The house

Ok.. ok.. communication blackout over. We are not all the way moved in. The garage as you can see still has lots of boxes to be moved to their appropriate rooms.

I did get a picture of the box collection to show you how much we have unpacked, but there are more and more boxes.

The family room / kitchen area is 70% done. The entertainment system is giving my technology professional canker sores and we are calling in help in the form of family with tools to help us (Jas) get sound on both sides of the room without having ugly and prohibited (by me) wires visible.

The family room layout was a challenge, but we worked it out after only 4 different attempts. We had our regular Thursday night Survivor party (can it be a party with only one other couple?) and they kept asking if we had new furniture. Nope... it's my furniture from storage. It mixes very nicely with Jas' stuff.

The loft area upstairs is a mess and we hope to spend the last remaining monies that we have to our name on some book shelves and media shelves. Eventually, furniture will come, but it may take a while.

The formal living room is not that right now, it is the holding place for all pictures and art. Eventually, we think it will be "the library" with our books and a cozy chair or two. Our family room will be company worthy so we don't feel the need to have a stuffy room that no one visits except to vacuum.
Upstairs the three bedrooms are in pretty good shape. The room with the brown bed is the sorting area for all things table linen. We received many wonderful napkins and table cloths and when I find my collection that is in a box or three in the garage I'll sort them by size and put them away.

The room with the blue bed will be occupied in a couple weeks for a weekend by Jas' parents. Too bad there are no window treatments - but there's also no neighbors. I think we'll have to put up the lovely paper shades like the ones in the master and the bathroom to give them a tiny bit of privacy. The construction workers who are building the houses behind ours start their day pretty early.

We will have window coverings by Christmas - but until then it is quite bright in our house.

Our plan for the weekend is to get all the boxes out of the garage and make room for our cars. It's a good goal.

I'm nervous about navigating the garage with both cars, but I know in no time I'll get use to it. I'm sure I won't scratch Jas' care more than once.

Trashy!

It's raining here, there and everywhere. I am cozy in my new home office - which was Jason's activity yesterday. It looks good in here. Needs a picture or two, but that will come later.

Jason had to leave for work earlier than he would have from the Issaquah condo which is a fine trade off for this wonderful home of ours.

He called me about 2 minutes after I heard him leave. "I don't know if it matters, but all the neighbors have their trash cans out on the curb."

CCCRRAAAPPP! (crap)

So I quickly threw on clothes and shoes and donned my raincoat to make a trash run. The can isn't full (lots of recycling which is next week) but since we have a tiny can, waiting another week would be bad.

I'm realizing I should do a sweep of all the rooms for trash removal.

Gotta run (into the rain again.)

Home

We are in the new house.

Sure, 98% of everything we own is in a box, but we are happy. Tired,
but happy.

Terri

Moving Day

The houses have closed and we are in the process of moving!

We made a huge dent last night and the movers arrive in an hour.

I thought we would be done after today, but I forgot that the boxes won't magically unpack themselves.

Terri

Spoiler

Oh how I love things you find on facebook.

Jitters

My iPhone Facebook application isn't working and I feel so disconnected from the world.

How darned sad is that?

Pretty sad.

Headline from home

Homecoming queen bags her buck


























Yes, this is the actual headline and photo of the 2009 Homecoming Queen from the little town that is near my hometown.

Here's the article:

Nicole Lxx was honored as Naselle Homecoming Queen at the football game Saturday afternoon and moments after the contest she bagged this "pickle horn" spike-forked horn near her home. "I didn't want to go too far and ruin my hair," she said of her hunting trip.

I'm pretty sure I don't need to comment too much further as to why I think this is funny, but I'd be very careful about doing EVERYTHING the queen wants during her tenure.

(it was nice of the photographer to crop out the bloody entrails of the buck.)

We are on our way!

With the big move scheduled for Friday and Saturday we have been busily packing all weekend. I'm happy to report that we have packed the kitchen, the bathrooms, the closets, the electronics the guest room and most of the garage.

We have the office left to do and the "laundry" area.

The office shouldn't be too terrible. I've cleaned my desk and have sorted through all the little cards and papers that magically get stashed in the drawers. I'm not sure why I have 5 business cards for our Real Estate Agent but I had them. I also had cards for my former dentist - WHY?

I do have these nifty baskets that are "perfect for storage" on my bookshelves and frankly, they scare me. I know I stored stuff there when I booted Jason's stuff from the office to make room for my stuff, but it's kind of a hodgepodge of junk that is "important" but doesn't fit into other places in the house.

Some of the things will have a home in the new house. I'll have room for my sewing kit and likely don't need the fancy box the waterford crystal came in once we move.

I found a file folder today that contained stuff from MegaBank - like my personal copy of my personnel file. How long do I keep that? My severance check has solidly cleared the bank (and is going to be spent on Friday when we give the bank a hefty check for our dream house.) I'm thinking I can let these things go.

