We interrupt this blog for the following announcement.....

Shit.

We return you now to your regularly scheduled blog.

You ever have those moments when you tell yourself, I'm not going to let Murphy's Law control my life!, and then Murphy comes along and f*cks you up the ass anyway?

So we're sticking around Jacksonville a while longer. I'll probably be ignoring this blog for a while out of bitterness, and then I'll probably revamp it to reflect how we're improving our lives right here in Jax, but for now, check out Ember's Lighthouse to read about my fascinating life of friends, fiber, and food.

EEEERRRRR!@#$%^%@$^%&^%*&^(&*()(^)_)+!!!

::boom!::

That was the sound of our moving plans (god willing, temporarily) crashing to a halt.

I'm pissed. No wait, I'm livid. Mainly with myself though...should've seen this coming.

Allowing small mope, but I'm already in repair mode, emailing and exploring alternatives.

More to come...

This week

1. Don't spend the tax return on crap.
2. Call Quail Hollow to touch base.
3. Plan a visit to SC for before the move.
4. Pack more.
5. Get the blasted city of Columbia jobs paperwork mailed.

That still hasn't been done, but in my defense, I've emailed at least half a dozen applications and resumes each to the Lexington Medical Center and USC. So #3 on that list might get delayed a bit too, because really, another trip to Columbia might depend on whether or not there's a need for Husby or I to interview anywhere.

In spite of the fact that VERY little got accomplished move-wise this past week, I feel we're still in a good place logistically. My foot issues really knocked me for a loop, and I had to work a bit on Saturday, and I let it throw me, but for some reason I don't begrudge myself relax time of late, so I guess it was necessary. Besides, I got a pretty hat out of some of that relax time :)

Busy.......Scary........Packing.........

1. Mail stock info today.

Going to the post office to do that, which is probably idiotic because it's an in-town office, so I doubt it'll get there much faster, but I really want this expedited. Les made the comment that we should wait on the stock price to rise, but there's no way to know if it's going to fluctuate in the coming weeks so I shot that idea down. As IPO's go, it hasn't risen above its open price in a couple of months, so we're just going to have to take what we can get.

Spent the weekend packing and knitting a hat, with these weird lulls where my blood sugar was down...I haven't been eating right again. This weekend was more reorganizing or consolidating than it was packing IMO, though things definitely made it into boxes. But I was a girl about it too....filled these 2 old TV boxes with clothes, blankets, miscellaneous crap with the idea of putting them in our walk-in closet afterward to have them out of the way..........only to discover that the boxes were too damn large to fit through the blasted doorway. And I'd emptied this huge plastic Rubbermaid storage vessel with the intent of throwing it away, because I can't stand the thing, the lid has never fit, and it's so big it's unwieldy, only to have us both decide that it would be great for moving couch pillows and other light stuff, so maybe just for the move and then we'll throw it out........I still haven't decided if that's rationalizing or rational.

Which gets me thinking about how if I'm able to pack so much stuff a full 6 weeks early without us going out of our minds tearing into boxes every other day to find something or other that we need, what does that say about the level of crap that we own that we don't really use?

So many little things

Mom said today that getting ready for the move must be exciting and scary. Those 2 simple adjectives pretty well nail it. There's so many little things to address. We have large water and electric bills to deal with, and we can't pay rent until we address the water bill, which sucks. I mailed the tax return, and will now try to forget that I've taken care of it, so that when the money shows up in our account, it'll be a pleasant surprise. I faxed the application package to Quail Hollow, and am playing phone tag with their manager, to find out if we need to send a security deposit to hold our space on a waiting list for top of May, which we don't have at this time. And we've let the home phone lapse, probably for good, because that's a bill that just has to take a back seat to the others. All the money issues are a little overwhelming, but we're doing our best.

I'm packing books and tapes and stuff where I can, and trying to organize the house a little. I'm shopping for medical insurance up there, and putting together my application for city jobs, and I still need to deal with the paperwork for the stock options. Those things will occur this week; it's just everything went on hold yesterday so we could celebrate our anniversary :) 8 years married, almost 10 as a couple. Life is good!

Where'd February go?

Seriously. I mean, I know it's a short month, but holy crap!

Quick status report:

1. Paperwork nearly set to fax to Quail Hollow. Cross your fingers.
2. Will complete paperwork this weekend regarding exercising stock options.
3. Tax return has been mailed. Since we need it so badly, I don't expect it to come nearly as quickly as it did last year.
4. Found the packing tape!!! Will be boxing and reorganizing this weekend, and hopefully throwing out at least the couch.
5. Finishing resume, drafting cover letter for park ranger job; application mostly complete.

When I spoke to the Quail Hollow folks yesterday, they mentioned having exactly what we need and want around the first week of May: a 2 br flat downstairs unit. Can't think about it too hard, because it makes me nutty that I can't do more to secure it at present. Once everything's faxed, I'll feel a little better.

Too much to do!