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We’re both getting new phones.  Stephen’s camera had stopped working, and his battery would die basically any time and without warning.  My battery is getting to that stage too, and I’ve had this phone for probably 2.5 – 3 years, so figured it was time for a change.

So I ordered this amazing cover for it (which hasn’t delivered yet, and doesn’t look exactly like the picture because I neglected to take a screen shot of the website before placing my order, and these are custom covers).  I’m sorta more excited about the cover than I am about the phone!

Anyway.  Stephen tried to pick up his phone yesterday but they were having issues connected it to his AT&T account…and so I’ve just been remembering how much easier getting a new phone used to be.  Like, all you’d do is take your SIM card out of your old phone and put it in the new phone.  And bam.  Now though, after you activate the phone, you have to plug it up to iTunes and get it to sync…which, come to think of it, might be easy for people with newer computers and newer versions if iTunes.  Maybe that’s my problem.  I don’t remember what version I currently have, but it’s not the newest.  And it can be sort of a pain to update because my computer (a PC) isn’t really super fond of iTunes.

BUT whatever, like I said, I’m mostly excited about the case.

We FINALLY have both of our old houses clean and empty, and the utilities turned off, and everything wrapped up.  Yesterday I went by my old Henry Ford house one last time, and… I could write a whole post about it, but I’m at work and will need to focus on working here shortly, so won’t do that.  But I really loved that house.  I’m glad to be moving on – literally and figuratively.  I mostly enjoyed my life in that house; some years were better than others, but I grew a lot and learned more about life and about myself while living there.

But!  I’m very excited about getting settled in our new house.  We keep making more progress every day, even though sometimes it feels like two steps forward and one step back.  But now we can focus 100% on unpacking and organizing and decorating, so I expect things to start coming together quickly.  We’re both starting to feel anxious about the boxes still hanging around the place —- this is what the living room looked like last night when Stephen started unpacking his bookshelf.

So there’s plenty of potential……buried underneath boxes.  But!  Progress!

Anyway, I’ll post more pictures as soon as there’s more to look at.

Well.

We are 98% moved in.  Stephen is turning in his house keys today, and I have to turn mine in on next Tuesday.  I still need to schedule for my water/electricity to be cancelled that day, too.

I took the last two days off to focus on unpacking and cleaning up Stephen’s house (which we knocked out yesterday).  In the new house, the bedroom and kitchen are mostly unpacked, the bathroom is totally unpacked, Stephen’s office is getting there, and the living room is half-way live-in-able.  The library hasn’t been touched yet, unfortunately….

Tonight we’re going to see a play, which is cool, but I would really like to be able to just focus on unpacking more!!  And this weekend, Stephen’s sister is coming to visit, so I’m sure she’ll be ok with helping clean up my old house, but I don’t want to spend all weekend unpacking if she’s here.  Sooooooooooo.  It’ll come together, next week.

 

• Take down the canopy in my bedroom
• Take down the curtains around the house
• Take down the shelving unit in the dining room closet
• Throw all the other miscellaneous items into boxes
• Pack jewelry
• Take down all wall art…
• Take apart bed frame
• Pack medicine cabinet and stuff in shower
• And shower curtain
• Pack up stereo/CDs/xBox/etc

 

I seriously cannot wait to be settled in.  I do not like living with a bunch of boxes.

OK!  So we’re going to sign the lease on the aforementioned house next weekend, looks like.  I haven’t moved in such a long time that I’m not sure if I remember how to.

• Transfer electricity (or cancel my account if Stephen wants to use his)
• Same with water
• Contact Piedmont Gas to put the gas in my name
• Cancel my AT&T wireless since Stephen has a better monthly rate
• Tell post office to forward my mail
• Change mailing address on periodicals, bills, etc etc etc

What else?  I’m not sure.  But I’m looking forward to moving and having everything nicely wrapped up.  If anyone thinks of something I’m missing, I’m all ears!

