Ziggy's death kind of overshadowed everything else that has happened since the 23rd, but I don't want to let Christmas completely slide by.
As previously mentioned, my mom was here from California, and my daughter and her family were here from Ohio.
We were completely out of the old house by the 22nd, but the new house was a mess. I had to be at work every day, so my mom and daughter did the most wonderful thing for me and cleaned where possible, and tried to organize.
We ended up having a fairly quiet Christmas Eve, as Kristi and her family went down to the lake to stay with my ex-in-laws, so Christmas Eve was just me, Scott and my mom.
Christmas morning, we drove out to Scott's mom and delivered her present, and then drove on down to the lake, where we stayed for about 4 hours - missing out on breakfast AND dinner - kinda sucked, and then we had to drive home to meet Scott's step-son Travis and his family. The next morning, we picked Shannon up and then threw an impromptu BBQ with Scott's kids and my daughter and her family...it was a lot of fun. The Texas weather was being kind and we enjoyed 70 degree temps for our first official BBQ at our lake house :)
Kristi and her family left our house Monday night, and left Dallas Tuesday morning. My mom left Wednesday morning...ugh, had to leave the house at 5 am to get her to the airport - and at that, I had underestimated how long it would take and she almost missed her flight.
I loved having them all with me for the first time in many years!
Scott started our remodelling with our bedroom/office. He painted the office, all the trim in both rooms, laid carpet in both rooms and knocked out the wall between them (although not in that order). It took him longer than he thought, but it's 99% done right now and the other 1% will have to wait for our checking account to magically refill itself. It looks great, and the bedroom is much larger and brighter. We should be able to put our office together this weekend.
The livingroom is completely devoid of Christmas now, and is just waiting for the computer stuff to be moved to the office, then we can start deciding picture placement, etc.
After that, we will be painting Shannon's bedroom (our guest room) which is currently Pepto-pink, lavendar and candy apple green (arrrggghhhh!) and which will be painted a color called "Cool Water", which is a very slightly green-tinted blue.
Of note is the fact that Katie, our other Quaker Parrot, seems to realize that Ziggy is gone, and is taking the opportunity to start showing off her personality. She had learned many of his phrases, so it's a little eerie hearing them from her, but she's also bringing out sounds of her own and seems hungry to learn more. Maybe it took the "top dog" being gone for her to come out of her shell.
Well, I hope some of this made sense - I'm sicker than a dog and still at work, so I'm a little braindead. More later!
Friday, December 30, 2005
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Rest in Peace, my darling Ziggy
This morning, around 8:00 a.m., my darling Ziggy passed away.
We didn't even realize something was wrong until last night, when he started shivering and wanted to be cuddled. By then, it was too late. I did get to hold him for a couple of hours last night, as he seemed to seek me out again and again. I'd like to think that he knew he was going and wanted to spend his remaining time with me.
I've cried all day, mourning the loss of that little bird who had such a huge impact on our family in the year that we've had him. No more Ziggy singing karaoke and opera, or barking at the dog, or meowing at the cat. No more "Mommy!!" shrieked at the top of his lungs. No more Ziggy begging for pizza, bread, or oyster crackers. No more preening my hair, no more nibbling my ear, or chasing my bare feet.
He will be buried at the top of the hill behind our house, where hopefully, he won't be disturbed for many years to come.
I love you Zigman...and miss you terribly! It's already too quiet without you.
Ziggy - Died 12/28/05
We didn't even realize something was wrong until last night, when he started shivering and wanted to be cuddled. By then, it was too late. I did get to hold him for a couple of hours last night, as he seemed to seek me out again and again. I'd like to think that he knew he was going and wanted to spend his remaining time with me.
I've cried all day, mourning the loss of that little bird who had such a huge impact on our family in the year that we've had him. No more Ziggy singing karaoke and opera, or barking at the dog, or meowing at the cat. No more "Mommy!!" shrieked at the top of his lungs. No more Ziggy begging for pizza, bread, or oyster crackers. No more preening my hair, no more nibbling my ear, or chasing my bare feet.
He will be buried at the top of the hill behind our house, where hopefully, he won't be disturbed for many years to come.
I love you Zigman...and miss you terribly! It's already too quiet without you.
Ziggy - Died 12/28/05
Friday, December 23, 2005
Killing time and an update
Since I'm stuck at work for another hour or so and could be doing real work, but not under any pressure to do so, I figured I'd take some time to update my blog.
I believe I last left off with the fact that we were supposed to move into our house last Saturday, the 17th and, of course, since nothing else has gone smoothly with this deal, I have a story to tell you about it.
We rented our truck on Friday evening, and Scott and his friend, John, started loading it. Scott and I drove out to the house at 4:00 p.m. to do our walk-through, since the seller had already told us he wouldn't be out at 8:00 a.m., like he was supposed to be.
We get out there and...the power is off. It's a little hard to do a proper walk-through with no power, but we did the best we could...HA!
There was still a little furniture in every room. It was apparent that they hadn't cleaned the house at all. The boat house was still filled to the brim with the seller's crap. One of the ceramic light covers on the patio was broken and pieces on the ground. Their teenage daughter wrote on the walls of her bedroom in black magic marker "Tiffany loves you - 11/11/05"....one week before we closed on the house. It was also obvious that the seller had allowed his dogs to hang out in the two carpeted bedrooms - where they apparently relieved themselves. Despite all of this, the seller assured us that they would be completely out that night, and would leave the key for us under a brick by the porch.
Disappointed once again, and furious that we were unable to get into the house and were paying rent on the truck for a second day, we went home, after stopping first at Home Depot and picking out new carpet for the bedrooms, and paint for the walls of the room that will become our office - which was a hideous dark blue.
