I've learned some things about Ohio over the last week, and for the benefit of my friends in Florida I'm going to share a few of the good/bad things about moving up here:
Pro: No roaches.
Con: Our house has a mild cricket infestation. My mom says crickets in a house are lucky and you're supposed to trap them and release them outside instead of killing them. Well, that's not going to happen here. We Raid them. The con here is that since they jump, they're harder to shoot with the Raid. The pro is that once successfully Raid-ed, their death is funnier because it involves lots of crazy jumping around followed by some pretty hilarious twitching. Can saying that get me in trouble with PETA?
Another Con: Praying Mantises. I've seen pictures of these things before, but before this week I've never been chased into my house by one as long as my hand. I've seen several since--climbing on door frames, clinging to the bedroom window screen and staring at me when I open the window...they are really creepy insects!
Pro: So far, it seems cheap to live here. Our car/renters insurance policy premium shrunk by over 200$ when we informed them of our address change. Milk is $2.25 a gallon at the commissary (that's for you, Jill :))! I guess it pays to live in a state with no hurricanes and a substantial cow population.
Pro: The weather (so far). I'm sure I'll change my tune eventually, but right now the weather is perfect. It's been low 70s during the day (and this week it'll drop down to mid 60s!!) and mid 50s at night. YAY! :)
Con: The 20 degree temperature swing between day and night causes a problem when you don't know how to program your programmable thermostat. It has a mind of its own. We have no idea what the previous tenants did to it to make it act this way, so for now we've basically given up on it and we spend a lot of time with the windows open. The problem here is that the house is usually still warm when we go to bed so we leave the windows open, but at 2:00 AM I have to get up and close the windows because the bedroom is FREEZING.
Pro: No obnoxious Florida fans.
Con: TONS of almost-as-obnoxious Ohio State fans.
That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure the list will lengthen as I learn more about the Buckeye (Suckeye :)) State. :) I'll keep you posted. :)
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
In the house! :)
So we're in the house! Actually, we've been in the house for a week--because of the storm and all the repairs, it took a full week for Time Warner to get out here to install our cable, internet, and phone! I've recently become a fan of Fox News Radio and NPR, so I was fine...but Mark bought rabbit-ears a few days ago so at least we could get NBC and CBS. I was livid, though--we couldn't get ABC for some reason, so I missed the 3 day Dancing With the Stars premiere event! I will eventually catch up online, but I haven't watched it yet...so don't tell me what happened! :)
I promise we'll get pictures up soon. We've had a lot of unpacking to do and even though the house is about 50% bigger than our last one, we're having trouble finding places to fit everything! The kitchen is crazy small for a house this size, so I've got appliances and serving bowls stashed in closets all over the house. :) My beloved Kitchen-Aid mixer even lost its space on the counter! :(
Also contributing to the lack of pictures...Sarah Beth has picked this week to get really good at crawling and pulling up. Currently, her favorite piece of climbing equipment is Mark's giant tool box which is still sitting in the middle of the living room floor. It's just the right height for her to hold onto once she's standing up. This is extremely cute...for the first 5 minutes of the day. After that, this is what my house sounds like all day long:
SB: excited coos
PLUNK
SB: "WAAAAAH!"
ME: "Oh, crap. Sorry! I didn't get there fast enough! Oh, punkin, you're ok. Aww, man, another bruise on your giant head...assorted comforting noises..."
BACKGROUND NOISE: Sean Hannity playing communist-sounding marchy music and yelling about the "Obama Mania Media"
....repeat cycle over and over again
Life is good. :)
P.S. Blake, since I'm too lazy to type an email to you, if you're reading this, yes the stores mentioned are in Fairborn and Beavercreek. We live in what used to be called "Page Manor" which is off I-675 at Col. Glen(n?) Hwy.
I promise we'll get pictures up soon. We've had a lot of unpacking to do and even though the house is about 50% bigger than our last one, we're having trouble finding places to fit everything! The kitchen is crazy small for a house this size, so I've got appliances and serving bowls stashed in closets all over the house. :) My beloved Kitchen-Aid mixer even lost its space on the counter! :(
Also contributing to the lack of pictures...Sarah Beth has picked this week to get really good at crawling and pulling up. Currently, her favorite piece of climbing equipment is Mark's giant tool box which is still sitting in the middle of the living room floor. It's just the right height for her to hold onto once she's standing up. This is extremely cute...for the first 5 minutes of the day. After that, this is what my house sounds like all day long:
SB: excited coos
PLUNK
SB: "WAAAAAH!"
