chicago-bound 2008

Cold Hands…Yours, Too.

/ blizzard, car, chicago-bound 2008

So, armed with a broom, a windshield brush/scraper, and a dustpan, I went outside faced with the task of digging out my car. It wasn’t so bad at first, and I was moving within 20 minutes or so. THEN I got stuck. Couldn’t figure out WHY I was getting stuck. All the stuff was dug from under my car. But my wheels were spinning. Was thinking of why I didn’t have a shovel, and then realizing “Wait! There is an emergency kit in my trunk! I bet there’s a shovel in there!” Sure enough, there was a shovel in there. I put it together and was able to reach farther under the car to dig out crap. But my wheels were still spinning and the slush was packed hard under my tires. I figured the slush was what had the wheels spinning.

I sat glaring at the minivan that was parked too close to me, then felt bad when the minivan owner came out and gave me a push. YAY I was free. I went to the overflow lot, hoping for a cleared out spot back there, but there were none. There were, however, possible Places To Get Stuck, so I did a 34489549 point turn to avoid them, came out, started shoveling out my own spot, glanced at some spots closer to the front of the building, thought “screw all this shoveling” and went and took a nice, cleared out spot. I should be fine and dandy tomorrow, and I am not going ANYWHERE tonight! Don’t want to lose that spot!

All in all, the whole thing took about two hours, which isn’t too bad, and hey, I got excercise. And learned to shovel snow. Definite practice for when I move to Chicago in 8 (!!) days.

In addition, I packed up some of my kitchen, all of my jewelry, all of my underwear and socks (except for what I’ll need the next several days), talked to my mom (omg my phone bill will be ugly. Thank God it’ll be my last one, I can take my time paying it), and everything on my dresser top and some nightstand stuff too. I also cleaned my stove and washed the dishes. 🙂

Things to do this week:
– call rental office about furniture disposal
– call and arrange for transfer of gas and electric bills back to Clintonville Commons
– finish packing kitchen
– pack computer stuff
– pack important papers
– take loads of stuff to Goodwill
– take out buttloads of trash
– call Dr. Passias and Dr. Kowalewsky for medical records
– deposit checks and transfer money to main bank account
– send-off dinner at La Chatelaine with co-workers (and I am GETTING a dessert this time!)

Anything else? Those of you have have relocated, what kinds of things did you need to do/wrap up? My credit union is already aware that my car title will need to be re-registered. (ETA: Mail forwarding order already put in.)

I have 3485489375 pounds of laundry to do. I wonder if there is a laundry service I could use just this once. I am going to look into it, seriously. Or I could hit the place that has free wi-fi and a bar. I’m also willing to drop it off and pick it up later that day while I do what other stuff I need to do before I move out of town. Bwah. So, let me add to the list:

– call a laundry service; one that does pick up and delivery for price quote. Thank God I have Thursday and Friday off, that’s all I’m saying.

Lucy is acclimated to her carrier and often goes in there just to relax. That makes me very happy. It’ll be somewhat easy to get her in there in moving day, I hope.

Eeek!

By Tuesday, temps are supposed to be in the mid-40s. YAY get rid of all the icky slushy snow, please! How many times can I say I’m looking forward to spring?

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Not Quite as Productive….

/ chicago-bound 2008

I wasn’t as productive today. I did a lot of administrative work. I sorted and packed the rest of my CDs (some I am burning on here before sending them to the big Half-Price Books in the sky), and I got a small part of my electronics bin done. I prepared some packages to mail that I’d been meaning to mail for weeks/months/years, and I entered all the addresses in my address book to the computer. Now I can throw out all those envelopes and slips of paper I’ve been saving! I also filled out my change of address card, requested records from my ob/gyn, and

Tomorrow, I plan to finish the office stuff (I know, I keep saying that). This weekend, I shall tackle the kitchen. And my room. Teehee.

Less than a week for ZB. Tuesday night, there is a little get-together for me at La Chatelaine. I’m gonna miss that yummy place. Now I’m craving their lunch special. 🙂

I should get off here. Except I’m still importing music. But I’ll be done in just a bit. And once I’m done, I can go ahead and pack up the CDs for good. Except I have CDs with no cases and cases with no CDs. I hate that. Oh well. Good night.

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Progress

/ chicago-bound 2008, music

I’ve been working hard on the sorting, packing, and purging. I’m excited to say that it looks as though there is an end in sight! My goal is to be almost completely done by next Thursday, so I can take it easy the next few days. I still have to sort and pack:

– electronic/computer stuff
– the rest of my CDs
– the rest of my office stuff
– important papers
– NOW stuff
– kitchen
– nightstand stuff

The kitchen is the biggest job out of all of that. Oh shoot, there is a box under the futon I need to deal with too, but that gets lumped in with electronic/computer stuff.

