New Year’s Eve 2012

Here we are again.   Or here I am again.  It’s hard to believe that I first did a New Year’s Eve blog four years ago, and that I started this blog in December four years ago.   A LOT has happened since then.   Actually, a LOT has happened this year.   I guess I’ll review the year a little and try to put it all into some sort of perspective.  And of course I'll put in the requisite pictures of the cat kids.

The biggest item this year of course was the new house.  I can honestly say that the new house consumed me from May through the end of the year.  Especially from the June closing date until the end of September, when all the interior work was done and I was mostly unpacked and I began to feel like the house was my home.  During that time, everything I did was house-related.  And of course, dealing with all the details around trying to rent the old house only added to it.  I feel good about it now though.  I love my new house.  Really love it.  Things I’ll do to it in the future will be cosmetic or minor.  Plus the old house is rented so I won’t be carrying two mortgages as long as it stays rented.  I think I’ve finally made the switch to feeling at home here and thinking of the other house as a rental property and not my home.  My cats and I all struggled a little with that switch.  It really is harder to make changes as you get older.

Another item from this year is that I got a really large raise.  Work has been going well, and I’ve been staying busy, both at work and with my national associations.  I actually got elected President –elect of one of my associations!  So in 2013 I’ll be President-elect and in 2014 I’ll be President.    I was pretty delighted to be elected.  Anyway, the raise was because we got a new department chair last year.  When he came in he made a lot of changes including a new evaluation system for faculty.  He also promised the faculty that he would bring our salaries up to at least 35% of the national average (our school having notoriously low faculty salaries).  And he kept that promise!  So between the new evaluation/incentive system and increasing the overall faculty salaries, I got a nice raise.  It allowed me to buy a new house without selling my old one and carry two mortgages if necessary, so I was happy with that. 

Vacation to Utah this year was outstanding.  I got to go with a friend of mine who hasn’t been able to go along for several years, so we really enjoyed it.  It would have been nice if my sister could have gone also, but sometimes schedules can’t be made to match up no matter what you do.

Another item I have to include in this year, much as I would prefer not to, is that parts of my family are feuding.  This has been going on essentially all year (actually I guess it started in the Fall of 2011) and has devolved to the point of people not speaking to each other or having anything to do with each other.  One of my minor resolutions for 2013 will be to stay the hell out of it.  Trying to do anything to solve it only antagonizes folks  – as I discovered.  So the feud will continue until they work it out themselves. 

Self-reflection time:  First (and most important) I worry that I’m turning into a grouchy old woman.  I got a bunch of Thanksgiving pictures from my sister that she took when she was here for Thanksgiving, and I’m looking sour in more of them than I’m looking happy.   I don’t want to be a sour, grouchy old lady, so I guess it’s time to consciously work on both my attitude and on my facial expression.  Or maybe the attitude work will take care of the face.  Although, I didn’t feel like I was being grouchy at Thanksgiving, and I enjoyed myself.  But you’d have never known that from my expressions.  So I guess I’ll consciously work on both.  

Second:  I need to get my finances back under control.  I went crazy after buying the house.  New carpet and ceramic tile. New wood flooring, new interior paint.  New furniture throughout the house.  My finances are currently more out of control than they’ve ever been, and because I have a good credit record, the credit card companies just joyfully increase my limits.  They love me!  Waaaaaaay past time to STOP SHOPPING!  So that’s high on my list for 2013.

Third: Health.  I’m so not getting any younger.  The vacation this year where I barely made it up my favorite hike really hit me hard.  It’s way past time that I pay more attention to my health – including my diet and getting more exercise.  I just am not very fond of foods that are good for me.  That and my crazy life style make eating healthy sort of difficult, but I know I can do better than I have been.  And I’ll need to get back on an exercise regimen so I don’t die out there hiking next year.

So I guess those are the major things that have happened this year and the major resolutions I’ll try working on for next year.  It's been a good year, but I'm ready to let it go and move forward.

End of the year!

Wow.  I’m so, so, so far behind on posting to this blog.   Here’s another attempt to do some catch up before the year is over, so this will be a bit random as things come to me.   Hopefully I’ll do a New Year’s Eve post reminiscing on 2012 in general so I don’t want to do that now.  I just want to talk about what’s happened since the last time I posted.

For one thing, Thanksgiving happened.  It was a blast.  My nephew from Denver came down with his wife and two daughters and stayed with me for three days.  The girls are shown clowning around in the picture below.   My parents and sisters and brother and his wife and son came to the new house also on Thanksgiving, so I had a houseful.  We had a big Thanksgiving meal – my parents essentially bringing the contents of their kitchen with them and cooking in my kitchen.  If you’ve read this blog much, you know my idea of cooking involves a microwave, so you understand why my parents had to bring so much stuff with them.   It was a lot of fun, and felt like a good way to break in the new house. 

This year I decided to put up a Christmas tree, which is something I haven’t done in a lot of years, but again, I wanted to break in the new house.  Plus I have so much nice space for a Christmas tree.  And so many ornaments that I’ve collected over the years and been saving in boxes in my garage.   So I put one up, which you can see in the first picture.   I’m enjoying it a lot.

A couple of weeks ago I had a brief power outage and it kicked my sprinkler system out.  Since I have it set to only water every third day, it took me about a week to realize it wasn’t working.   I’m very proud to say I figured out how to reset the system and get it back running again – just in time to turn it off for three days of freezing weather.