ME: "Oh, crap. Sorry! I didn't get there fast enough! Oh, punkin, you're ok. Aww, man, another bruise on your giant head...assorted comforting noises..."
BACKGROUND NOISE: Sean Hannity playing communist-sounding marchy music and yelling about the "Obama Mania Media"
....repeat cycle over and over again
Life is good. :)
P.S. Blake, since I'm too lazy to type an email to you, if you're reading this, yes the stores mentioned are in Fairborn and Beavercreek. We live in what used to be called "Page Manor" which is off I-675 at Col. Glen(n?) Hwy.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The windy city...?
Well, we finally made it to Ohio and we were greeted by Hurricane Ike's leftovers--that's right, in OHIO! I'll get to that in a minute, though. First, some highlights of our trip:
--The packers/movers came the 10th, 11th, and 12th. They were, as usual, amazing! Well, I thought they were amazing...until I found a large shard of a china teacup in the carport on Friday afternoon after they'd left. :) Oh well. We took all the really important and irreplaceable stuff with us (in a seriously packed loaner minivan!) so the rest of it is really just "stuff."
--We made a detour for a few days in SC to see my sweet parents and we even got to hang out with my usually too-cool-for-us brother, Jake, for a few hours. The highlight of the trip (besides all the free nanny-ing my parents did so I could relax) was was the USC/Georgia game on Saturday. Yes, you remember correctly--we lost. BUT, my sweet parents offered us their tickets in exchange for some grandbaby time and we took one for the team and accepted the deal. It was crazy hot and I got an odd racoon-eyed (due to sunglasses) sunburn on my face that included a white void on my cheek where my block C temporary tatoo had been. Nice. :) The game was a nailbiter and though we lost, I am really proud of how they held the #2 team to 14 points and held a Heisman candidate to 79 yards! GO GAMECOCKS! :)
--The hurricane leftover action spiced up our trip from SC to OH on the 14th. We hit a rest stop just into Ohio about 8.5 hours into our trip (which according to Mapquest should have totaled 9 hours...such is life with a baby!) and noticed as we spooned applesauce into Sarah Beth that it was oddly windy. We just thought it was nice to feel a strong cool breeze instead of the hot, sticky, thick air we're accustomed to. For the next 2 hours, we drove through the worst wind I have ever experienced. We were literally driving through cornfields and dried husks were flying into the windshield of the minivan. I was expecting to see the wicked witch on her bicycle floating in front of us any second. Needless to say, white-knuckling-it for the last 100 miles slowed us down significantly, but the whole trying not to flip the van thing took precedence over fatigue and attention to a restless baby (who, praise the Lord, screamed herself out after half and hour and slept through the worst hour of the storm, giving her haggard mama a chance to concentrate!). I was honestly terrified, and I'm sure I would have given up and pulled over under an overpass with all the 18-wheelers if we hadn't been on the road all day and thisclose to our destination. The wind died down significantly when we finally reached Dayton and got checked into the TLF unit, but the power had been out for hours. This did not surprise us, since we'd passed sections of power-line-poles tipped over and laying in the cornfields on the way into town. After we unloaded and got settled, Mark went out in search of food and flashlights (which took him almost 2 hours to find!) and I settled sweet oblivious Sarah Beth into bed. When he got back I was sitting in the dark listening to my book on my mp3 player. :) We ate and got ready for bed by flashlight, which was kind of fun in a little-kid kind of way. OK so it was fun for me to play with the flashlight and not fun for Mark who was actually trying to go to sleep. :) Since I usually have to have the noise and the light of the TV to fall asleep, I did a lot of staring out the window listening to the unfamiliar sounds. Finally I put my mp3 player back on and found a local talk radio station. Apparently, what we had driven through was the worst windstorm in this part of the state for as long as anyone can remember. There were 60-70 mph winds in Dayton (hurricanes start at 74 mph I think). At that point there were 180,000 people without power (this morning that number doubled) and people were freaking out! The power on base came back on at 2:30 AM (praise the Lord for AF civil engineering trucks and crews working all night!), but this morning the majority of southern Ohio was still without power. Schools are closed, the roads are crazy because the traffic lights aren't working (and nobody seems to know what to do at a "4 way stop"), there's not one bag of ice to be had in town, and there are crazy long lines at gas stations--the ones that still have gas. Sound familiar? I'll give you a hint...IT SOUNDS LIKE FLORIDA AFTER A HURRICANE! :) How hilarious is it that we brought the storm and all the post-storm panic up here to people who have apparently never experienced a "widespread disaster" like this!?! We did find a Wal-Mart open today so we could buy some mac and cheese and noodle-type-things (it was not a super Wal-Mart so our choices were limited :)) and we were surprised to find that they still had milk, until we realized that nobody but us is able to use their refrigerator so nobody is buying milk.
