Starting to Feel at Home

First post after our move.  Yeah, yeah, we moved again, and, although this move was very hastily executed and poorly planned, it went fairly well. As of right now, our old apartment is emptied out and 90% cleaned/reconditioned, our storage has been moved and the lease terminated, and all of our “critical” stuff has been placed in the home. Actually, most of the stuff that remains in our garage as of now will probably remain there (or in the basement) because we don't really need it...

In any event, our new place is looking very home-like: No piles of boxes laying about and only a very few number of items we are unable to find quickly when we want them. This is a really unusual move for us in that fact, actually, as we tend to live out of boxes for nearly a month before getting to where I feel we are today.

As with every move, we have found a few things in the neighborhood that are less-than-desirable, but so far no major issues. The largest so far (for me) has been the dog population. I can hear as many as a dozen different dogs barking at any given time during the day, and there are at least two or three that live outside even at night, making Shyla's late-night potty break a bit of a pain. I suppose this is all okay when considered in the perspective that they are all confined to fences and are only leaving their messes within said confines. The actual inconvenience is relatively minimal, even if it is a bit annoying.

On other regional residents, we also have a relatively large community of ants, whose leaders, I'm quite certain, will be most displeased with my recent declaration of war on them. You can rest assured that my combat methods will be quite... lethal...

As for the neighbors, I've at least been pleased with most of the humans I have encountered here. Mostly elderly people along with a couple of people close to our age, and all seem to be very quiet. Actually, we're probably the noisiest people in the area as a result of our reluctance to close the windows and turn on our air conditioning. In any event, everyone we have met has been cordial, and we will strive to be equally pleasant to them in return.

And oddly... on our first day here we became acquainted with a feline resident of the area with whom we have not seen or heard of since. He was a very friendly butterscotch colored critter that acted as if he was supposed to be here...

So tonight I'm watching Return of the Jedi whilst enjoying a few generic alcoholic beverages. It is cool and the weather is calm, and I really couldn't find anything serious to complain about even if I wanted. I wish everyone could find it in themselves to be at peace in such a manner tonight.

Thoughts on Current Events in Hickersonia

Well, I have the peculiar fortune of having the coming weekend entirely to myself for only the second time in five years. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I must admit that I'm a little disappointed that I don't really have any money to spend (always makes passing the time easier if one has money) or someone with whom to hang out.

Of course, it isn't that I don't have money – in fact, I feel more free financially than I have in three or four years. The issue at hand here is that we have a lot of things going on and have decided to spend our money in ways that make me feel like we don't have any.

The biggest problem I'm wrapping my head around is my scheduled FMLA leave in June... 3 days off work without pay is going to wreak havoc on the budget if I don't save up the difference in overtime hours between now and then, which doesn't seem hard to do (I do work a lot of overtime anymore...) but still keeps money tied up that otherwise wouldn't be.

Of course, the FMLA leave is essential. My father has a surgery scheduled that may shed light on his cancer condition, and while I may be able to get away with only two days off, I would be surprised.

The other big thing going on is our plan to move, yet again. It isn't that our apartment is the worst place to live – I would even recommended it to people so long as a few criteria are met. The first one would have to be that the person looking at it would have to be the sort of person that doesn't care about a yard. Funny, how we have a decent sized grassy area around our complex but I don't feel that anyone can go out there because of the dog shit randomly left around and about. Yes, dog shit. Everywhere. No one cleans up after their dogs, and many of the owners don't even bother to leash them.

Next big factor for anyone wishing to live here: Live small. 800 square feet is simply not sufficient for all of our stuff. Sure, we've made the place into a cozy, if crowded, home for us, but we just never found a way to downsize to where we really fit. Clearly, size matters.

Finally, the one that has been bothering us the most in recent weeks: Smoking. Lets just say this, if you don't smoke, you probably don't want to live here. It has gotten to the point where we are occasionally smelling cigarette smoke inside the apartment even with the windows shut, and forget about opening them... From what I can tell, every neighbor on our side of the building smokes like a factory and, being we're on the top floor and heat rises, well... we get it all.

Aside from the major drawbacks here, like I said, the apartment really isn't so bad. The management does maintain things reasonably well. Not an example of perfection, but decent, and they are responsive to issues as they arise, something we could not say about our previous complex. Fact is, we simply have a much better opportunity and feel the need to take it.

Not far from our pre-bankruptcy house there is a little house on a quiet, dead end street where a whole bunch of elderly folks have made their last stand. This little house is empty and the owner seems to want to rent it to us. The house isn't huge, but it has a room that would make an ideal classroom for our son, plus a basement and garage. Fact is, even if the house is only 1,200 finished square feet, the classroom space and additional storage room alone will de-clutter our home tremendously, and lately it seems as if the constant state of disarray is the only thing that really depresses me from day to day.

So we come back to the fact that I'm home alone this weekend with little available money. If I get bored enough, my wife may return home to the clutter re-organized... *evil laugh* Netflix and Fallout 3 for three solid days sounds like enough to keep me busy, though, what do you think?

Rambling About Moving

We're moving into a new apartment, starting September 17 and hopefully being completely moved by the 20th. It is my hope that we'll be starting to settle in by that point, but it is hard for me to really be terribly concerned with that yet since we really haven't hardly started packing yet. Pictures are still hanging on the walls and most non-essentials are still sitting out in the open just waiting to be parked in boxes, but very little as of yet has actually made it into one.

I did start packing up some of the stuff on my desk, but with one box full I find that the rest of the things might be needed between now and the move, you might imagine I'm hesitant to put it all away if I'm just going to have to cut it back out of a box in a day or two...

But, I'm ready for this otherwise. I want it done and over with so that we can get on with planning Christmas and, hopefully, enjoying the Winter months. Yeah, I'm one of those weirdos that LIKES the winter, but anyway...

Of course, I couldn't tell you to save my life what most of our... uh... stuff... is. I know a lot of it is mine, and I remember acquiring some of it, but what it is or why it is hanging around is unknown to me right now. This goes for a lot of stuff that sits inside one of a multitude of boxes, totes, and other containers that have only been opened a couple times this year, but also applies to the vast majority of the items that reside in our living room, a large portion of which I suspect pretty much belong to my better half (sorry, love).

So, while I'm totally ready for this move, the rest of Hickersonia isn't quite there yet. I really hope we can get it together in the next ten days... It is kinda funny how much stuff we accumulate over time, even if we can't see any real reason to have it. Of course, if we weren't moving, it wouldn't matter, so I guess we'll just have to try to stop moving so frequently... Ahh, wouldn't THAT be a novel idea?