If you don't want to know a bit about how my brain works, I suggest you stop reading the blog entry right now.
If you are the slightest bit curious, this will be a shining example of Julie's inner monologue.
Last night, or should I say early this morning, I woke up from a not very restful sleep. I was laying in bed and my thoughts were just kind of wandering as I was hoping to fall back asleep quickly. First I thought about the primary kids I taught in Plum Creek Ward (See blog entry here) and was wishing I could see them again. I just love those darn kids. That led me to think about one particular child (Tinkerbell) who is just the cutest little princess! (Side note: After I was released from primary, I was put in as a RS teacher. My team teacher was this little girl's mom, and she's AWESOME!) I then began thinking about what calling I might be asked to fulfill in my new ward in Athens. Then I remembered the conversation that we had with the bishop when we met with him a couple of weeks ago. He asked if we knew how to operate Ham radios. (The stake informed him that he needed to have two people in the ward capable of not just the basics in Ham radio operation, but the advanced skills that require some elaborate course and test. We had of course told him we didn't have the slightest idea. He explained how the courses were organized and that the last and most advanced course would teach a person how to bounce a ham radio off of the moon. I responded with "Why would you need to do that?" and he responded with "Well, if there's a disaster, we'd need to get in touch with Salt Lake." Noted.) So I was thinking about the bishop's question about Ham radios, and his statement about bouncing it off the moon . . . .
And I pictured myself throwing a large ham at the moon, and it bouncing off like the moon is a trampoline.
The end.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Preparing to Move
All right, I know I’m in trouble; so much for turning over a new leaf. (Where did that phrase come from, anyway?) I have been horrible about keeping all three of my readers in the loop. And for that I must apologize. And I also recognize that I should be better than I have been in the last three weeks, given that I’m currently unemployed and have big travel adventures to share. But, alas, I prove once again that I am slothful, except that I don’t have the weird toes of a sloth. So, here it begins, and please have patience with me, there’s a lot to share.
So, back in March, we decided that the carpet in our living room and hallway had seen enough and we found beautiful laminate flooring to replace it with. That’s when everything went awry. When we pulled up the carpet, we found water damage, albeit limited, under the wall AC unit that was centered on the main wall. We call the property management company and what followed was three months of chaos and stress.
The water issue was to be remedied by the HOA, and in the process of trying to determine where the water was getting in, three of our four windows started leaking. So, I had no carpet, holes in my walls and furniture piled Tetris style in my dining room. At least the bedroom was intact; I spent a good amount of time hiding in there pretending that the rest of my house was in shambles. Brian's brother Norman was able to give us some carpet tiles from one of the buildings he manages. That helped a ton, cause at least I wasn't having to walk on bare boards. THANKS NORM!!!
Finally, in June, Brian’s fabulous brother Brent journeyed north from Manti to install the flooring. I know it wasn’t an easy project for him, but he was a trooper and got it done all in one long day. It turned out beautifully. When we had originally planned to flooring, we were excited to get to enjoy it for a least a couple of months before leaving the state for school, but we pretty much got 5 weeks of admiration. (Better than nothing!)
Since we had packed up a good percentage of our stuff to install the flooring, it wasn’t too bad to get the rest packed for the move. Brian reserved a moving truck and I scavenged boxes from my office. We spent each night getting more stuff packed and ready to go. Brian stopped working the last week of July and was a trooper about getting the last of it packed up. I quit my job around the same time and got to work, too. There were many trips to Utah County to go through boxes of things that had been in storage since we got married five years ago. There were lots of unexpected treasures in those boxes, and lots of garbage too. It’s a good thing we had a big dumpster at our condo, cause we used it!
The pets were in a tizzy pretty much the whole four months we were preparing to move. Stuff was in boxes; their usual sleeping spots were moved all around. Kronk reached that fabulous point on puppydom where he thought it was good to mark everything. We were just trying to manage it, but realized that any new place was marking fair game for him . . . . so, we decided to get him fixed. Luckily, our vet had a cancellation in their schedule and they were able to get him right in. He did just fine with the surgery and hasn’t tried to mark anything since. Gwen got a haircut, and as usual, she was mad at me for it. We actually took her down to Lake Shore because it’s so much easier to clean up afterwards. When she was done, it almost looked like a professional had done it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Brian had found a new calling in life. ;) Finally, the day before we packed up the house, I took all three monsters to the vet for their routine shots and vet checks. Apparently, if you are crossing state borders with an animal and you don’t have a vet certificate of good health, they can take your pet away from you. So, I kept track of that form and got their carriers and car seats ready to go!
