Settling In

Well, now that the move madness is over, we've managed to start being able to enjoy the new house... beyond the "holy shit, we bought a HOUSE!" reaction.

I don't even know if pictures will be able to convey even a small sense of the peace and calm out here, but now that I think I know where all of the camera stuff is hiding, we shall soon find out (just give me a bit more time here).

Most of the boxes have been sorted (what needs unpacking within the next month vs. what can just find a comfortable place in the closet). Less than a quarter of our bedroom still has boxes stacked up. With the current lack of shelving for books, movies, music and such, there will still be a bit of a box pile for a bit longer (but when the room is about 15'x30', it is not that big of a problem). We still have to do the washing machine switchout (swap our compact one for the full-sized beast the sellers left), but that is the last of the heavy stuff... inside.

As to the neighborhood, you could not ask for better neighbors. The gentleman across the granite dome from us has already offered the use of his riding mower to help with the yard (definitely will take him up on the offer in the future... the yard is an all-day project with a standard push-mower).

Zane has settled in nicely as well. He's learning the boundaries of the yard quickly, and have almost zero traffic on our street helps set our minds at ease when he's playing outside. We still have his swingset to assemble, but other than that, he has no complaints.

We'll, that's about all for right now. Stay tuned for the next episode:

Darth Vader visits the local Home Depot

The Deed is Done

Well, we finally got everything moved out to the new house (with the exception of a few cleaning supplies to clean up the old house tomorrow). Denita's mom has offered to help Denita out while I'm at work.

Now that the move madness is over, all I can say is... DAMN, I didn't know I had this many places that could ache at the same time.

We had several people lined up to help us move for the original closing date of September 19th, but everyone already had plans during the week following the new close date. It turned out the the bulk of the move was to be handled by Denita, her mom, her brother, her father and myself only. A kind friend from work would have helped out more, but ended up having a massive back spasm start up about a week before we closed, and he is still recovering (thanks for the plant move help Jeff, we appreciate it).

This last week has been hell, running back and forth between the two houses and work (about 130 miles of driving per day on top of a grueling 12 hour shift). It all was capped by a mad, 2 day U-Haul dash Friday and Saturday. I think all of us will have just one huge bruise covering our bodies for the next week or so (hell, even the tops of my toes ache like hell).

Now everything is here in the new house, to be unpacked at our leisure (thankfully all of the important stuff is already unpacked). Next weekend has been set aside to relax and get to know our neighborhood better. We have nineteen area parks to learn where they are located, and many new neighbors to meet. The neighbors we have had the chance to meet so far have been wonderfully friendly people, including a couple on a walk this morning (who had to be in their early sixties), who offered to help move the washer, dryer and freezer out of the U-Haul and into the house!

The peace and quiet out here cannot be matched. Already we have had several deer, skunks and grey foxes go through out yard, and coyotes can be heard calling in the distance. Zane is just beside himself with excitement.

As this next week progresses, I hope to have the digital camera unpacked so we can share more pictures with you.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

One o'clock in the afternoon.

Friday, October 6th.

WARNING: Geek Rant

Further proof that George Lucas is an ass and a liar.

From the original Theatrical Version of Star Wars:

Notice the lack of a reference to Episode IV or "A New Hope".

Seeing that I was weaned on Star Wars (the Star Wars madness started in '77 and I was born in '74), I have been thoroughly disgusted with the constant changes GL has made to the original story. It's one thing to clean up some technical issues and remaster the video and sound, it's another thing to completely rewrite parts of the story to fit a changed world view.

Thankfully GL is at least giving fans of the original versions (who don't have a laserdisc player) a digital version of the un-bastardized movies. Mind you, it's a somewhat low quality scan of the laserdisc versions, in Dolby Stereo (instead of the remastered Dolby Surround/Digital which was done for VHS before GL started screwing with things) and with widescreen display issues (with our widescreen monitor, you can see that it is formatted to a standard display and doesn't scale to a native widescreen display).

Until these versions were announced, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to introduce Zane to the true glory and cheese that was/is the Star Wars Trilogy (don't even get me started on the so-called Episodes I-III *spit*). Thankfully, with the purchase of Star Wars this week, I was able to share with my son something that had a lasting impression on me. He LOVED it! Then he promptly asked to watch the original Gojira movie (Godzilla to most of you).

Thankfully, my disgust with GL's tinkering kept me from forking out money for the first DVD set of the Star Wars Trilogy, so I did not end up paying double for what my geeky soul craved. Now it is time to budget for The Empire Strikes Back (best of the series in my opinion) and The Return of the Jedi (Ewoks must die!) before the evil GL takes them away from us forever in December.

Crunch Time

Well, Friday afternoon brought us a call from our realtor....

To find out what time of day would be best for us, to schedule a time this coming Friday with the title company!

It was too late in the day to call and confirm with the mortgage company that all hurdles had been officially cleared, but Denita will do that first thing Monday.

With that news, Saturday was spent packing some of the last miscellaneous things around the house. We are now at about 95% packed and it shouldn't take too long to get the last of everything thrown in boxes at the end.

The bad thing is that with closing on Friday (and me going back to work Saturday) we won't be able to stay in the new house until the following week.

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 Now on to what most of you have probably been waiting for (well, those who have been following the house stories)... More information and more pictures!

If you follow this link, you shall be rewarded with more pictures of the future Chez TwoDragons.

*begin announcer voice*

Chez TwoDragons is a lovely little two storey home located on almost a football field sized lot (actually 5 lots total, for a grand total of 25,000 sq. ft.). It's unique retro design reflects the decade of the 80's, when it was built. It's generous size of 1856 square feet contains only two bedrooms, but what bedrooms they are.

The ground floor consists of the bedrooms (taking up approximately, two-thirds of the space), a full bathroom, laundry room and nicely sized closets. A small foyer (if you could even call it that) off of the front door leads to the stairwell.

Taking the stairs to the top, you will be greeted by a generous sized living room that takes up almost half of the second floor. The half-bath, kitchen and dining room take up the rest of the floor.

There is an almost constant breeze off of the lake, which the East-West positioning of the house takes full advantage. A quick opening of the living and dining room windows brings a fresh breeze through the house on demand.

As if all of the room (inside and out) wasn't enough, the neighborhood has over 13 parks scattered throughout, including one with lake access about a ten minute walk away. Two and a half miles away is a park with a playground, fishing piers, boat launch and swimming area.

Another great thing is that we only have three houses total on our street and at least a third of the entire neighborhood is not developed so everyone's houses are not squished together.