Friday, July 23

Here are those pictures, as promised!

Slideshow:



(I have it set on autoplay. If you want to read all the captions, click on the slideshow and it should take you to the album directly.)

Yesterday, I was able to take these pictures of our new place. It's a townhouse, in a row of about 10, and we're still in a very nice neighbourhood. Loving it in here! :D

Thanks for dropping in!
~Amphitrite

Thursday, July 22

This Land is Your Land...

Ardeo and I were up late last night, talking and playing with the kids before bed, and this song came up at some point during the conversation. We all listened to it, then Ardeo explained it a little for the kids; he then told us why he thought the song should be our national anthem, and we both told the kids that we had to learn it in our elementary music classes.
After the kids went to bed - and this all is happening between midnight and 1 A.M., by the way - he & I talked a little more about the political lyrics within it, which led to conversation about Woody Guthrie in general. We agree, Mr. Guthrie is the Mark Twain of early American music.
Ardeo said he thought it would make a good blog post, so he's researching and collecting thoughts and will eventually write one up. I will prod him along too. ;)

Wednesday, July 21

Another week has passed...

Just a general update:

- We are all moved in and settled. Figured out where everything needed to be, learning the quirks and idiosyncracies of the new place, and really seeing that living minimally is working out VERY well for us. It's smaller, but perfect, and we hang out together more often now - the necessity of that has even made us enjoy each other more!

- No pictures today though. We've had really crazy storms here in the last couple of days, and discovered the hard way that our skylight and one bedroom window have *serious* leaks. The only pictures I've taken so far are for the maintenance crew and owner. Once it dries out a little more and the skylight can be re-caulked (our guess is, that's all it needs), I'll get a photo tour together for you. We really do like it here; I don't think we had any idea just what we were missing out on over the last 7 years!

- School starts back up in about 20 days - August 11 - for the kids. Mister Twister is going into 7th grade, while Miss Hurricane will be a 2nd grader. This year will be her first experience with riding a bus to and from school; we moved from the neighbourhood right behind the elementary, (which was easy for walking to/from) and now live across the main road (which even *I* wouldn't cross alone). It's a minor artery for our city, and a bit hard to get in and out of our street by car... so, on the bus she will go! We have some school supply shopping to do very soon, and first day pictures will come as well.

- In the meantime, we do still have a few weeks during which we will visit distant family. My big family reunion is coming up in August, and we'll be there this year; we're staying that weekend with Mom & Dad, and visiting some dear friends before the day of the reunion. We also will trek up to the Detroit area to see our sister-in-law and family!
{PSSSTT - She is gearing up for a Breast Cancer Walk, and giving away some goodies on Twitter - check her out!}

All in all, things are going pretty well for us these days. I wish the same for you and yours!
Blessings,
Amphitrite

Wednesday, July 14

An update on our move

As far as having everything in the new place, we are all moved in! As far as putting everything where it goes and where we want it, it's almost finished. For now, we only moved a few blocks from the old house, so we didn't have to take anything very far. The lease here will end on June 30 next year, and this time we will have everything ready to move to Portland as originally planned!
As soon as we get everything in its place and have a little extra time, I'll take some pictures and post them here. Last night, we were informed by the young lady of the house, that one bedroom is bigger than the other. Well, yes dear, it's called a "master bedroom" and it's for the parents. This was not good enough for her - she said she wants to switch bedrooms with us. We're working on her so that we don't switch bedrooms. Building their bunk bed once was enough, we really don't want to take it apart and build it all over again! Their room is a little smaller than their last, and ours is bigger than our last. She's a perceptive little thing and picked up on it almost immediately! By the end of this week, I should have their room all cleaned out. It looks a little smaller than it is right now because we still have moving totes full of things that aren't put away yet. We still have some in our room too, but the living/dining and kitchen rooms are all pretty much "done". All the Mom Work that never ends is also in the process of being done, so it's kind of a big mess downstairs.

Downstairs!! :D We moved from an inefficient and small, old ranch-style house into a small but efficient, split level townhouse! All the appliances work (*and* they're newer); I have an automatic dishwasher (*squeee!!!*), a kitchen island, TONS of kitchen cabinets, TWO toilets (one up, one down), central air, and walk-in closets. These are things I have lived without for the last 7 years. While I was totally fine with it (and still would/will be, as most of those things are "creature comforts") before, I am totally excited about having these things now - even though I know it's only for a year.

It could still be another week before I get back here again, but I will, and I will try to have some pictures.
I also wanted to mention a slight change I made here, which you may have noticed by now - I changed my husband's nickname from "Poseidon" to "Ardeo". He started a blog a couple years ago, and used Ardeo as his nickname there; he's listed here as a co-author, and Ardeo is the profile name Blogger tossed out onto this page. Henceforth, he is Ardeo in writing on this blog. (And I'll go into that another time. It's a Latin word.)

Blessings,
Amphitrite

Thursday, July 8

First week:

It's been one week since we left our old house... and tomorrow, we can start moving into the new place! I am totally ready to get my stuff back and set up in a space that is our own again. I am also grateful, and very thankful, that my in-laws have let us stay at their house over the last week! Doing so kept us close enough to town and the new place that once we got the phone call, we wouldn't be too far away to finish up the paperwork. Next week I'll write up something more about the delay in moving; the last few days have felt very laze-around-ish ... then today, we got a concrete timeline and will be busting our humps through this weekend to get it all in place! That is really fine with us though - still leaves us time for family visits before the kids get back into school this year. Now, it has been as dry as bones here for about two weeks - and tomorrow afternoon we are expecting thunderstorms. We are supposed to start moving things after 2 p.m., adding a whole new element of fun to the matter of moving. Oh well. We are good to go no matter what!!

Have a great week everyone!
Amphitrite

*(our cable/internet will be hooked up Monday)