Snow!  I walked out last Monday morning and had a nice layer of snow on my lawn, probably less than half an inch, and big, fat, wet flakes coming down and layering on me as I walked to get my paper.  I was totally surprised.  Yes, the weather had called for a slight chance, but I ignored it since their ability to predict snow here is notoriously low.  It was my favorite type of cold weather.  Pretty, and around just long enough to say “oh, look, snow”, then it’s gone.   I’d be okay with it going back to daily low 70s for the rest of the winter now . . . which it seems to have done for now.  

So that’s basically what’s been happening.  My lawn service has switched from mowing and weed whacking to leaf blowing and garden cleaning. 

Oh!  I almost forgot a piece of big news!  My old house rented!  Yup, there are people living in the old house as of December 1^st.  My agent’s taking care of all of that, so I’m letting him deal with it.  I’ll just be glad to be getting some relief from carrying two mortgages.   Yay! 

I'll be doing a bit of traveling over the Christmas Holiday, seeing relatives who are coming to the metroplex, and relatives in east Texas and relatives in Colorado.  It'll be a little whirlwind, but should be lots of fun too.    I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Back to the house

So many things have happened while I was posting about vacation that it's hard to decide where to start.  I should at least explain some things I guess.  Like, why I replaced the wood floors, when originally I wasn't going to, or what's going on with the old house.  Hmmmm.  Let's see what I can cover today.

To back up a bit, it's kind of ironic that I was looking for a house that I didn't have to put any work into.  Or at least that's what I blatantly stated when I started house hunting.  And I ended up having the interior of the new house completely re-done.   I couldn't help it.  I fell for this house big time, pretty much as soon as I saw it.  It's such a cool house.  This picture of Addy at the  back door gives you a feel for what the early morning light is like in that second living area.  And then as I began to change things the changes became a boulder that just kept rolling and gaining momentum.  Before I even put the contract on it, I knew I wanted to have the entire interior painted, but as I looked at other things I kept thinking, 'I should have the tiles re-done in the bathrooms before I move in'.  Then 'I really should replace this carpet before I move in'.  After all, I said I'd do the carpet in the old house immediately after buying it and it took me 9 years!  I knew if I moved in first it would get postponed indefinitely.  So I decided to do those things before moving in, but I hadn't planned to do the wood floors.  Then the Saturday after closing I came over, and the kitchen floor (which is wood) was destroyed from water leaking from the refrigerator connection.  The damage had been hidden by the previous owner's refrigerator, plus when they pulled it out, the tap no longer turned off and had been dripping continuously onto the floor.  I couldn't patch just that section because the floor in the kitchen is contiguous with the floor in the second living area.  It would look patched!  So I gave up and replaced all the wood flooring in the house too.  Total interior re-do.  I have to say though, I'm very pleased with my house now.   

Plus I hired a landscaping company to mow and weed whack and trim the shrubbery, basically to keep it landscaped, so that makes me even happier with the house.  Coming home on Thursday and having it all neat and trimmed is wonderful.

So what's going on with the old house?  Well, I hate to admit it but that lawn I was so proud of is totally dead.  I simply didn't have time to go down and water routinely and it's been hot and dry.  I hired a leasing agent, but so far the place is still empty.  I had the interior repainted and the exterior cleaned up a bit last month so I'm hoping it will rent now.  It's simply a sad case of bad timing that I started trying to rent it about the time the housing market softened up and people started buying houses again rather than renting.  My agent says we've had a couple of applications for renting, but not from anyone who he would recommend I rent to.  So we'll see if it rents now that it's cleaned up a bit.  I still go down there periodically and mow the weeds, since the grass is basically all dead.

So that's what's been going on.  The cats are finally completely settled in.  As you can see Zoe likes the rugs on the floor of the pantry.  Zoe has also located a wonderful hiding place outside in the backyard under one of the bigger shrubs where she is really completely hidden despite her color.  She lays out there for hours on end watching the birds.  So both cat-girls have their favorite places and have made it their house.

I'm having family over for Thanksgiving, so I'll probably tell all about that in the next post.  See ya then.   

Parks 5 - Arches and Canyonlands National Parks

It's kind of amazing that I've spent 5 posts talking about the vacation this year.  Or maybe not amazing when you consider I could probably spend 5 posts talking about each of these National Parks.  At any rate, this post should tie up the trip.

Probably one of the most well-known arches found in Arches National Park is the one in the first picture in this post.  This is Delicate Arch, and I can tell you it's only "delicate' from a distance.  This is a big formation.  Yup, that's me standing under it. The hike up to it is not long, so we often do the hike the morning we're leaving to go to Colorado.  We still get up well before sun up, drive out to it and leave on the trail before the sun rises.  Usually that's because we're leaving after we get back down, but also there's a massive, steep section of slickrock that's a serious climb going in and better done without the sun beating down on it.   This year we weren't leaving but we had other plans for later so we did it early anyway.

This year we ran into a new problem on this hike - mosquitoes!!!  The damn little bugs were THICK out there.  So thick in fact that they essentially chased us up the trail.  It's not that they didn't allow us to stop for breaks, although they didn't.  We couldn't even slow down and did the hike much faster than usual.  And reaching the top wasn't an escape from the damn things.  Everyone up there was slapping and swinging at them.  Perhaps later in the day with the sun well up they wouldn't have been such a problem, but then I've never had a problem with them before in the  early morning.

We didn't stay long on the hike. 

The second picture is the other arch that Arches is probably most famous for, Landscape Arch.  This one is also on the hike out to Dark Angel but I had room for the picture here.  The arch itself is fenced off because the erosion under the arch itself got bad, but honetly, it's such a long arch that any closer and it's hard to take a picture of.