This starting early and getting things handled is very nice. So much less stress. When I open a closet and see that almost everything is packed, I get all happy inside. 🙂

Today, I was sorting cassette tapes. I am going to throw away most of my old mix tapes because I have the songs on my computer now and can just make playlists on my iPod or whatever. But I found a couple of songs I’d forgotten about. One I just did a search for on iTunes and FOUND, with the + symbol which means there is no DRM stuff to deal with. 😀 YAY. I guess I never realized how popular the song Calliope House is. I like the Cowboy Jig version. I also found all of my cassette singles and albums. Some I decided to part with just because I already have the CDs or something like that. But I have a LOT of one-hit wonder singles which is just awesome. Or singles with remixes!! If I am not mistaken, Adam knows how to set up a tape player to a computer so that I can record music from the tapes and make mp3s out of them. YAY.

Okay, I’m just babbling because I’m hungry and excited that I found that song and that progress is being made. 😀

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Two Weeks!

/ chicago-bound 2008

Two weeks from now, I will be trying to settle in my new home in Chicago! Holy banana!

Two weeks!

Fourteen days! Wow.

I sure hope adamselzer‘s ready for me.

I spent a good deal of time packing today, and listening to some old mix CDs I’d made in 2001, 2002, 2003. It was so cool to revisit all those songs, and I plan to listen to them again tomorrow. zenosidal and Matt are supposed to come over and help me sort and pack.

I found myself waffling over a few things. My Jumbo Love elephant for one thing. It’s big and pink and fluffy. It’s also old and grody. I wonder if I could wash it? I am taking stuffed animals, but I am also taking two of those nets to put up in Aidan’s room. They’ll be out of the way, but still cute. I have a whole tote full of Beanie Babies. I just can’t part with my Beanie Babies, and I’ll be excited to have them on display again. They’re going to go in the other net. All the Disney animals will go on the bed. 🙂

HA, listen to me making plans. The funny thing is that sometimes I keep myself up pretty late making plans about storing things and such. It WILL be a challenge, that much is a given. But I’m thinking we’ll figure out how to make it work. We HAVE to.

When I was digging in Aidan’s closet to get out things to sort, I found an EGG BOX. SCORE. Seriously, egg boxes are the best boxes ever. They’re so sturdy because you know, they have to transport eggs.

I managed to get most of my office supplies into one box, but it’s heavy so I think I will split it. It won’t be a big deal, actually. Plus, I still have stuff that I am still using that I haven’t packed yet. I’m sure Adam’s going to totally BUG when he sees all the crap I have, even though I’ve been discarding and sorting for Goodwill like a mofo. I have several bags of clothing and stuffed animals for Goodwill. Tomorrow, I will have more toys for them. And of course, there are the shoes, purses, etc. that I need to put into bags. This is, in a word, nuts. I can’t believe I have so much stuff. Thank God I have just under two weeks to get this all together, and thank God I started early. I can’t imagine dealing with all of this at the last minute!

My goal is to have between 30 and 50 boxes and bins. Hopefully way less, but we’ll see. I am realizing that it is indeed easy to start throwing out stuff.

One thing that sucks about packing, though, is the dust. I’m sneezing like crazy.

All right, bath time. Night.

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Panicky Me?

/ chicago-bound 2008, life

Today, Adam called just as I was getting into packing up clothing and singing Les Miserables. I asked him if I was panicking about packing, and he told me that I was. I mean, I DO have two weeks to get it together, but I really don’t want to be rushing around at the last minute, throwing things wherever, making a mess. I want to be organized.

With that said, I have my high school graduation and my college graduation gowns still. Caps, too. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to get rid of them! I’ll see if they make the cut this time around. I guess if they fit into the knickknack bin, they can stick around for a bit longer. And hey, if I go to grad school, I’ll already have a cap and gown for it. (My college cap and gown is black, the high school one is gold).

The hardest thing has been the OFFICE SUPPLIES. I had a lot of knickknacks on my desk when I worked at Nationwide. I need to get ruthless. I also found a stack of letters. I can never resist letters. Hmm, knickknack bin, I suppose. Oh, and I found my BoysIIMen CD with Motownphilly on it, plus a bunch of other CDs I’d “lost.” Good times.

Anyway, this was a pretty pointless post, but the fact remains that two weeks from now, I’m going to be finalizing things for my move to Chicago. HOLY CRAP. Three weeks from now, I’ll actually be living there. *gulp*

Send good and productive vibes my way, please! :)

(Originally published at Anywhere Is…)

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