My Favorite Weekend of the Summer

One of the nice things about moving is that you find some of the things you lost. I've been looking for my camera for months. Cameras are not fun to replace, but they are replaceable. The pictures on that camera were not replaceable. All the pictures from this summer were on that camera. On moving day I was a very happy girl when Erin found it buried deep in my couch! Hopefully i will be able to share a lot of those pictures and memories with you soon. I decided to start with my favorite weekend of the year ;)

It all started with Tom picking my up at my apartment one rainy Saturday morning in July. We were headed off to Bloomington, IN, a town i had never visited but that Tom had told me about several times. On the agenda was breakfast at the Uptown Cafe, shopping for books at the used/rare book stores and unique gift shops and wine tasting at the Oliver Winery. Now, at this point Tom and I had been dating for just over a year and I was quite sure that he had in his possession a ring that was soon to be mine. I was hoping he would present it at some point during this trip. Now this said, i was not completely sure that he had talked to my parents yet. Now before we could head out Tom seemed to think it was very important to stop by his apartment. And i began to wonder "whats he gots in his pockets?" (sorry if you haven't read the Hobbit, that probably didn't make much sense :) 

 

Breakfast was wonderful, i had creme brulee french toast, which was amazing! We also had yummy salmon and cream cheese bagels. Then off to the book corner!

This was a large used book store and i loved all the postings on the door, it was a fun little mom and pop place.

oliver winery

 

When we arrived i wanted to go feed the koi but it was raining. After out wine tour and tasting it was still raining, but we decided to go look at the koi fish in the rain.

See, its raining and my hair is damp, but it was fun! And then it got more fun, because Tom proposed, in the rain, on one of the nicest days i had ever enjoyed.

Afterwords we went back to town and wondered around a little more, visited a kitchen shop where we got busted for flirting and then congratulated on our engagement by the store owner and some other random strangers. It was funny! And then there was this cupcake at the local cake shop, with the best and lights frosting i have ever had. 

 

Fifty thousand things to do

So the house is mostly painted, and stuff partially unpacked, and I've had some time to strike a few more things off the honey-do list, like work in replacing the light bulbs in the house, then mow the lawn, rake the yard (that took two days).  At last estimate we had 11 trees, but after some thought I think those large trees at the back of the property might be ours too.  Fortunately those two sit back enough back there that the leaves they shed just drops back into the foliage at the edge of the property line.

We finally have proper TV and internet around here.  No more frustrating moments of sniffing out free wifi!  We ended up getting a 6mbps pipe and 200-some channels including BBC and a whole slew of documentary channels, and a 4-channel DVR.  We've already programmed to DVR to record a bunch of documentaries, because we're nerds.  Unfortunately the service provider screwed up royally on the delivery - we were supposed to have it installed between 1-3pm but nobody showed up until close to 7, and the dispatcher didn't tell him it was a new install so he ended up doing the install til 9pm.  He was pretty apologetic and quite professional, taking the time to do things right, but customer support will have plenty to hear from me on the pre-installation service.

Back to the house.  This house is remarkably energy-efficient.  The original owners had just about done everything right, from adding the insulation pads to the outlets on the "outside walls" to the nice insulated windows.  The heater would kick in, heat the place up to its preprogrammed temperature, shut off and it'd stay that way for quite a while from there.  I'm very interested to see how this house does during the winter, but I'm quite optimistic.  I also replaced almost all of the light bulbs downstairs and in the basement with CFT bulbs, so that lowers our wattage from 60w to an average of 20w.  Now if I could just get my hands on some solar panels we could really be making a dent in our power bill.

It's getting late now and I should get to bed since I've spent the last two days doing crazy house stuff, and didn't really get to do any "me" stuff.  Come to think of it, I haven't really had a relaxing weekend since we got the house, but to be honest I really don't mind.  Sure I spent the weekend raking the yard when I could be watching some TV, or working on a model, or reading that book Dori got me; but it's quite nice to be to be working on it.  The alternative would be not having any home improvement to do at an apartment, which doesn't sound very attractive any more.

Moving Day and Other Fun Stuff

Officially I moved into the house one week ago today. To date we have managed to unpack the kitchen, get the den furniture moved in and install internet and television. The master bedroom has my random collection of bedroom furniture, but we're done purchasing furniture for now (we're saving our pennies for a flat screen television, merry christmas to us). Both furchildren now live in the house. Crash (my baby) has decided to live upstairs and sometimes graces us with his presence on the first floor. Ducky (tom's baby) lives in the basement. Crash hid for a few hours but adjusted rather fairly quickly. Ducky is a little more high strung and we expected her to hide for days. Instead, she startled us by waltzing out of her travel carrier and promptly investigating her new home. She seems to approve since there has been no cat drama. I don't think either cat realizes he has a new sibling in the house :)

This weekend Tom spent a lot of time dealing with AT&T and dealing with fall in indiana - we have 11 trees, most of which have shed a pile of leaves onto our yard! I had a more leisurely weekend, shopping with jen and nolan followed by girls night. Fun times were had by all!

moving day

nolan isn't so sure about shopping, but he did so good!!

bad pic from my phone, but this is girls night at Erin's home

It was lots of girl bonding fun (we got pedicures!)