That afternoon we drove over to Canyonlands National Park.   I've never stayed in Canyonlands.  It's more primitive than the other National Parks in Utah - less developed.  It has some amazing vistas though and is worth going to see, but was something of a disappointment this year because the haze was so bad.  The amount of junk in the air from the Colorado and Utah fires got worse as we moved east across Utah, and it was most noticeable in Arches and especially this day in Canyonlands.   You can see that in these last tow pictures.

These pictures are from the formation that is one of the most famous from Canyonlands, Mesa Arch.  I love this Arch because of the changing perspective you get of the structures in the background distance from it.  So the first picture shows the Arch from a distance up the trail and you can see what look like large formations behind it in the distance.  The next picture is those same formations but with the picture taken through the arch when you're standing at the arch.  Amazing, huh?  They go from huge behind the arch to tiny in the distance.  I just love perspective.

So that was our vacation.  We did some more minor shopping this afternoon and then left the next morning for my sister's place in Colorado.  Overall it was a fabulous trip, and if you've never been to any of the National Parks in Utah, I recommend you remedy that lack.  You will not regret it.

Parks 4 - Arches National Park

I was originally only going to do four posts about the vacation and the parks and finish them up with this post about Arches and Canyonlands, but once again I have more pictures than I can comfortably fit into one post.  So I decided to do Arches in this post and then a combined Arches/Canyonlands post next time.  That lets me use more pictures.  And really Arches has so many unique rock formations that it needs a couple of posts to display all the cool pictures.  All the National Parks in Utah do, now that I think about it.

This picture is of one of my favorite formations in the park.  It's called Dark Angel, and I don't know what it is about it that attracts me, but I just love this hunk of rock.  It juts up out of its relatively level surroundings and seems to be Lord of all it surveys.  I will be seriously sad the day it comes tumbling down, but then maybe I  won't  still be around when that happens.  And lest you think this is a minor piece of rock, this next picture is me standing at it's base.  Yes, squint a little and you can see me there at the base to the left.  This is a frigging huge chunk of rock.

Anyway, we arrived in Moab on Saturday and unlike our usual luck, we couldn't check into a hotel early.  Usually we get lucky enough to be able to check in early, but maybe because it was so crowded everywhere this year, we couldn't check in until almost 3:00 pm.  So we went into Moab dirty (before taking showers) and began the marathon shopping.  I LOVE shopping in Moab.  Some of my favorite tourist shops and jewelry places are in Moab.  We shopped for multiple hours then ate at the Moab Brewery.  Also one of my favorite places, because I like microbrewery beer, especially the Scorpion Pale Ale that they brew here.  Then we finally went back to the hotel and took long, blasting showers and became slugs for the rest of the evening.

Sunday morning we got up about 5:15 am and drove to Devil's Garden to hike out to the Dark Angel.  We began the hike before sunup and actually stopped on the trail to watch the sun come up.  The sky was really gorgeous, what with more clouds than usual and more haze than usual.   Like Angel's Landing, the hike out to Dark Angel and back is another favorite of mine.  It runs across and between the rock "fins" and it's not incredibly strenuous, although much of it is considered "primitive" hiking.  I guess because in areas the trail is less well laid out than your usual National Park trail.  It's fun though.  On the way out to the Dark Angel you come to the Double O Arch, which is two arches, one above the other one.  That's me standing in the lower arch. 

We start this hike as early as we do because by the time you're coming out, it's HOT and there's very little shade on the last part of the hike coming out.  By the time we get back to the car, we're incredibly ready for the iced down blue Gatorade and the air-conditioned car.  Then you have a 12 mile drive back to Maob.  We also stopped at the Visitor's Center near the entrance.  The Arches Visitor's Center is way cool.  I always stop at all the Visitor's centers because it's interesting to see how they change each year and what new things they have.

Then we went back to Moab and did more shopping and eating and then became slugs in the hotel  -  my friend studying and me writing in my journal and clearing 400 emails out of my work email inbox.  This sign is at the foot of the Dark Angel, so I thought I'd use it to end today's post.  Next time:  end of vacation.
 

   

Parks 3 - Capital Reef National Park

I have always had something of a soft spot for Capital Reef because it was the first Utah park I ever stayed in, and that was 19 years ago!  Hard to believe I've been going to the Utah parks for that long now.  I still really like this particular park. 

We arrived in Capital Reef National Park on Thursday morning, set up camp and then went to the Gifford House.  This is a little historic farmhouse that they use as a semi-museum, semi-souvenir store.  Our campsite this year was only a short walk from the Gifford House so as soon as camp was up, we went over there.  They also happen to sell small one-person pies that my friend has been dreaming about since before we left on this trip.  So we got pies, apple and cherry, and ate them first thing.  Then we went to the Visitor's Center and then back into Torrey for ice and Subway sandwiches.  Torrey's the closest place to get ice for the ice chest, and usually I have a massive fast food craving by the time we hit Torrey and am really looking forward to those Subway sandwiches.  This year we were especially lazy and  spoiled and ate out a lot rather than cooking at the campsite.  My fast food craving wasn't strong, but I still enjoyed them.

Like most of the parks in Utah, Capital Reef has some amazing rock formations, well worth seeing.  The first picture in this post is of a formation called the Castle, and it also shows some of the amazing rock colors in the area.  One of the things I like about the park though is the stark contrast between the rocky formations and desert, and the very green and fertile campground and area around the Fremont river.  There are fruit orchards there and massive old cottonwoods, and the campground is green and peaceful, with the sound of the river rushing by.  This time of year it's usually muddy and rushing also, from the afternoon thunderstorms.

