Lines

In life we all have lines that are hard no's for us.  For instance, if you're dating someone and find out that they are a child molester you would probably break it off right then and there right? I mean especially if you have kids, you don't want to take a chance on them hurting your children! So that would be a hard no on dating the child molester for most of us.

Let's take another example. What if you recently found out that the contractor that you plan on using to  remodel your kitchen defrauded their last client out of a bunch of money? I'm going to guess that you would hire another person.

Or let's say your child's 3rd grade teacher has revealed to you that they support a white supremacist group. Are you going to leave your child in that class or are you going to report that to the school and demand your child be moved?

What are some of the 'lines' in our lives that we just can't get past?

For myself I know, I have let that line creep past places that I'm not comfortable with for the sake of friendships. When trump was elected the first time I distinctly remember being absolutely shocked that someone I thought I knew voted for him. That was when it hit me, maybe I don't know this person as well as I thought I did. I also remember stating, "For the sake of our country, I hope he can pull himself together to be the president".  He did not. In fact he attempted to overthrow our government by calling on his people to "Go to the capitol and fight like hell or you're not going to have a country left anymore". And then he sat back in the White House for 3 hours and did nothing while his supporters went to our capitol and broke windows, ran-sacked offices and even went as low as to take a shit on the floor. That is not something a human does, it's something an animal does. At that time this friend was adamant that he wasn't at fault.  That didn't sit right with me, but I moved my line to accommodate to maintain the friendship, (although it did always bother me in the back of my head).

There are so many un-American things this man has done.

He gassed a bunch of protesters so that he could go hold a bible upside down in front of a church.

His called Nazi's very fine people. He claims it never happened, but I, along with millions of others watched that on live TV when he said it. I watched the whole speech and remember having to pick my jaw up off the floor when he made that comment.

He stacked the Supreme Court (which is actually Mitch McConnell's handy work) and now there are no abortion protections in place for my child. If she were pregnant and traveled to Texas she runs the risk of bleeding out in a parking lot if something goes wrong with the pregnancy.

He never did divest himself from his businesses and instead, made a huge profit by charging the secret service exorbitant fees to guard him at his own hotels. Talk about ripping off the American people, those are your tax dollars paying for that hotel room at 4X or more the normal rate.

He pardoned war criminals

He vetoed a 3% pay raise for our veterans

He ordered the draw-down of nearly all US forces in Afghanistan after he invited the Taliban (Yes the MFing Taliban, the ones that ran planes into our world trade centers), to Camp David and cause absolute chaos when Biden was left with that mess.

He botched the Coronavirus outbreak and told us all to inject bleach and then sent supplies that we desperately needed from the US to Russia.

He's called journalists the enemy, in fact any journalist that doesn't report him a favorable light he calls fake news. Whether you like it or not, we need journalists. They are out there putting their lives on the line in war zones and after Jan. 20th they will be in danger just for simply speaking truth to power.

He lost the 2020 election and refused to accept the results.

The list could go on and on and all of these are what should be hard lines.

For too long we've been hearing, "don't let politics get in the way of family and friendships." Which I do still stand by, because this is no longer about politics, this is about ethics, decency and morals.

It has been with a heavy heart that I have had to cut a friend out of my life over this man and her support of him. It is not about politics, I vehemently disagree with Liz Cheney's politics, as well as Mitt Romney, or the late John McCain. But if any of those true American's where being inaugurated in January I would not have to be writing this. This is about me and her being two very different people and I didn't realize it until this man took up squatters rights on our political system.  And that's on me for not finding out what her hard lines are. Had I known that she was okay with this sort of behavior from the leader of our country I guarantee this would have been a hard no for me from the get go.  But I didn't see it until it was too late and I just kept moving my line.

But now that we are getting ready to plunge into the darkness of 4 more years with this immoral, fascist, bigoted, criminal I find that I am no longer able to move my line.  In fact I'm putting them all back in place. He will be messing with my children's future if he decides to shut down the Department of Education. If my daughter finds herself pregnant he is a threat to her future. If he shuts down medicare and social security, that's a threat to my parents as well as anyone else that depends on medicare or medicaid to survive. He is a threat to everyone's safety when he gets all loose lipped about our government secrets with anyone he is trying to impress.  He clearly has diminished in mental capacity and I will be the first to admit Biden was on the back slide as well.  The difference is, democrats saw that and went, "For the good of our country we can't have someone in that condition leading" and we switched things up.  The trump republicans wouldn't budge on their candidate.

