Sunday, April 29, 2007

Off to Mom




I sure hope she likes this!

I also became a member of the Slogalong, because of this:




I am only at about the halfway point. But this is helping to keep me sane right now.

Things are moving right along (har har). We supposedly had the inspection on Friday, but we haven't heard anything back yet as to what needs to be done. I imagine they will have some questions about the lights - we have an X10 system in our house, which just means that we have our lights hooked up in such a way that we use keypads and remote controls to turn them on and off. We are taking the X10 with us, so they will just have normal lighting when they take over.

We also bought some dish packs and glass packs, and packed up all of our glassware (except for some essentials) yesterday. It felt good to get so much done. 84 wine glasses! The mind boggles.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Just trying to keep my mind occupied

The inspection is today. I don't think they'll find anything major, but we've been unpleasantly surprised before. I just hope whatever is on the report can be fixed in 2 1/2 weeks.

Things are moving right along. We did secure a lovely rental townhouse in the Beaverton area for a very reasonable price. We've found movers. We're starting the process of switching all of our email addresses to our gmail accounts. We have a party planned at the local English Pub to send us off in style and to tell our friends goodbye.

I manage to find moments when I think, "Oh my god, what the hell are we doing, leaving everything we've ever known and everyone we love?" I have to remind myself that other people (including our parents) did just that, at about the same age. I'm sure it was scary for them too, at first.

In project news, my mom's cardigan dried beautifully, and I will take it up to her on Sunday to try on. I'm crossing my fingers that she likes it.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

In Search Of....

A rental. That's what the name of the game is around here. We currently have an application in for a place in Beaverton, so all 2 of you that read this please keep your fingers crossed. I won't bother describing the place until we receive confirmation that we actually got it, so you'll just have to wait :) I swear, about 50% of my stress will go away when we get this rental business settled. Once we have an address, we can start setting up utilities, movers, etc.

We also have a couple of moving companies coming out in the next couple of days to give us estimates. These are larger, well-known companies, because I have heard far too many horror stories about these shady movers that hold your stuff hostage for more money, and I just don't want to go through that madness. Well, who does want to go through that, actually?

We also started packing this past weekend. We did the bookcase in the bedroom, a good portion of the office, the spare bedroom, the linen closet, and the cassette tapes and VHS tapes (yes, we still have these horribly outdated things because we are old school like that). Oh, and I packed up the Dicken's Village stuff, too.

I am also having to think about what I want as a job, as I'm updating my resume. It seems that a lot of the positions are for "HR Generalists", which includes the things I am doing now, and also "employee relations" duties. This means that I would be the person that an employee would contact if they are having issues with their manager or their department, or they are just having issues in general. Do I want to deal with other people's issues? I already do that to a certain extent with benefits administration, but I still manage to keep behind the scenes for the most part. I may need to compromise, but at the same time I don't want to end up hating my job.

Oh yeah, I didn't mention that we did sign the escrow paperwork on Thursday, so that's why everything is all full speed ahead around here :) I also gave notice at work, and my last day is May 11th, which will give me about a week before the move to tie up any loose ends.

And there's been crocheting. I finished Mom's sweater. Did I bother to take a picture? Of course not! It is blocked out in the spare bedroom, and it seems to be taking forever to dry. I'll probably turn the fan on it tonight to speed up the process a bit.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Could it be?

It looks like we've finally sold the house. We signed the paperwork last night accepting an offer, and now we just need to sign the escrow stuff, which should be in the next couple of days. We didn't get everything we wanted, but we'll have enough for a good down payment on a new place when we are ready to buy.

Now comes the nightmare of arranging movers, packing, cleaning, and oh yeah, finding a place to rent. All in less than 30 days (!!!). But that kind of stress I can handle :) It's not all The Glass Is Half-Empty around here, I promise.

This time, I won't be mentioning anything to my work until the big paperwork is signed. I've been living in limbo at the job since the last time we thought we would be in escrow - no merit increases, no stock option grants, no goals. My boss appreciates what I do, but he didn't expect me to still be here, so he didn't budget for me.

There's crocheting going on around here, too. I have one more 3/4 sleeve to go, and I will be done with my mom's cardigan. I think. I am praying fervently that it will fit her. If not, I think I'll be able to expand the border bands down the front out a couple more inches on each side, and that should take care of things. But I will have her try it on first. I think she'll really like it, and I think I will make one for myself :) It's very pretty. You'll have to take my word for it now, but I'll take pictures of it soon.