We spent most of the time in Capital being lazy, driving scenic routes and visiting the petroglyphs.  Friday morning when we got up we hiked the short (1 1/2 mile) Fremont Trail.  I've been wanting to hike it again ever since I went up it 19 years ago, and try to take pictures to compare to the ones I took back then.  But usually we only spend one day at Capital Reef unless we're doing the Navajo Knobs hike.  So if we only spend a day, it's too hot in the afternoon  to go up that trail by the time we arrive and set up.  And if we stay an extra day and hike the Knobs, I'm too tired for the extra mile and a half.  So this year, just to do that hike, we stayed an extra day in Capital Reef without hiking the Knobs. 

I did get my pictures, but now I have to find the original ones I took back in 1993.  The picture looking down at the campground also shows another problem we had this year that was increasingly noticeable as we moved east across the state.  The atmosphere was very hazy from the summer wildfires in Utah and Colorado.  Late in the trip when we got to Grand Junction on the western side of Colorado and were pointed east into Colorado, you couldn't see the mountains at all! 

Of course that means we had plenty of time to be lazy, and drive to scenic overlooks like the Goosenecks and do scenic drives.  The mosquitoes were really bad this year, especially here at Capital Reef and at Arches, so here we used the car to escape the little demons.  I guess it's been a wet year out here.     

While we were visiting the petroglyphs we saw a gray fox bound up over a rock pile.  This time neither of us was fast enough to catch him on film though.   My friend did take some video of a group of tiny bats flitting and feasting over a wet part of the campground where the mosquitoes were really bad.  You can actually catch glimpses of them in the video. 

Saturday morning we got up and broke camp and drove to Moab.  We stayed in Moab and hiked in Arches and visited Canyonlands, so my last vacation blog post will be about those two parks.
 

Parks 2 - Bryce Canyon National Park

We arrived at Bryce on Tuesday morning, found a campsite in the Sunset Camp ground and set up camp first.  Then we immediately went and took showers.  Bryce has a small general store and public showers and after two+ hot and sweaty days in Zion, it's high on our list of things to start with at Bryce.  Then we did some shopping at Ruby's, ate lunch, and because it was rainy, we went to drive the scenic overlooks and do "rainbow hunting".   I've never actually seen a rainbow at Bryce, but since the rain storms are interspersed with sunlight, I figure I will one day so we keep looking.  Plus if it's raining, rainbow hunting is a nice way to stay in the car, driving from scenic point to scenic point.  

This particular day we drove through a pretty massive storm, including some nice hail.  Luckily it wasn't big enough hail to do any damage to the car, but it was a heavy storm.  Afterward we stopped at several overlooks, and at one point I said, "Get out and take a picture of some lightning."  The first picture in this post is the result of that.  My friend had some great luck with pictures on this trip and she snapped that one just at lightning struck.

The bad news about that particular storm is that it went through the campground while we were away and the rain must have been horizontal.   Everything under the canopy was completely saturated and muddy from the mud splashed up by the rain.  We have actually gotten spoiled by that canopy.  We've been leaving stuff out under it that we used to put away in the car or tent before the days of the canopy.  And apparently we've been lucky not to have any really heavy storms before this.  This storm taught us that the canopy is only so protective.  Lesson learned.

An interesting thing about the trip this year is that everywhere was swarming with people.  Last year when my sister and I went on this trip there were very few people everywhere we went.  This year there were masses.  Last year we went 10 days later, so I wonder if that made the difference, or it was just a heavy year this year.  It was very noticeable at Bryce because it took us four times going back to finally find a parking spot at the Visitor's Center to be able to get in.  Another interesting phenomenon was the number of non-English speaking people.  This is almost always true, but this year as we sat in the restaurant at Ruby's, we realized that EVERYONE around us was speaking French.  There were no other English-speaking customers in the restaurant besides us.  I was a little surprised by that.  I knew that that area of Utah is a favorite vacation spot for Europeans, but usually you hear some English as well.  And usually there's some German mixed in.  

After the rainy Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday turned out to be picture perfect.  We hiked our favorite route - park at Sunrise Point, walk the rim to Sunset Point, hike down part of the Navajo Loop, then hike the Peekaboo Loop, then come back through Queen's Garden and back up to Sunrise Point.    It was gorgeous.  The pictures of the hoodoos and the pine with the twisted trunk are from this hike.

Wednesday afternoon we shopped more and were lazy in the campsite.  We also took pictures and a small video of a small gray mole/gopher type critter who was clearing out a burrow entrance about 20 feet from the campsite.  The picture above is his head in the burrow entrance.

So Bryce was gorgeous as usual and the weather wasn't even too cold for me.  Last year it was about 42 when we got up in the morning.  This year it was only about 56, so not too bad.  We got up Thursday morning, broke camp and drove to Capital Reef National Park, which will be my next blog post.

Parks 1 - Zion Canyon National Park

I'm back!  Vacation was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!  I was going through my pictures and my friend's pictures and I realized I have so many pictures I want to share that I cannot possibly do it in one post.  I decided to do a post for each park instead.   That means I won't be talking about the new house for a while - which is probably all to the good.

The first park we always go to is Zion Canyon National Park, so I'll talk about Zion first.  Zion is in the southwest corner of Utah so it's usually hot and this year was no exception.  One of my absolute favorite hikes is in Zion though and it's become something of a tradition to go to Zion first and start out with the  Angel's Landing hike.  This year that hike almost kicked my ass, but I went into this vacation tired and stressed, so I shouldn't be surprised.  Luckily, I'm coming out of it rested and only minimally stressed, so that's an improvement.

