Pictures and such

I have slacked off so much on taking pictures of the house, so I wanted to post a few. Yesterday I went out in the back yard and got a few of Charley playing, as well as different close-ups from plants and things in our yard. Other than that, I'm just getting the house ready for the Hetricks' to visit this weekend. I'm not sure what we'll be doing quite yet, but I'm excited to have them here to see the place. I also can't wait to see Kyle and his girlfriend Kate! I still can't believe I haven't met her yet. It should be a fun and busy weekend!

Other than droning on about random things, I will just post pictures. Nothing's changed yet as far as the job search goes. I'm still glad I didn't get that job... it wouldn't have been suitable for the school situation. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find something... even if it means working at a coffee shop. I really don't mind a change right now! Having all of this 'free time' has allowed me to get homesick. For Kansas and SC. I'm definitely happy with our living situation here, I just miss everyone a lot. I haven't gone out and had many chances to make friends here yet, so I've become more of a hermit than I had anticipated I would be. Oh well, I know it will get better. I wouldn't be comfortable if it stayed like this forever, so I'll make sure it doesn't stay this way very long.

It's getting much colder here. The wind has really picked up the past few days. It's supposed to rain all weekend, and then the high is supposed to be 49 on Sunday! Ahhhhh! I think all I've really worn this week are sweatshirts and jeans. I will not be winning any fashion awards anytime in the near future. And I'm DYING to get my hair cut soon- it's been over 2 months now- but I want to be able to do it for Halloween without having to find a wig. Maybe it'll be worth the wait- it's just that anxiety of finding a new stylist when you've gotten so used to one person for the last ___ years. I'm going to stop complaining now and post some pictures. :-P

-Ash


1) Hole I put in the screen door trying to get into the house... lol...


2) Charley peeking out at the neighbors

3) Charley running in his back yard!

Weekend events

Hello! Not a whole lot is going on here right now. There's a cold rain coming down outside, so I'm cooped up in the house with Charley. He's being a little whiny right now... he's started doing this weird growl/sing thing recently that is pretty funny. I discovered this on Saturday when I plugged in a Glade air freshener and the little fan started making a 'whir' noise. It totally freaked him out. My dog is such a dork. :)

Since I wrote last, the fence has been built, and Charley's really enjoying his back yard even more now than before. He and Casey have been playing out there quite a bit. He'll actually chase the ball around for awhile until he gets bored.

Casey had Friday off, so we spent a lot of the day getting the house more organized. We are down to 3 boxes now! I hope my BeautiControl stuff is in one of them. That's the only thing right now that I can't find from the move. It's rather frustrating, but I'm sure it'll show up at some point. I found all of the kitchen stuff I had been missing- it was in a box we had set aside for garage sale items, by accident. Anyway, the house is really starting to look a lot better. I feel like for the first time in my life, I actually WANT to clean. I think something's wrong with me...LOL. It's probably the fact that we actually own the house, and it was in good condition before we moved in, so I'd like to keep it that way.

In other news, I didn't get the job I interviewed for last week. It's actually good; I applied to college this morning. I should find out soon if I've been accepted. It was a little scary, but I think it's the best time for me to go back now. I'll update more on that later!

Time for me to get back to 'work': the Hetricks are visiting this weekend, and I just found out Kyle, one of my best friends since I was in Kindergarten, is bringing his girlfriend to visit this weekend, too! I can't wait! I have never met her yet, but I've heard a lot about her, so I'm glad to finally meet her after... gosh... 3 years? I have no idea. It's been a long time, though.

Anyway, Charley's whining, so I'm going to try to figure out what's wrong. I'll write again later!

-Ash

Update...

Sorry I have slacked so much on the blog! You'd think that being unemployed would give me more time to write. In fact, it gives me less to write about! So I'll try to be a bit more frequent about updates.

Hmmm... where to start. I guess I'll start with last Saturday. Casey and I got up and planned to be super productive. We were in the morning- we got a lot of boxes unpacked, and started organizing rooms. Around 1:30 pm we saw that the neighbors across the street were outside, and we had promised them our boxes because they are moving at the end of the month. We spent about an hour or so bringing boxes up from the basement for them, while they had a chain of people walking back and forth across the street to fill their garage up with the boxes. I was so glad to get rid of them! We can actually see the basement floor now!

