I'll be offline at home for a couple days. A crew is coming in to refinish the hardwood floors, and that includes the office where my network is setup. I have tomorrow off so I won't be online at work, either.

I'll be back to normal by Wednesday night.

It's now been over one and a half full weeks that I've been sleeping in my new house. I'm starting to think of it as "home". It's strange. I'm 37 years old and this is the first place that is fully and truly mine. I spent the first 18 years of my life at my parents' house, and the subsequent 19 years moving from one place to the next. The longest I've ever stayed at one address is about 3½ years. I just signed papers that commit me to 30 years. This is my home.

I have 11 rooms in this house (not including the front porch). I have a guest bedroom. I have a room of as-of-yet-undetermined-use. Let me repeat that: I have a room that I can't even figure out what to do with. (Really odd tangent: How do you know if a period is italicized?) I have about twice as much space as I've ever had before in a house. Three full floors (including the basement) of space to do with as I please.

Sarah came up this weekend to help me with some of the moving in. That was cool. It's a sad statement that I've lived in this town for 21 of my 37 years (and another 4 just a few miles down the road) and I only have 2 friends in the area that I could ask for help moving. Unfortunately, both of them had other commitments this weekend (one a work outing, the other a family thing). I don't fault either of them for not being able to help; I called both at the last minute.

I still have a couple things to do at the apartment--painting and cleaning and transfering a few last items over to the house--but it's basically done. As of Saturday, I'll be only dealing with one place. There's a lot to deal with, but I can take my time on most of it.

I want to take a moment to say just how much I appreciate what my parents have been doing for me. I absolutely could not have done this without them.

I'm going to pick up my mattress after work today. (YAY!) Hopefully the bed will arrive soon (it would be too much to ask that it be waiting for me when I get home today).

Aside from all the regular maintenance stuff, I'm going to continue to take pictures of the rooms as I work on them. They'll be published in the House album of the gallery.

I've taken Monday off from work so I can have a day to relax after the final weekend of the Big Move.

I did me a little shopping in the last 2 days. I bought this bed for under $450 (shipping included):

Then I got a queen-sized mattress and split box-spring for under $400. And the day before, I'd bought this comforter (along with 2 shams and a bed-skirt) for under $150:

Just to recap: that's a complete solid oak, mission-style bed set, with really cool linens (except for sheets, that I still need to buy) for under $1,000. Normally, the bedframe alone costs $1,000 - $1,300. And matresses are at least half of that again.

And then... Check out the antique dining-room set I found:

Well, it's official. I'm spending my first night in the house. I just brought over a spare matress (from the "holy green couch"), my pillows and blankets, and I'm set to go.

I've gotten about half the small furniture moved over. There's still a bunch of random pieces, plus the big stuff. I'll get as much of it as possible moved tomorrow. However, I hurt. ouch. My joints just aren't able to handle all this stair climbing anymore.

The cats are.... adjusting. They spent most of the day hiding in a closet (or under my back seat (it's removable, and I'm storing it in a back room) or under random pieces of whatever). They've finally ventured out and are moving around. Cautiously. In another day or two they'll be thinking they run the place. Right now, Teisei is circling the matress and growling.

I've discovered the worst thing about owning a new home: figuring out where all the light switches are! It's an old house (strike one), it's been renovated (strike two), and it's been completely rewired (strike three). These switches are in the strangest places. Like.... on a door sill. WTF?! It was too difficult to move it over to the wall?

The previous owners had dogs. They didn't take care of the dogs. They weren't very good about taking the dogs outside to pee. I spent a couple hours with a Rug Doctor (tm) in the two upstairs bedrooms, and got out most of the stains, and most of the odor. I used over half a bottle of Fabreze. I think I'll be using a lot more before I can get around to replacing the carpets up here. And who the hell puts white carpeting in a house anyway?

Small towns are a mixed blessing. I went into the post office to get a change of address card and let them know that I'll be receiving mail here now (I already got a card from my loan officer). I walked in and Bruce was at the counter. I said "I'm just here to let you know that I'll be getting mail at--" and he rattled off my new address. Then he called some other guy (maybe the Vice Postmaster) to let him know that I'd be getting mail here. They asked if I got a good price on the place, because "the last owners weren't too good at keeping up with the bills". They went into a little history of the owners. "Brian" did a bunch of work on the house (I'm going to assume he did the rewiring some of the structural changes), then there was a "lesbian couple" (one was a professor and got a really good job at a university out east; they really hated to leave the place--I'll assume they did the new wallpaper, the pedestal sinks, and the stenciled & wallpaper borders) (yeah, I know... stereotypes.), then there was the couple who let the place go to hell. I guess I can't complain too much--it's the reason I can afford the house.

Anyway.... it's 20:00 and I'm already in bed. I'm tired. And I ouch. I ouch muchly.

EEP! I own a house!

So, as those of you who read this know, I've bought a house.

It's been a long and difficult process filled with hurdles and roadblocks. I may write it all down some day--it's a classic example of Murphy's Law--but right now I'm too busy with actually moving in. Moving isn't exactly new to me. I once counted that I'd moved 15 times in 15 years. Some of those were really small moves, but it still involved moving. This time is different though. This time it's for the long-term.

I'm very (very!) lucky that my parents are helping so much. Mom's spending her days cleaning the house for me (the last people left it an absolute sty) and helping with the flower beds and such. And Dad's getting the floors refinished for me. And they're both doing tons of stuff to get me settled in.

As I said, this house needs a lot of work. But it's a solid house and a beautiful house. I've decided to be smart and think ahead. I've taken a series of pictures of the house as it is now. Later, I'll take pictures of each room as I get it into a better condition.

Okay, it's not really my birthday (and I don't celebrate them, anyway), but I did buy myself a little present, and I think a birthday makes a good excuse for it.

Wanna know what I bought? Click the bow to see: