Isolation

I've officially been here for three weeks.
Last night the Dinosaur said I sounded like I finally realized how far away I am.
Yup- I'm feeling a little stir crazy.

I know it could be way worse.
If the dogs weren't here and Hubby was gone somewhere I could go days without talking out loud.

We've even had people over for dinner twice. Neighbors and then guys from Michigan down here for work at the GM plant.

I'm not miserable- although I looked it yesterday. Between the rain and cold I was so out of it. The dogs and I watched YouTube videos on tv for HOURs. LOL.

I spent 1 1/2 hours trying to get through to mi unemployment. They don't park you on hold- they hang up on you. Then whee you get in the cue it's at least 10 minutes of on hold before a person gets to you.

They love telling you that you can do everything online- which of course you can not. They also love to tell you that you only get so many weeks and yes the government took back that 10.9 percent so yes you did get less so stop calling about it.

I finally have car insurance on the new car so I feel better about driving it. I found it weird that they didn't demand I have insurance before I drove off the lot. They do in Michigan. Sure I had insurance on the one I turned in but that doesn't necessarily transfer over to the new car.

I have to go get a new drivers license - actually we both do or no insurance - such fun.
Which means I lose my enhanced license. Arg. Now I have to get a new passport. Just more fun for me. ;-)

Well. It's Noon and I really do need to get out of the house. So I'm off.
More later.

Dinosaur exercise

Just a quick iPhone update.
With all the walking and exercise I've been wanting to keep track or help me get motivated or whatever.
I started with the couch to 5k app and well it sucks because it assumes you honestly want to run.
Yeah that's not going to happen.

Then I noticed Chicken Paul doing stuff and it showing up on Facebook. He uses Runkeeper and I now have the free version for myself. Or $20 it will broadcast for the whole year and do some other analysis for you. I don't feel the need to share it all. Lol. I can post stuff afterward- but I think I have it so only I can see it.

That is something else I found with several games and such that want to post to Facebook. I just put the setting to me only when I set up the app and it doesn't spam my timeline or my friends.

Anyway - I like Runkeeper. It shows where I went- it's fun because the streets back here in the sub don't exist on the map yet. So it looks like I'm off roading it. It gives you the choice of activity- with biking and other stuff- not just run or walk. It tells your phone to play music.
I spent a hour or two making a walking playlist that's actually several hours long. It just picks up where I left off. So far so good on that front.

Plus it keeps track of how fast you go and personal bests of all kinds.
It works because of GPS. So it's not going to work in the caves- which is a bummer. And it doesn't work on a treadmill, but you can hand enter that stuff.

At the end of each activity it asks you to take a picture and write about it. I like that. Because I can distinguish between walking with or without dogs. You can also say how you felt. Which can help you remember how long it takes to hurt or whatever.
So yes. I give Runkeeper a definite thumbs up!!

Walking

Yup - just walking.
As of today I've averaged almost a mile + a day walking around my neighborhood.

Saturday I tried a 5K walk for the humane society of Bowling Green. Tom and Stephanie blew me out of the water. They paced close to 15 or 18 min a mile to my normal 25 or so. I was getting tired after the first mile. 5k = 3.? Miles.

I was walking with a nice lady and her greyhound. Wow. She talked my ear off. That was ok- I was getting tired and couldn't talk anyway. We cut the corner at the back end to catch up with Tom and Stephanie - and Tom starts dragging me and I couldn't talk and was breathing hard. He's like- come on. Ugh.
He and Stephanie could have run the whole thing.
Sadly that is one activity that I hated beyond anything else. I can not run. Between my weird knees and now the weight - running is not something I can do.

So I'll walk.

At home Taking the boys is getting a little annoying. They love going for a walk, but to them it means stopping to sniff everything in sight and then peeing 50 times.
Today they walked almost a 1/2 mile then I dropped them off and walked more than a mile without them.