After that, we noticed that the neighbors to our right were outside, so we started chatting with them. At some point, lawn chairs were dragged to our driveway, and there were upwards of 10 people sitting there with us. We got to know the neighbors a lot better, and had fun playing with all of the kids. (I know I exaggerate a lot, but there are TONS of kids on our street!!! Besides us, another couple a few houses down, and the neighbors on our left, we are the only ones without kids, and everyone else on the block has a minimum of two!!! Laura and her husband that live directly across the street have FOUR girls!) So anyway, there were children running around everywhere, and we were able to introduce them to Charley Brown. Once they saw him do tricks, they all wanted to give him treats and make him do more. I think he was doing tricks for about 45 minutes, and I'm surprised the kid didn't explode from all of the treats he was given! He loved all of the attention, and adores the children! I was really proud that he did so well with them. One little girl named Megan who is 2 years old apparently loves animals, and she walked right up to him and put his face in her hands. It was so stinking cute! He gave her tons of kisses (which was convenient for him since her face was right at his level...). I'm even more convinced that Charley will do great with kids when we eventually have them. :-D

Wow, I got off topic. Long story short, we spent the rest of the afternoon outside with the neighbors, and then Cathy and Ray (neighbors to the right) decided to have a cookout. We spent the rest of the evening until about 11:30 pm at their place. The kids played inside, and the rest of us sat outside, eating, drinking, and laughing. We had a lot of fun with them, and had a hard time leaving. Two of the moms had an onion fight (one put an onion slice down the others shirt) among other hilarious events that I will refrain from mentioning at this time. If they were out to prove that parents can still kick back and have fun, they definitely reached their goal. LOL...

In other news, the fence builders are here as I write this, which will be great for Charley! Now he can go outside and go to the bathroom without me watching him like a hawk. He saw a rabbit last night and took off, but luckily he listened to me and came back before he went into the neighbor's yard or into the street. I'm confined to the house until they are done building, but I have projects and things to work on, so it shouldn't be too bad. Charley's jumpy because he hears them outside and is dying to go see what they're up to. I expect he'll pout a bit since he's not going to get his way, but he'll get over it. (With perfect timing, he just let out a huge 'I'm bored' sigh.)

Anyway, I guess that's it for now. We're excited that the Hetrick clan is coming up around the 24th! They haven't gotten to see the house yet, and by that point we should have a lot more order to the place. It gives us something to look forward to!

I'll update more later when something interesting happens.

-Ash

PS: For Halloween this year, we're dressing Charley up at Charlie Brown, I'll be Sally, and Casey will be Linus. I'll definitely get some pictures!

Only to me...

The past few days have been spent at the house, though they have been a lot less productive than they were when my parents were here. I've done probably 10 loads of laundry this week because we didn't have access to a machine until they were installed on Tuesday. We had to buy a new dryer because we had a gas set-up instead of electric, and it was going to be less expensive to buy a new one than it would have to install a new line for the electric. So we bought a nice new High Efficiency washer and dryer that work well. Wednesday, our new dishwasher came. The old one at the house was broken, so the seller agreed to give us money to replace it. So far we haven't had enough dishes to run a cycle, but I'm anxious to see how it works.

I think that's about it for new appliances so far. The main reason why I wanted to write today was to tell you what happened to me just a bit ago. Charley had to go to the bathroom, so I went outside the back screen door with him. When I shut the screen door, I heard a click, and realized we were locked out of the house. I was still in my pj's (I'm not feeling well today so I'm lounging around) and I'm in desperate need of a shower. So of course this is the time the screen door locks. The ironic part is that I have a hard time locking it from the inside because the track is slightly off, so I have to jiggle it a bit to get it into place. But when I go outside, suddenly it decides to slip right into place. Of course. So I go to the front yard and try out the garage door. That doesn't work. We have never gotten it to work from the outside by pushing the keypad, even though we know what the code is. I go to the front door, which is also locked. Beautiful. I go to the back yard again to see what I can do about the screen door. I even call Casey and leave a message to see if he has any suggestions. Then I remembered that when I took Charley out to go to the bathroom earlier, someone had been in the yard marking AT&T lines with spray paint and little flags. I picked up one of the flags, bent it, and stuck it through the screen. It took a few times, but I was able to lift up the lock and get in. I think I may have been a cat burglar in a previous life or something. Either way, we're in the house now, and I think I'm going to let him go out by himself next time.

