Wednesday, October 17, 2007

latest move and tribulations

We moved again last week, into our new home - finally! I despise moving, and hopefully now that we've bought a house we'll stay put for a while. We hired movers to do most of it. We love the house and the neighborhood.

The weather has gotten a bit cooler here, but is still nice and mild. It is getting dark earlier in the evening. People have put out halloween decorations all over, and the city has some witches that have "flown" into the light poles down town. I do enjoy the changing seasons.

Yesterday Kyler and I walked Hunter to the bus stop. Upon returning I found the door to be locked. I had a feeling the other day that I should put a key outside somewhere, but didn't get around to it. Dean was at work. I checked the other doors, but they were all locked. From the inside the handle will open whether it is locked or not, so I didn't realize it was still locked when we rushed out to not miss the bus. A lady from church is just a few houses down, and is an at-home mom as well, so I sheepishly went over to her house. I didn't know her well before, but she is nice and actually teaches Kyler's nursery class at church. Fortunately she was home, and was planning on going into town anyway, so she took Kyler and me to Dean's place of work. How nice of her! I still haven't put a key outside somewhere yet.

Our dodge intrepid, which is what I drive and what we use when we go out as a family, is on the fritz. It had been leaking water for sometime (then would overheat) and the transmission has been slipping and sometimes won't automatically shift. It has 80,000 miles on it now. Some mechanics replaced the head gasket and fixed one of the heads. They had it nearly a week. Yesterday we tried to drive out to the beach for a family walk, but it wouldn't shift, then started rattling. We turned around and came home. We took it back to the shop and they said the computer is spitting out some codes that only the dealer can take care of. The engine light has been on for a while too. The dealer here in town can't take it for two weeks. My parents are coming up for a visit in one week, so we need it. Dean drives a little nissan sentra, which sure wouldn't hold everyone. So, I called a dealer in a town about 60 miles away who can take it this week. Everyone says not to drive it and do more damage, so Dean wants me to tow it there with his boss' pickup. Ugh! That is so not appealing. We'll see! Now that we're officially "house poor", we can't just run out and buy another car, though Dean would certainly like to.

Last night as Hunter was supposed to be upstairs brushing his teeth before bed, I was downstairs and heard a few loud thuds. I waited a moment to listen for an explanation. Hunter whimpered a bit. I came upstairs to find him in the bathroom with the shower curtain and spring rod in the bath tub. I asked him if he had been climbing it. Yes, he said. I asked if he would be doing that again. No, he said. I asked a couple of times if he was pretending to be spider man, which he eventually said "yes" to. Hmmm. There were some big knots on his shin so I "iced" them down with frozen blueberries for a while. He seems to have another ear infection, by the way. We still have antibiotic drops for people with tubes in the ears, so we've been giving him that.

Earlier in the evening, for FHE I attempted on my own to move the parlour grand piano (a little smaller than a baby grand) so that I could open the top and pull out the music stand. Dean was in the kitchen. This was awfully foolish on my part, as I was vaguely aware that the back leg is not actually attached to the piano. The piano is just sitting on it. The piano rolled surprisingly easily, and right off that leg. I found myself screaming my head off trying to hold up the piano. Dean was trying to return a phone call from a client and ignored me desperation for a while. He eventually casually wandered over to finally watch me drop the piano to the floor. It is still with its back end on the floor and looks utterly ridiculous. I have a huge bruise on the front of my thigh. I'm not sure if the piano was sitting on my leg or hit it on the way down. Whenever we can recruit some help we'll stand it back up on it's leg. In the meantime I'm trying to find someone who could potentially fix that problem, as we sure wouldn't want to lose a child if they horsed around with it and it fell on them. So, I couldn't very well give Hunter much trouble after what I had done!

As soon as I find the digital camera and take some pictures, I'll figure out how to post them. We're still going through boxes...