Those of us not in the cult can see very clearly that the only reason he ran for President was to stay out of jail due to his 34 felony counts.

I do not wish ill will on trump people that I am cutting out of my life. In fact I do hope that you wake up from this and realize he is not looking out for your best interest. 

In the end though, my conscience just won't let me continue moving my line and I can not stand with someone that thinks it's okay to grab my daughter or any other woman by the pussy and put them in the highest office in the land.

Medical Woes

 This will be long, get a drink & get ready to hear what's been going on around here.

Yesterday I took a tumble down the stairs after putting the kids to bed. Nothing broken, but I do have a sprained ankle and I feel like I've been in a car accident with bruises on my left side. Unfortunately the sprained ankle is on my already beat up left foot where my 'bump' lives. My bump is a ganglion cyst that I've now named Cornelius. I've had this thing operated on twice in CO and it came back with vengeance last year. I've had it drained once ($50 co-pay) and was told it needed to be operated on again. I was in the midst of setting that up when I found out that our co-pay would be $7,000. So I decided to just live with Cornelius. (Cornelius is the one in purple)

Does it hurt you ask?  Why yes, yes it does.  It hurts if someone touches it, it hurts if I lay on my left side and it touches the sheets.  Cornelius is not only a pain in my foot, but a pain in my arse.

I've not been able to wear any kind of shoes that touch the bump for almost a year and a half now, leaving me with flip flops and ballet flats.  Looking for insurance alternatives I did some checking on Obamacare.  I found that not only would our monthly premiums be a whole lot cheaper, but our co-pays would also be a lot cheaper.  However we have to wait until the end of the year to switch insurance, so Cornelius and I wait.

Next up in my chronic back pain which started in Colorado after I tore my disc picking up my moose of a dog, Tucker. It has continued to bother me, but now we're throwing moderate to severe arthritis into the mix. A few months ago I started getting muscle spasms on my left side, which was new since the pain had always been isolated to the right side. So I went in for an X-Ray, ($75 co-pay). It came back with the arthritis findings. I talked to my Dr. again and asked for an MRI explaining that this seemed like something new. She agreed and set me up for an MRI. Now the reason I needed the MRI is so that I can get this magical shot in my spine. I had one before I left Colorado and it fixed me right up. I was able to live life again, play with the kids, walk the dogs, do things around the house. etc. etc.

Thrilled that I was finally going to be on the road to ending this every day pain I awoke early and headed off to my MRI. Mom and Dad were out here visiting so I was able to leave the kids with them while I went. I was back in less than an hour with tears in my eyes. When I checked in for my MRI the desk clerk informed me that my co-pay would be... (drum roll please) $1,720.00 and how would I like to pay for it. Well, I thought we already had with our over $700 monthly premiums. She offered to set up a monthly billing plan for me, I declined and came home in tears. Keep in mind that this is JUST for the diagnosis. Who knows how many thousands the actual treatment would be.

So I sat on the pity pot for a couple of days realizing that this would be my 'lack of quality of life' until at least the end of the year. Constant pain, not being able to do anything, legs going numb just because it's Tuesday or 3pm, back spasms that lay me out and a steady diet of pain pills. (And they wonder why people get addicted to opioids).

After doing a little research I discovered that Ed's small company had bought into what they term as 'junk insurance'. You know the ones that Obama squashed, then Trump loosed? It seems that a broker came to Ed's small company and sold them one of these junk plans that you pay a small fortune for and it's really great as long as you don't plan on using it. Just FYI, I had no idea that these junk plans can be with big medical companies like Kaiser, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, etc. I had assumed they were limited to off brands. Like if you saw a plan for A-Z Insurance coverage you would question it right? But if it has a name you know on it, it would be okay. Not the case my friend. Let me be your cautionary tale.