Anyway, Angel's Landing is one of my favorite hikes because the last half mile is more of a climb or what I call a 'scramble' than it is a hike.  There are steep drops and chains set in the rocks to help you get up in places.  It's great fun although it takes some energy.  I nearly didn't have enough this year.  I think I'll try to be a little less tired going into this vacation in the future.  Anyway, the first picture is taken near the start of the point where you begin the scramble, looking up toward Angel's Landing itself, with me crossing one of the narrower points of the trail which has significant drops on both sides.  The second picture is looking back down on that narrow ridge from further up the trail.  It's just a great hike, but you definitely need to be okay with heights to do it.

Once you get to the top you're greeted by multiple small rodents.  This little guy is one of the chipmunks, but there are also rock squirrels up there.  All of them have become very used to people, especially in places like Angel's Landing, which is a popular place for people to go.  Actually, come to think of it, the parks were all very full of people this year.  Last year we went a little later and had more places to ourselves - including being first up on Angel's Landing - being the first to reach the top.  This year we were about the fourth or fifth group to get to the top, and it stayed busy with people up there.  

The view from the top is amazing in both directions.  This picture is looking down canyon and you can see we had some clouds.  We had rain in Zion one day this year, but even with that helping, it was miserably hot.   We pulled out all of our beat-the-heat tricks, including shopping for long periods of time, eating inside in restaurants, and driving up to Checkerboard Mesa, pulling out at all the pullouts to stop and take pictures.   The drive to Checkerboard Mesa and back can last around 2 hours if we take our time, and that's 2 hours in an air-conditioned car.   My friend and I have actually seen bighorn sheep on this drive on two occasions over the years and this year we got a real treat.  Not only did we see a small flock of sheep again, but my friend got a video of them, including two of the rams hitting head on - with a sound like a cannon shot!  It's an amazing piece of video.  This picture is of one of the rams and one female.  

Other wildlife we saw in Zion besides the  bighorns and chipmunks and the ubiquitous lizards included tiny toads along the trail where it runs by the river, which I've seen in Zion before but not on the Angel's Landing hike.  We also saw a white rock squirrel near our campsite, but it was camera shy.  The pictures I got were not good.   And of course we saw lots of little bats at sunset and sunup.   I'm not good enough to get those on camera either.   

So we arrived in Zion on Sunday, set up camp and did shopping, hiked Angel's Landing on Monday and did more shopping and touristy driving, and then broke camp on Tuesday and went to Bryce Canyon National Park.  From Zion we begin working our way back north and east across the state and Bryce comes next so Bryce will be the subject of my next post.  See ya.

Still moving in!!

Geez!  Yes, I had forgotten how much STUFF a person can accumulate in 11 years.  That would be a LOT!  I'm convinced that that's generally why people don't move often.  What a pain.  I'm leaving for vacation in less than a week and I still am not fully unpacked and situated.  Still, I'm slowly making progress.

Time for a few pictures of the new place I think.  This first one is right after they finished painting, when the house was still empty.  This is a view of the second living area, looking out into the  back yard.  I should mention that the wood floors here are not yet replaced.  The flooring people and I decided that waiting until after I'm back from vacation worked better for all concerned.  It also gives the cat-kids a little more time to get used to the place,

Addy and Zoe are adapting finally.  This second picture is of Zoe in her favorite place when I'm in the house - which is under the dining room table.  When I'm gone she still spends most of the time under the bed.  They are both eating and drinking fine again though.  They won't be happy with me leaving them for 2 weeks, but at least they pretty well accept that this is their house now.    Addy even goes outside in the backyard with me, although Zoe still runs when a door opens.  


In this picture you can see the new living room furniture.  I don't think I'm done buying new furniture yet, but the main living room is pretty well set.  I'm still re-arranging things in most of the house, and I have nothing up on walls yet.  No pictures, no small display cases, etc.  It's going to take me awhile to decide where I want things - both on the walls and elsewhere.  I hope I eventually stop deciding things should go somewhere other then where I originally put them.  I'm already having trouble remembering where I put things.  I need to stop deciding they should go somewhere else before I even remember where they are.


Among the many things I like about this house, I am really liking the location.  The amount of time I save in my commute and the lower stress from not being in traffic for so long makes it well worth the move.  It's just really nice.  Now if I can just get everyone to change my address, I'll be set.  I've called the City twice to get the address changed, and even though I asked my insurance guy to make this house my main house and put rental property insurance on my old house, they continue to send my bills and stuff to the old house.  Doesn't make sense does it?  That's what I thought.  I hope they have it straightened out now.


The aloe vera and peaches made the move well thanks to family transport.  I sent four of the seven peach seedlings to new homes with my sisters.  The three I still have and the aloe vera are really happy in this new back yard as you can see.  Not so much direct burning sun, but plenty of morning sun.  They seem to like it.


This last picture is one side of the kitchen before I began moving in.  Everything was so clean and spacious before the move started.  Now, as my friend says, there's a lot of debris scattered around.  Things I can't decide where to put; things that don't have a place to go yet - like figure for display cases that aren't hung yet; things that I need a new piece of furniture in order to put away.  There's quite a bit of that last group.  I left behind an old dresser, a desk and an old entertainment center (which I had quite a bit stored in!).  So all the stuff that was in those items has nowhere to go until I get new items.  So yup, it will be awhile before I'm settled.  I'm settled enough though to go on vacation though.  I'll be leaving next Saturday, so this blog will be quiet for the next little while.


See ya when I get back!

House update 3

Probably you're tired of hearing about the house, so, sorry about that.  I'm actually currently in Los Angeles at a convention, so I have a little house break going, but I thought I'd catch up on what's happening.  I figured I have a little time this afternoon, and when I get home I won't have time to blog again for awhile, trying to get settled into the new house.  And I still have no new house pics or freaked out cat pics.  Instead I opted for a hummingbird pic from last summer.

