Big Day

It's been a very long and very big day, but a pretty productive one. We were up and ready, had picked up my mom, filled the car up with gas, gone to the post office* and hit the interstate by 9:30 or so. Now that I put it that way, it doesn't sound quite so early, but we were ready to leave the house before nine, so I think that counts as early. I've been stressed over not having a place to live, as was further evidenced this morning--I woke up twenty minutes before the alarm went off and was just lying in bed, thinking about getting up and getting going. I never do that unless I'm really into something going on that day. (Intercontinental travel, for instance, will cause me to wake up like that.) Well, I should take that back a little--my internal alarm does work sometimes, but unless I'm interested in the reason for it, I fall asleep again while waiting for the alarm. :)

Anyway. We had no success before lunch, but after a kind of gross lunch at Taco Bell (I used to love that place, but now it's not so good) we had some excellent luck. We happened upon an.. apartment dealer, so to speak--they must own half of the city. Mr. Maintenance Man met us at one of their apartment complexes and we followed him around for a while, going in different apartments and looking around. I can't imagine why there are so many apartments in Frankfort, but there are a zillion of them. The first one we didn't like. The second one we were pretty excited about--except for two big things. It came with an old, small dinky washer and dryer and we already have a set, and more importantly--it had two dead roaches lying in the closet. It did, however, have a basement garage, which was pretty exciting for both me and M (but mainly M, who would like a place to work on mandolins.) I was glad Mom was with us because I completely wouldn't have noticed the roaches. Anyway, we were still leaning towards it when he was done showing us around, but we talked him into taking us a few more places.

I really can turn a simple story into a long and rambling thing, can't I? The point here is that we really really like the place we found. It's laid out just about like the other place we liked, only it's newer, cleaner, and doesn't come with a washer and dryer. It looks a LOT better than the other place we liked so much.. the only catch, really, is that there is no garage on this one. We do have a rather nice back porch, at least. They're supposed to call tomorrow, and assuming they approve us.. we'll probably go back down on Wednesday and sign the lease, as well as get started with the move and stuff.( See pictures of the outside )

*We went to the post office to pick up the last of my birthday presents. A notice came on Saturday that the mailman had tried to deliver it, but no one was home. Wanna see what it is? ( Picture! )

Neat, huh? I bought this (Russian) tatting book from Ebay. It's brand-new and shipped directly from Russia.. with shipping, it was $21. You can buy it from Handy Hands for $35 plus shipping.. so for once, I actually got a deal on Ebay. I've been pretty anxious about its arrival.. although I have to say that I bought it mostly because it's cool--the patterns are diagrammed, but the diagrams are incomplete. Wish I could read Russian--there's a surprising amount of text in the book.

So anyway. We stopped at Sam's in Lexington on the way home, and I bought a pair of sandals, and then we were home by about 5:30 or so--pretty good, if I do say so myself. I almost feel bad because we stopped looking and applied for an apartment with the only company we talked to, but all three of us were happy with it. It does look a little boring on the outside, I know, but it's pretty inside, and it at least looks nice on the outside, if not all that cool and happening. And the space! It makes my heart leap in excitement to think about how much more space we have. I'm feeling much more excited than freaked out now that we have this settled--you may be able to tell. ;)

I then made killer progress in the heaps of MM work I have to do this week. I didn't feel like it when I started, but I decided on the way home that I need to finish it up like.. tomorrow, because I have bigger fish to fry and I will be in town all day tomorrow. So, I got into it and I've just been zooming through. I don't see a problem at all with getting done tomorrow at this rate, especially since I do believe the last of the articles are being edited right now, according to the wiki. While I worked on this, M did the dishes (finally, oh goodness, I've been feeling harried about those, but I didn't nag cause he's been sick, and oh my did I mention that the boy is getting a dishwasher?!) and then went up to Brad's and installed his dvd burner. They're always trying to get us to let them pay us when we go up there, and he actually took payment this time--we're borrowing his modem, just in case. (He just got cable a couple weeks ago.) We don't know how long it will be before we can get our broadband going (oh please, let it be readily available and speedy!) so we might have to hobble along on dialup for a while. Oh, the humanity.

