Running For The Hills

Today's the day. I've decided not to send Jackson to school for two reasons: David doesn't want him to so we can leave early (that makes it all on David) and I overslept. I was dreaming I was going out with Kim for my 24th birthday and we were wearing WAY too much make-up. I think it had to do with the fact I was telling Jackson about the Scary Anns I'd known as a teenager and what amazing sluts they were and having chinese food didn't help. I've got plenty to do today, not mentioning keeping the cats in the house until we go, Vincent is attempting to be a sneak of course. David called this morning with the latest saga of the house - the gas tank we got such a good deal on is not the right one so he had to buy another one and this one he installed himself. After he got it in and the gas was turned on he discovered a small leak above the shutoff so he called the emergency number for the gas company. The gas guy called back and said "Hay gud buuddy....  Ahm an hour away from you, do ya think you could turn off the gas yurself at the meter, Ahl tell yeh how" which he did and then called back in half an hour to see how yeh makin out.... I figure he thought if there was no answer in half an hour then he could be like, "David? David who?". So we have hot water AND cable now. I suppose I have to get going, this will be my last update til the middle of June when the computer joins me in WV, we 're leaving it here for Jackson since he's not done with school. I am going to miss some things about here, after all we've been here for a year and this is "our" house, my bedroom, my deck, my stairs. There's a lot of comfort in having your things just so, but that will come again. And of course there's Ray, but that we'll work out. Oh, well - see on the flip side!

Almost Home!

I've been running around most of the day, getting the oil changed in my car, stopping and leaving a key at the RE, getting a change of address form,etc... I can't believe I have to be out of here by noon tomorrow already! Vincent is driving everyone crazy, he's beside himself and I'm sure he doesn't know why, he just is. The house has become a very depressing place, Jackson and I spent last evening watching The 100 Scariest Moments In Movies parked on my bed eating leftover pizza since there's no tv downstairs anymore and no where really to sit in any case. When the house gets to the point of really looking empty and most of your stuff is gone, you just feel so discombobulated all the time. We're going out to the chinese buffet tonight for dinner, one last time for me. Jackson hated the dentist yesterday  - since it was his last appt the dentist did EVERYTHING (he had some ridges from the braces all along his bottom teeth) so both sides of his face were numb. David called from WV this morning and has been steady mowing our considerable property, we have cable now but no gas as of yet. David made the appointment for between noon and 2 pm but arrived there at 12:20 and the gas guy had already come and gone. So he was waiting for him again today. He may be unwashed but he can at least watch tv. David thinks he'll be making at least two more trips back and forth, so I'm not worrying too much about our stuff. The RE said they have a big weekend coming up so keep your fingers crossed.

Time Is Running Out

I had my final last LAST day at work - no fanfare at all. Only a couple people bothered to say goodbye to me, to the rest I guess I'm chopped liver. David left with the Guard Dogs around 6 am so I had to drive Jackson to school. Of course that meant I had to give report to the nurse that greets all of her friends before sitting down to report, then they were doing construction on 191(why do I ALWAYS end up on the Stop side of the road??) so needless to say he was a bit late. He finally finished his report on gladiators last night, so he had to drag his enormous display board out with him, then couldn't find his phone...ARRGH - somedays I just feel like I'm running in reverse. I arrived home around 8:30 and just dragged about for awhile. I think between working and packing for the past few days I've completely run out of steam. The house is so different without the dogs, I keep getting this anxious feeling I need to let them out and then as I come down the stairs I remember they aren't here anymore. I let Vincent out but I think tomorrow they can go out in the morning and then in til we leave. Tomorrow I'll be cleaning up a bit, there's piles of stuff throughout the house punctuated by large empty spaces, it looks a bit like a squatter has taken up residence here. Jackson has his last dental appointment today. David called from WV around 12 to let me know he and the dogs had arrived and the dogs were ready to roam the range! I put up some of the old pictures of the house in case you missed them!