So we are now 89.6% sure that we’ve found a place.  We filled out applications and gave them a security deposit on Saturday, so now are just waiting to hear back from them about when to finalize and sign the lease.  It’s in East Nashville, it’s a little more expensive than we were hoping (but so was everything else, so…), and it’s a little bigger than either of the houses we’re currently in.  Has a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, two smaller bedrooms, a huge back yard, a garage, two wine coolers, a non-functioning fireplace, hardwood floors, etc etc…..

They’ve already taken down the ad or I would link it….but I was able to screen cap these pictures from Google street view.  Not the best pictures, but, well, gives you an idea….

Exciting!!!  I’m really hoping that everything works out and we’re able to move in a couple of weeks.  Keep your fingers crossed for us…..

 

OK so, like I mentioned, we’re moving.  We both live in normal-sized houses that are full of stuff, so we’re going to try to find a new place that’s possibly a little bit larger…but at any rate, we’ll be downsizing.  I started packing up my dining room last night and omg, so much stuff.  And I don’t even HAVE that much stuff in the dining room.  Also I didn’t pack any of the stemware.  Actually, the several boxes that are now on the floor mainly just contain games and DVDs, come to think of it.

We don’t have a place we’re moving to yet – but are going to get on that immediately.  I have spent a little time looking around at homes for rent in Nashville, and seriously everything is so much less affordable than it was the last time I moved.  I’m hoping we don’t end up in an apartment or in Murfreesboro.

Also, I’m being reminded of how much I do actually hate moving.  There’s the stress of finding a place that’s a) affordable, b) close enough to work etc, c) allows cats, and d) that you actually LIKE….plus on top of that, there’s the stress of packing up all your shit and borrowing someone’s truck so you can make several hauls to the dump to throw out all the stuff you realize you don’t need (and in my case, the stuff you haven’t thrown away yet because you don’t have a truck)……and it’s just not super fun.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m definitely excited about living with Stephen and moving to a new place.  I’m just looking forward to all of this being completed, and being able to unpack and settle in come March.

So anyway, tonight I’m thinking that I might start tackling the library.  I’m going to get rid of at least some of the National Geographics (they make great scratching posts, apparently), and clean out the closet in that room.  Maybe go ahead and put the instruments into their cases.  Oh yeah, and I need to sell that speaker.  Could make a decent hunk of cash off of that which would for sure help with stuff like security deposits…..

*sigh*

If anyone wants to help me pack, or help move later in the month, I will buy you beer and pizza.  Just throwing that out there.

I’m having book issues, people.  I have too many books that I’m trying to read.  I need to prioritize.

First priority is Elizabeth Strout’s new book My Name Is Lucy Barton.  Bought this book yesterday because she’s coming to Nashville to do a reading next week, and I want to get it autographed, but I also want to have read at least some of it before going to the reading.  I may have said this already, but Olive Kitteridge was one of my favorite books that I read last year and the mini-series was superb.

Second on the list should be finishing Foundation and Empire which is the second book in the Foundation Trilogy.  I have been slowly making my way through the trilogy for a while now, and I definitely like the books, so I need to buckle down and at least finish this second book before I keep reading more books.

Also on the fiction list is Elizabeth Strout’s The Burgess Boys.

As far as my nonfiction list goes….I need to finish The Witches by Stacy Schiff, which I actually put down a few months ago and find myself missing from time to time.  I’m also making my way through Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich — it’s an absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking book and I love it.  But I like it in moderation because it’s so devastating.

Stephen got me The Story of Alice by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and that is definitely high on my nonfiction priority list, but I can’t decide if I should finish The Witches first, since I already started it, or what.

I can’t forget Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me either — which I started several months ago but found difficult to read and engage at work so I put it aside to read when I could focus on it.  Which means basically that I need to start over.

NOT TO MENTION all the other damned books that I haven’t even STARTED yet.  OMG I am not allowed to buy ANY NEW BOOKS for like five years.

UGH now I’m feeling overwhelmed again and might just go back to drawing.

Sorry I haven’t blogged in such a long time.  I think my last entry was before Thanksgiving?  I would sum up the holidays….but, eh, I don’t really feel like it.