--Tomorrow we get keys to our new house and we get to start painting! Due to the storm, our stuff may not get delivered until late this week or maybe next week, but at least we can get out of temporary housing and start getting things organized. We drove by the house today and I was a little shocked. It's yellow. I mean it is yellow. From pictures on google earth I knew it had a yellow tint to it, but I was hoping it was more of a beige-y yellow. Nope. It's yellow. :) Oh well...it's free. :) I'm sure I'll get used to it. :) I'll post pictures when I get around to taking some. :) We spent an uncharacteristically long time at Home Depot picking out paint colors, but we came home with a gallon of a lovely light tealish for Sarah Beth's room and several gallons of khaki for the guest room and our bedroom. I am having second thoughts, of course, and I think that in my rush to get ACTUAL COLOR (not the blue-ish tinted white on the top of the paint chips) I may have picked out colors that will turn our home into a big brown cave...but oh well. :) We never settled on a color for the living room/dining room, because I turned into the stereotypical girl and shot down every suggestion with things like, "That's too green. That's too brown. That's not brown enough. That's too light. That's too dark. That's not green enough." Mark should have won a medal for being so patient with me. We admitted defeat when Sarah Beth almost gave herself a paper cut in the face from throwing a fit while holding the cardstock paint chips, so we'll get started on the bedrooms and maybe pick a color for the downstairs later this week. The grandmothers are coming in shifts throughout the next week or so to help with "painting"...and by "painting" I mean "playing with the baby while I paint." Hey, I'll take any help I can get with either chore. :) I'll post lots of pictures when I get some momentum. :)
In other news, I hate Eastern time. I hated central time when we moved to Florida, until I realized that all the good TV is over at 10:00 and you can get to bed earlier! I realize that I lived in Eastern time for the first 23 years of my life and I liked it just fine...but my eyes have been opened to the possibilities with central! I may never go back! Well, I guess I don't have a choice so I will have to go back...but I don't have to be happy about it. :)
Longest first post ever.
--The packers/movers came the 10th, 11th, and 12th. They were, as usual, amazing! Well, I thought they were amazing...until I found a large shard of a china teacup in the carport on Friday afternoon after they'd left. :) Oh well. We took all the really important and irreplaceable stuff with us (in a seriously packed loaner minivan!) so the rest of it is really just "stuff."
--We made a detour for a few days in SC to see my sweet parents and we even got to hang out with my usually too-cool-for-us brother, Jake, for a few hours. The highlight of the trip (besides all the free nanny-ing my parents did so I could relax) was was the USC/Georgia game on Saturday. Yes, you remember correctly--we lost. BUT, my sweet parents offered us their tickets in exchange for some grandbaby time and we took one for the team and accepted the deal. It was crazy hot and I got an odd racoon-eyed (due to sunglasses) sunburn on my face that included a white void on my cheek where my block C temporary tatoo had been. Nice. :) The game was a nailbiter and though we lost, I am really proud of how they held the #2 team to 14 points and held a Heisman candidate to 79 yards! GO GAMECOCKS! :)
--The hurricane leftover action spiced up our trip from SC to OH on the 14th. We hit a rest stop just into Ohio about 8.5 hours into our trip (which according to Mapquest should have totaled 9 hours...such is life with a baby!) and noticed as we spooned applesauce into Sarah Beth that it was oddly windy. We just thought it was nice to feel a strong cool breeze instead of the hot, sticky, thick air we're accustomed to. For the next 2 hours, we drove through the worst wind I have ever experienced. We were literally driving through cornfields and dried husks were flying into the windshield of the minivan. I was expecting to see the wicked witch on her bicycle floating in front of us any second. Needless to say, white-knuckling-it for the last 100 miles slowed us down significantly, but the whole trying not to flip the van thing took precedence over fatigue and attention to a restless baby (who, praise the Lord, screamed herself out after half and hour and slept through the worst hour of the storm, giving her haggard mama a chance to concentrate!). I was honestly terrified, and I'm sure I would have given up and pulled over under an overpass with all the 18-wheelers if we hadn't been on the road all