I live in a college town and I think it is aging me.  Being an actual home owner in a college town is very different.  This experience is a first time deal for me.  I have basically lived in this town for eight years, give or take the few years I was in The City.  And even though I have worked in this college town almost a year, things are different now that I live here.  Like really live here.  I am registered to vote and everything.

Move in day at the dorms.  Hello, mad house!  I moved into the dorms early when I was a freshman so my experience was only about a quarter of the mad house.  Plus, when you are in the midst of chaos, it doesn’t seem so crazy.  When you are a college employee trying to get to work or run out to grab lunch or leave to go pick up your husband, it is crazy!  These students and their parents have no manners.  I swear I was almost run over and rear ended.  (Different times, not all at once.)

And now that school has officially started, the chaos continues.  New students everywhere.  Lost and confused students everywhere.  Maniac driving students who must be running late to class because why else would they feel the need to drive that out of control, everywhere.

Everyone who lives in this town is just use to it.  They are prepared for the town population to double every fall and then toward the end of October, everything goes back to normal.  Students drop out, find their way or just quit caring about being on time.  (Or don’t bother showing up at all, not that I would know anything about that.  I was a stellar student.)

So here is to living in a college town.  And here is to me sounding like local complaining about all the students.  And here is to staying at home all day Saturday because, HELLO, football season.  Don’t even get me started about that one.

Now where is my cane and plastic lawn chair so I can sit in the front yard and yell at kids walking on my grass?

How many times have I promised pictures of the new house?  Probably once or twice, or 100 times.

Today I am here to deliver.  I My mother finally took pictures of the new house!  I My mother was so smart and remembered to go to each room with a camera.  I My mother is so proud! 

There was this brief period right before the bridal shower I threw on Sunday where the entire house was spotless and adorably decorated.  That brief period lasted less than an hour.  Sure, it is still pretty clean, but the spotless is long gone.  The coffee table is again covered with magazines and remotes (because B has to have 10 remotes for each gadget).  The kitchen cabinets are covered with dishes I have yet to put back in their boxes and put away.  The bed is no longer being made every morning.  Basically as soon as the party ended, B and I went back to living in the house and not walking on eggshells trying to keep everything spotless.  Just don’t tell Martha Stewart I don’t make my bed every morning.

So I guess you want some pictures, right?  Again, keep in mind these were taken before the bridal shower.  While I thoroughly enjoy the lit candles, fresh flowers, crystal dishes and lace tablecloths, that isn’t how the house looks normal.  You still get the jist.

Entry.  Nothing too exciting here.

Kitchen.  Yes, we still have the teal cabinets.  And we will until we fall into a pit of money.  Honestly, once we got rid of the salmon and mauve colored paint, I didn’t hate them as much.  I think a new, neutral color countertop might actually make the color work!  Again, at least until we fall into a pit of money.

View #1 of the living room.  See the awesome fireplace?  Yeah, I painted the inside black.  Amazing the difference that small can of paint made.  Oh, and removing the 1980s brass insert.

View #2.  The chairs aren’t normally there and we don’t keep a sign in on the table.  Again, bridal shower.  That painting is one of my most prized possessions.  My aunt painted it and for years every time I was at her house I would ask if I could have it.  I knew one day she would redecorate and I would get it!  Doesn’t it look great?

View #3.  From this angle you can see the dining room.  Right behind me my mom is the hallway to the bedrooms.  Make sense?

Master bedroom.  Hi new furniture!  I love you!  I can’t remember if I shared a picture of the furniture yet.  I love it, even though black furniture and two dogs makes it almost impossible to remain dust free.

This is B’s office.  Heh.  I think he would die if his super techy-geeky friends saw what we did to it.  Ha!  Normally he has some ridiculous oversized monitor sitting on top of the lace tablecloth.  I am kidding B, I know you only use the tablecloth on formal Sundays.

And finally, the screened back patio.  This hasn’t really changed either.  But, can we talk about how green everything looks?  Thanks to my parents cleaning out the flower beds and the unseasonable August rain, I am loving my backyard right now.  As long as my parents come back and work their green thumbs a few times a year, I think I will be able to manage all the plants!

So there you go.  The new house.  I left out the bathrooms and spare bedrooms, but you get the idea.  These are the rooms we worked on the most.  And they are my favorite rooms in the house.

First off, let me say I know this post would be 100 times better if it had pictures.  Sue me.  I am tired and cranky and it took every ounce of energy I had to complete my to do list this week.  I didn’t put taking pictures on my to do list, therefore it didn’t get done.  I wasn’t kidding about the importance of a list in my world.

