We have a lovely heater. It works very well and in such a small place it creates a toasty warm atmosphere despite the leaking doors and windows. Yet I am annoyed at it most mornings. . . There is a trigger switch for the electric lighter on it that ensures that it can not be opened unless the door covering the fan/heater portion is closed. All good and well, yet when the metal door expands and contracts, which it does a lot in this drafty house, it moves just far enough away so that the contact doesn't happen. Thus sometime in the night it stops working and we wake up in the morning freezing and cold. Luckily for me Jason wakes up about an hour before I do . . .so I wake up nice and toasty. :) I love my husband.
Well, my book is coming along nicely. If only I didn't have any responsibilities or cares in the world and could lock myself in a small room for a while it would be a lot better. As it is I've got about 40 pages done. (For a normal sci-fi book this is roughly 1/4 to 1/5 done. The good thing is that I've only been writing on one time-line and I'm a little less than 1/2 way through it. This is the shorter time line too, so I'm assuming that I'll have plenty of material. At first I was trying to write both time lines simultaneously, but I figured out pretty quick that trying to switch my mind back and forth over 200 years of history was pretty difficult. Instead I chose to stay with the first group all the way until I'm done with the important part of history that they have and then I'll drop them like butter on a griddle and pay attention to the meat of the story. I still want to weave the two story lines because they are intended to mirror each other in some ways, but we'll see how that works out.
I also got a call a week or so ago letting me know that Galusha is literally squeezing me in. They made a place for me despite the fact that they are already overloaded. Not only that but I will be learning how to do auditing. This has always been a dream of mine as it is a large part of forensic accounting, but I didn't have time to take the auditing class (and I heard it was a waste of time) so I figured I had lost the opportunity. When Jeff suggested it I was shocked. I told him, "I'm really green in that area, I have never done it at all."
He told me they knew, but if I was willing they would show me the ropes and teach me everything I needed to know. I am thrilled. I'll be working under Fred, one of the partners, and he's a great guy.
As soon as we had that set we started working on the other important details like, where to live, what to take, how to get there. . . All of this meant that we had to cancel our trip to Boise, which nearly devastated us all, but since we'll be nearby for the next few years I'm sure we'll find opportunities to visit.
I started apartment searches the next day and every place I called was completely booked up. I posted a wanted ad on craigslist stating that we needed a place for four months in IF and got a reply that made me cringe. (asking A LOT more than we wanted to pay). We still had time, and most of the apartments said they might have people moving out in December, so we still had options, but I decided not to stress about it any more and just focus on the moving details (and getting the house finished!)
Then a few days later I got an email from a lady who said they had a house in Blackfoot to rent (about 45 minutes away). I called back more to get information rather than because we were really interested. The conversation went something like this:
"Hi, I got your email about your house in Blackfoot, what were you looking to rent it for?"
"Well, um, do you have any cats or dogs or anything?"
"No, it is just my husband, my three year old and myself."
"Oh! I have a three year old!"
"Oh that's cool."
(in the background) "Honey, what are we going to rent it for?" giggling, and then she comes back on, "What do you think is fair?"
"Well, how many bedrooms is it?"
"4"
"Oh, that's definitely out of our price range. We were looking for something small."
"How does $500 sound?"
"Um, you can get a lot more than that for a four bedroom house, some of the 2 bedroom apartments were going for 700!"
"Well, we really would like someone who can make sure our pipes don't freeze and stuff like that, we're trying to sell it, but we're too far away to maintain it until then."
"And what about utilities?"
away from the phone, "honey, what about utilities?" back to me, "we'd pay all of them except garbage, and if you wanted phone or internet or anything you'd have to take care of that."
"Wow, really? We'd love to rent from you!"
And thus I will again be driving 45 minutes on ice . . . every day . . . all winter long. . . curse you Idaho.
Jason was also quick to act on our news. Because I would be starting rather soon in January he gave his last day as Christmas Eve to his boss who was saddened and surprised, but not as distressed as Jason had anticipated. They had a great conversation and Jason walked away with a new respect for the man and gratitude that he hadn't laid on a guilt trip or anything.
We figured the last week in December and the first few in January should give us ample time to complete the repairs to this place and move up to Idaho.
My mom agreed to let us move in for a few weeks so that we can completely empty this place so the work will go faster. I hope it will make life easier for us. However, that gives me just under three weeks to get everything packed and moved to her house, run a large yard sale, and complete the wiring, fixing, patching, painting and cleaning of this place. I'm still hoping to get our deposit back even though we're breaking contract. I figure we moved in when it was dirty and nasty and under construction. If we move out and it's not there's no reason he can give for keeping it. :(
Bitsy has been in rare form recently. Apparently the terrible twos were merely a precursor to the real trials. She's pushing every limit right now. I know that most of it is due to the stress she's feeling from us because of the move and all the fun stuff we've been going through the last month or so, but that doesn't make it any easier to handle in the moment. She's amazingly smart and incredibly aware of everything that's going on. She continually astounds me. I will be interested to see how Jason does as Mr. House Husband for the next few years. (We've committed three years to Galusha).
I think he'll go through the same transition I did and then find a happy medium. Those two have always had more in common than she and I have so I don't doubt they'll buy a go-cart, fix it up, and have many happy days together.
Did I mention that Galusha offered us more than we had anticipated in wages? In all we should be able to leave college with about 1/8th of our current student loans. If we can suck it up even more we might be able to pay them off completely. Pray for our terrible spending habits.
Speaking of spending we boosted the economy this last week as Jason and I took Walmart by storm at 12:00am on Black Friday. I thought they did a great job. The doors were open for anyone to come in and shop, but the registers didn't ring up a single thing until 12:01.
We got everything we went for . . . and much much more. I found clothes for Alisabeth that will last for a few years, jamies and a new beanie. I found a few new nice shirts/sweaters for me for work and we got Jason some new (actually new instead of just new to him) jeans. I think that's the first time in at least two years.
We also go tupperware for everyone and their sister, a cute picture frame collage and toys galore for my little girl. Then I threw in a new electric razor for Jason since he can't find replacement blades for his old one.
All in all we walked away with a huge haul. I am glad to because between this and Toys'R'Us we have actually completed our gift purchases for Alisabeth for the next two years. . . literally.
And that's about all our excitement, sorry no pictures. Alisabeth drained the batteries with one of her photo shoot marathons.
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