dianec42

Last Friday was a very busy day. We dropped in on our remodeling place, then spent like an hour at the local tile & flooring store picking stuff out, and - more importantly - pointing and laughing at things that looked like Q*bert.

Then, heaven help us all, we went to Costco. Right before the big snowstorm. Inside was only normal levels of Costco crazy, but the parking lot (West Springfield, MA) was Mad Max levels of insane. That parking lot needs at LEAST one traffic light and probably at least one rotary. Luckily Mr Diane volunteered to drive at that point, otherwise we might still be there trying to turn left.

Bonus: I saw all "8"s out of the corner of my eye and thought the register had tilted. No, that was our total. Ouch. And that was WITHOUT booze or chocolate. Weirdly, wine now costs less than mixed nuts.

Over the last few days: the bathroom contractor came out and measured for tile; I phoned the schmancy fixtures store and placed our order; we changed our minds on the cabinet colour yet again, and ordered the cabinets and countertop; faffed around on the tile a little more, finalized the tile order, and put down the deposit on that. Oh and we picked out a paint colour. IT'S HAPPENING!

Meanwhile it's still colder than a very cold thing. I've learned things about taking the trash bins to the street after a big snow that I really could have gone my whole life without knowing. Oh well, all part of the Vermont experience.

Send me an email (firstname at lastname dot net) if you want the new contact infoz. If you have any pointers to me in Torrance, they are no longer valid. My cell phone has NOT changed. :-)

Yesterday I opened our final bill from the cable co for our old address. There was a $522 charge on there for unreturned equipment! Needless to say I got on the phone and had some words with them. We had to go to their local office in person for some reason. Apparently it's taken care of. We'll see.

When we got back there was a fire engine in our back alley, and no water coming into the house. It seems the water main on our street had broken. Luckily several other people had called it in. And we got to meet a couple more of our neighbors. We went out and bought groceries and a couple of cases of bottled water. stuartc went out to the alley and had a word with the workmen around 10 pm, water was restored shortly after that.

Today we drove to Ikea and discovered that they don't make the short Ivar shelves any more. Doh! Luckily my husband has a way with a hand saw. They also didn't have any suitable computer desks for keeping cats out of the peripherals. We also couldn't find some of the cables for the Xbox and the PC, so we went to Best Buy. Needless to say as soon as we got home we found them. Now we have spares. We did eventually get the entertainment center assembled and I think everything is even working now. Sadly we are now both too tired to be entertained. And tomorrow is Monday! Boo! Whose idea was that?!

Also the new place doesn't have a dishwasher. I think I might be too tired to stand long enough to do the rest of the dishes...

Saturday was dragon boat practice. The race is in just over a month so our fearless leaders are pushing us a bit more. I stopped by the realtor on the way back to drop off one signed thing and pick up another thing to sign. Then I made the mistake of opting for the scenic route home. I'm trying to not get so irked with heavy traffic, but there were several points where it was so backed up we had to sit at green lights, which is apparently where I draw the line.

Later stuartc and I dropped in on D. and M. that we used to work with. They have a nice, if small, place in Santa Monica. We met their kitties and they gave us boxes. (The lads did, not the cats.) We tried to go to Costco to buy more boxes but they were already closed, which was a shame as I also needed (and now even more desperately need) to put fuel in the car and I would have preferred to do so cheaply.

Sunday started out as a relatively normal day in that we did NOT have to do any realtor things, and we did NOT get up early. Sadly the voice of reason (my husband) insisted it was time to start packing boxes. Have I mentioned lately that we have way too much stuff?

There was a little WoW in there too, but I am still nowhere near level 70.

Also I have been taking lots and lots of Advil, as I was already sore from dragon boating before I even started slinging boxes around.