Also, is it breathe or breath.  I feel like it use to be either and then one day everyone decided the extra “e” was cool so they adopted breathe.  Or maybe that was a dream.  I think breath should be used as, “I held my breath.”  And breathe should be, “Don’t breathe your skank garlic breath on me.”  (Hmm, wonder who I am talking to… B!)  (Also, see how cool I am and used both terms in one sentence.  Yeah, I planned that.)

What was my point?

Oh yeah, everyone hold your breath/breathe.  (Seriously, can some tell me what is right.  Now I am all confused!)  The house is clean!  And decorated!  And we finished all of our move in projects, at least until we fall into a pit of money to be able to afford more!  I am afraid if I breathe the loudly the entire house will crumble.  I know that is irrational, but you don’t understand how many road bumps we hit along the way.

I knew setting a deadline was a good idea.  Even if it almost killed me and made B want to run far, far away from his slave driver wife.  (Hi honey!  I appreciate all your hard work and the seven trips to Lowes you made this week!)

Months and months ago I decided it would be fun to host a bridal shower for my adorable friend Mandi.  I figured two and a half months was plenty of time to get settled in the new house.  Boy was I stupid.  We were screwed before we even started when B threw his back out. 

But, I am proud to say it is good enough!  Sure, the garage is still full of boxes and so are the closets.  Just don’t look in there and we will be fine. 

My parents come in town today so if they don’t trash the place I will try to take pictures and post them.  I know I have promised that before, but I mean it this time.

*Dude, I totally just looked this up and it is breath.  My rant sounds pretty ridiculous now.  Whoops!

Hello readers! Blogging from my local La Quinta Inn. I love this hotel. It has saved my arse several times. Including tonight when my house hit 90 degrees and the new air conditioner can’t be installed until tomorrow. Have I mentioned the joys of moving, especially the joys of moving into a 30 year old house with an AC unit just as old?

This hotel, or Inn as they prefer, has become my family’s hotel of choice when visiting Oklahoma. Ever since the Ramada ran my mom and I off with their flea infested beds. Disgusting. We were able to make a midnight hotel switch to La Quinta after that incident.

But tonight, tonight La Quinta has reached a whole new level of saving grace. The air conditioner man showed up around 5 p.m. The house was already sweltering and the dogs were no longer able to cool off in front of a fan. Once we found out the compressor had to be replaced and that couldn’t happen until tomorrow, I started calling hotels. No way was I spending another sleepless night at that house. It was just too miserable after two days without AC.

My La Quinta is awesome. This hotel is still fairly new, built around 2000, and it has already been remodeled. No cheap hotel bedspreads here. It’s clean and stylish and roomy. And the best part, they take dogs! No questions asked. Zoey and Servo aren’t exactly loving it here, but they don’t hate it either. I know they are happy to have air conditioning.

Oh, I almost forgot the other best part! We got a $70 room rate because of a military discount. Sweet! I always forget to ask, but since we are about to shell out $2,000 for a new AC unit, saving money was on my mind. Thank you La Quinta for saving my arse and saving my checkbook. I think I want to marry you.

Enough talking about my love for this hotel, let me show you my love!

How cute is the bed. I love it when hotel beds actual resemble a bed!

These are hanging in the hotel room. I kind of want to steal them. They would look great in my house!

All my babies in the bed. Does this not melt your heart? Mine can’t melt right now, I am fully abusing the free air conditioner.

Have I mentioned that Servo is the cuddly one? I have never met a bigger puss than him!

Seriously. Cuddlebum doesn’t even begin to describe him. This is where Servo lives. As close to sitting in someones lap as he can. Except he weighs 50 pounds and he doesn’t fit in anyone’s lap.

So, TGIalmostF. And here is to hoping we have AC tomorrow. If not, it’s another night at the La Quinta for me. I wouldn’t mind, but my wallet my start screaming.

Whew, what a weekend.

B did a little of this,

And some of this,

I did a lot of this,

And even more of this,

Our realtor/friend did this,

Install new electrical panel and circuits.  Check.
Run network cable throughout house.  Check.
Put hole in ceiling.  Crap.

Two steps closer, one step back. 

Wait, no, it is my life and bugs are just invading it!  Remember when I told you I think we have a crocodile living behind our house?  Well forget about that, we have bigger problems now! 

This weekend B found a black widow spider hanging out on our screened in porch.  I hate spiders and I think every spider I come across is poisonous.  I did not need living proof that poisonous spiders were actually invading my living space.  (I said living proof, but don’t worry, it didn’t live for long.)

