Preparations for the Great Move of 2011 have started.  Boxes are stacked.  Puppies are emotionally exhausted.

The pile of boxes has increased significantly from this level.  24 hours til I get the keys!!

Home sweet home

We are in the new apartment.  Lots of unpacking has been going on.  Lots to blog.  Not lots of internet access at home.  Details to come in a future blog.

Farewell Residence Inn

You were home sweet hotel for three weeks.  We are happy to leave though!

Sadness

My house is officially on the market and up on the realtor sites.  Pass the word along..

Superstars

The JG's were superstars.

New Home!

For those who haven't heard the word, we made it safely to the new 'hood.

Farewell

The folks at work had a little send-off for me this week! They were either really happy to see me go.. or perhaps really sad. They did bring in a band for the party! Unfortunately they also had a small incident involving the tent blowing away. High quality engineering!

At the very least we know that Virginia will miss me! When I left to go chat with some coworkers she told her mom she couldn't eat her dessert until I came back. Poor thing!

So Long

Last weekend Amy and Marie threw the most awesome going away party that Vicksburg has ever seen. At least, that is how it was billed! It was great to get to see everyone one last time and unofficially say goodbye. For those who couldn't make it, we missed you. For those who could, thanks for coming and I really do miss you already! The door is always open in Pittsburgh and I hope to get to see everyone again, preferably sooner than later.

The awesome hostesses and I with our lychee martinis, the drink of the night!

Chef Andy did a great job maning the grill despite his gorgeous apron and delicious drink!

Roasted marshmallows and Brownies were enjoyed by all!

Roadtrip Ready

I cleaned out the car this afternoon. And by cleaned I mean I removed everything from my vehicle and vacuumed and windexed windows. And by everything, I mean everything. After I finished vacuuming the trunk I brought the big crate out and put it in the bottom of the trunk, the most efficient place to pack it. We don't use the big dog crate because only one dog needs a crate at our home. However, in hotel land we may need two.. so I am bringing it with us as a precaution. Apparently Madison thinks that means we are leaving now so she hopped in the car. She also appears to think she is riding shotgun. That would be negative on both counts girlfriend.

Master bedroom, check, Hallway, check.

For those who didn't know me at the time, I bought my house because I loved the master bedroom. Not. It was pretty hideous, although not nearly as hideous as the wallpaper my friend Terry-Ann had in one of her bathrooms when she moved into her house -- cats in cowboy hats. seriously people? seriously? I had the joy of a gorgeous fuchsia-ish accent wall and pale yellow walls with the most awesome floral border ever. The hall was papered in a rather boring blah vertical stripe. Need I say more? Check it out.

Obviously, the fuchsia and yellow and the gorgeous wallpaper border had to go.

In an effort to go neutral, the purple (and all my crap) got a makeover -- as did the green in the hall. Check out the not so trippy new shroomy look. I totally give the guys at Porter Paints in Vicksburg major props -- it only took two coats to cover the periwinkle purple. The first shot also shows you a smidge of the new look in the hall -- wallpaper turned to green turned to stone gray. The house is really starting to shape up and look good. Madison appears to approve as well.

Stop on by

And visit for a spell. You only have a few weeks, but you can stay in my newly painted guest room.

Remember when I moved in, it looked like this:
Then I painted it purple. Apparently no pictures exist from that phase. How exactly that happened, I don't really know.

Now it is beautiful 'mushroom'. Which sadly looks an awful lot like the original color. However, it is far less pink-y and more builders beige-y now. Plus, the walls no longer have grease or smudge marks where the A's pictures were hanging AND we've got the HOT new floor now!!

Regardless of color you are ALWAYS welcome to come and stay in the guest room :)

Word on the street

Rumors are true

This will soon be my skyline :)

Saturday Night is Alright!

i chose both.

i finished the last few boxes in the kitchen - the food. all that is left in the kitchen is cleaning out the fridge-freezer right before leaving. i should be able to salvadge some of the leftover stuff and take it with me in the cooler. so, my kitchen has now become the room in which boxes are stored. as long as i can get to the sink and daisy can get to her bowls we should be good on that end. as i said earlier, the my desk at my school office is empty with the exception of some library books that i'll need to return sooner or later.

i've continued on with packing up the downstairs bathroom. all the fun, girly stuff is gone. it is down to a bottle of soap and some extra TP. i've started on the main bathroom too. it is amazing how much sutff there is in something as small and boring as a bathroom! where do i get all of this crap? but what would i do without five different types of soaps and ten different lotions? it is my little way of being girly. i've also continued on with the living room. i am down to a could of boxes of little "stuff" left, then taking apart the furniture. it is amazing how fast this can go. between a few tunes and some major motivation - nothing like a deadline - i feel like i'm getting somewhere.

that being said, it is time to go back to the book. i think i'll be happy with the ending, although it is sad to see it end. i don't think i can really be happy for that.

My Cold Lifeless Body

by the way, i forgot to mention how much i love moving. i love it so much that i never intend to do it again. they can carry my cold lifeless body out of my house. then my friends and family can deal with moving my crap out, because i'm not doing it again.

I am a REAL engineer

Things are proceeding forward on the moving front. I hadn't heard from the movers, so I called back this morning. Turns out that the woman there is not my favorite person. First, she heard me wrong when I first called last week, and she wrote me down as possibly being moved this Saturday. I guess she couldn't understand my "Yankee" accent. They were booked for this Saturday, and I guess they don't believe in calling and letting you know that they are not going to provide services. So, when I called today we sorted that out, as I described the fact that I was planning to arrive with my truck NEXT Saturday, NOT tomorrow. She proceeded to tell me that they are now booked up for next weekend too. Apparently, had she written it down corectly I would have made it on the schedule for next weekend. At this point I realized that I had no way to get a 50 year old dining room table and buffet and a 90+ (?) year old dresser off of my truck. Needless to say, hysterics ensued.

Fast forward several hours. Now I have yet ANOTHER moving plan. It is only about the 5th one in the last month. Now, instead of taking my stuff down in a truck, flying back to IL to finish the semester and then driving my car down, I'm doing the opposite. I'll drive my car with a load of stuff to MS next weekend. I'll leave it in my garage (yay!) and I'll clean house. Then, since I've paid for it I'll fly to IL and return to school. I'll move my stuff out of the apartment at some point next week (i guess I'll store it somewhere mysterioius). THEN, after a week of school I'll take my stuff down to MS. At that point I won't be pressed for time and can either wait for the movers to have time, or I can bribe people over the course of the week and pay for some extra time on my truck. All in all, this actually seems like it might work out better. I'm not sure why, but it feels like the better option. As you may know, I am all about how things "feel". If it "feels" right, I'm AG. I think I like the idea of having an extra couple of days to clean up the house before I move in the heavy furniture. It will be more pricy, but it will work out somehow because it "feels" right.

An update on the house front. Apparently the stove top works just great. The oven is another story. Somehow they "broke" it while moving out. The digital controls on the oven don't work, so I can't actually change the temperature! Thank Goodness for Home Warranties

Now, on to the post title. They often say that the real engineering gets done in the field. It is all about how you react. The real engineering isn't the design, but dealing with the crises and figuring out how to make it all work. Well, when it comes to moving, I'm an engineer. This is the fifth plan I've had, and I'm sure it will change again before all is said and done. By the way, at some point during all of this I'm going to actually finish my summer school work :-)