day and thisclose to our destination. The wind died down significantly when we finally reached Dayton and got checked into the TLF unit, but the power had been out for hours. This did not surprise us, since we'd passed sections of power-line-poles tipped over and laying in the cornfields on the way into town. After we unloaded and got settled, Mark went out in search of food and flashlights (which took him almost 2 hours to find!) and I settled sweet oblivious Sarah Beth into bed. When he got back I was sitting in the dark listening to my book on my mp3 player. :) We ate and got ready for bed by flashlight, which was kind of fun in a little-kid kind of way. OK so it was fun for me to play with the flashlight and not fun for Mark who was actually trying to go to sleep. :) Since I usually have to have the noise and the light of the TV to fall asleep, I did a lot of staring out the window listening to the unfamiliar sounds. Finally I put my mp3 player back on and found a local talk radio station. Apparently, what we had driven through was the worst windstorm in this part of the state for as long as anyone can remember. There were 60-70 mph winds in Dayton (hurricanes start at 74 mph I think). At that point there were 180,000 people without power (this morning that number doubled) and people were freaking out! The power on base came back on at 2:30 AM (praise the Lord for AF civil engineering trucks and crews working all night!), but this morning the majority of southern Ohio was still without power. Schools are closed, the roads are crazy because the traffic lights aren't working (and nobody seems to know what to do at a "4 way stop"), there's not one bag of ice to be had in town, and there are crazy long lines at gas stations--the ones that still have gas. Sound familiar? I'll give you a hint...IT SOUNDS LIKE FLORIDA AFTER A HURRICANE! :) How hilarious is it that we brought the storm and all the post-storm panic up here to people who have apparently never experienced a "widespread disaster" like this!?! We did find a Wal-Mart open today so we could buy some mac and cheese and noodle-type-things (it was not a super Wal-Mart so our choices were limited :)) and we were surprised to find that they still had milk, until we realized that nobody but us is able to use their refrigerator so nobody is buying milk.
--Tomorrow we get keys to our new house and we get to start painting! Due to the storm, our stuff may not get delivered until late this week or maybe next week, but at least we can get out of temporary housing and start getting things organized. We drove by the house today and I was a little shocked. It's yellow. I mean it is yellow. From pictures on google earth I knew it had a yellow tint to it, but I was hoping it was more of a beige-y yellow. Nope. It's yellow. :) Oh well...it's free. :) I'm sure I'll get used to it. :) I'll post pictures when I get around to taking some. :) We spent an uncharacteristically long time at Home Depot picking out paint colors, but we came home with a gallon of a lovely light tealish for Sarah Beth's room and several gallons of khaki for the guest room and our bedroom. I am having second thoughts, of course, and I think that in my rush to get ACTUAL COLOR (not the blue-ish tinted white on the top of the paint chips) I may have picked out colors that will turn our home into a big brown cave...but oh well. :) We never settled on a color for the living room/dining room, because I turned into the stereotypical girl and shot down every suggestion with things like, "That's too green. That's too brown. That's not brown enough. That's too light. That's too dark. That's not green enough." Mark should have won a medal for being so patient with me. We admitted defeat when Sarah Beth almost gave herself a paper cut in the face from throwing a fit while holding the cardstock paint chips, so we'll get started on the bedrooms and maybe pick a color for the downstairs later this week. The grandmothers are coming in shifts throughout the next week or so to help with "painting"...and by "painting" I mean "playing with the baby while I paint." Hey, I'll take any help I can get with either chore. :) I'll post lots of pictures when I get some momentum. :)
In other news, I hate Eastern time. I hated central time when we moved to Florida, until I realized that all the good TV is over at 10:00 and you can get to bed earlier! I realize that I lived in Eastern time for the first 23 years of my life and I liked it just fine...but my eyes have been opened to the possibilities with central! I may never go back! Well, I guess I don't have a choice so I will have to go back...but I don't have to be happy about it. :)
Longest first post ever.
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