Moving Progress

Well, the new POD is looking much more full. We hired a local college student, Chris, to help out with moving furniture this morning. Most of the big pieces are now loaded and it's nearing ¾ full. We actually sent Chris home after a couple hours because we needed to spend some time filling in all the "holes" with smaller boxes. If we kept putting big pieces in, we wouldn't have been able to reach them anymore.Our goal is to start our drive up to Portland tomorrow afternoon. We're going to stay overnight with Sharon's stepmother's parents in Redding and then finish the drive on Thursday. But, I'm looking around this house and I'm seeing so much loose stuff sitting around, it's hard to imagine how we're going to keep that schedule without leaving this place such a disaster at the end. The boxes we pack tonight are going to be real ugly!! Too bad. =)

I've been sleeping poorly and so naturally Jeff hasn't been getting enough sleep either. He's off taking a nap and I'm on a required sit down break. I'm trying to work on my next PCC class assignment, but I'm very distractible. I'm supposed to do an informational interview and write up a summary by Thursday at midnight. Given our move plans this week, I'm running out of time. I don't know what I was thinking when I signed up for this class this summer!?

Sewing Room Packed

There's just a couple open boxes waiting to be filled the rest of the way, and this room is done!! Jeff is working on disassembling the furniture as I write this.

I also packed up the guest bathroom the other day, so we have two rooms completely done. The middle bedroom is mostly packed, but for one bookshelf of bungalow and gardening books and a growing pile of boxes that we want to take in a trailer with us.

We're getting close now, but we still have quite a bit of loose stuff left in the living room. I'm working on sorting stuff tonight.

We Had Elves!

First thing this morning, PODS came and picked up our second POD and delivered our third. Ugh, I’m hoping this is our last one. I cannot imagine what we will do with all the stuff if we manage to fill it up.
We still have rather a lot of furniture to get rid of. I’m not sure what we’re going to do with it all. However, since POD charges by the POD, and not by weight, we may end up throwing some of it in and trying to sell it at that end when we have more time.

Late last week, I scheduled a service appointment with AT&T for today because our internet and phone service was not working. The phone kept disconnecting phone calls and we had very intermittent internet service. We haven't been able to watch Netflix for over a week; not that that is all bad! The only window for the service call AT&T would give us was 8AM to 8PM! They didn’t even call us this morning to give us an idea of whether they’d be coming before lunch or after lunch. And when do they show up?—7:05PM!! We spent all day trapped at home waiting for them!

My Dad owns this house and he wanted to be here when the AT&T repair guy came out because he wanted to be here to ask them to upgrade the phone box and to run a new phone line to the pole. Dad showed up with his wife, Maxine, at around 10 this morning. While they were here, we worked on sifting the garage, packing, weeding, pruning, and other much-needed yardwork. The yard looks so much better now. And Maxine is awesome; she went through and sifted out an old chemical cabinet and is going to take in all the old stuff to their local hazardous waste drop off.

My Dad also went through and pulled stuff out of the attic and repaired wiring in the garage. He installed some new outlets in the garage and repaired the doorbell button. And he reglued some of the veneer trimwork in the kitchen. Too late for us, but it will be nice for the last week we’re here! =)

I helped in the garage this morning, but when it got too hot, I retreated indoors and finished sewing the Roman shades for our new master bedroom. Now I just need to figure out the placement of the rings and glue on the battens/ribs. I’m planning to do the hand sewing during the next trip up to Oregon.














I’ve just got a couple more small sewing projects and then I’ll pack up my sewing room furniture. The library is already mostly gone. And our master bedroom will go with us in a rented trailer or get thrown in this POD at the last minute.

Walk to Breakfast

This morning we decided to walk to our favorite breakfast place—Stacks. It was roughly 1.7 miles each direction. We loaded the dog up with her backpack (which really just contained a couple of empty canvas bags, in case we went shopping on our way home) and off we went!

It turned out to be a very enjoyable walk. We found the most beautiful street! It was tree-lined, and filled with beautiful, historic houses! I'm so glad we walked, or we never would have found it! (Redwood City is really growing on me; I didn't realize how nice it was when we moved here last year.)


Last night, Jeff and I went square dancing again. We had a really good time dancing with the Katydid's down in Campbell. That's the club where Sharon's father and aunt dance, so it was fun to see family. We're really enjoying getting back into dancing again. (Oh well, the picture is a little blurry.)

The Katydid's is also the same club we started dancing with, way back in 1984, when we originally took a square dance class with a few friends. We're the only ones who have stuck with square dancing through the years; our friends all moved on to other hobbies.

We've got a pretty quiet weekend planned. Jeff is off to bed this afternoon for a nap (he tends to sleep a lot on the weekends). We'll also probably take a number of walks; it keeps the dog happy and helps me with my journey to better health. We're still debating about whether we will go to a round dance class on Sunday evening.