We're signing paperwork tomorrow and then the only possible issues would be with money transfers between the two title companies. ooh, we are so close!

Back in the northwest after a RAINY trip to California. It was very wet there, as the news clearly pointed out.

The trip was good and I feel like I'm finally in the groove with work down there. Ironically, my contract is up at the end of December and as much as I've been trying I can't get them to openly discuss my status for next year. I think they "hope" they can keep me on, and I like hope as much as the next girl, I need stability.

The contracting money is NICE, but I am working on other less lucrative, but more stable options. It would be disappointing to leave the team because we're finally getting satisfying work done, but not having a gig would be devastating for my new little family.

I am home until after Halloween and in the next two weeks we are moving. We made a very nice dent in the packing last weekend, but this weekend is it. It is go time. As much as I hate to box up the kitchen, it will be done tomorrow, or Sunday. (see me waiver on a task I HATE.)

We were at the new house today with the builder doing a walk thru. It was kind of fun to put blue tape on any spot we need them to touch up. All in all, it wasn't too bad.

The Costco blind consultant came and wrote up our order for blinds. (I KNOW... I use to work at DALY's and there's guilt for not going that route.) I'm sad we weren't able to get the shades ordered earlier because if she posts our order Monday it will be 4 weeks before we have installed blinds. As much as I didn't want to be the neighbor with stuff taped to the windows - that's who we are. Welcome to the neighborhood.

Life goes on I guess...

I stopped at Target after lunch today to take back a pair of too small sleeping trunks for my husband (eek... I have a HUSBAND) and realized that I have clearly forgotten to have kids. The place was teeming with mommies and kids and a few pissed off infants. One poor kid was attempting to ride a smallish plastic non-motorized thing and was having challenges. He threw himself onto the floor and said in the most adult voice... I just can't do it. That's right kid, failure is your life!

My point isn't to mock the 3 year old, but to acknowledge the oddity of being a non-mom in the mom world. I'd like to think they envy my ability to get in and get out without having to argue over Snooty Pebbles or Hannah Montana stuff - but I think they are so frazzled that they don't see me.

If I'm thinking I'm too old to be a new mommy, the eye doctor today kind of put it right in my face. "We don't like to call them bifocals - they are multiple lenses dear."

BIFOCALS are BIFOCALS no matter what you call them.

I am, I guess in every way, Jason's old lady.

procrastination

Here we are at 11:30 on day 2 of our "nothing but packing" weekend and Jas is rebooting the network and backing up his PC.

I was catching up on the blogs I read and then sharing girl grooming behavior with Jas. What is this girl grooming behavior? It involves sitting in a sunny area and combing through my "long beautiful" hair and snipping off any split ends that I can find. It is an oddly satisfying activity. It also means I am over due for a haircut. I'm not quite ready to snip it off, as I can finally pop it into a pony tail to get it off my neck .

I'll be on the look out for my "new married woman's" hair do and then make an appointment with the salon for after our move. I'll have a "new look" (maybe the sexy look above) by the holidays.

I hear Jas in the other room making boxes so I guess I should go contribute... sigh

Pack it in...

wow...a day of putting shit in boxes can wear a girl out. We have tons left to do, but have stopped for the evening because we are going to...

A HOT TUB PARTY

Woo Woo.

We hope we don't have to leave our keys at the door when we arrive, but we're going anyway.

We've got our suits, a huge bottle of left over wedding rum, mixer and are about to head to the store for ice and then it's back to the 70's for some fun.

Wish us luck.

What happens in the photo booth...

The photobooth pictures from the wedding have been delivered and it has been so much fun going through them.

I am happy to see our "people" being so creative with their four fun shots. In addition to the "strips" we also got the individual pictures and in color! I AM SO VERY HAPPY ABOUT THIS. Our home made wedding album is going to be fun.

I don't think the wait staff knew we were getting a disk of all the pictures, but it looks like they took turns in the machine while we were off doing other things.

I'm home for the weekend - it was rough going to San Jose this last week. I missed my fella a lot and am happy to be home. Our weekend plans aren't overly exciting - we're packing boxes for the big move. Woo Woo.

I did get ALL the thank you notes completed and mailed today. If you haven't gotten one, or don't get one in the next few days you probably didn't send a gift. (ooh, that sounds greedy. sorry.) Better way to say it is, if you sent us something, but we didn't send a thank you, call, there may have been a problem. We didn't have any gifts without cards, so don't call to claim the 10 piece All Clad pots and pans came from you. In reality, they came from about 10 different people who gave us pieces and gift certificates. They are now safely in storage awaiting delivery to our new house.

