For sale by owner

Anyone know someone who wants to buy a nice house in beautiful Siloam Springs? The buyer is very motivated.

Rogers, here I come! Who likes to pack boxes?

What a day!

So much for grand plans. As reported earlier, I've been awake since 4:30 this morning. Movers showed up at 8:30. It took almost 5 hours to load the truck. My original plan was to head to Alisa's this afternoon, enjoy a leisurely dinner, then head to Siloam tomorrow to sign my lease and wait for the movers. I found out this a.m. that they were delivering my furniture at 8 o'clock tomorrow. So I called Amanda and made plans for PF Chang's and crashing on her couch.

What happened? Moving guys got the chance for another job if they could be in Chicago by tomorrow night. So they delivered my furniture tonight. I moved across the state in one day. And I'm exhausted. All I unpacked were sheets and pajamas. I christened the garden tub, and now I'm in bed. I'm even too tired to eat... that never happens!

It's friggin freezing here, too. Lon and Jen are on their way to sunny Florida, lucky dogs.

Late to bed, early to rise

Did you know that Starbucks opens at 5 a.m.? Know how I know? My couch is NOT comfortable, so I didn't sleep AGAIN. Man, I'm tired. But I'm finally done packing. Woo-hoo!

Tired, sore and sleepy

I'm officially pooped. For some reason I couldn't sleep last night, so I finally got up at 1:30 a.m. and started packing. I finally went back to sleep around 4 a.m., then got up again at 7:30. I made several fruitless attempts to nap this morning to no avail.

Joe picked me up and we ate lunch at Michelangelo's. It was amazing! I had bruschetta, some kind of pasta I couldn't pronounce and my favorite dessert, tiramasu. Unfortunately the waiter spilled iced tea down Joe's back and on the front of his jeans before the appetizers, but he was a good sport about it. And the poor guy felt very bad.

After a trip to Lowe's for about the fifth day in a row, I came home and napped during most of the Pats game. Then I spent the whole Packers/Giants game, including overtime, packing. I'm so sick of packing! The last day is the worst... that's when you get down to the stuff that won't fit in boxes or doesn't really fit into any category. That's when you start labeling boxes "bunch of crap." Thankfully I'm finally finished and ready for the movers to get here at 8 a.m. Ugh.

The good news is that they're delivering my furniture on Tuesday, which gives me the rest of the week to get settled before starting work on Monday. The bad news is that, should they schedule the delivery as early as the pick-up, I'll have a logistical nightmare. I was supposed to spend tomorrow night at Mount Nebo, but if I have to be in Siloam by 8 a.m. on Tuesday, that's just not happening. Of course, I hate to drop 80 bucks on a hotel room, but I don't think I can handle getting up at 5 a.m. and driving on Tuesday morning. Decisions, decisions.

I'm going to bed. No actually, I'm going to couch since the bed has been stripped and packed. Can't wait for a normal life again!

Speaking of, I haven't scheduled my cable/internet installation yet, so this may be my last post for a few days. Have a great week, everyone!

Oh, and can you believe the G-men are in the Super Bowl? Guess Eli's unstoppable after all. At least 'til he meets the Patriots.

One Wild Night

Forgive me if I seem a bit frazzled, but the Huey, Dewie and Louie whirlwind just left my house. Good grief, those boys make me tired. Brady, of course, was carrying a football, and Avery and Peyton spent the entire time trying to get it away from him. Lon and Jen spent the whole time trying to keep the three of them from breaking a vase or an arm.

You know, it's pretty easy to tell what a person is obsessed with simply by reading his or her blog. So if you couldn't tell by the past few weeks' posts, I'm obsessed with moving... I go to bed thinking about it... I wake up thinking about it. This morning I finally got out of bed at 5 a.m. (after laying awake for 30 minutes or so) and starting packing boxes. Aside from the obvious Divine intervention, I think the reason I'm doing such a good job packing this time is because I've had so much practice lately. I'm a moving machine!

Tomorrow night I'm headed to Maumelle to keep Things 1, 2, and 3 while Lon and Jen go to a "meet and greet" at UAMS before her radiology interview on Saturday. Then it's up at 5 a.m. on Saturday to have the garage sale. Man, am I going to be tired Saturday afternoon!

Hopefully I'll talk about something besides moving soon.

Hump day

7 days of work
12 days 'til move

I'm officially in countdown mode and it's starting to stress me out. I go to bed and wake up thinking about packing. I don't want to buy any more groceries because there's a gap between when the movers pick up my stuff and when they deliver (could be as many as five days), so I'm trying to eat everything in my fridge and freezer. In a couple of days I'll be down to asparagus, pudding and ketchup for dinner.

