Gangsta's Paradise

 We've been unpacking and getting organized over the past two and a half weeks. It's seemed like longer, but it's only been a short amount of time we've lived in our new house. We discovered we lost the cushions for our large couch somewhere in moving them to the storage unit, so we'll be in the market for a new couch soon.

The first week in our new home was tough! We knew prior to moving in that we needed some plumbing work done, so we scheduled it for Monday of the first week. The plumbers came in, started their thing, and came up a few hours later with very bad news. But after a half hour of calling managers, owners, etc they were able to come up with a work around and get the job done in two days within the same budget as originally quoted. So we no longer have a rotting out main sewer line and should be good for years to come!

Then we decided to patch the holes in the walls all over the house, one of which was caused by someone tearing the heater off the wall of the living room. So Dave decided to replace the thermostat while we were at it with a smart one. This caused us to accidentally blow the furnace's fuse (I was unaware furnaces could have fuses). So we were without heat for 24 hours but it didn't get too cold in that time period.

Next came putting back together the laundry room. We replaced the flooring to cover the hole made by the plumbers, lugged the washer and drier over to their spots, and plugged everything in. I started a load of laundry and discovered the drier didn't work! A lot of assessing, cutting holes into walls, removing cabinets, flipping breakers, were involved in discovering the power to the washer was stolen at one point in the history of the house to create an upstairs washer and drier. It took 3 days to figure out where the power really should come from, and get everything back to working (there was a day where we accidentally disconnected the oven's power in there somewhere). Couldn't have gotten all that figured out without the help of Dave's Dad, Bill! He was over every day until we got it all done.

On top of all the house issues we've been working like crazy to unpack all the boxes. I focused first on the kid's bedrooms and the kitchen. Then I moved to the living room and dining room so we didn't feel like we were living in a storage unit. Then I decided we needed to rebuild the master closet so we could unpack Dave's and my clothes/room. It's not 100% finished (Dave's building two more shelves for his stuff), but I'm happy with it!

Speaking of building my closet, it wouldn't be done without the help of my friend Tenille! She came down Tuesday or Wednesday (the week was a blur and I can't remember). She was a SAINT!!! She kidnapped my kids and helped with unpacking and building my closet. She just left this morning and there is no way I would have gotten so much done this week without her! 

Holy cow that woman is amazing!!! AND she kept me in Chocolate and treats since I have yet to find my stash since the move. We ate Mexican treats, Krispy Kreams (twice), and tons of Chocolate. Plus she made us dinner one night and bought us pizza another. 

Dave's main focus has been getting the garage organized and unpacked so we can park in the garage, and we're close! Hopefully we can park in it soon since it's freezing out and I don't want to have to scrape my car off every day.

This morning we woke to large puffs of snow coming down! It was beautiful and the kids snook out in it before Church and built a snow man after church. They were so happy I had already unpacked the snow gear! I am pretty glad we found it too.

Other than unpacking I've been giving away and selling stuff that doesn't fit in our new home on Facebook Marketplace. It's been a lot of work, but it's nice to have less stuff in the house. I'll be glad when we've unpacked everything and have finally settled in. Hopefully it doesn't take too long!