My last medical woe is with the optical department. Finally something was free! Or was it? I had my eye exam and found that yes I do need new glasses. Easy enough, I'll just trot down to the Optical department in Kaiser. I had my favorite red frames from my last eye glass upgrade and was really anxious to have new lenses put into them. These frames are so light and comfortable and I assumed that it would save us some $ if we didn't have to purchase new frames. They did all their hocus pocus measurements for my progressive lenses and even with my own frames it came to around $260. Okay, fine whatever. A week later I get a phone call from Kaiser telling me that they broke my frames. Yes, my favorite frames! But not to worry, they are offering me $20 off a new frame at their store. No, that is not missing a zero, $20 off. Ed and I went through the roof. As he put it, if I took my corvette in for service and they knocked the side mirror off they would be expected to replace that side mirror. I called them back the next day and told them to refund me all of my money and send my broken frames back to me, which they did.

So with all of this I really do have to end on a happy note. Ed has been getting hounded with job prospects. At the moment there are 3 possibilities on the table. All of them are at least half the driving distance he is now doing (4 hours round trip) and better insurance. Can I get a hallelujah! Everyone keep your fingers crossed, say a little prayer, dance naked under the full moon, or whatever you do to appease the higher power you believe in for us.

I'll keep you all posted.

This Quarantine Life

Let's start with a 'How is everyone doing?'  Are you holding up okay during this time?  How is that marriage/relationship doing?  I don't know about you, but I don't remember anything about this sort of situation in my wedding vows.  None the less, we are pushing through in our little corner of California.

The kids are doing home school which was a little challenging getting it started, but we seem to have found our rhythm and I think we're doing it right.  I guess that's the worst part of it, not knowing if we are getting everything done that we are supposed to.  Their teacher has really been great though helping us along.  We have a school schedule in place and the kids know that if it is a math or science question they take it to Mr. Edwards and if it's a history, social studies or English question they bring it to Mrs. Edwards.  We have recess at 10:05am where basketball is played in our driveway (thanks to G&G for sending us a basketball hoop that Ed put together with minimal F-bombs).  We were going to the tennis courts for some exercise until they closed all of those down.  But they seem to be doing okay and adjusting to this new reality we are all living in.  Thank goodness for Skype and the games they can play online with their friends from Colorado and California, that is keeping them connected.

On the job front, Ed is still on the hunt and has a phone interview on Monday with a company in Santa Cruz (fingers crossed).  Unfortunately Santa Cruz is about 2 hours away from us and we would most likely be looking at another move (argh... please just friggin shoot me!!!), if he were to get it.  The upside is it would be closer to my friend Sandy as well as the beach.  As with the move out here I figured a soft warning to the kids would be in order... i.e. there is a slight possibility that if daddy got this job we would have to move again.  The girl was totally okay with rolling with the punches.  The boy however informed us that he would not be moving again, he was very adamant about it.  So Ed and I told him we would have to see if the new home owners would want to purchase the house with a very witty and sometimes too mouthy 10 year old boy.  The girl seemed to like the idea of being an only child, so win-win?????  Probably not.

Thursday Ed opened up the freezer to get some ice out for his water bottle and found a puddle instead of ice.  Yup, the freezer went out.  Since I have been hearing about these meat plants shutting down and possible shortages I had just stocked  up  on $400 worth of groceries, most of it meat. Luckily we have the big freezer in the garage that we hadn't even plugged in yet, so we got that operational and transferred all the frozen food to it.  At around 7pm that night we opened up the fridge to find that it was also not working and then did a transfer of that food into our two mini fridges.  So in this house if you want to eat something you have to go to either the garage, the office or the man's loft.  Good Times People!  Dryers and refrigerators we have zero luck with.  We were able to get a repairman out this coming Tuesday from Sears though.  Fingers crossed that it can be repaired.

In the meantime I was able to land a small part time job at a grocery store in Pittsburgh CA called WinCo.  Yesterday was my first day where I Carrie, worked in the Dairy with my co-workers Larry and Jerri.  I kept thinking of the old Newhart show, you know, "This is Darrel and my other brother Darrel"  Everyone is really nice, the customers were pleasant except for one guy behind me screaming about the price of eggs.  He was yelling loud enough that I knew he was trying to get my attention, but I ignored him because had I acknowledged him I know he would have just rained down nasty remarks about something I have no control over.  His comments were, "$4 for an 18 count of eggs!  That's price gouging! Somebody that works here aught to say something!".  And then finally, "No way, we're not buying any F'in eggs here" and away he went I'm sure to go and readjust his red hat.

I do have to say that 98% of the people shopping get it.  I mean I am paying almost $7 for an 18 count of eggs.  When I go to the local farms around here it is $4 a dozen and you have to wash the chicken shit off of them.  But ya know, you just do what you can with what you have and try to push through, we are all just trying to push through right now and there is no reason for you to rain down your bullshit onto other people.  It's not necessary, it does nothing productive, it will not change your situation or mine and it certainly isn't going to lower the cost of eggs.  If anything I have found myself trying to be more compassionate, more understanding, more polite.  I guess I have a different brain than the egg man (thank god).

I will show you why it is important to wash down your groceries when you get home.  These are the WHITE gloves I used during my workday yesterday.  All I did was move around the products on the shelves, these touched nothing but food items.

Well that is about all from our end of the world other than a few fun predictions I have of  the order of flooded businesses to invest or go into before the pandemic ends, here they go....

1.  Become a hair stylist.  We are all starting to look a little Chewbacca'ish.  The boys in my house are asking me to give them a buzz cut because they can't take it anymore.  Surely there is a youtube video on how to cut hair right?  Our household is about to see something that hasn't been around since the Reagan administration and I think it's going to be a shock to all of us, especially me!  My natural hair color and just how much grey I have been covering up for the last several decades.

2. Learn how to sew.  We are all gonna need bigger britches when this is done.  I had to put on real people clothing for my job on Friday and let me tell you that was a come to Jesus moment.

3.  Become a personal trainer (see above).

4. If you are going to medical school you might want to consider directing that to an Obstitrician specialty.  I have a sneaking suspicion that there might be a slew of little Corona Virus babies popping out in 7-9 months.  There has been Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennial etc.  What will we call these children?  Covid Babes?  Generation Pandemic?

5. If you are going to medical school think about directing your studies to Pediatrics (see above).

Those are my fun predictions for now.  Hope you all enjoyed and are staying safe during this time of surreal reality.

Peace Out!

The Best Worst Christmas

Well here we are at the end of 2019, time for one final blog post for this year.  Shall we all let out a collective sigh of relief that 2020 is upon us?  Deep breath in....and let it all out.

Okay, let's begin.  I'll start with the ugliness and get that out of the way so that we can end on a happy note.

Twas 5 days before Christmas and those SOB's at Curtis Instruments decided to let Ed go from his job.  We have uprooted our family, left a paid in full mortgage in Colorado, left friends and family to move to California all for Curtis Instruments.  When they hired Ed last year it was so that he could implement a software called Altium.  About half way through the year the man that hired Ed retired and this new boss couldn't seem to pull it together enough to get that software implemented.  Which left Ed twiddling his thumbs trying to look busy while having nothing to do.  But just to prove what a bag of dicks this new boss was, he decided the perfect time to let him go would be the Friday before Christmas.  Am I bitter?  Oh hell ya!  I'm not even going to try to hide it.  I can only hope that a-hole was visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future on Christmas Eve.  And as a firm believer in Karma I'm sure there is a special treat waiting for him in his future.

Luckily we didn't put Christmas on credit and already had all the shopping done, other than our Christmas dinner.

The first order of business was to tell the kids without freaking the kids out.  We met Ed for lunch and let them know.  For almost 2 hours they didn't believe us, I'm not sure when it finally clicked with them, but when it did they seemed to be okay.  Much better than the 2 of us were doing.  However I'm going to chalk that up to excellent parenting or acting (is there a difference?).  We remained calm and cool and kept telling them that everything was going to be okay, so I guess that kept them calm and cool.

If you're creative enough you can make being thrifty a fun game for the kids.  For instance we went grocery shopping for our Christmas dinner and challenged the twins to find the cheapest ham they could in the gigantic ham bin at Safeway.  (Despite the government lifting a ton of regulations on pork to allow organ meat and other undesirable things into your pork recently, we took a chance because it was cheap, see article here if you really want to be horrified).  We bought asparagus, baking potatoes for twice baked potatoes and came away with a very affordable dinner.  And if I could just take a moment to break my arm patting myself on the back, I slow roasted that ham for 6 hours and it was hands down the best ham I'm ever had.  Ed also found that he could get a 10 lb bag of potatoes for cheap and keeps buying them.  So in the future look for my cookbook '482 ways to cook a potato' (jk).

