weekly update. . . April showers

You know that saying, "April showers bring May flowers"?  

Well, it may be true, but it is rather inconvenient when trying to move. Due to excellent planning and a little luck, we have managed to land and empty 2 large PODs into the house mostly in between rainstorms. Thanks to amazing moving help that has worked with us on the schedule/weather, they have arrived on-time each time and worked fast to get it done when not raining. I prepped for moving in the rain so had covered the carpet and laid out moving blankets to reduce the tracking about which worked great. Today there are no movers to help and we have to get the couch, chaise, mattress, cat condos and cats out of this apartment and over to the house, hopefully before it rains again this afternoon. ~fingers crossed~  

I would say last load, but I doubt we'll get it all at once and there is stuff at his work like the fish tanks that will eventually get moved but that can wait. Monday/Tuesday I have to finish the clear out and clean-up of the apartment for checkout. 

I have endless work to do in the new house, I'll be unpacking for a month. 😏 Or more likely because it's a rental I won't unpack everything. 😉

I'll just spend the next year having random moments of " where is _____? Did I unpack that?" 😅

weekly update. . .move in

The rental house has been secured, lease signed, deposit paid, so now I have a lot of cleaning to do. I need to clean the rental before the POD's deliver and the moving help moves all the stuff in the way. Then I'll need to clean the apartment before we check out, so the next week will be another exhausting one. 😏  

The weather forecast is not looking helpful, rain and storms on multiple days. Hopefully it won't be too bad otherwise movers moving stuff in the rain and tracking in for hours on end will counter all the cleaning.  

I look forward to being out of this apartment, it's a nice apartment but I swear the upstairs neighbor is a hippo or perpetually angry-stomping or perhaps just the most graceless person to ever walk. I don't know but she's loud ALL the time. 😒 I could really use a week of makeup sleep but that's not likely to happen anytime soon. So, I'll just keep plugging away and concentrate on that magical "someday". 

someone try the new special edition Harry Potter goldfish and tell me they suck, so I don't feel like I'm missing out 

weekly update. . .next month

After months of unsuccessfully searching for a home to buy, next month we'll be moving into a rental house, not an ideal solution but at least it's a house with a garage. A house that is big enough to hold all our stuff and give me a space to work again, plus no more standing outside to have a cigarette. 

In the meantime, I have unboxed the chainmaille dragons and shot some new photos so that I could enter the #Makerchallenge on #goimagine because this month's theme was Enchanted Forrest and really what's more enchanted than a purple dragon. 😎

weekly update. . .not so fast

Well, that didn't go the way it was supposed to. 😕 

The house we made an offer on epically failed its' inspection; electrically problems, plumbing problems, structural problem, water and mold in the crawl space, bad well water test. . . yeah we're out. We have extricated ourselves from the contract with minimal loss of money but the time lost cannot be recovered and I'm now facing if the next house ain't "the one" we're going to have to stop looking to buy and just rent something before the time runs out on the temporary apartment and the next round of monthly rent comes due on all the PODs. 😒 

So, I have 2 houses to look at this afternoon ~fingers crossed~ otherwise I have a list of back-up rental houses to investigate next week. I've already looked at the rental companies and their pet policies and ruled out a couple of the corporate landlord types because of their rules, from tricon having a 2 pet limit (we have 3 cats and I'm not giving one away) to having excessive "pet rent" looking at you Progress with your $199 a Month add-on for 3 cats. 

I have no problem paying an extra deposit or small monthly fee, but my 3 boys are all fixed and declawed and aside from pawing a window blind they have never damaged anything so $300 non-refundable deposit EACH seems a bit excessive to me and the near $200 a month is just insane, my cats cause less damage that people's children and somehow they don't charge extra for kids. 😐 Dogs with paws full of claws that scratch the heck out of things and eat the trim off doorways absolutely charge for the damages, but again my cats are fixed and declawed and have never done major damage to any place we've ever lived. 