The good news is that the packing/purging is going unbelievably well. I gave myself tonight and tomorrow night to finish the garage sale pricing, and I finished at 6:30 this evening. Weird. I'm convinced that God really wants me in Siloam Springs. That's the only explanation for why I seem to be extremely motivated, organized, and speedy. Hey, if He can feed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, I know He condense my boxes from 50 to 20.

I'm crossing things off my list at work, too. By next week I should be playing 500 games of Free Cell a day instead of my usual 150.

Today I went to the mailbox and got my reimbursement check for driving to Siloam to find a place to live. Yep, I could get used to this.

Progress

While I can't boast of a spotless garage, I have made tremendous progress in the packing/organizing/purging effort (and those of you who helped me move last time can I attest that I didn't have this much packed by moving day last time). I still have a lot to do, but at least I finished going through EVERY box in my garage. That's quite a feat. Plus, I put an ad in the paper for the garage sale this weekend and bought moving boxes on my lunch break.

I also managed to twist my back quite painfully while stacking boxes of books, so we'll see if I can get out of bed tomorrow.

Now I'm sitting in my room eating Oreos and watching the BCS title game. I'm pulling for LSU. And not just because they're in the SEC, but because I cannot, in clear conscience, root for any university pompous enough to insist upon putting the word "The" in front of their name. Nor do I care what a Buckeye is. So "geaux Tigers." And from now on I shall tell everyone that I graduated from The Arkansas Tech University (speaking of random mascots).

I shall not be moved

If the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem (see last night's post), the second step is surely to progress toward controlling said problem.

So I've admitted I'm a pack rat. I've thrown away a garbage can full of stuff. I've stacked boxes for the garage sale. I've organized what I'm moving. Yes, I've been working on this for HOURS and I can't see much progress.

Here's the corner of stuff to be moved:



Here's the rest of my garage:



Now, I know what you're thinking... why am I blogging instead of finishing my project? Denial, friends. But my goal is to be finished by bedtime. We'll see.

2 phones, 1 girl

Today I got an e-mail from my new boss, telling me that I'll need a cell phone for the new job, and since the university doesn't support my iPhone, they've reserved me a Blackberry. Really, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but since my iPhone contract doesn't expire 'til November 2009, it looks like I'll be carting around two cell phones. Yeah, I'm THAT GIRL. You know, the one who tries to look important by carrying around multiple phones. I swear, if I start wearing a Bluetooth headset into Wal-Mart and talking in the produce aisle, somebody kick me in the rear.

Last night I finished packing up the china cabinet, so things are plugging along. I can't believe I only have 11 more days of working at UCA and only 17 more days 'til the movers are here. I'm trying to be more organized this time and not just throw random stuff in boxes. I won't have to be frantic for another 10 days or so.

Tomorrow after work I'm meeting my dad and stepmom in Ozark for barbeque, then we're going to see Taylor play basketball. I haven't seen a game all year! And, if it's not too cold, Uncle Cecil Missouri will be accompanying me so that we can complete her adoption to dad's house (my new place doesn't allow pets).

Man, this going back to work has been tough. I can't go to sleep early, and I don't want to get up in the morning. I can barely hold my eyes open right now.

So, g'night.

Moving update

22 days 'til move
17 boxes packed

This afternoon I decided to clean out my closet. Granted, the new house has a huge walk-in closet, but let's face it, if I haven't worn something in the past 12 months, I should get rid of it, right? I always waffle on cleaning out my closet because I have a lot of nice, expensive things that are either too small or I just never wear. And although I hate to sell a $90 blazer for two bucks at a yard sale, it seems even dumber to move the thing and then let it hang in my closet for three more years before selling it for a dollar. Am I the only person who wears less than 20 percent of the clothes she owns?

In addition to cleaning out the closet, I packed several more boxes today. And watched football (the Cowboys sucked, BTW).

Moving countdown begins

23 days 'til move
11 boxes packed
6 Christmas trees disassembled
2 arms scarred

Today marked the first big day of moving preparation. I managed to pack 11 boxes and take down all six Christmas trees. Actually, the big tree is not fully disassembled, but I did get huge whelps on both of my arms trying to pull apart the bottom two pieces (I'm allergic to trees for some reason... even the fake ones) since I didn't think to put on a long-sleeved shirt.

When did I get all of this stuff? I've got five boxes of books just from my bedroom. At this rate I'll need a much bigger trash can.