I've always been so proud of how smart and clever my twins are.  I should've known that sooner or later that would bite me in the ass.  On Christmas Eve my daughter informs me that she has a plan to catch Santa.  She has set up the video on her phone to record the tree all night.  She has found a plug in so it won't run out of battery and the perfect viewing spot so that you can't get within 5 ft of the tree without being caught on camera.  This was quite the conundrum for Santa!  There was no way to get the gifts under the tree!  So Santa figured he would just leave the gifts by the fireplace instead of the tree.  But it was all for not, turns out she's got so much crap on her phone it only recorded for 20 minutes then ran out of space.

Despite the bad news, the fear of the unknown and pretty much just walking around in a daze our Christmas was wonderful.  If I dare to say, maybe even one of our better ones, and here is why.  Most Christmas's are spent in a wild flurry, at least for me.  There is the preparing dinner or getting ready to go somewhere for the dinner.  Tearing the kids away from their new toys so they can get ready for company or head out somewhere, that pressure wasn't there.  We did a virtual Christmas with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Rick so we were still able to somewhat be with our family.  After presents I put the ham in the oven and took a nice long nap, (since I was up really late, see above), I was tired!  When I awoke I put the glaze on the ham, fixed the taters and we had a great dinner.

Now for the real reason I think this Christmas was one of our better ones.  The job loss has forced me to take a hard look at the true meaning of being grateful.  It puts things into perspective.  The kids got some nice presents, Ed and I bought each other small stuff, but it was the realization that we really don't need anything.  There is nothing that could be put under that tree that was more important than our little family being together and healthy.  We have a roof over our head, food in our fridge and watching the kids on their new hover boards is all the entertainment one could hope for.  Our kids are grateful for what they get, they are smart and loving and I'm just so darn proud of them.

And that is the best Christmas present I could ever hope for.

So Happy New Year to all and may 2020 bring you so much happiness that you smile all year long, so much love that your heart overflows and a bucketful of gratitude for everything you already have in your life.

RV Showers, Australian Locks and Earthquake Valves

I know I know.... I haven't written anything in a while.  As you can imagine we have stacks of boxes up to our eyeballs.  The recycling truck comes every other week at our new home and I am constantly trying to push as much out to the curb as possible.  Our neighbors probably think we are hoarders.  None the less, we are in a functioning state and only missing a few key items, remotes, the legs that go onto the TV to make it stand, and the one that really bugs me, the glass shades that go onto one of our lamps.

If I ran the world of real estate, and I don't, I would put some new rules in place.  Before you purchase a car you get to test drive it and a car isn't nearly the investment that a house is.  I think you should be allowed to live in the house you are proposing to buy for a couple of days at least to find out all the quirks the house has.  And yes, I understand there may be some logistical problems with this, I'm just stating my fantasy world of real estate.

For instance, we have found out that our master shower is about the size of one you would find in an RV.  If you want to shave your legs in this shower you have to have your bum up against one wall, then get your foot up to the height of your waist where there is a small shelf to rest your foot on.  The other option is to try to bend to the floor, however there is no where to point the water so it just rinses all your shaving cream off before you ever get the blade to your leg.  I've told Ed that we either need to raise the shower head by 2 feet, or lower the floor by 2 feet.  However, what they didn't skimp on was the bath tub.  It's deep and huge and in just a few years I'm sure neither Ed or I will be able to lift our legs high enough to get in or out of it and we'll be calling Terry Bradshaw to replace it with a walk in tub.

The other thing that I'm having a hard time getting used to are the locks.  They all turn to the left instead of the right, which is wrong.  You know how the toilets in Australia swirl in the opposite direction than the US, I wonder if the locks came from Australia.  Either that or the house was built by a left handed person.  Or maybe it was a left handed Australian?  Whoever it was, I think my lefty mom is going to feel right at home here.