We DID have a pretty great New Year’s — we went camping at Montgomery Bell State Park, and the temperature both nights got into the 20’s.  We went through a LOT of firewood, believe me.  We made some good meals using the dutch oven, and overall had a great time.  I personally much prefer that kind of NYE over going to parties, but.  Maybe we can take turns and do a party next year.  Maybe.

The leather stuff is going fine, except that I had a lot of commissioned Christmas presents to make (and still have one that I’m not finished with…Vicki, if you’re reading this, I’m omg so sorry it’s taking seriously forever…!!!!).  So I’m feeling sorta burned out.  Also I’m out of leather.  I will make more stuff to list.  And I should go ahead and just make a few really small things, but……..eh.

Although I’m sort of trying to focus on purging instead of buying more stuff lately, because we’ve decided to move into a new place.  (!)  So last night I filled up my big city-allotted trash can with clothes that I don’t wear anymore.  I got rid of all the coats in my hallway closet that smelled of mildew, also.  Today is trash pick-up day so I can technically fill it up again tonight if I want to.  I need to clean out the closet in the library too — it’s mostly full of the craft supplies that don’t have any better place to go.

Probably my biggest priority right now should be cleaning the garage, though………ugh.  Not excited about that.

I’m excited about the final result (moving) but not so much about the process.  However, the lack of excitement about the process usually means that I’m motivated to get it done quickly, which is a good thing.

I’m also rediscovering my love of drawing, after finding this YouTube channel that comes out with a new life drawing video every week.  I’ve wanted to take a life drawing class for like forever, and this isn’t really the same, but it IS free and does have “live” models so is great practice.  Stephen has been practicing with me too, which is also exciting!!  I have gotten friends to draw or paint with me before, but no one ever seems to get excited about it…but Stephen said that he’s enjoying it!  😀  Anyway, I like it.  This is my latest hobby which might be eclipsed by more leather stuff soon, since the leather stuff can actually make money.  But.  We’ll see.

ALMOST finally here.

This weekend, we’re picking up the turkey (tomorrow).  So until this year, I’ve only done frozen turkeys, and I got a little nervous this morning because apparently the FDA recommends cooking fresh turkeys 1-2 days after you buy them.  But I just asked one of the guys who works here, who hunts and cooks VERY fresh meat on the regular, and he said that it should be fine until Thanksgiving as long as I keep it very cold.  Sooo I’m going to like buy bags of ice to pack around it in the fridge, I think.  I would be the most depressed ever if it went rancid before Thanksgiving.  Would end up just having wine and tears for dinner, I’m sure.  SO not going to let that happen!!

Anyway, also we’ll go grocery shopping this weekend.  Thanks to the CSA we have most of the veggies we’ll need already; plenty of sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts and green beans (frozen from earlier this year).  Will have to purchase shallots and regular potatoes, but at least most of the veggies will be ethical.  I want to go to K&S for shallots (because you can get like a 5lb bag for super cheap) and also to see if they have any fresh herbs, before I buy them at Publix.

Of course, to go along with grocery shopping will be cleaning out the refrigerator and freezer.  I’m going to go through all my condiments and ask myself, “Would I eat this?”  And if the answer is not “Definitely yes,” I’m tossing them.  Same for all the who-knows-what in my freezer.

I have cleaned the library, kitchen, and bathroom this week.  Stephen has volunteered to help straighten my garage some, so I’ll probably do that this weekend too – and the bedroom too.  I will likely wait until Tuesday to clean the living room though.  Since I’m still using it.

Oh yeah —– so Anna Laura, I don’t really have a step-by-step tutorial for turkey-cooking.  But I will say this: to avoid over-cooking, 1) follow the instructions for cooking the turkey exactly, BUT 2) check the temperature of the turkey semi-regularly, and if it says it’s done but the timer says there’s still 45 minutes left, it’s done.  Go by the thermometer.  Which I’m sure you would — so what I’m really saying is, don’t assume the cooking time is accurate all the time.  Check the temp anyway.  Dry turkey is just disappointing.

ANYWAY!