy Birthday to Uncle Al! Happy Birthday to Uncle PAT!!!
I don't have much to say for today. Just:
I don't have much to say for today. Just:
- I'm obsessed with buying a refrigerator and a washer & dryer. If I'm online, I'm either checking the possibilities on craigslist, or clicking through Lowes.com, Homedepot.com, or Sears.com.
- It felt great to get rid of excess kitchen plastic, though I haven't obsessed over Bisphenol enough to reject plastic completely (see lifelessplastic.blogspot.com)
- The minivan could very well be hurtling through space on its way to Jupiter right now, for all we've heard from Kendall Ford's service department.
- T has an 'American Girl Mystery' birthday party to attend Friday night... she has to dress up like a Victorian-era orphan and act out a mystery play with 8 other dressed-up girls. So I'm obsessing over her costume.
- We close the house deal in four days.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Under the boardwalk...
When I was a kid in Nome, some organization put on a yearly competition to get people to bring in as many used aluminum cans as they possibly could. I remember picking up cans whenever and wherever I saw them, including underneath the old wooden boardwalks, and filling up garbage bag after garbage bag. I always scolded my Grandpa Al for throwing his beer cans out the truck window on the way to Council. wait, how did I survive 80-mile rides with no booster seat in a truck driven by my beer-guzzling grandpa? It didn't take long for my can-collecting motivation to change from whatever prize was being awarded to just simply getting all of those old Oly cans off of the streets...
When I worked at the hospital in Nome ten (!) years ago I helped start up their recycling program. In Laramie, we recycled what we could even though their center didn't accept mixed paper - which is a major source of waste in this household. I'm thinking of asking the girls' teachers to try recycling in their classrooms for a couple of weeks at least. The school system is one huge waste nightmare.
So yes, thirty years later, I remain one of 'those' people cringing when a plastic bottle, metal can, or pretty much any paper gets thrown in the garbage. Tomorrow we'll bring a giant load of recycling to Anchorage before we pick up K at the airport. Factoring in the six bags of plastic kitchen stuff I donated to a thrift store today, the bags of old clothes to be donated tomorrow, and the upcoming toy-purge, our mountain of junk to be moved next week could be downgraded to a medium-sized hill.
It's sort of hard {read: impossible} for K to support my recycling instinct because the stuff piles up so fast and we've always lived so far from any recycling center. In this hugely spread-out region including Palmer and Wasilla, there is only one place to drop off recyclables, it's way closer to Palmer than it is to Wasilla, they're open only three days a week, and they request a donation each time you go. Imagine what gets trashed in this city with the Biggest WalMart in Alaska!
"How to Green Your Recycling" has loads of information worth reading. Hug that tree.
When I worked at the hospital in Nome ten (!) years ago I helped start up their recycling program. In Laramie, we recycled what we could even though their center didn't accept mixed paper - which is a major source of waste in this household. I'm thinking of asking the girls' teachers to try recycling in their classrooms for a couple of weeks at least. The school system is one huge waste nightmare.
So yes, thirty years later, I remain one of 'those' people cringing when a plastic bottle, metal can, or pretty much any paper gets thrown in the garbage. Tomorrow we'll bring a giant load of recycling to Anchorage before we pick up K at the airport. Factoring in the six bags of plastic kitchen stuff I donated to a thrift store today, the bags of old clothes to be donated tomorrow, and the upcoming toy-purge, our mountain of junk to be moved next week could be downgraded to a medium-sized hill.
It's sort of hard {read: impossible} for K to support my recycling instinct because the stuff piles up so fast and we've always lived so far from any recycling center. In this hugely spread-out region including Palmer and Wasilla, there is only one place to drop off recyclables, it's way closer to Palmer than it is to Wasilla, they're open only three days a week, and they request a donation each time you go. Imagine what gets trashed in this city with the Biggest WalMart in Alaska!
"How to Green Your Recycling" has loads of information worth reading. Hug that tree.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Days...
without my spouse: 5
until spouse returns: 4 or 5
until we upgrade to 1100 square feet: 12
since my car broke down: 55
since my car was towed to the shop: 44
It's been the typical week of soccer, ballet, girl scouts, eat, sleep, repeat. Yesterday R and I had a little change in the routine with a quick trip into Anchorage for my Every 3 Months PH Checkup. I tipped the scales at 49 kg. The nurse asks a bunch of questions written for people with autoimmune arthritis problems (not me), I scribble a list of my current meds, the doctors come in and review the most recent CT/echo/lab results, listen to my lungs, let me ask questions, then it's over. They're so happy I have energy and seem like a normal person, and they have a hard time not teasing me about how exacting and over-informed I am. They poke fun at the notebook I usually carry with copies of all my test results... I didn't have it yesterday because I'm done stressing out about every last detail. It's time to coast for a bit.