Bad Weather = Cleaner House

We've had pretty bad weather this week, for California anyway. I think we've had about 7 inches of rain so far this month. So, I have had to cut back on my outdoor walking this week, but it turns out that's a good thing because I have turned my energy to cleaning house.

Today, I finally managed to deal with the master bathroom. We have had misc. tubs sitting around on the counters since we moved in. Today I finally managed to sort through everything and get the counters clear. I also cleaned the bathroom, because it really needed it. This is the best the bathroom has looked since we moved in.

This makes two rooms that I have managed to clear out this week. I also started in on the pile of excess boxes in the hallway outside the sewing room. It feels really good to finally make progress on getting this place cleaned up.

It's taking me a lot of time to go through these boxes because I am actually sifting them. For the most part, I'm getting rid of stuff. I've filled up the paper recycling and managed to get stuff that we're keeping put away.

We may actually be able to get this place cleaned up in the next couple of months.

School started this week. Classes look to be much like last semester; I even have the same two teachers.

Sifted Again

Today was stormy and rainy outside, so I decided to get some exercise by cleaning the final disaster room, the "library." The room was basically crammed with all the boxes we didn't get unpacked after the move and the room was really not usable as it was. Sure, there were bookcases and books in there, but you couldn't get to them very easily. Plus, we also had the return of several boxes of books and I needed to try and figure out where to put those.

So, I spent around four hours today clearing out the library and reorganizing the book cases. I think I have finally gone through all the boxes that were in that room. Mostly, I recycled whatever paper I came across. I had a whole box of software boxes that dated back to 2002! For the most part, I flattened the boxes and recycled them and tossed the software. I kept of a few of the disks, but most everything got dumped. And I have a growing donation pile that I hope we'll get rid of in the next couple of weeks.

I was actually able to squeeze in all the tubs of books onto the existing book shelves. And now all the books on the shelves are mostly sorted by subject as well.




And now that I can finally get to the windows in that room, I'm thinking about making the last set of Roman shades. Hmm, the fun part is the planning; choosing the pattern and the fabric.

Found the Kitchen Counters!

I spent the afternoon working on clearing the kitchen some more. Unfortunately, there is still a pile of stuff I just haven't figured out where to put. But, for the first time since June (when we moved in), I have found the counters! Woo hoo!

Wow, looking at these pictures, it reminds me we need to glue the missing cabinet face trim pieces back on. Maybe we'll get it done now that the kitchen isn't quite the disaster. I'm still trying to tackle the small pile of stuff left on the table. Maybe we'll manage full room pictures tomorrow. =)

I'm also attempting, this week, to get our Winter Newsletter printed. I actually had the Newsletter finished before we left on vacation, but I never found anybody in Oregon to print it for us. I had been hoping to, but we spent a lot more time looking at houses than I had been expecting. We really didn't do anything else but look at houses and visit friends on our trip.

Sifting Again

Now that we have space in the garage, Jeff and I have embarked on finally decluttering the house. Though we moved in six months ago, we still have piles of boxes sitting throughout the house. So today we resumed work cleaning. We are working our way through the house and sifting everything. For the most part, we are getting rid of non-essentials, but there is a growing pile of boxes in the garage.

Today we started with the kitchen. We spent pretty much all day going through all the piles of stuff sitting around the room. We also worked on reorganizing cabinets so that they would hold more stuff. We made a lot of progress and we'll probably manage to get the kitchen picture-worthy by tomorrow evening.

While we were in Oregon, we borrowed all five seasons of Battlestar Galactica from Ross and Wendy. Today, we alternated watching episodes with doing housework all day long. Tomorrow we plan to spend the day in much the same way.

I expect that it will take us a couple of weeks to work our way through the house. But I'm looking forward to when we're done. Maybe we'll actually be able to have company again. That will be nice. =)

Busy Day

I had PE class this morning and I somehow dragged myself out of bed. Jeff got up much more easily; all those naps this weekend must have helped. Once I was up, I was feeling pretty good. I decided to multi-task and I brought my class notes to PE class and study while I was riding Rex (sort of a recumbent elliptical). I got quite a bit of cardio workout this morning between studying and walking to and from class.

Since we had the dining table cleared, I decided I'd better take advantage of the space, so I also sewed the binding on the last quilt. I didn't have enough of any one fabric so I had to piece the binding with different fabrics. Hope it's not too weird! Anyway, now I've just got the last two to finish the hand sewing. I'm planning to bring at least one of them on the trip to Oregon to work on when we're hanging out visiting. It will be a relief to have all four of these quilts done.

My father also came out today and picked up his old car. So, we now have the other half of the garage! Yeah! It will be nice to have some spare space out there. It was hard to get around with how crammed it was with stuff. Though, with our vacation coming up later this week, this project will have to wait until January.

I have a final in three hours so maybe I'd better get studying again!

Rain!