Okay.  Last time I posted I was expecting to move on July 5th.  Didn't happen.  The carpet people called and wanted to install carpet on the 5th.  I moved the moving date to the 7th to accommodate them.  On the 5th, they began and then discovered they had erred in ordering the carpet and did not have sufficient to finish the job!  Yup.  They left the master bedroom un-carpeted, and had to re-order more carpet.  I had left the cat-kids vet appointments for the 5th, so they spent July 5th at the vet and then the cats and I lived in the empty, semi-carpeted house for 2 days.  To say the cats were unhappy would be putting it VERY mildly.  I created a hiding place for them using a cot and quilt and they stayed there pretty much.  This house is bigger than my last one so they are struggling to adapt to it. 

Anyway, Saturday, the movers came and had me moved in just under 6 hours.  They were a really efficient and thorough group.  So that was nice.  I also had family from east Texas come over and help me by moving plants and fragile things.  Everything was moved in and stacked in boxes and piles by mid-afternoon.  There was a fair amount I couldn't unpack  because the carpet people had to move it when they came back to finish the job.  And there's still a fair amount not unpacked.  I'm hoping to achieve normalcy sometime this next year. 

The cats were beginning to adapt that week after the move - they at least had my bed to hide under, until Friday when the carpet people came back to finish.  The cats have been off their food since the move and I was just seeing some progress in returning to normal when the carpet people came on Friday and disrupted them again.  And on Saturday I left to come to LA for this meeting.  Poor babies.  I'll be glad to get home to them tomorrow and begin again to help them adapt.

Or start to adapt.  I hate to say it but next week I'm having the wood flooring replaced, so the poor cat-kids will be disrupted AGAIN!  I'm lucky cats generally have a relatively short memory, or they would never forgive me.   But I'll be there every day, not leaving them alone in a new house for five days, so I'm hoping they do better about it.  

That's the update.  I've had a good meeting, but am really ready to be coming home tomorrow. 

Later.

House Update 2

Again the picture in this post doesn't relate to the post at all.  These little guys kept us entertained last summer on vacation.  Hopefully by the next time I post I'll have pictures of the new house.

Let's see, where to start on the house update.  Well, the beginning might be considered to be the closing so I'll start there.  The closing happened on Tuesday, June 19th, but at 4:00 pm rather than 9:30 am.  The mortgage company finally got my loan approved and to the Title Company at 2:30, so they cut it kind of close.  Luckily, I had bugged them and the Title company enough on Monday that they gave me an estimated closing costs and I got a cashier's check for that amount.  Otherwise I couldn't have made it to an open bank before the closing, especially since even though they had gotten paperwork to the Title Company, they still hadn't gotten my final closing costs to me.


Anyway, the good news is I have a new house.  I somehow figured that once it was mine, things would calm down a little and I'd be less stressed.  In fact, the house is still consuming my life pretty much.  So much to do and to get done.  And I now am a firm believer that construction-type jobs never happen on an actual schedule. 


This week I've been having the entire interior painted and I had a plumber put in a new water heater.  Monday I had cable and internet connected.  Today and tomorrow, I'm having the three bathrooms and the laundry room re-tiled with ceramic tile.    So that's where I'll be tomorrow all day, baby-sitting tilers.   Actually, that's what I'm doing right at this moment, but I haven't been here all day.  A friend of mine has been sitting with them while my sister and I worked on getting my current house and garage packed.  I began at 5:40 am, she arrived at 6:50 am, and the two of us worked straight until 2:00 pm.  Can you say "exhausted"?  I'm going to sleep well tonight.  I just hope I can get out of bed tomorrow.  Packing is hard work!


I wish I could say that we got all the packing done.  We did make quite a significant dent in it.  And we did get the garage mostly packed.  We just gave out at 2:00-ish this afternoon.  I'll still be doing some frantic packing before moving day, which is July 5th.  And the poor cat-children. They don't know it yet but they'll be spending moving day at the vet. 


After my sister and I had all the packing we could take today we came up here and looked the house over, and I stayed while my sister and my friend went about their businesses.  The tilers are determined to get the tile in all four areas laid today so tomorrow they can grout, so they'll be here awhile yet.  That means I'll be here awhile yet.  And currently I have no working toilets in the house.   They're laying the third area now.   It's going to look GOOD when it's done.


Too bad the new carpet won't be installed before I move in.  It's going to be kind of a pain to leave everything on the wood floor areas until they can get the carpet installed.  Can't be helped though.  If the carpet doesn't get here, it doesn't get here.  


So that's the latest house update.  Everything is coming together, even if it's in a slightly more disjointed manner than I would have liked.   I'll be so happy to have it all done.  

House Update

It's been awhile since I blogged and after this weekend it will probably be longer, so I figured I'd better get one in.  First of all the pictures in this blog have nothing to do with the blog itself.  They're just pretty pictures my sister sent from her place last Fall when the aspens changed color and then the first snow on October 9th.  They are also serious wishful thinking because I just mowed my lawn and the temperature on my thermometer is 98 degrees.

Anyway, today's blog post is a house update.

The closing on the new house is Tuesday.  Three days away.  I'm finally feeling like it's actually going to happen, so I've started trying to schedule things.  I met with a painter to measure the house and talk about having the entire interior painted.   I've set up to have a carpet and tile installer come next week after the closing and measure for and schedule the carpet and tile.  I've picked out carpet and tile and have a pretty good idea about the paint.  Things are moving.