We picked up the moving truck Friday night on July 30. We got a 22 foot truck, and it was large and in charge! We took it to Lake Shore and loaded what we had in storage there. Brian’s dad and two of his brothers were there to help and they made quick work of it. My mom came and picked up my car and headed for Minnesota with the plan to meet us in Missouri on Tuesday. We climbed into the truck and headed to West Jordan to prepare to finish loading the next morning.
Saturday we had the help of some ward members in loading the truck. It was very nice of them to come and help, but they got a little over-zealous and packed a bunch of stuff that was supposed to travel in the car with me. We managed to just barely cram everything in to the truck, even though Brian had expected there to be tons of extra room. We finished cleaning up our condo and headed south to spend the night in Lake Shore. I will admit, it was harder saying goodbye to our little home than I had ever thought it would be. It wasn’t the first place we spent our married life together, but it was the first place that was ours. Despite the chaos of the past few months, I was so very happy there.
Yes, that is a picture of us as we left our condo, and yes, I had been crying.
From there, our trip turned eastward. And from here, the blogging of our cross-country adventure will be in a new post, hopefully tomorrow. :D
So, back in March, we decided that the carpet in our living room and hallway had seen enough and we found beautiful laminate flooring to replace it with. That’s when everything went awry. When we pulled up the carpet, we found water damage, albeit limited, under the wall AC unit that was centered on the main wall. We call the property management company and what followed was three months of chaos and stress.
The water issue was to be remedied by the HOA, and in the process of trying to determine where the water was getting in, three of our four windows started leaking. So, I had no carpet, holes in my walls and furniture piled Tetris style in my dining room. At least the bedroom was intact; I spent a good amount of time hiding in there pretending that the rest of my house was in shambles. Brian's brother Norman was able to give us some carpet tiles from one of the buildings he manages. That helped a ton, cause at least I wasn't having to walk on bare boards. THANKS NORM!!!
Finally, in June, Brian’s fabulous brother Brent journeyed north from Manti to install the flooring. I know it wasn’t an easy project for him, but he was a trooper and got it done all in one long day. It turned out beautifully. When we had originally planned to flooring, we were excited to get to enjoy it for a least a couple of months before leaving the state for school, but we pretty much got 5 weeks of admiration. (Better than nothing!)
Since we had packed up a good percentage of our stuff to install the flooring, it wasn’t too bad to get the rest packed for the move. Brian reserved a moving truck and I scavenged boxes from my office. We spent each night getting more stuff packed and ready to go. Brian stopped working the last week of July and was a trooper about getting the last of it packed up. I quit my job around the same time and got to work, too. There were many trips to Utah County to go through boxes of things that had been in storage since we got married five years ago. There were lots of unexpected treasures in those boxes, and lots of garbage too. It’s a good thing we had a big dumpster at our condo, cause we used it!
The pets were in a tizzy pretty much the whole four months we were preparing to move. Stuff was in boxes; their usual sleeping spots were moved all around. Kronk reached that fabulous point on puppydom where he thought it was good to mark everything. We were just trying to manage it, but realized that any new place was marking fair game for him . . . . so, we decided to get him fixed. Luckily, our vet had a cancellation in their schedule and they were able to get him right in. He did just fine with the surgery and hasn’t tried to mark anything since. Gwen got a haircut, and as usual, she was mad at me for it. We actually took her down to Lake Shore because it’s so much easier to clean up afterwards. When she was done, it almost looked like a professional had done it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Brian had found a new calling in life. ;) Finally, the day before we packed up the house, I took all three monsters to the vet for their routine shots and vet checks. Apparently, if you are crossing state borders with an animal and you don’t have a vet certificate of good health, they can take your pet away from you. So, I kept track of that form and got their carriers and car seats ready to go!
We picked up the moving truck Friday night on July 30. We got a 22 foot truck, and it was large and in charge! We took it to Lake Shore and loaded what we had in storage there. Brian’s dad and two of his brothers were there to help and they made quick work of it. My mom came and picked up my car and headed for Minnesota with the plan to meet us in Missouri on Tuesday. We climbed into the truck and headed to West Jordan to prepare to finish loading the next morning.
Saturday we had the help of some ward members in loading the truck. It was very nice of them to come and help, but they got a little over-zealous and packed a bunch of stuff that was supposed to travel in the car with me. We managed to just barely cram everything in to the truck, even though Brian had expected there to be tons of extra room. We finished cleaning up our condo and headed south to spend the night in Lake Shore. I will admit, it was harder saying goodbye to our little home than I had ever thought it would be. It wasn’t the first place we spent our married life together, but it was the first place that was ours. Despite the chaos of the past few months, I was so very happy there.
Yes, that is a picture of us as we left our condo, and yes, I had been crying.
From there, our trip turned eastward. And from here, the blogging of our cross-country adventure will be in a new post, hopefully tomorrow. :D
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