We woke this morning to a loud crash and splashing water noises and Jeff correctly surmised it was our pop-up in the backyard collapsing under the weight of the rain water accumulated on the roof. We hustled into our clothes and rain jackets and went out and did our best to cram all we could into the garage. I thought it was a little funny; Jeff was not as amused. =)


That gray tarp in the foreground, that's our stained glass. We hope it survives. We had it in the garage over the weekend, but then it got taken out again when my Dad and stepmother came over on Sunday to clean out the back of the garage. Oh well, there's no room for it now since we crammed everything else in. At least it's covered.

I love fall! We get to wear sweaters and drink hot tea and have hot oatmeal in the mornings. Yeah!

Here's a quick video of how hard it's raining outside. If it keeps this up for too many more hours the garage may flood! I wonder how the storage facility next to the Bay is... I guess we're insured so I won't worry about it. =)


Surveying the damage on Wednesday:

We had a couple of cardboard box casualties in the garage due to the poorly sloped floor. Luckily it was just a box of clothing donations (which I've thrown in the wash) and a box of mostly glass jar food storage. We lost a very little bit of food.

I found this garbage can sitting outside the garage and it was nearly full. It didn't look to be in a position to catch any runoff and it was holding just under 7 inches of water! (That includes the rain for all day yesterday plus the rainfall through the night.)

The popup is entirely destroyed and needs to be disassembled and recycled/tossed out. Too bad; what a waste!

The weather forecast called for more rain today; but it's absolutely sunny and gorgeous outside. What a good day to be in California.

Busy Weekend

Yesterday we went off to a feast in the Shire of Esfenn (Fremont). They had a really great menu and the food was delicious. I wish I had remembered to take more pictures of the food. Though it was one of the more-expensive feasts we've gone to, it was worth it. During the evening, Jeff enjoyed playing games with a table mate.

Today we're tackling cleaning up the living room. This corner of the room was full of boxes when we got up this morning. We spent the last couple of hours sifting boxes and shifting some of them to the garage.

Our plan is to rotate the futon around (in front of the fireplace, unfortunately) so it faces the entertainment center. And we want to hang the curtain hardware back up so I can get started on the drapes for this room. This house has very little insulation in the walls, so we'll probably want the drapes when winter finally arrives. Though, it didn't get cold enough last year to kill the tomato plants until December so it probably won't really get all that cold.

Here's a before and after picture.

TV Finally

Well, Jeff finally got his TV today. And since my class was cancelled tonight, I got to watch him set it up and play with it. It's much smaller than our TV in Forest Grove, but it will do for now. It fits well in our entertainment center.



Now we just need to get the living room cleaned up. =)

New Master Bedroom Closet

My brother Jeffrey came today to help us redo our master bedroom closet. I'm so excited! When I moved to Redwood City, I went from having 16 feet of closet in the master bedroom to having four, and now I have 6. This isn't a lot more, but it makes a difference. =)

I didn't actually take a "before" picture; oh well. Here is Jeffrey taking out the original closet.

Since the closet is more than three feet deep, we actually built the shelving 22" deep and brought the rods forward. This gives us some good storage space behind the clothes, instead of wasted in front of them.




I still have to paint it, which is sort of a shame because we used good quality maple plywood, but everything else in the room is painted. Painting is a project for another day, however, because we need time to patch it, prime it and then paint it. I don't have enough hours before bedtime today to get in that many coats and I needed to get the clothing off the bed.




There is actually one more really fun thing that my brother Jeffrey is going to do for us. He pulled out this shelving from the original closet, which actually appeared to be good quality wood from the 1950's, when they built this room onto the house.












Jeffrey is going to recycle it into a wood coat rack for my living room, that looks sort of like this:






I had already purchased the coat hooks and figured we would have to buy wood. If we can recycle this used wood, that will make the rack that much more special.

Dog Class and Kitchen Curtains Done

I finished the kitchen curtains today, finally. I'm not entirely happy with them (I should have made them a few inches longer), but they're much better than what was up there when we moved in. And then tonight Jeff hung them up for us.

I think it looks real nice with the sunlight shining through.

Tonight was the last night of Shasta's advanced beginning dog obedience class. Luckily, she did really well tonight and the instructors said she can pass onto the next level! I certainly had my doubts a few weeks ago. She still needs to work on "heel" but she did well on most of the other commands.

I still have a couple more house sewing projects, but I'm not in a rush to get them finished before I start school. I'm planning to make a new shower curtain and window valence for the guest bath. I've got enough curtain material left to make 6 placemats for the kitchen table. And I've got fabric to make triple pleat curtains for the living room, but we have to get the room cleaned up before I can deal with that project. I suspect it will happen once I'm in school, but it might not happen until winter break (mid-December), depending on how much homework I get.

Kitchen Curtains in Progress

After a long visit to the dog park this morning, I worked on making the kitchen curtains. I got both sets of valences done and Jeff hung them tonight. I'm still working on the large portion for the main window and will certainly finish it tomorrow.



I've been making good progress on my To Do List; that school deadline is clearly a motivator for me. =) I'm running out of summer.