July 2009
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Monthly Archives: July 2009

Our New House

July 29, 2009

As I Twittered about earlier today, Jason and I were approved for the rental house that I gushed about yesterday. We had another big day today as we shopped for and purchased a nice living room set (sofa, loveseat, and chair), mattress, washer and dryer, and a deep freezer. Tomorrow late afternoon we meet up at the house with the landlord to sign the lease and we can start moving in that night or Friday. We have to give the Coast Guard moving company a little notice for them to get our stuff ready, so they may not get our things to us until Saturday or early next week. Today’s new purchases get delivered on Friday morning. DirecTV sets us up next Tuesday afternoon (we’re moving my account from our old house to this one). Jason and I have a busy day tomorrow. First thing in the morning I need to call the credit union to make sure they are aware I’m going to use a local bank to get a cashier’s check for the first and last month’s rent (there are no local branches of our credit union), go to the bank for the check, get Jason a...

First Day in Mobile

July 28, 2009

Wow, I can’t even believe how great our first day in Mobile has been. After our fantastic road trip (didn’t stop anywhere noteworthy, but it was great having a third person) and a very long rest in a comfy bed, I couldn’t really ask for any better of a first day. We slept in until about 10 am, got ready and had an early lunch. Then we found a Winn Dixie to buy a newspaper to look at the rental ads. We had looked at the rental options on Craigslist earlier but had only found a few and wanted to expand our search. The third house on our short list was perfect. Four bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a huge living room, front porch that runs the full length of the house, upper and lower level decks overlooking the backyard, two-car garage, on a quiet cul-de-sac, and the backyard has woods right up to it. The finished basement holds one of the bedrooms and bathrooms and is set up like a mother-in-law suite with a private entrance to the backyard. The living room area down there includes a billiards table in good condition, the laundry room, and access to the...

Moving Day

July 25, 2009

Jason and I are so tired! Packing and moving is extremely hard work. We finished clearing out of our apartment over the last two days and we’ve been staying with Jason’s sister, mom and great uncle for the last few days. Jason’s off with his sister right now picking up the trailer for my car and when they get back we need to unpack from my car all the last minute stuff that was in our apartment, repack it, load my car onto the trailer, pick up Jason’s motorcycle, head to Elka’s shindig to say congrats & goodbye, drop Jeremy off with his dad, stop back by Temecula to pick up Jason’s mom, and head out of town. We’re hoping to get through Arizona tonight and get into Albuquerque first thing tomorrow morning. Just like the last time Jason and I drove to Mobile, he will take the long legs of the drive, I will take over for 4-5 hours to give him a break to nap, we’ll stop for lunch and to stretch our legs, and then he’ll keep going for another 12 hours or so. Jason has great at long distance driving, I haven’t built that skill...

Moving day is quickly approaching…

July 21, 2009

It’s now Tuesday, four days before we head out of town to move to Mobile, Alabama. For a few reasons we decided not to buy the house we chose back in May when we went out to visit and house-hunt. Once we get there we won’t have a bunch of cash laying around to put in the work that the house needs (new bathroom, new a/c, refinish the wood floors, and a couple other little things) and we won’t be able to afford a second mortgage to finance those things. Also, we’ll only be there for four years, not enough time to recoup the equity we’d be putting in. Lastly, we don’t want to spend the entire four years there fixing up a house just to sell it and hope to get our money back (not likely in this market), we’d rather work on getting out of debt by paying off our cars and fixing up Jason’s credit. So, we’ve been looking at 4-bedroom rentals in the area and have found not only that they are in abundance, but we can also pay less for a nicer house than we would have paid to own a fixer-upper. We do...

The Wedding

July 17, 2009

I cannot thank our friends enough for participating in our celebration. It really feels as though we started off our new life together on the right foot with lots of love and support and a little luck in our pockets.

Last Day…

July 17, 2009

Well, at long last, this is my final day of work. I’ve been with this company from Wednesday, September 1, 2004 to Friday, July 17, 2009. That is 1,781 days, or 4 years, 10 months, 17 days. Alternatively, that would be: 153,878,400 seconds 2,564,640 minutes 42,744 hours 254 weeks I have mostly enjoyed my time there and have fostered relationships with some really good brilliant people. However, the company isn’t the same place that it was when I signed up, it has changed over the years and while they still do good work, some have lost sight of the mission. I support my friends there and I hope that they see much success both here and wherever they may find themselves in the future. Starting today my life is taking a big leap in an entirely different direction and I am thrilled to pieces.

Two Weeks

July 6, 2009

I’ve got 10 days back at work and then I’m out of there for good. I’m only working 9 of those days since I’ve got next Tuesday off for custody mediation. My office is cleared of my personal effects but for Jeremy’s artwork, the mouse I brought from home because the one they gave me didn’t have my beloved scrolling wheel, and the chair I bought because the one I inherited with my office was filthy and broken. I have been working here for so long, it’s going to feel really weird to leave knowing I’ll never come back. When I was out on disability, I knew I’d be back, so it felt like a nice break (sort of like my maternity leave over two years ago) to regroup and get back to myself. But I’m going to need to spend the next two weeks gearing myself up to leave for good. I’ve never worked for any other place as long as I’ve been here. In some ways, I’m kind of sad to leave because I’ve made some good friends, learned so much, and built a strong career here; but I’m also very ready to move on because many...

Independence Day weekend

July 2, 2009

I know, I know, I need to get around to writing up my wedding day post. My brand new husband has been reminding me daily, it’s just going to take some time to put those experiences down into words. Not to mention that I don’t have any photos yet. Jason showed me a few that a friend put on her MySpace page, but since I no longer have an account there, I can’t grab them. I don’t want to put up my wedding post without pictures, that just wouldn’t be right. So, I have to wait. Anyhow, I want to stay at least somewhat relevant after having taken almost all of this week off from posting, so I’m going to toss out our plans for the holiday weekend. I’m off work at 2 pm today (which explains why I’m typing this up just after 2:00), so I’ll be getting home two hours earlier than usual. Hooray for free time off from my employer’s CEO! Once I get home, we’ll enjoy the wonderful beef stew that Jason and I prepared last night and he turned on in the crock pot this morning. Then we’ll pack an overnight bag and load...

Menu Plan, week of June 29, 2009

July 1, 2009

After a few days of next to no internet, I’m back in the saddle, caught up on all of the blog posts that were waiting patiently in my Google Reader, and ready to get back to writing. My first one for the week, our menu, is just a few days late. I was too busy getting married on Sunday and enjoying my honeymoon day on Monday to worry about planning our meals or posting it. Then, we had a very busy day in court yesterday which I will write about later. Now, for the rest of the week… Wednesday: Simple ground beef tacos and green salad. Thursday: Beef stew in the crock pot (the usual resulting leftovers will be Friday’s lunch for both Jason and I). Friday: Our favorite, easy chicken pot pie. Saturday: Orange chicken, with veggie fried rice this time. Sunday: We have gotten into the habit of leaving Sunday open since half the time we have our date night after we return Jeremy to his dad’s house for a week and the other half of the time we are picking him up from his dad’s and get our fast food fix on the way home. I...

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