And now I'm taping my show--Homefroont on Monday nights. I'm very worried about whether or not I'll get this channel anymore.. I've been taping it since season one began again. I'm taping next week's show right now, so I have two weeks to get it ironed out without missing one. At the very least, in one more episode, I'll be right back to where I was when I started watching it when we first started getting this channel, so I will at least have seen them all.. or mostly all. (This show was completely the reason we switched cable packages.) I do wish they'd release them on DVD and get it over with. There were only two seasons, but it's one of the best shows ever to grace a television set. I've been greatly enjoying it, though, so I'll really hate it if I have to miss them because of the move.

Anyway, I can't believe I've written this much, and I think I'll just give it up now and go to bed. I'm sleepy and the M is beginning to be impatient. :)

MM, the Move, Math and other Ms

Yay me! I finished up with content for the next issue of Mosaic Minds! That takes a major weight off my shoulders, let me tell you. It went faster this time than last time.. well, for one thing, I didn't document every step of the way. That saved a bunch of time. :) In any case, it's all done. Also, lizardek helped with the creative writing section. And while I'm at it, it was super nice of drottningen to offer to help--I sure would have taken her up on it if I hadn't finished it up today. Anyway. Now I'm a little giddy. You know I tend to procrastinate, but there is something to be said for getting stuff done early, too. What a warm fuzzy feeling.. I don't know if I have ever felt that before! :)

I also got a haircut today. I figured that I was getting a new job, a new city, a new apartment.. might as well have new hair. It's cute, I think, although the real test will be what it looks like tomorrow, of course.

I heard from the apartment people today, but only to answer a couple of questions. She was supposed to call me back but she never did--M called this afternoon and apparently the girl handling it took the afternoon off. Lovely. Hopefully, it won't delay matters all that much. One can hope, anyway. What might delay matters, though, is that I think I'm getting sick. I really hope I'm just imagining it, but I think my throat is sore and I think I'm beginning to feel achey. i really hope I'm making it up.

Apparently, I'm a little scatter-brained today because I can't tie more than three sentences together. Oh, well. Also apparently, my family thinks I've lost my ability to do math. That's the only reasonable explananation. Several people have expressed their concern that we're not going to be able to affod living down there. They hear what my salary will be and they hear what the rent is, and this makes them think that we can't afford it. First of all, we've done the math and we'll be perfectly fine with a fairly decent margin. For another thing, it's not like we picked an insanely expensive apartment or anything. Thirdly, we really don't spend a lot of money, and we don't have a car payment. And finally, M will hopefully have better luck on finding a job now that he's not seventy miles away from the city (and he's not without an income even now.) So. I just don't know what to say to all of this unexpected lack of faith from all quarters. I guess they just think that we don't realize that rent costs money, since we own the place we live now. I guess. My aunt hinted to M that if we didn't like it down there, we could always move back and no one would laugh at us. Which.. okay. I hadn't even thought that anyone would laugh at us if we moved back. Great. Now I have something else to worry about. ;)

I said earlier that I was going to have to schedule some time to worry about the actual job. I'm expending all this energy worrying about the move, so I don't have time to fret about all the rest. ;) No, I'm kidding.. I'm actually not *too* worried about it.. relatively speaking, considering how I am about stuff like that. Speaking of the move, I convinced M that it wouldn't be jinxing our apartment to start packing--we're going to have to move somewhere even if this falls through, so it's not like it would be a complete waste. The problem is that we can't really pack the stuff we'll need, because we.. well, we need it. And it's not all that efficient to pack up all the stuff we don't need, because we won't need it down there at first, either. But M stopped at the produce market (which is now owned by a friend of my dad's) and picked up some boxes, so I guess we should get started on it anyway. Somewhere. I'm so not looking forward to this, but at least it's beginning to feel more exciting than scary now!