I'm pretty jazzed about moving and can't wait for things like our appointment with the Costco Window Covering sales persons. It will be nice to schedule the installation for the day we take possession so we can have privacy right away without having to hang towels in the windows.

So, I am back to San Jose next week, but it'll be quick. I've got my trips scheduled for the rest of the year which is nice to be able to have that on the books.

Onto the next wonderful thing...

I leave tomorrow at 5:30 am for San Jose and will be returning Thursday night for a weekend of hard labor.

With the closing date on the house the 23rd we have two weekends to pack everything for the big move-a-roo.

We gave ourselves the last weekend of our honeymoon to not focus on the move, but stopped at Sears last night to see what the appliance situation was.

The situation was good. I am now the proud new owner of a brand new refrigerator, washer & dryer, a smallish upright freezer and a (oops) 36 bottle wine locker.

I will say that spending a few thousand dollars on appliances is a tiny bit more fun than spending money on my car, but not quite as fun as spending a mere $300 on shoes.

While I won't be home this week, or next week I will not be sitting idle in San Jose. I have all the thank you notes in tow and plan to be done by the time this trip is over.

Next week while I'm away I'll play on the computer and start to build the much anticipated (by my mom and me) wedding photo books.

OMG! I am the center of the universe!

Let the publishers say what they want, but I know that the fact that I got married last month truly impacted their decision to stop printing Elegant Bride and Modern Bride Magazines.

Sure, print media is hurting, ad revenues are WAY down but perhaps the Bridal Magazine Industry could benefit from some new material. I am an expert due, to to my history of purchasing brides magazines for the last *ahem* 20 years. Boys have porn, I had bridal magazines - get over it. Some of these mags are nothing more than the same "wedding planner" and new pictures (ads) for dresses that no normal girl can afford.

Martha, at least gives you a new "make it yourself in 76 easy hours" project each month. I know the guests at our wedding truly appreciated the hand made paper mache' lawn chairs that I crafted out of recycled coffee filters. I had saved and sun bleached the used filters for over 6 years to have enough on hand. Yes, it was hard, but my special day was worth it.

The real tragedy is the loss of jobs and a more mainstream magazine by the same publisher - Gourmet. I know I have happily used the recipes from Gourmet mag (albeit after they have been uploaded to the Internet.) Oops.. maybe that's the trouble.

Anyway - RIP Modern Bride & Gourmet.

Tee Hee

Thanks Dave!

Home Sweet Home

I can't resist posting a fabulous photo shot by Matt! I loved our wedding photographer, but Matt captured some moments that move me. This one is included in that category. Gretchen, our amazing wedding singer (and Associate Pastor at our wonderful church) was singing The Luckiest for us. It was beautiful and memorable. I love how we're all turned to listen.












But....more wedding photos when Bob, the paid photographern coughs up the unwatermarked shots. Until then, we're going on a honeymoon!

Our little hotel in Banff had a deer that hung out between our cottage and car. We named her Daisy.













The newest Mr. & Mrs TP gal at the base of the Lake Louise hotel. The hotel is nestled against the mountains and is breathtaking.

































This shot cracks me up, most of the more formal places we pulled off the road to take photos were also being enjoyed by tour buses of Asian couples with very nice camera equipment. Here's a gaggle of them surrounding a car getting a shot.

















We had a dress-up night at the Chateau Lake Louise, and these are our fabulous shoes and pre-dinner beverages.






















A shot of the Ice Fields Parkway from the sunroof of our car.















More of the Ice Fields Parkway - every 5 miles the view would change completely. It was the most beautiful place I've ever been.
































Most of these lakes and streams feed into the Columbia river, or because we were at the continental divide head east to the Atlantic Ocean. At one point we were at a triple continental divide where water was flowing East, West and North to the Arctic.


















Midway up the Icefields Parkway, we stopped at the Columbia Glacier and did the tourist activity of taking lots of pictures and paying to be driven out on to the glacier for 20 minutes of pictures. I had to get a hat because it was cold.



































Jas thinks we should sent this picture to Toyota to show how cute their product is in a beautiful setting:

















I think the inside of the car is a more realistic view of life in a Toyota for 9 days. We're only half way through the trip here, and the bags of laundry do not outnumber us just yet.








More of the amazing scenery!























We did take a hike the day we were in Lake Louise and hiked to this little lake, and then up another million miles to the Tea House. It was only 1200 feet up in 1.5 km, but we started at over 5800 feet (a mile and then some) so it felt like climbing the Alps.














The views were worth the sweat, and for the first time a while we had cell service. This is me updating FaceBook. Because that's an important activity on your honeymoon.





























We had such a wonderful time, but golly is it good to be home.

I've started to work on the wedding albums, the honeymoon photo journal, finishing the thank you notes and oh yeah, packing to move into the new house.

I don't really think we will sleep fully until after Christmas, which by my calculation is only 15 minutes away.