I'm sure I'm going to get bored walking my neighborhood soon enough.
I found yesterday that there are some trails out behind Lost River Cave that people walk and jog. Some one posted a run with the camera strapped to the dogs back. It was cute.
That is also next to the dog park.

I'm not really losing any weight - but I feel a bit better. And I will admit I LOVE the weather here right now. Especially when I hear how crappy the weather is in Michigan. The hottest so far was 85 and coldest was 32 at night. Average is about 55 right now. Getting closer to 70's every day.
A couple people have warned me that it will get into the 80's soon and not come back down. Bummer.
At least the Heat/Air pump now works. I thought it seemed a bit weird the air wasn't really cold and the heat seemed weak. Well it Really was!!! The motor power switch was burnt out. So the big fan that actually does most of the work was not turning on.
I wonder how long it has been that way. I can't imagine this past winter being very comfortable that way. Brrrrr.
It makes me fear the electric bill. Because it was using the back up electric heaters to help keep the house warm. Ewww.
The ceiling fans made it almost livable without the air, but the house at 80+ everyday would have killed me. I can leave it around 78 in the summer. But that was with the basement to hide in. Not sure what I'll be able to take here.

Well I need to talk to Marvin and clean some. Tom said some guys are coming down from Michigan to the plant this week. So it looks like he wants to cook one night.
Place isn't that bad but I miss my cleaning fairy. :-).

Find 1/2 the garage.

Wow. That took a few hours.
I put together one shelving unit in two pieces. Tore up my right hand and then managed to get my car in the garage.

The big thing was taking most of my teacher papers and putting those and my books in plastic totes so the mice can't eat them. I hope to get the regular books into the house in the next month or so.
Don't want to stack them in the house - helps to get the shelves up and then put in the books.

The weather is a bit exciting today. It is storming big time in Detroit already. It's supposed to hit here later today. Probably after dark. Chicago had flooding and we probably will too.

And the guy came to mow the lawn. Yeah.
Few more people are trying to get theirs done before the storm.
Hmmm what's for dinner.
Later.

Terrible day......

This is mostly just as a memo for myself.

Once again on a Monday, I'm alone at home and a tragedy strikes in the U.S.

It feels a little surreal.  Our country is so very large, but in a matter of minutes you can get the entire country to stop and pay attention to what is happening in one place.

There was no facebook or twitter last time.  I really only knew it happened as it popped up on the side of the screen on facebook.  When NPR posts something, I certainly stop and go check it out.

I found some of the first pictures that came from people on Twitter.  There were a couple of pretty bad pictures, although I know I did not see anything near the horror the people on the ground there saw.

I have a friend that works in a streaming company, that passes on video from one place to another.
After I posted on facebook they contacted me to share the link to the live feed from Boston.  It turns out to be a lot of repeating video and just talking heads in the back ground, but I'm sure I've heard far more about this situation than the average person on the street.

It started at 2:50 edt today.  The interesting part is that it happened after the big races were already done.  The men's, the women's and the wheelchair elite races had already finished before this happened.
The largest group of people were starting to filter into the finish lines of the Marathon.  
A huge group of spectators had just sort of cleared the area before it happened; and it did not happen on the side with the grandstands.

President Obama spoke to the press around 5:10 pm Cdt.  The biggest problem is that they can not connect people to each other. All of their preparations to connect people to their friends was ruined, because the area you were supposed to meet your friends became the place no one could go to.
Then they shut down cell phone service, which now has made it impossible to meet up with your friends.
I feel for those families that are still looking for their runner this evening.

The game for tonight has been cancelled and the air space around the area has been cleared.

The live feed has been interesting.  They have managed to find plenty of people to talk to and they have cleared out a lot of places in that area.  Hotels are locked down or being cleared.

Once again, we will probably never know what really was the point.  No one has claimed responsibility.  I can only hope that the person who placed those bombs went up with one of them.

Settling In....

We have been in Kentucky for over a week now.