Sunday morning, we rolled out of the house at the crack of dawn and headed to our new home. Bear in mind that it is a 46 mile drive one way. We arrive at the house and discover that the seller didn't leave the key - but that's ok, the front door was unlocked.
We walk in the house and...the furniture is still there. The house is filthy and I mean that truly. They hadn't washed the tub, hadn't swept, hadn't washed windows...it was truly dirty. Seller shows up a few minutes later and Scott says "What were you going to do with this furniture? Do you need a hand getting it out of here?" And the seller says, "I wasn't planning on doing anything with it...I was just going to leave it." WTF? At that point, he started understanding how pissed off we were and helped Scott get it out of the house and then, the only decent thing the guy has done throughout this ordeal, he and his brother in law helped Scott unload the truck...good thing, because our driveway is a 20% grade and there is no way we would have gotten it done by ourselves.
Today is Friday, and we finally got the last load of little crap over to the new house. The old house is as spotless as I can make it. My mother and my daughter have been cleaning the new house while I work, and trying to organize it as best they can. I'm hoping to get it finished up over the next few days, but I'm utterly and totally exhausted.
All I can say is that I'm getting far too old for this crap and if we ever move again, Scott better plan on getting movers and a cleaning crew.
OK, I'm out of here...Merry Christmas everyone!!
I believe I last left off with the fact that we were supposed to move into our house last Saturday, the 17th and, of course, since nothing else has gone smoothly with this deal, I have a story to tell you about it.
We rented our truck on Friday evening, and Scott and his friend, John, started loading it. Scott and I drove out to the house at 4:00 p.m. to do our walk-through, since the seller had already told us he wouldn't be out at 8:00 a.m., like he was supposed to be.
We get out there and...the power is off. It's a little hard to do a proper walk-through with no power, but we did the best we could...HA!
There was still a little furniture in every room. It was apparent that they hadn't cleaned the house at all. The boat house was still filled to the brim with the seller's crap. One of the ceramic light covers on the patio was broken and pieces on the ground. Their teenage daughter wrote on the walls of her bedroom in black magic marker "Tiffany loves you - 11/11/05"....one week before we closed on the house. It was also obvious that the seller had allowed his dogs to hang out in the two carpeted bedrooms - where they apparently relieved themselves. Despite all of this, the seller assured us that they would be completely out that night, and would leave the key for us under a brick by the porch.
Disappointed once again, and furious that we were unable to get into the house and were paying rent on the truck for a second day, we went home, after stopping first at Home Depot and picking out new carpet for the bedrooms, and paint for the walls of the room that will become our office - which was a hideous dark blue.
Sunday morning, we rolled out of the house at the crack of dawn and headed to our new home. Bear in mind that it is a 46 mile drive one way. We arrive at the house and discover that the seller didn't leave the key - but that's ok, the front door was unlocked.
We walk in the house and...the furniture is still there. The house is filthy and I mean that truly. They hadn't washed the tub, hadn't swept, hadn't washed windows...it was truly dirty. Seller shows up a few minutes later and Scott says "What were you going to do with this furniture? Do you need a hand getting it out of here?" And the seller says, "I wasn't planning on doing anything with it...I was just going to leave it." WTF? At that point, he started understanding how pissed off we were and helped Scott get it out of the house and then, the only decent thing the guy has done throughout this ordeal, he and his brother in law helped Scott unload the truck...good thing, because our driveway is a 20% grade and there is no way we would have gotten it done by ourselves.
Today is Friday, and we finally got the last load of little crap over to the new house. The old house is as spotless as I can make it. My mother and my daughter have been cleaning the new house while I work, and trying to organize it as best they can. I'm hoping to get it finished up over the next few days, but I'm utterly and totally exhausted.
All I can say is that I'm getting far too old for this crap and if we ever move again, Scott better plan on getting movers and a cleaning crew.
OK, I'm out of here...Merry Christmas everyone!!
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!
Last week, our entire town lost its power - on the coldest day we've had this year. The temperature outside was 16, but I have no idea how cold it got in the house. The birds became lethargic from the cold, so we lit a fire in the fireplace we hadn't used in the two and a half years we lived here, and put the bird cages in a semi-circle around the fire to warm them up. Oh, we're down to four birds - we re-homed Lucy two weeks ago. We just couldn't take her screeching anymore - and the other 4 were starting to imitate her! At 5:30 in the morning, that just wasn't cool.
We're supposed to (finally!!) move into our house Saturday morning - and our weather forecast is calling for snow. Somehow, that makes sense, after all we've been through to get the house.
My daughter and her family will arrive here tomorrow from Ohio. They'll be staying for two weeks, but I don't know how much I'll actually see of them. I know they have plans to visit all their friends and other family members, but I know I'll at least see them here and there.
My mom will arrive from California on the 21st...I just hope we have the house set up by then!
My livingroom is filled with boxes and Christmas presents - but no tree yet. Doesn't make sense to buy one when you're about to move :)
I've been letting this blog slide while we've been busy packing, but I'll try to get better about it after the first of the year. If I don't post before then - have a Merry Christmas!
We're supposed to (finally!!) move into our house Saturday morning - and our weather forecast is calling for snow. Somehow, that makes sense, after all we've been through to get the house.
My daughter and her family will arrive here tomorrow from Ohio. They'll be staying for two weeks, but I don't know how much I'll actually see of them. I know they have plans to visit all their friends and other family members, but I know I'll at least see them here and there.
My mom will arrive from California on the 21st...I just hope we have the house set up by then!
My livingroom is filled with boxes and Christmas presents - but no tree yet. Doesn't make sense to buy one when you're about to move :)
I've been letting this blog slide while we've been busy packing, but I'll try to get better about it after the first of the year. If I don't post before then - have a Merry Christmas!
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