Last week we had a gardener come out to the house to trim up our palm tree.  I have never maintained a palm tree before and watched as the guy put a rope around his waist and around the tree, then scaled up to trim off the dead branches.  So, um, yeah.... I'm not doing that.  However, on his way out from our backyard he bumped our gas meter.  Here's a California lesson for you.  All of the gas meters have an earthquake emergency shut off valve on them.  If you shake or bump your gas fixture it will shut your gas off to your house.  Makes sense doesn't it?  But then you have me and Ed out there trying to figure out how to switch the gas back on.  For those of you that don't know, Ed and I are two of the  least handy people you have ever met.  So after a post to the nextdoor app, we found out the problem was the earthquake valve.  Awesome!  How do you fix that?  Enter YouTube video.  I found a 2 minute video on how to reset your earthquake valve which was super easy.  Of course before we found that video Ed was out there flip levers and pushing buttons without knowing what they go to or what they will do... you know, as men do.  I can't speak for other women, but this woman has a healthy respect for gas and all things combustible.  So we got the gas back on, cooked dinner and figured all was well.  That is until we sent the kiddo's off to take their showers.

I was getting ready to enjoy the 15 minutes of silence that I get when I send the children to take their showers, (these are golden times).  The next thing I see is my naked son with his two hands covering his boy parts and telling me that the water won't heat up.  They were off the hook for the night for showers and the next day Ed fiddled with the water heater to no avail.  He ever downloaded the manual for our water heater, which really impressed me!  We have a tankless water heater so there is no pilot light to relight.  After a few failed attempts we resolved ourselves to calling a plumber and discovered that we are probably too stupid to own a house.  After the best plumber in CA came out here we found the source of the problem was that Ed had flipped a lever that piped gas to our water heater.  So we moved the lever back to the open position, got some hot water going and the plumber left without accepting any kind of payment from us.  And yes, he has our business for good now.

We are not the only ones getting used to different things in the new house.  The dogs are having their first experience with a sliding glass door.  At the old house there was a back door that they couldn't see through.  This sliding glass door thing is a constant source of entertainment for me.  The first couple of days I watched as first the big dog came running at full speed only to crash into the glass.  Then just because she's dumb as a brick, the little dog did the exact same thing.  The next time I witnessed this I was outside with both dogs and Lucy our cat had found a sunny spot just inside the door and was lounging there.  The dogs caught sight of her and again come running full speed and smacked their heads on the glass door.  The dogs took a step back and shook their heads, the cat didn't budge but continued her glare at them.  Last night I watched as Tucker saw his reflection in the glass window and started barking at that dog outside.  Both of these dogs might have concussions now, I hope they don't turn into doggie serial killers due to head trama.

The last couple of things I'm having a hard time getting used to are the size of the hawks around here.  I swear they are the size of Tucker!

I also sometimes forget I'm in California, since we are in a farm area, the landscape sort of looks the same.  That is until you see a corn field surrounded by palm trees.  My brain tells my eyes, "That can't be right, are you sure that's what we're seeing?"

Lastly I'll post a few pictures of the family football toss.  Ed took the kids into the backyard to toss the football around last night, which just thrilled me to the bone that the entire family was doing something non-video related.

Our big sparkling new house + first days of school

It has now been 2 weeks and we are finally settling into our new home.

We closed on a Friday and spent the night on the floor that night since the movers weren't able to get here until Saturday.  Even though they were on the floor, I think the kids were in a blissful state because they actually had a bedroom door that they could shut and have some alone time.

Before we were able to move in we had our first day of school while we were still living in Dublin.  This meant 3 hours in the car to take them to school and 3 hours in the car to pick them up from school.  Luckily I only had to do that for a couple of weeks before we moved closer to the school.

Our school is a year round school.  This means that the kids get a couple of weeks off every few months, every Weds. is an early release day and I think they get the entire month of June off.  I love this!  I'll take my insanity in small doses please.

They are in the same class this year, which I am SO grateful for.  The girl has already made a couple of new friends, the boy takes a little bit longer I think.   This past Monday as I dropped them off, the girl jumped out of the car because she saw her friend's Debbie and Maddie waiting for the gates to open.  The boy finally got out of the car and went to join them.  By the time I picked them up after school the boy was telling me that at recess 'our friends Debbie and Maddie' were all playing a game of store.  So that's how you do it folks, if you have problems making your own friends, just hijack some from your sibling.

Alright, back to moving in.  The movers showed up with our mountains and mountains of boxes early Saturday morning.  It turns out that they only had 1 truck to haul our belongs with, so this meant that they had to make a 2nd trip.  With the first load they were just loading things up in the garage to empty the truck in order to go back and get the balance of our things.

