Moving Day

I ended up hiring a moving company, as in the end it turned out that there was just way too much to do that it would have taken me and a bunch of friends all day to move it, and that was just too much of a hassle. So being me, I dug around, called around, and found a good mover that would move me for about $250, as I was quoted at a reasonable rate per hour and the guy thought that it wouldn't take to long. Yeah, right!!!!! Come Saturday afternoon, 5 hours and 3 guys later I am moved in, but the total bill came out to more than twice what I was quoted. Talk about a heart attack on the spot. Either way, I am now moved in, and have the fun task of unpacking it all:-D

A kitchen I can move in wohooo!!!!!!!!!!

My Fireplace:) (my sister Rachel painted the painting in the picture. Talented isn't she!)

I am a dork

So, I get ready for work this morning, and after I'm dressed, made up, and look decent I go to grab my keys and get out the door. One slight problem, I wanted to drive the Cougar, and the key wasn't in my purse. Ok major issue here, I can't find it anywhere. 15 minutes of searching the bags, between the car and the apartment, and walking out the door the last time, I realize, I didn't check the pockets of the jeans I was wearing last night. DUH!!! So, I am finally on the road to work, about to make my last turn when I go for my badge. yeah, no badge. It's in the door pocket of the DODGE, about 12 miles and 20 minutes away, and I am already later than I like. Oh what a comedy of errors my morning was:)
I go pick up the keys to my new place tonight:-D I am all set for a move on Saturday, and I am so ready to have those boxes OUT of there. It's getting almost claustrophobic in there. wooo hooo, I can't wait:-D
Update on the knee: No fix for me just yet. The docs can't repair what is already healed up in a bad way, and so the doctor prescribed me Celebrex and told me to wait a few years. Yay. On a slightly weird upside, I have had to quit smoking. Celebrex is in the same category of drugs that Vioxx was and has the potential for causing heart issues. I am not about to sign my own death warrent and keep smoking. Where's my lolly?

Randomness

One of the things that kinda sucked about Daniel being gone over this period of time is that he missed our first wedding anniversary on the 5th. (imagine, I've been married for a year now. Freaky:) The funny part though, I flew out to NC that day, and just about forgot that it was that day LOL.
Since Daniel has been gone, my babies have felt his absence and become quite snuggly. Even Mal, my normally standoffish little rat has hopped up on my lap for lovings. I wake up in the morning with two cats snuggled in close and usually its a game of who can steal more pillow between me and Mal as he has taken to sleeping on my pillow above my head:) I wake up and the fight begins. Usually it ends when I give up and decide that it is time for me to get out of bed.
I came home from my vacation to be greeted by my boss the first day back with "you're moving" No discussion, just "you're moving". While I was gone she had been peeking in on the cats to take care of them and had found out precisely how bad the neighborhood was where I live. So we spent the next couple of days looking around and actually found a FAB apartment the first time we went looking:) It's further up north, behind one of the hospitals and in a much much better location. The apartment is larger with a larger kitchen (I'm in heaven), and the icing on the cake: Personal alarms on each door. Yeah, I'm moving. Now naturally this caused a bit of a fuss with the apartment complex I currently live in, but everything was worked out and after many discussions with darling dearest, I am moving out on the 28th:-D Now of course hiring a mover is out of the question, that is just more money than needs to be spent, so I am in the process of packing everything up and have a reservation for a truck. Before you ask, yes I am getting help loading the truck, heaven knows I couldn't do it on my own LOL:)
This leads me to my next bit of randomness and a bit of an embarrassment for me :) Saturday morning I planned on going on an all out hunt for boxes and accordingly dressed very grungy. After a very unsuccessful search I popped over to the mall to have my nails done before a dinner party that night. While walking back down the mall, I felt a tap on my shoulder and lo and behold it was an old compatriot from my old unit in Fort Gordon. While it was great to see him and see that he was doing well, I was still dressed grungy! LOL. Yes I am mildly vain about my appearance and running into someone whom I haven't seen in a long while looking like crud, not my idea of a good impression ROFL. Ah well, I am quite sure it really didn't matter to anyone else but me heheheeheee:-D
I have an appointment this afternoon with the orthopaedist, after having more x-rays and MRI's done, so, crossing my fingers, lets hope this goes well and I come back happy:-D

Home sweet quiet Home

I went back to NC last weekend for an overdue visit with the family and to meet my brand new niece. As fortune would have it, all 9 of my mother's children were able to be in the city at the same time, these days a rare occurence given that I am the only child to live outside the 150 mile radius everyone else lives in. Anways, I flew out of Tucson last Thursday EARLY in the morning. I had to be so early at the airport (0530) that I did not sleep the night before! And because I can't sleep sitting up on a full plane, I didn't sleep the entire way there. The flights were just fantastic, not much turbulence and reasonably on-time (I was late into Charlotte though). I met Grandma at the airport as she had flown down from MA to meet me, and we went and picked up our rental car. Got a GREAT rate on that, very inexpensive for a minivan for 5 days from Budget, and the van was just sweeet. It even had radio controls on the steering wheel. I thought that was pretty cool. We made the drive to Asheville in about 2 hours, linking up first with Mummy and Rachel at the Carrabas where they work and dropped by the house to say hi to the rest of the rascals before turning in to bed at our very nice hotel (again, great rate. I am queen of researching things to death and getting the best rate possible) I slept SOOO well that night. The next day we took it easy, cruised around Asheville with the younger kids after Mom and Rachel were off to work. Asheville is filled with all sorts of cool little shops that aren't very touristy. That night, Grandma headed off to bed while I took the kids and Timothy (who arrived by bus late in the afternoon) to a weekly event in Asheville, the drum circle. lordy chasing 2 babies around even with help is exhausted. Saturday night we had dinner at Carrabas where Mom, stepdad, and Rachel work. They each had invites for four people including themselves so we were able to all eat free which was REALLY cool. It was a great dinner, although I was rather sick and didn't enjoy the food as much as I could have. Mother theorizes that it is the pain making me ill as I was in pain most of the weekend. SUnday afternoon we spent a quiet afternoon in the hotel room beading. Grandma got some great shots of the babies playing with their wooden beads I got so they wouldn't be left out.
Monday morning we packed up and left out of the hotel to pick everyone else up and go take pictures in downtown Hendersonville. Every year, from about April to November, they have Bearfest, where a lot of artists paint different bears and they are displayed downtown. They are really cool to look at and naturally Grandma wanted pictures, so there we were running around like maniacs as Grandma and I had to be in Charlotte by 3 to drop off the car and get to the planes on time. We did that ok and the flight back was quiet and uneventful. I even arrived in Tucson early. I grabbed my car, headed home and just crashed. I took the next day off to recover, as while it had been a good weekend, it was also exhausting:)