My real estate agent almost gave me heart failure yesterday.   She left a message on my cell phone (I was drinking margaritas and floating in my friend's pool.)  The message started: " I'm sorry to have to tell you . . ".  My heart just stopped right there.  I just knew she was going to say the seller had decided not to sell.  Instead, it was that the seller wanted to be out of the house by 5:00 pm Tuesday instead of being out by the closing Tuesday morning.  *heart starts back up*  Before I could call her, she called me again saying, never mind, they've decided they can be out at closing.   Good thing I was mellow from margaritas or I might not have survived that initial jolt.

So even though the mortgage company is STILL dragging their feet, the title company has the closing scheduled for Tuesday morning.  Hopefully the mortgage company will finish up their end by early enough on Monday to give me time to get a cashier's check.  I don't want to push the closing back.  I have a refrigerator being delivered to that house on Wednesday.

*grinning*  Yes, I went and bought a refrigerator/freezer this morning.  It's just a small one, for in the garage.  I've been meaning to get a garage refrigerator ever since my house refrigerator died that time and left me without one.  So I figured I'd get one and put it at the new house.  The move won't be for another couple of weeks after closing so it will be nice to have a way to keep things cold for the workman, and for me or whoever hangs out there with the workman until my big refrigerator gets moved.

Lord, there's so many details involved in moving.  I had forgotten.  And I haven't even really started packing, though possibly I should get serious about that now.  I have another project for today.  Call moving companies and get some quotes and schedule the move.  Right now, I'm hoping to move the days right after July 4th.  Sometime between Wednesday July 4th and Sunday July 8th.  From talking to the painters - they can be done by then.  Hopefully the flooring people can be done by then also.  

This week I also met with the owner of a lease management company about leasing my current house when I move out.   That meeting went very well, and I was very favorably impressed by him.  I'm no longer worried about leasing this house.  I told him I'd want to start leasing it August 1st, so that's another thing that's moving right along.  

Anyway, that's what going on with me these days.  You can see why I might not get around to blogging for the next little while.  See ya on the far side!   

June?

Wow.  That's hard to believe.  It's actually June.   2012 is speeding by at the speed of light.  

I don't have much to talk about today, but I figured I'd blog anyway.   I'm about as motivated today as the cat-kids.    I'm still waiting to hear from the mortgage company about the appraisal and loan.   I suspect they're not in a huge hurry since the closing date isn't until June 19th.   Still, I really wish they'd let me know something.


Last weekend I went browsing.   Not shopping, because I was looking for stuff for the new house.   I'm not going to actually buy anything until I know for sure I'm buying that house.   Buying things now felt like a good way to jinx everything and have it fall through.   But I did visit six furniture stores and the furniture departments in four department stores.   I didn't find anything that just said, yes! I need this for the new house, but I got a lot of ideas for how I can arrange furniture in there and what type of furniture I want in there.  


Besides the furniture browsing, I also went and made decisions about paint colors, carpet and tile.   I really do want to have some fix-up done before I move in, and although again I didn't buy anything, I figured it would save time later to have already decided on colors and styles.   So I spent a lot of time driving around and looking around and almost no time buying anything.  That's actually highly unusual for me since I love to buy stuff.   I did buy more packing boxes but that was all.


Nope, haven't done any more packing, but I'm ready to!   I now have a good stock of different size packing boxes, but again the only thing worse than packing them, would be unpacking them here if the house falls through.


So I guess I'm ready and poised to go forward.   Which is probably why I'm not being very patient about waiting to hear from the mortgage company.  


We got some rain this last week, so my lawn will need mowing soon.   It also cooled it off a bit.  We haven't officially hit 100 this year (yet!) but we've come darn close and May was DRY!!  This week's inch+ of rain was all we had in May, which is considerably below the monthly average for May.   Luckily we were very wet in December, January and February, so we're still above normal for this area for the year, but I really hate extended periods without rain.   Brown is not my favorite color when it comes to growing things.


I realized that if I don't sell this house, I'm going to have to come over here and maintain the yard - water and mow, etc.   Which means either buying another mower or lugging mine between the two houses.   And if it's a dry year, that also means coming over twice a week to water the yard.  Okay, I'm kind of slow, but I didn't think about it before.   Guess I need to see if a rental management company will also do that kind of thing, or make sure the renters do.


Anyway, I'll worry about that later.  That's about all I have to say today.   

Lake Tahoe

Amidst all the house stuff I've been dealing with lately, I had a board of directors (BOD) meeting last weekend.  The last one I went to, which was at the end of February, was in Palm Springs, and I never actually got to see Palm Springs.  We have a new CEO and we spent two 9-hour days in a hotel basement conference room doing strategic planning.  We worked HARD.  They did feed us well and we had receptions the three evenings, but we never saw the sun or Palm Springs.  So I wasn't that excited about going to Lake Tahoe for this BOD meeting because I figured I'd miss seeing Tahoe too.  But this first picture is the view out my hotel window.   The place is simply unbelievably beautiful.

On top of that, luckily we managed to finish mid-afternoon on Saturday and all took a sailboat cruise on Lake Tahoe. This little picture is the back end of the boat.  The cruise was awesome.  Beyond doubt, Lake Tahoe is some of the most beautiful country in the world.  As pretty as my pictures are, the reality is much more amazing.  And the water is so clear.  They say they measure it, and you can see a white dinner plate that's 70 feet deep in the water.  Really, I am not equal to the task of describing the place.

