Hair

I couldn't stand it anymore! I chopped it all off...

This is where I live now

Um, yeah, I'm probably not going to embrace all the Southern cuisine offerings.

Back to Real Life

Well, I'm done being sick, having horrible kidney pains and lazing around. I woke up this morning, rearranged our newly moved-in house and finally put away all the little clutter that had gathered while I slept. (Those odd house elfs, no clue how dirty they make it while you aren't watching) Eric is going back to work on Tuesday, so we decided to spend the day being adults and doing things that have been put off: taxes, haircuts for work, cleaning, rearranging, getting a fishing licence (a MUST for Eric), filling out forms for the VA and Eric signed in off leave. Of course, we weren't serious the whole time.... this was what Eric and Michelle thought would be a hoot when we went out to Korean food.

That's a rice noodle. How mature (sigh)

Happy VD Day

That is what I've said to people on valentine's day for ever since I was in high school. I know that it sounds odd, but at least the sentiment is there.

This year valentine's was very low key. I was still pretty much down for the count with my head cold/kidney stones. The boys, Ray, Nat and Mason, were scheduled to fly out to their respective other homes on the morning of the 15th so it was even more of an odd day. I did want to make a nice meal for them, so Eric and I sat down and made home-made mandus and a Chinese food feast for them. It was a bit tiring but very nice as a last family meal with all of us.

Ray will be back in the summer, and I'm not too sure about the other boys, but we know that they are happy where they are. It was a bit of a bittersweet day. Eric did make it a little better by getting me some flowers... for which I didn't have a vase so I had to improvise.

Most wonderful tasting home-made mandus

Holiday tradition of wrestling in our house... Ray won, Eric has a HUGE rug burn on his arm now

Mandus waiting to be cooked for the eatin'

My improvised vase... the hospital gave me a urinal that Eric cut the top off of. I think it only adds to the beauty of my flowers.

So this is pain

I don't like kidney stones.... neither does Eric (now, especially since he got woken up at 3am to take me to the ER and has had to take care of me)

so beautiful, at least my wacky family kept me in great spirits through the pain.

Ray came with... not sure why but I was happy to have him as extra good company

He learned a lot while he was there, mostly about the fact that if your wife has kidney stones, you have to go to the hospital with her and help her feel good again

Eric's version of consoling me and helping me feel better

Washer and Dryer Redeux

So I got my washer and dryer... and they came and connected it, kind of. They said that they had to glue a bit and to wait about 10 mins before we did any laundry. Me, being me, decided to let the glue set for 4 hours.

Michelle was going to be the one to get her laundry first. She put in the load and we walked away. I had forgotten to take out the trash, thank God. Michelle followed me back into the kitchen as I grabbed the trash, where she soon discovered a pool in our kitchen. There was about 1 inch of water across the kitchen floor.

We tried to get ahold of the washer company, thinking it was the glue on the pump that was the issue. However, when Eric took off the cover to the washer, we discovered the real problem. They hadn't hooked up ANY hose in the washer so the water was just flowing out of the faucet onto the floor. Poor Eric, he was livid, then he had to fix it. We didn't have a pair of pliers that worked, so a 10 minute job turned into a 45 min job. I finally ran next door and borrowed a pair from our very nice neighbors, and it was fixed.

Water ALL OVER the floor, every towel in the house was in use

Michelle and I wringing out the towels in the kitchen sink

Eric starting the 10 min job

Standing in a pool of COLD COLD water

30 mins in

He called in Todd to help

They finally got pliers and fixed it well

All works well now, however, not the way you want your first load of laundry to go.

New Washer and Dryer

That pretty much says it all in the title, but, yeah, here they are :)

Movin on down to the... south side? (Not sure if that works)

Well, we are in. Our house, that is. It has been a long and arduous trip with lots of ups and a few downs. One of the worse things that is wrong is that we have to wait till Thursday to get our furniture. Sigh. I hate hate hate sleeping on an air mattress. It is as bad as sleeping on a cement floor basically.

But our house is beautiful. God does work wonders. It has been sitting vacant for the last five months, and the leasing office had no clue why. If you had seen some of the other houses we saw, well lets just say that this one costs less in rent, and is WAY nicer than any other house we saw. (It just needs furniture... come on Thursday!!!!)

Michelle completely surrounded in my car with stuff we bought for the new house

Eric driving, and almost completely surrounded by new stuff (very important TP)

Me, documenting the whole ordeal

Eric and Todd hard at work putting together some new shelves for the house

Mason... doing the only thing one can do in a house with no furniture... playing video games

Kitchen, view from the living room

More shelves, er chest of drawers? No clue, but he does good work and he's cute

Kitchen, view from the laundry room

Me painting a my wall

Progress

Finished product (that is one of two pieces of actual furniture in the house, the rest is on the way)

Nat and Eric next to the other piece of furniture

I painted a wall in the living room, because, as I told Eric, I'm not going to live in a house with no decorations. I do not want to be the "white wall" house with an anesthetic feel to it. So, one wall is a nice mossy green. How fun. Hopefully tomorrow will pass quickly... it should, I get my new washer and dryer tomorrow. And then, I'll have my couch back!

A road trip with .... BANJOS?!?!!?

Well, we started our trip to GA on Monday around 11am, after we had cleaned and turned our apartment over to the management company. The trip started with very very cold weather and a little bit of freezing rain. I wasn't too worried, because I've traveled through a bit of inclement weather before. Most of Monday was spent trying to avoid black ice, chip off the ice from my windshield, and generally trying to stay sane while driving. The big boys and Eric were in the car behind me.... waaaaayyyy behind me. (Eric forgets the gas pedal is on the right LOL)

We made it to Little Rock, AR around 9pm... a bad time to get to any new place. However, in hind-sight, there is NEVER a good time to get to anywhere in Arkansas. We stayed at the "Rodeway" hotel/motel/creepytown just inside the end border of the city. When we walked in the night "manager" was having a conversation with, who I can only assume, was a long-term tenant of this beautiful hotel. This same tenant asked my sister-in-law to hook a necklace for him... um NOOOOO! EEEEWWW. We shut the boys in one room (which was so nasty I didn't want to take off my socks and actually touch the floor) and locked them in with threatening of death if they left the room. We all took the next room and it smelled like some animal had peed, pooped, and then wallowed in it for about 5 months in 100 degree heat. The beds were scary.... like you didn't want skin to touch the sheets. The bathroom.... um, ya, no one touched THAT toilet seat. To top it all off... we kept bracing for the sound of banjos....

Needless to say we survived our stay, got on the road very very early and drove straight to GA. The second day rained.... and rained... and rained.... so bad in most spots we were hydroplaning. But, the good Lord protected us and got us here safely. Now we just need a house....

Packing up all our house... not a lot of stuffs on the sidewalk, however a TON of stuffs in the cars.

Hopkins is ready to go!

Still packing

Stop to scrape off all the ice from the cars

The (hopefully) water-proof/ice-proof car topper

Michelle doesn't like the weather

The Subaru folk... Hopkins is in the back window

Nat and Hopkins, chillin in the car

Michelle.... saying something?

Hard to see, but it is raining very hard

This was on a public restroom soap dispenser in Arkansas... explains a lot doesn't it?