Long story short I have no idea when I will re-open RainbowMaille.

but at least Merlin is settled and napping in the open again

Weekly update. . .settling in

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I posted, we have officially moved out of Georgia and landed in Indiana. I've been looking for a house and dealing with getting the cats settled, admittedly Reover and Jaspurrr have moved before and were not that bothered but poor little Merlin was proper freaked. 😔 I mean you can't blame him; he's only 1 and had lived in the same place his whole short little life, so whole days in the vehicle, strange hotel to land in a new "home" that is actually an apartment where he can hear neighbors and people keep walking their dogs by the windows. . .it has taken a while for him to stop hiding so much.  

He's been in his cave or inside the chaise lounge that came with us for most of the first week, he still gets jumpy when the upstairs people stomp around, and he growls at the window every time I open the blinds whether there is anyone out there or not. 😅  

The good news is I have made great progress on both finding a house and reassuring and settling the baby.  

I am hopeful that everything goes smoothly, and we will soon be moving into our new house.  Fingers crossed I may be only 6 weeks from having my workspace back. 😇

Weekly update. . . it's time

Ok so 2 things; I'm writing this on a Saturday instead of a Sunday because it's my last weekend in Georgia, and there may not be one of these posts next weekend because we'll be on the road. 

Multiple rooms are empty and even clean already. My husband keeps telling me I don't have to clean because the property manager has a cleaning crew, but I figure if it's already clean then they don't get to charge me a bunch of money for hours of "cleaning". 😉

Plus, I get to set the acceptable standard for what counts as clean going forward, and use the proper stuff on my wood floors because that's not modern laminate crap that is original 70+ year old real wood. 

Although, the property manager did caution us, ok outright told us to stop "loving" the house because renters are likely to abuse it and cause damage intentionally or unintentionally and it may be years before we get back here.  But it's hard because I really do like this house, it has been very comfortable and comforting, the property hugs you and shields you and the wildlife is engaging and entertaining and I am going to miss it. It is a great home I hope whoever rents it enjoys it, and I really hope to make it back here someday. 😇  

We are in the final stage and the logistics get complicated here because we are literally moving a 3-ring circus, people don't always understand what I mean by that but aside from "us"(people) there are 3 other rings of life, cats, fish and plants all of which have their own travel needs, some of which conflict. 😏 Fish and plants are better off with a straight thru quick as possible trip, but cats don't like that, and humans need sleep, so. . . wish us luck and pray for the fishes. 

Weekly update . . .slow

My internet is slow this morning, but that's par for the course this entire week has been slow. I guess that's what happens when it snows where it never snows normally. I get it snowplows and salt trucks aren't a thing down here but FFS, my county had a curfew multiple days, the whole town shut down for the whole week. 😠 

My husband had scheduled a maintenance appointment at the dealership for his truck, like scheduled a week before the snow, the appt was for Thursday days after the snow. . .so he drove over there and sat while they never opened, they never called and said they wouldn't be opening that day, they just didn't open, he wasn't the only waiting either. 😕 This is one of those things that is somehow acceptable down here that just sticks in my craw, I'm actually glad to be moving back home, I can deal with a foot of snow on the ground (I know how to drive) I cannot stand the ridiculousness of everything shutting down for days on end for a few inches of snow that mostly melted off the very next day.  The window guy can't fix the porch windows because it's too cold for the caulk/putty to set right, but I've been waiting since Thanksgiving. The plumber has never called back his wife said he's sick, that was two weeks ago. The appraiser took a bloody month to cough up the report we pre-paid for. The property manager was here for the walk-thru Last Friday and has still never sent the promised contract. ~Arrrrghhh~ 

Don't get me wrong Georgia is beautiful (when there is no snow) but on many levels it's a frustrating place where service usually sucks and every damn thing takes weeks on end. 😐 I'm from the land of "get shit done" and I gotta say this half-assed lazy "laissez faire" attitude drives me up the walls. I know my "northern aggression" is showing and I'll never truly fit in down here, I can fake the accent, but I lose my patience. 😅

In the "getting sh*t done" category. . . We did go ahead and change the sink in the master bath, and I am very happy with how the new sink and faucet look. 😇

The POD people at least were reliable and completed the swap of full box for new empties. Also, the moving helpers that came on Saturday were actually awesome and did an excellent job of loading, so we tipped Big. 😎