I did ask about Bosentan, a newer PH drug which the hospital has finally added to their list of meds they'll pay for. The pulmonologist said that the path we're walking right now is one of immune-suppression with Cellcept, and not one of Bosentan-type drugs which have added side effects. I guess the focus is more on my 'functional class' or quality of life than it is on doing whatever it takes pharmacologically to decrease the pressure in my pulmonary artery.
Our mortgage loan was approved! We will close on February 25th.
The kids and I visited the minivan today. It's parked behind the dealership with the hood open and some big lock and chains fastened to the engine. I had to take some things out of the back of it and put something else in, since it's at least good for storage at this point. The guy who came to help me tried explaining how the ownership change at the dealership caused all of the parts in the service department to disappear (yes he actually said that), and I could only manage a shrug and an "I don't care anymore." I wonder if reducing myself to tears would have helped.
Thank you to Grandpa Jerry for the supply of wild rice ~ Happy Belated Birthday to Wilson ~ Happy First Birthday to Orson ~
And, of course, Happy Valentine's Day.
until spouse returns: 4 or 5
until we upgrade to 1100 square feet: 12
since my car broke down: 55
since my car was towed to the shop: 44
It's been the typical week of soccer, ballet, girl scouts, eat, sleep, repeat. Yesterday R and I had a little change in the routine with a quick trip into Anchorage for my Every 3 Months PH Checkup. I tipped the scales at 49 kg. The nurse asks a bunch of questions written for people with autoimmune arthritis problems (not me), I scribble a list of my current meds, the doctors come in and review the most recent CT/echo/lab results, listen to my lungs, let me ask questions, then it's over. They're so happy I have energy and seem like a normal person, and they have a hard time not teasing me about how exacting and over-informed I am. They poke fun at the notebook I usually carry with copies of all my test results... I didn't have it yesterday because I'm done stressing out about every last detail. It's time to coast for a bit.
I did ask about Bosentan, a newer PH drug which the hospital has finally added to their list of meds they'll pay for. The pulmonologist said that the path we're walking right now is one of immune-suppression with Cellcept, and not one of Bosentan-type drugs which have added side effects. I guess the focus is more on my 'functional class' or quality of life than it is on doing whatever it takes pharmacologically to decrease the pressure in my pulmonary artery.
Our mortgage loan was approved! We will close on February 25th.
The kids and I visited the minivan today. It's parked behind the dealership with the hood open and some big lock and chains fastened to the engine. I had to take some things out of the back of it and put something else in, since it's at least good for storage at this point. The guy who came to help me tried explaining how the ownership change at the dealership caused all of the parts in the service department to disappear (yes he actually said that), and I could only manage a shrug and an "I don't care anymore." I wonder if reducing myself to tears would have helped.
Thank you to Grandpa Jerry for the supply of wild rice ~ Happy Belated Birthday to Wilson ~ Happy First Birthday to Orson ~
And, of course, Happy Valentine's Day.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
oh patience
We've signed many documents and are under contract to buy the house - but the seller keeps listing it on craigslist. Maybe that's normal but it just makes me uncomfortable. The only delay we've come across has to do with the appraisal, which should be completed next week. I'm weary of the process and ready to put some space between us, lenders, and sellers.
The Mamavan Saga rolls on and on... The mouthpiece of the service department, Ken, tells me (when I pester him every other day) that "the parts are not all here yet," and "I've ordered the parts, hopefully they'll get here next Monday, then your car will be done the next day," and "we found a new problem we didn't notice at first so we had to order another part..." Puh-leeez.
5 eskimos will fit into a Ford Ranger but you won't see a smile on any of their faces. Especially not after 37 days.
The Mamavan Saga rolls on and on... The mouthpiece of the service department, Ken, tells me (when I pester him every other day) that "the parts are not all here yet," and "I've ordered the parts, hopefully they'll get here next Monday, then your car will be done the next day," and "we found a new problem we didn't notice at first so we had to order another part..." Puh-leeez.
5 eskimos will fit into a Ford Ranger but you won't see a smile on any of their faces. Especially not after 37 days.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)