It feels really weird.  Most of the time we are busy trying to find things, or trying to put the house together.  I have almost all the clothes put away, I have 2 bags I've been avoiding.  I don't know why, I just don't feel like doing it.

I put the spare bedroom together some.  It needs a lot more work, but I rearranged some boxes and managed to squash some more things down.  The bed is made and ready for visitors, but not much room in the closet. Ah well, there are a couple drawers empty. :~)

The Living room seems to be the state of flux.  Tom keeps moving things around, he's not sure where he really wants stuff.  I think we are waiting at least a month to look for shelving.  We wandered around that first day looking mostly for a desk for me, but certainly for shelving too.  It seems that Ikea really does have the most options, I've seen other cool shelving, but never in a store - so where are they buying it???  

We have been discussing the master bathroom.  We have two shelves from Ikea we can put up in there.  My first thought was over the toilet  but the shelves are way longer than that space - so why cut them down, find something closer to the right size- I know Ikea has them.  Check my Pinterest to see what I'm talking about.  But those shelves may wind up on another wall.  We are thinking on the one between the tub and the shower.  Put one low enough to put things on for being in the tub and Another higher for decorative or storage.

Speaking of Pinterest, I know most people think its silly, well that silliness has given Tom and I several ideas that we would have never thought of; including - how to clean a microfiber couch, how to keep your rugs from sliding around and how to clean your washing machine.  I still have to clean the dryer screen.  
It's also giving us some ideas for outside and storage options to make the house feel better and not so crazy.  We still have a ton of boxes in the garage, I have to go work on my teacher stuff again.  It's mostly in crates and that's not going to work when the mice decide paper is good enough to eat and nest in.  So, I'll need to transfer that stuff to the empty plastic totes from all the kitchen stuff.  The good news is most of the kitchen stuff is fitting just fine in the kitchen, we even noticed that we hadn't put anything in one under section and we really do have enough drawers. YES!

Other news:  I guess I'm on a fitness plan of sorts.
        My neighbor asked if I wanted to do a Fun 5K walk for the Humane society in Bowling Green.  Even if I hadn't been to the Humane society here and almost cried, I probably would have done the walk.  
  Tom and I went over there to get tags for the boys.  We want to take them to the Dog park and the signs there say they need tags to be in the park to show you got their shots.  The boys were thrilled - we finally took them to the park yesterday.  It is BIG, they do have the small and big dog sides and the big dog side is as big as both big dog sides in Michigan at the one on Pontiac Trail.  Right now there is no shade on the space that looks like they could put a shade up, hope they do soon.
    Anyway - the Humane society down here is REALLLLLLLLY busy. They have over 200 dogs on a regular basis and they shipped 105 or more the other day north to other rescues.  There seems to be big Pit bull fighting going on down here.  $5000 reward if you can get fighting or people involved busted.  They won't let a Pit bull out of the rescue without getting chipped, so they can prove who owns it.  They need to invest in a few GPS chips for the Pit bulls to catch these people.  

The fun walk is Saturday April 20, and I have been walking everyday.  I did over a mile yesterday and almost a mile today.  Trying not to over do it before the big day and then not be able to walk at all.  We've taken the dogs for a walk almost every day last week.
  I'm walking farther most days and not feeling quite as whipped yet.  I was terribly sore from weed whipping last weekend, but this moving stuff has been keeping me moving.  

And I'm sorry to tell you all, I LOVE THE Weather here right now.  It's been in the 60's or 70's almost every day since we got here.  We had one day of rain and a couple of chilly.  This is SUCH a big difference from Michigan already.  Spring has sprung here, sorry you are all still suffering.  Of course, I'll try not to be the big cry baby this summer when it's 90+ here and it's only about 80 there.  Ok, you probably have a ton more to do.  Later

Surprise New ........

This has been one of the most agonizing weeks I have had in a long time.

You'd think moving and the stress on the dogs and leaving my friends would top it off, but that is just the underlying back ground noise. I've embraced that change and am pretty good with it, I freaked out over that a few weeks ago.

After getting here and driving that whole way, Friday last week Tom and I drove all around town in my car looking for a desk and shelving units and all that other jazz we need for the house.  We had just finished and were heading home when a bunch of lights in the dashboard went off.  I didn't panic but my stomached dropped and the dread started creeping up on me.

Some of you may remember last fall when the car spent about 3 weeks at the dealership trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with it.  All the same lights were a part of this issue.  They drove my car for at least 500 + miles trying to figure it out and it just seemed crazy that with all the diagnostics they can do, the problem was stumping them.    They finally changed out a sensor and figured that was the deal.

I have tried to do right by this car, it is a diesel and the reason I got it was the 40+ one way drive to work each day. Well, I lost that job and still I tried not to just do little driving around town, because I knew the car needed trips on the freeway to make it happy.

Well, the car is out of warranty at this point.  Yes, I really did drive it that much in the year and 7 months that I have owned it.  We waited several days after Fridays light fantastic and took it to the dealership on Wednesday - yesterday.  We dropped it off and told them the sad story and went on our way to Costco for our first trip to the store in Nashville.

Of course the same type of problems came up in the car.  They decided to DRIVE it again to try and get the Particle Filter system to work out its issue.  Yup, put another 100+ miles on my car and it wasn't going to work. I knew that before they even called me about it.

After shopping Tom and I wandered back to the dealership.  We talked to a extended warranty person and of course I'm too far out to get it.  They then said talk to the sales manager- he asked what we thought we owed and it told us what she is worth.  I was kind of surprised, I know they lose a lot of worth when you drive them off the lot, but it wasn't all that horrible.

We looked around and we even looked at other wagons, and thought about just wandering around to see what they had.  Tom pointed to the Golf and said, what about that.  It looks open in the back.  We wondered outside in the 80 degree heat (didn't feel that bad - lol) and looked at the car.

It is shaped just like the wagon, has the same front end and almost all the same stuff in the passenger compartment, just not as long and a regular gas engine.

We test drove it and well, its now sitting in the driveway.

I felt sick leaving my beautiful white VW Jetta wagon TDI behind.  I still feel sick.  I waited a whole year for that car.  I tried really had to pay off the Civic so I could get a new car, and I even made a little money selling the Civic.   And here I am dumping my first amazing new car.

We could not see paying for a gazillion repairs on a car that obviously has some kind of problem that they were calling Germany to try and figure out.  The guy from repair came to find us as we were debating getting the new car, and he said the magic words - we'll have to hang on to the car and we're not sure how long we'll have it.

Tom starts work on Monday, I'd be without a car and without a loaner. (or have to get a rental) - Sure it's not a big deal right this moment, but what happens when I need to go to a job interview.  We only know our one neighbor here in KY and I don't do well without a car anyway.  And we would have to start paying for the repairs on that car. I did not want to even start contemplating it.

So, out front I have a 2012 Black Golf w/  2.5 liter engine.  It has the newer radio, with Iphone hook up and  a sunroof.  The back opens like the wagon and has fold down seats and all that jazz for the dogs.
I should be thrilled- I have a Brand New Car, but it's not the car I wanted to start with.  It doesn't even get the gas millage I wanted, but - I won't be driving 40+ miles one way for work.  I hope to be driving like 5 miles one way for work.

It's depressing and amazing all in one fell swoop.  Well, I have a ton of work to do on the house.  Here's a couple pictures and we'll see how much I like the new car.  Thanks

Blue tooth, iPhone 5 & directions

I learned something new on this trip.
First- my Garman has been acting weird, just when you get close to where you are going and really need turn by turn it would crap out.
So I did not even try hard to find the Garman. I knew I could use my phone for the worst bits.
I've tried doing the new Siri assisted directions before. It did Not work well in my car - I have Bluetooth into the stereo for phone calls and even music. But her intermittent talking for the directions would get scrambled because of the Bluetooth.
This time I did not stop Pandora from playing when I needed some direction around Indianapolis. Guess what- Siri started talking right over top Pandora. The Bluetooth connection was already open - so Siri did not have any trouble speaking to me.

