Happy Groundhog's Day

Hi everyone. Sorry I've been MIA for the past week...we've been bogged down by moving stuff. Between workers in the house, utitilities being set up, movers arriving, and hundreds of boxes to unpack, we can't seem to catch up.

We closed on the house Wednesday at 5:00 p.m., moved things from our cars and my parents' house Wednesday night, and the work crew woke us up Thursday morning with a phone call asking to be let in. They worked dawn to dusk Thursday to Saturday painting and installing new flooring in the entryway. Then, yesterday, we went over and gave the house a once-over with the vacuum before the movers arrived.

Now, this is the place in this story that I must take pause to appreciate the wonderfulness that is a moving company. For those of you who've known me awhile, you know how much I HATE moving. In college and law school, I moved every single year...that's eight moves, folks...none of which were assisted by any moving company...well, unless you consider Lande, Jeanne, and Heather a business entity. ;) Each year was worse than the year before, thanks to the inevitable accumulation of CRAP that would occur since the last move. Every year, I would vow to throw more away, and every year, my resolve failed me. I have nostalgia issues...I admit it. Anyway, this time was different in a beautiful, poetic sort of way. This time, I sat on the lawn in a comfy chair, and told the movers where each thing went as it came off the truck. They would say, "Ma'am?" Then I would say something like, "blue room...(drink sip of my sweet tea)...downstairs." Who knew that moving could be so much fun?!?!

After the house was loaded with our things, the real work began for the Chessers. Our first project was attempting to arrange the living room furniture. We knew it would be difficult, because the room doesn't have a really obvious place for a TV, but we wanted to tackle it first since we think that having a place to sit down makes a house a home. After hours of contemplation, I think we've officially decided that NEW FURNITURE is the only answer. I'm going to try really hard to be sad about this...but, I must say, our current furniture might have 16 gallons of dried spit-up in the cushions, and on top of that, we have found that if you sit anywhere but on the middle of the cushions, you feel like you're falling into an earth fissure. So new furniture is probably a good thing. From the living room, we went straight to unpacking kitchen boxes. After several hours of doing that, we only made it through about half of the kitchen stuff...which made us both feel very despondent. We have such a LOOOOONG way to go.

In other exciting news, I'm having a terrible allergic reaction to something from over there. I know that I have a severe mold allergy that causes me to become asthmatic, and that's exactly what happened yesterday (and is ongoing today). I am just holding onto the hope, though, that this time, it's just from the of dust of moving in and the fresh paint on every wall. Can't you just hear it...."Jared, I'm allergic to this house...we're going to have to start over and do this whole thing again." Bwaaahaaha...sweet Jesus, it better just be the dust.

I'll post a few pictures when I find a little time to take some and upload them.