As any woman worth her weight will do, you start with the kitchen.  That is the heart and soul of your home right?  It's where you all come together as a family, and as the kids get older I'm finding that this is about the only time you come together as a family.  I unpacked box after box after box of kitchen wares and in the between time directed movers with boxes as to which room that box needed to go in.  Somewhere in the midst of all of this I happened to notice something sparkling on the floor, but since I knew that there were probably loose beads floating around in quite a few of those boxes, I just chalked it up to that.  As I started to see more and more sparkling I realized that wasn't beads after all and couldn't figure out what it was or where it came from.  Then I opened a box of art supplies that had been in the basement.  The box had 3 extra large containers of glitter in gold, copper and silver.  Guess what?  The silver one was open and leaking glitter everywhere the box went.  I do believe that box is currently put away in a cabinet and I have mentally marked it as 'deal with it later'.  On an up note though, if you want to come visit us in CA, just go to Windsor and follow the glittery trail.

Once I got the kitchen in a functioning state it was on to the bedrooms.  It was a good thing that we were all living out of suitcases to begin with.  All of our clothing was in boxes, that is other than what had traveled in our dresser drawers.  My first find was a box of shoes and my wedding dress.  So had it not been for that suitcase I would've been taking the trash out and picking up pizza's in my wedding dress or pajamas's.

By 4pm the movers were working on assembling beds, patio tables and anything else that had to be put back together.  I could tell they wanted to get out of there and honestly we were all beat and just wanted some quiet time in our new house.  When they left they were unable to get the desk part put together on the boy's bunk bed.  Then the mover that was working on our sleep number bed told me that he put it all together correctly but the remotes were out of battery so he couldn't test it.  Of course I have a ton of batteries, but which box they are in???  So I took him at his word and signed off on everything.  After getting new batteries I found out that no, it isn't working.

After they left I went into the garage to find that the original boxes that they were unloading so they could send the truck back for the second trip, well those boxes never moved from the garage.  Most of them are unbelievably heavy boxes of beads and shop hooks for those beads.  We packed the beads into gallon zip bags with probably about 12-15 or  more bags per box.  I don't know if you can imagine just how heavy those boxes are, but we have to find a way to get them upstairs to the new office.

At this point the downstairs is almost done, other than a mountain of broken down boxes in the 2 front rooms.  Since we are only allowed to fill up our recycling garbage can and not put anything extra out there, it will be months before we are able to clear all of those out.  But since we don't have any furniture to go into those 2 rooms just yet anyway, those boxes are fine where they are.

I've started on the office and just reopened the Etsy shop with just Luna cabochons, (since those are what I found...lol).  I even have a couple of sections in the shop sorted... boxes of beads, office supplies and my UFO pile (i.e. Un Finished Objects).

Slowly but surely it is coming together and I am so grateful that we are getting settled.  I'm even more grateful that I'm not writing this in my wedding dress.

We're Almost There

I think we did it, I think we are going to actually have a home this coming Friday.

Yesterday we signed all the paperwork, again.  The money was wired this morning and I'm told that by Thursday we might be in our new house, Friday at the latest.  Our movers can't get there until Saturday, but as long as we have a roof over our heads and a floor below our feet that we can call our own, we're golden.

I sincerely hope I'm not jinxing this, but I'm going to go ahead and give you all a virtual tour.

The front of the house, including our very own palm tree.

The front doors.  As you walk through there are small sitting rooms to either side

 

Next up is the kitchen, to the other side of the island there is a huge walk in pantry.

Dinning area and into the living room

 

Master bed, bath and closet

Down the hall from the master is the downstairs bathroom, laundry and 3 car garage.

Now we go upstairs.

The boy's room, the girl's room and the guest room

Next is the loft, a.k.a. Ed's gaming area.

Mommy's office/playroom

And finally, the backyard.  The trellis in the back is a huge grape vine with 

luscious green grapes all over it.  (God I hope I don't kill it)

The house in CO still hasn't closed and I didn't hear from Catherine today.  I don't know whether to be elated or scared?  Ed assures me that everything will be okay.

But that's it for now.  The Edwards are official Californians!