It was funny too.  I didn't take any warm clothes with me.  According to my agenda and schedule, I should have been outside exactly 5 minutes, walking across the street to the restaurant.  Who needs warm clothes for that?  But if the daily high temperature is 65, and you're going sailing out on a BIG lake with a pretty good wind - well let's just say, I knew it would be too cold for this Texas girl.  Luckily for us, the hotel gift shop was having an end-of-season sale on their hooded sweatshirts - two for $40.00.  So about 2/3rds of the BOD went in pairs and bought sweatshirts.  We were all so cute in our Lake Tahoe sweatshirts, but they were warm and make a nice souvenir of the trip. 

The boat we were on was a catamaran.  We weren't the only people on it because the thing was big enough to easily hold 50 people, but we made up the majority of the people on board.  The crew served us wine or beer or non-alcoholic drinks if you were so inclined.  And they served fruit and cheese and crackers.  And the sun was brilliant, the sky was clear blue, the lake was deeper blue, and the pines were a deep green.  Really just so lovely it almost makes your heart hurt to see it.

We looked at the houses along the shore when we were close enough to see them.  The local people say that a high end house at Lake Tahoe runs between $10 million and $100 million!  I cannot even imagine.  Below $1 million is considered low end.  It's pretty likely that I will not ever be owning a house there.  On the other hand 45 minutes away in Reno, the housing market has crashed about the worst of anywhere in the country.  A shuttle driver told me his friend bought a house there for about $800,000 at the height of the market and sold it after the crash for $350,000.  I can't imagine having to sell my house for less than half of what I paid for it.   

 Anyway it was a fun trip, and it was nice to get away from my own housing stuff, if only for a few days.       

House Hunting

Actually, I suppose I'm past the 'hunting' stage now - I hope.  After looking at houses since the first weekend in March, I have a contract on a house.  I'm currently going through all the inspection, appraisal, survey, etc, etc, processes involved in buying a house so of course nothing is final until all the paperwork is signed at closing.  Still, I'm somewhat hopeful that things will work out.

So what's it like?  Cool.  It's bigger than my current house and sits at a great location.  It's 10 miles closer to work than I am now and less than 5 miles from a light rail station.  It's 1 story, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, with lots of nice features.  Floors are wood with carpet in the bedrooms and in one of the living areas.  The outside is nicely landscaped, so we'll have to see how well I do at keeping that up.  The lot is smaller than my current one, but not a lot smaller.

I'm seriously excited about it, but then I look around me and the thought of packing and moving all my stuff is kind of depressing.  Poor cat kids are going to be seriously traumatized.  My old lady kids don't like changes in their lives.  And I have a list longer than my arm of new furniture I want to get.  Of course, I don't want to take some of my cat-clawed, late-graduate-student furniture to a new house.  I need at least one new sofa set (2 living areas), at least one more recliner, a new bed, a new computer desk and chair, new bookshelves, an flat screen HD TV, a small dining table and chairs - to name some of the things I want.  It's a good thing I worked my credit card balances down so low to qualify for good financing.  Shopping!!  Just the thought lifts my spirits.

So I'm good as long as I pretend I don't have to pack this place up.   I haven't decided what to do with this place actually.  I don't know whether to sell it or rent it out.  If I rent it out I'll hire a management company to do that.  Either way I need to have some work done on the place once it's empty.  Painting at the very least.  And the shrubbery in front is badly overgrown, thanks to recent rain. 

I also have somehow accumulated plants that will need to be moved.  5 pots of aloe vera, 5 pots of small cacti and 7 pots of peach seedlings.  That's actually kind of amazing for someone who doesn't grow things, as a rule.  I did lose one of the little cacti I transplanted, but one out of 13 isn't too bad.  The others seem to be doing well so far.  

Now you know what I'll be doing with any and all my free time between now and closing in mid-June.  Packing!  I have plenty of lead time to pack, although I'll be out of town next Thursday through Sunday for a meeting.  I should probably not procrastinate too long on it, though.   It will be better to do it over time than rush it at the last minute. 

So I'll let you know how things go.  That's all for today.

Mighty Huntress

I just had to share this.  I've been outside this afternoon, mowing the lawn and watering stuff and trimming a few things.  And of course, when I'm outside the cat-kids are outside.  That black tom cat has been back around so they don't stay out there much when I'm not outside, but they've been out this afternoon.

Anyway, I came inside to clean up and glanced outside and started laughing at what I saw.  A couple of years ago when my peach tree was full and overgrown, Zoe used to LOVE to lay out under the dragging branches and pretend to stalk birds.  She was actually pretty visible, being mostly white, even when "hidden" in the thick branches, but she so thought she was a mighty huntress.  One of the regrets I had about that tree dying was she really had no place to hide and play outside any more.  Today when I looked out I saw this scene and had to take a picture of it.

Yes, Zoe was "hiding" among the mini-peach trees in the growing mini-peach orchard!   There were three doves in the yard under the bird feeder (picture down below), and she was absolutely fixated on them, while "hiding" among the peach trees.  I just had to laugh.

Those doves absolutely dis poor Zoe.  She's so fat and slow, she can be laying on the edge of the porch, three feet from them, and they'll be foraging seeds there on the ground, completely unconcerned about her presence.  They don't even leave if she gets up and starts stalking them.  If she gets much inside the three foot range they'll fly away, but they certainly don't care if she's out laying on the patio.  Still, she keeps trying to stalk them.   And now apparently she has a new hiding place to stalk them from.

I really like my lawn when it's newly mowed.  I wish the front yard was as thick and healthy as the back.  My poor front yard is mostly weeds.  Really the yard doesn't stand a chance despite TruGreen's best efforts.  The neighbors on both sides make no attempt to grow grass, just let the weeds grow as they will, so everything blows into my yard.  The back yard is behind a privacy fence, so it's a little easier to control.

Anyway, that's all today.  Just had to share the pics of Zoe hunting.