That is my newest lesson from my phone.

Kentucky!!!!!

I can hardly believe it has happened.

I'm sitting in our new house relaxing in Bowling Green, KY.
The last few months went by in a blur of packing, running with friends and trying to see as many people as possible.
Tom was beginning to wonder If he would ever see me again; for most of February I was off running with Deedra and who ever else appeared. I'd come home for a few days, pack more stuff and run right back out the door.
The last few weeks were spent agonizing over the amount of stuff we needed to get rid of and what I really needed to keep.
Thanks to everyone who took tables, chairs, desks, dishes, bookcases and misc everything else. We still brought too much. We have a couple pieces of furniture that really do not match anything else and should probably be rehomed.
I really have to thank Minion for the hours and hours of help getting the house ready to go. Without her help, I think I would have sat in the corner and cried. Her being a neutral party in the packing process helped me be able to get rid of things much easier.

I'm still marveling at the new house. It's weird having the kitchen and the TV in the same space, I'll have to get used to that. Our bedroom is way bigger than the one In Wixom - I have a chair and a bookshelf in there now and it looks like my computer is going in there as well.

Moving was a bit exciting. I can not believe how happy I am that I did not have to schlep those boxes on and off a truck. The truck driver was amazing. He'd been on the road 6 weeks and was heading home after my load. His packing ability was amazing. I should have taken pictures. Boxes right up to the ceiling of the truck. Then the plastic bin pile in front of that and the Tetris / Jenga master ability with the furniture. I thought I was pretty good at packing. Not compared to him.
I may have learned something A & T, so I hope I can come help you.

The funny thing is - the house in Wixom has never looked better. Carpets are clean, most of the walls are painted. The kitchen looks like we made an effort to update some. The storage space in that house is Crazy!!!! No really- I had soooo many spaces to go through looking through all my junk from 12 years in one place. Plus many things from 2 previous moves where we threw stuff in boxes to move across town. I'm sorry - finding a cell phone from the early 90's was the kicker. I figured I'd find 4-H stuff, but that cell phone. Toooo funny.

I admit that I got really overwhelmed that last week and then Mother Nature decided to kick me in the teeth 4 days before the move. I was not very welcoming of any mishaps those last few days. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, it was great to see you even if it was only a hour or so.

I could go on and on.

The dogs you ask? They are better now. They were rather upset that last week. I must have yelled at Cody one too many times because one night he insisted on sleeping next to my side of the bed. The dogs DO NOT sleep in our room- a nod to my allergies- and their snoring- he said nope I'm sleeping right here and would not go. I felt bad and went to find him a bed. Such a softy.

It was just me and them on the drive down and they were really good. I knew Cody would be good, but I wasn't sure Brando could do a whole day in the car- with only enough room to lay in his bed. Well- I think the tight space helped. Especially when I moved his bed out of the sun- oops. I stopped 5 or 6 times and took them out to stretch their legs a bit. Offered them water and they drank. Cookies on one stop and food on another. They really were troopers.

The only time they got upset was when I got upset at the house. I found it really dirty- and just about boiled over. I had to get back in the car and get some cleaning supplies. They knew I was NOT happy. Once I got somewhere clean enough to crash- it was ok.
We've taken them for walks in the morning and its like Disney land every day with all the new smells and scenery. I think they are adjusting pretty well. They were very happy when Tom showed up and all their furniture magically appeared
The empty house was weird for me and them.

Monday the Internet is installed and I can't wait. Only having my phone for access is getting a little tough to do.
I have more dinosaur stuff. Learned a cool trick on the drive down. Stayed tuned tomorrow. :-)