Also in recent bug news, I found a tick on Servo.  Yuck, yuck, disgusting, yuck.  When I found the tick, B wasn’t in hero mode and therefore wasn’t jumping at the chance to save me.  Because you know that tick would have soon discovered my sweet, sweet blood and drained me dry.  Shut up, it could happen.  I had to play hero that night and remove the tick.  Servo is on Frontline, but while the tick was not dead when I removed him, he was also not engorged.  Hopefully that just means he bit recently and the Frontline hadn’t killed him yet.  I fear this will be an ongoing problem as Servo loves tramping through all the backyard foliage.

And, thanks to said tick problem and B not being the hero that night, I now have a new pair of tweezers and my old pair will forever remain the tick tweezers.  Not that that has anything to do with anything, I just wanted to gain more sympathy.  I had to surrender my favorite tweezers because we had nothing else in the house for proper tick removal.

Just remember folks, with totally awesome large backyards that have their own little nature scene behind them, comes great responsibility, I mean bugs.  Horrible, nasty bugs.  Seriously, the first snake I see I am out of there.  (Knock on wood x1,000.  Of course there are no snakes near us.  What would a snake be doing in an overgrown, wooded area that few people disturb?  Right?  RIGHT?)

* How many people have the heeby-geebies after reading this post?  How many people are thankful I didn’t include pictures?  Don’t say I never did anything for you.

You know how when you move into a new house you have to get use to the new noises?  The rain hitting the skylight, the house settling during the night, the fire station down the road and the large creature swimming in the drainage runoff at 5 a.m.  Wait… what?!?

Houston, we have a problem.  Zoey, our queen of bad timing when it comes to getting sick, has been puking in the middle of the night/wee hours of the morning.  At 5 a.m., just as the sun was coming up, Zoey needed to go outside.  B and I followed her out to make sure she was ok.  While standing on our screened in porch, we heard a distinct noise.  Like someone was swimming or paddling a small boat.  Behind our house we have a drainage runoff and with all the rain yesterday it has turned into quite the little pond.  At first I thought Servo had found the hole in the fence and was back there playing in the water.  I got a little worried when I realized he was standing beside me.  The pond area isn’t very accessible or visible to the average passerby.  And I can’t really imagine anyone swimming or boating back there even if they knew the area existed.  Besides, who is up at 5 a.m. for a little pond swimming?

So this leaves wildlife.  Or The Blob.  Do crocodiles live in Oklahoma?  Of course B and I were in our pajamas and neither one of us wanted to leave the porch to look over the fence.  What’s that saying, let sleeping dogs lie?  Or maybe let swimming crocs swim. 

I am scared.  Honey, can we move?

You can thank B and I for the US dollar gaining some strength this month. (Editor’s Note: I have no idea if the dollar is gaining or losing right now.)

Let’s make a list:

• Hiring the last minute and very unexpected movers.  Two people getting a paycheck thanks to our big move.
• Buying a last minute and unexpected refrigerator because our old one did not fit in the new house.  Thank you 20 year old new house that doesn’t accommodate larger fridges.
• Buying a new tv.  Um, thanks B!  Probably wouldn’t have made that impulse buy had we know what was coming in the next week.
• Of course then there is the new entertainment center to go along with the new tv.
• Buying new bedroom furniture.  We will call that my reward for not crying like a baby when B threw his back out and I had to unload the very full trailer by myself and then stay up all night packing!
• Don’t forget the painters!  That was preplanned in our budget and seeing as how awful everything else went, it was WELL worth the money.  Almost my entire house was painted in two days!  We are talking laundry room, kitchen, dining room, study, living room, fire place, hallway, master bed and master bath.  Plus touching up much of the trim!  Can I get an AMEN?!?
• Ack!  I almost forgot the million trips to Lowes, Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond! 

Are we crazy?  Probably.  I will say everything was a fantastic deal.  Plus, we got a little more than expected back from selling our house and we have the summer free of house payments.  What fun is buying a house if you can’t splurge on toys to go with it!

I promise pictures as soon as we get unpacked.  So maybe this fall?  Oyvey.  So who can I bribe to come help me unpack?  Anyone?  Bueller?  Bueller?

We are in and we are connected.  No furniture in the house except two mattresses on the floor, but dog gone it, we have Internet.

Just a quick update, moving could not have gone worse.  Actually, it probably could have, but it is was still pretty bad.  B officially threw out his back on Monday leaving me to finish packing.  Six-hundred dollars later, we got all the furniture moved into the garage thanks to the help of two not so great movers.

Now we have an empty house, a full garage and a full storage  building.  Maybe come August we will be moved in!

On a positive note, the painter comes tomorrow to paint the whole house.  I will be out shopping for my NEW HOUSE!

Almost!

Just a few more precious cargo items left to pack!