That's all for now. I'll take some pictures soon (I'm actually hunting for my camera right now- it got moved around somewhere in all the craziness- I'm sure it's here- but I'm freaking out a little right now because it's not in plain sight.) Anyway, I'll update the pics soon and show you what we've been up to in the house. :)

-Ashley

The House!

Again, I have a long story, but this time it's a good one. On Wednesday, we were given the keys to the house on 'good faith' by the seller and our attorney (if I remember correctly). Casey went to pick up the keys, and the movers came about 10 minutes before he got back. We were able to move in and get everything into the house in a matter of hours. Happy ending!

I absolutely love the house. It's more than I ever thought I would have for a starter home. My parents have been here helping us unpack and get settled in. We have way too much junk. I look forward to having a garage sale sometime in the near future before it gets too cold. :)
It's been great having my parents here. Dad's helped Casey a lot with building various furniture, and Mom and I have taken care of the organizational things. We finally have internet, cable, and telephone... sadly enough, Casey called AT&T a week or so before we were set to move in, and when the guy arrived to install everything, someone had lost our order. He came in, brought all of the equipment, and then sat out in his truck for a good 2 hours while he did 'troubleshooting'. We were told that he wouldn't be able to fix it then, and that someone would have to come next week to finish installing it. Casey called a bunch of people at AT&T to try to get it sorted out, and he finally connected with someone who walked him through the set-up. So, if the job at BP doesn't work out for him, he could definitely get a job with AT&T. He amazes me, what can I say?

So yesterday Casey and I were furniture shopping, and we discovered IKEA for the first time. OH. MY. GOSH. I love that place! I honestly think it's my favorite store of all time. I think it's pretty neat that you can build whatever you want and customize everything. Casey's working on building our entertainment center right now. While it's always nice to have something that you don't have to spend hours building yourself, I think it will definitely be worth it, because it's what we wanted and couldn't find anywhere else (without paying an arm and a leg). The prices are very reasonable there and I honestly think I could spend an entire day there without getting bored. Yay IKEA!

I'm sure there's plenty more I could write right now, but it's 6:55 a.m. and I'm not going to be functional the rest of the day if I don't try to sleep a little more. Charley busted in our room a little bit ago and laid on my legs, so I had a hard time sleeping because my legs started losing circulation. I swear, that guy has a knack for laying right on top of me. Speaking of him, though, he seems to be enjoying the new place. He's still skiddish and of course he's scared of all of the boxes around, but he loves going on walks with Dad and getting so much attention from Mom while we're busy getting everything set up. Oh, and we've met just about all of the neighbors, and I really like them! The majority of them seem to be in their early to mid-30s, and all of them have kids, or at least have one on the way. We should have a ton of trick-or-treaters!!!

That's all for now... I'll try to update again soon!

-Ashley (Homeowner!!!) ;)

PS: It's freaking cold here. I'm running out of long-sleeved shirts to wear so I plan to go shopping soon to take care of that problem... I just thought I'd have a little more time before I had to put a jacket on to go outside! Of course, Casey's not having any problems with the weather, and rarely puts on long sleeves or uses a jacket. If only I were a little more warm-blooded. ;)

Wells Fargo Woes

I have an extremely long and detailed story to tell, but I can't right now. VERY long story short, some idiot at Wells Fargo wrote the wrong name on the wire transfer to the title company yesterday morning, so while we have all of our papers signed and our money is in the bank, we cannot get keys to the house until the title company receives the wire transfer. And it's all because one person wrote in Casey's name instead of the title company. Needless to say, yesterday was a long, exhausting, disappointing day. We didn't get the house yet. We weren't even able to do a walk-thru when it was scheduled originally because the movers showed up to pack and move the owner. She was supposed to close on her condo yesterday after our closing, so we aren't sure where she stayed last night because she couldn't close, either. What a mess! There's nothing we can do now but wait. Our attorney is the only one who can straighten things out with Wells Fargo at this point. All I can do is hope that someone can straighten this out ASAP. The movers are supposed to meet us at the house between 12 and 1 today, but if the money situation hasn't been resolved, we'll have a lot of stuff and no where to put it. Please just let this go better than it has... I'm sort of at a loss right now. We know the house is ours, but there's nothing we can do. Anyway, you know there'll be plenty more to write soon. I hope it's good news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More later,

Ash