Where Have You Been?

It's been six months since I last posted something on my blog. How TERRIBLE is that! While in those six months there have been several life changes that have consumed my time and focus, it still is no excuse. It comes down to not making blogging a priority and I take full responsibility for that.

Six Month Catch-Up
In September, we found out from our builder that they were continuing to have difficulty installing a retaining wall and they said it wouldn't be until spring before the house would be done. Having waited 9 months already, seeing no progress, and watching the builder's starting price drop 80K we decided it would be best for us to cancel our contract and shop elsewhere. (A wise choice looking back now. Prices have dropped 100K and when I recently went by the construction site everything looked the same and there was still no retaining wall.) Luckily for us the builder was understanding and refunded us our entire deposit. What a God blessing!

In October, after searching for several weeks we found a beautiful townhouse to purchase. It was empty, in move-in condition having only been built in 2004 and in a community that was originally out of our price range when we sold our home. It had a ton of upgrades including hardwood floors, granite counter tops, professional wall and window treatments, etc. But MOST of all, my husband loved the small yard and community landscapers which meant no more mowing or leaf raking! We closed on the 16th and spent the last few weeks of October packing and moving our apartment, getting the rest of our things in storage moved and beginning the process of unpacking.

November began a little rocky. I started the month by visiting the local emergency room for the first time. It was a bit depressing to have only lived there for two weeks before I was already back in the hospital but that's the way it goes. The nice part is we specifically chose a townhouse that is only about three minutes away from the hospital so the midnight run was quite "pleasant" if you had to be going. It turned out I had a quite painful kidney stone (my first) that took some time to pass. But with a little morphine to deaden the pain the world always looks better. I spent the next three weeks feverishly trying to unpack as much as I could before the holiday craze would begin.

On a positive, November ended with a trip to Philadelphia to see my sister who had just moved there and a fantastic Thanksgiving day trip to New York City to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in person. If you haven't done this I would HIGHLY recommend it. It has been a childhood dream for me and I'd do it again without hesitation. We were lucky to have beautiful weather and everything went quite smoothly. We were on the parade route staking out our front row seating by 6:30am, enjoyed the gorgeous balloons and parade entertainment then spent the day touring the city. We ended our trip at Rockefeller Center and had a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant overlooking the ice skating rink. What more could you ask for?!?

December was consumed with decorating the house and making preparation for Christmas. Christmas is probably my favorite time of year. I made a point to pull out all of our Christmas things from the garage so that I could repack them in clear storage containers and put them in the new storage area we had a handyman create for us under our stairwell. For the holidays my sister came down from Phili and spent close to two weeks with us. It was great to spend some concentrated time with her.

My favorite part about Christmas was surprising my husband with an iPhone. I totally tricked him into thinking it wasn't under the tree by wrapping it in multiple layers of boxes and weights. About a week before Christmas he even admitted to me that he had hoped there was one under the tree but that when he saw his present he knew it couldn't be one and he was OK with that. It was all I could do to keep a straight face and play up the "there is no way you're ever getting one of those" attitudes. I think the iPhone gift is probably the BEST surprise with the highest impact that I've ever been able to accomplish with him. It was great watching him sit speechless for quite some time just staring at it.

Christmas also marked the arrival of a new family member. Our dog, Rudy passed away around the same time we sold our home and moved. My husband loves dogs and it was quite a difficult loss for us. At the time, we decided to wait to get a new dog until we had settled in our new home. So when Christmas rolled around it seemed like the perfect time to find a new dog to rescue. We found Miss Daisy, a foxhound mix, at a local rescue organization FOHA and fell in love with her immediately. She is a loving, 3 year old that is still quite energetic and playful. While she doesn't seem to have any of the rude habits Rudy had, she is still working on basic obedience skills. The TV show "The Dog Whisperer" has become our new favorite show! Overall, we are quite pleased with her and she has become a loved member of our family.

January and February have been extremely busy also but I'll have to get you updated on that later.

Phew! While I know this is a long post, at least now you're caught up on things. We've had many major changes with a few still to come. Even though changes are taking place I plan to try and be more committed to blogging. If I can discipline myself to making my posts short it shouldn't take much time. No snide remarks! I AM capable of posting a SHORT entry. ;)

Until next time...