Dave Da Movin' Guy

We've entered the truley icky part of moving - there's more stuff than we thought, David is already fretting that the trailer he rented is too big, we've run out of boxes twice, everytime I go to pack something there's already an occupant and I have to extract one of the cats, and the zoo is freaking since they KNOW something is up. I could kick myself for saying I would work tonight, I've been up packing since noon after having worked last night and the thought of working AGAIN is tiring just thinking of it. And I'm still worried about Ray. I called my Grandmother yesterday, there's a bit of a mistake - if you have an pushable buttons she just hones right in. Sometimes I think she just can't help herself, but relationships with my family are fractured enough without any help from the peanut gallery. And everything is stressful right now, trying to figure out what's going and what's staying and where is Ray going to sleep when he visits and we found cigars in Jackson's underwear drawer! That's almost too strange for punishment. I'm going to be offline for a couple of weeks, we're leaving the computer here as Jackson needs it for school and David's too addicted to let it go. We have an old one down in WV so I might see if I can cannabalize some old parts and make it at least do email. BUT I get the tv and DVD player so I'll have something to do at night. We'll have to keep the cats in for a couple of days since they're notorious for disappearing at the worst time, that I'm not looking foward to. I guess I'd better get back to the coal mines......

Good Bye

This is the very hardest part of moving, leaving Ray. The past year he's become more of a part of our family then ever, we see him just about every other weekend now and holidays. This was our last weekend for all of us to be together, we did our usual stuff - restaurants, shopping. Yesterday David bullied him into buying a new jacket from Burlington and they bought matching berets - I have no idea where they're going with that. But there's an underlying sadness to this, unless he moves to WV we'll maybe see him once a year - or less. David already has plans to add a second story to the garage for an apartment for him and he's coming back to fix up Ray's house in Jersey - Ray is actually thinking about selling it which I hope he does. He doesn't say anything but he's had periods of quiet this weekend, he and David are off to thier usual Monday morning breakfast out before he heads back - I know he's planning on visiting here a couple more times before David goes, but for me this is it. I didn't realize until this morning how very much I'll miss him.

Finally Finished!

Well, that took just about forever, didn't it? But it's done! I made a detachable flower for the top of the hat that you can't see too well in the picture and if you press it, it's plays "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" which I thought was sort of useless, but rather nifty. ANYHOW, Ray arrived at his usual time and managed to skinny by the Gestapo as he always does. We did BBQ for lunch as we had a set of lookers (sigh, but once again no buyers) come around 1-ish. We went to a very over-advertised yard sale, signs everywhere for a handful of dusty broken down items but we did get to see a very nice neighborhood that we drove around a bit. Then Ray and I took pictures of some not so nice houses, I always find them so much more interesting, don't you? The 4rth picture was of this tiny house on the side of the road and I think it had actually been lived in recently! The skies were spectacular all day, with squalls blowing in and out. We did our usual Dixon City shopping and had dinner at Applebee's this time, no pictures as it's a rather tight restaurant and hard to take pictures. We did the mall for a bit and then headed off home. We stopped at the video store to see if we could rent The Life Aquatic with Bill Murray but ended up getting The Life Of Brian instead. It's been years since I've seen that one but Jackson and Ray hadn't seen it and they were beside themselves laughing - the cruxifiction scene at the end is only rivaled by the window scene in the middle, not to mention all the silly nonsense about the shoe which Jackson really enjoyed. I have to say no matter how many times I see them, Monty Pyton's Flying Circus never gets old.

Let The Countdown Begin

Well, six more days and I'm out of here - hard to believe. We of course have lookers again today, this time between one and two, hopefully more towards one since Ray is here for the weekend. We've slowed down on the packing, the problem being that David and Jackson will be here for almost two weeks so I can't leave them with nothing to sit on. The bigger problems are the computer and washer and dryer and where should they be? David sold the boat, they're coming on Monday to pay and pick it up so he said we might just buy a washer/dryer down in WV - according to our RE agreement we're supposed to leave our set up here.Transporting them does pose a problem and Harry seems to feel that leaving them is a selling point. I started knitting a hat to match the sweater I made, this is actually the second hat. The first one got twisted in the beginning and since I'm knitting in the round was very unfixable. It turned out to be a good thing because once I took it off the circular needles I realized the only way it would ever fit Kim's head would be if I secretly hired Stephen to smack her in the noggin repeatedly so her head swelled to at least twice the size. I don't think she'd like that so I found another pattern and this one is turning out fine. David and I are trying to figure out the logistics of who takes what animals, he was thinking of taking Vincent with the dogs but I think two dogs, a cat and a litter pan in a truck just has too much of a potential for disaster. Not to mention Jackson will be riding shotgun with me so he's in charge of corralling the kitties. All I can think of is when David stops to walk the dogs and Vincent escaping. Not a  good thing.