Selling the House.

I totally forgot to mention that we got our house sold last week. I probably forgot to mention it as we didn't exactly get what we wanted for it and I probably won't want to ever talk about it again after all of the hours Jake and I spent picking adhesive off the floor and literally investing blood/sweat/tears to fix it up. Oh well. Jake keeps reminding me that there are people everywhere losing everything since they cannot sell their house, and with 353 houses on the market currently in Manhattan we should feel lucky that they chose ours at all. It is funny to sit around and having NOTHING to do to your home/apt to fix it up. Actually it is a total relief. Part of me is going to miss that place....and part of me just wants to never look at it again. Those feelings are actually a step up from me wanting to just burn it down for the past month.

For the record, St. Joseph himself had a hand in this whole thing and it was a strong one. For those of you that are not a Toll and did not pray to St. Jude to find your lost stuff growing up or wear a St. Christopher medal to protect you in your travels, St. Joseph is the saint of the home. The belief is that if you take a statue of this particular saint and bury it under specific specifications (in the backyard, upside down, facing the house I think) it will help you sell your home. I can hear you laughing. However, it works. I know several Realtors (Lutheran ones) that are not above a little help from good old Joseph, and if a Lutheran is up for a Catholic idea it must be a pretty good one.

Anyway, Jake and I were getting anxious about selling the house since the market is so disastrous, so when I stumbled across a statue at the market in Charleston with my folks 2 weeks ago I bought him. Kelly Law had agreed against her better judgement to sneak over to the house and bury the statue in the lawn. I really think she thought I was joking when I asked, but the little guy was all boxed up and ready to roll when we started negotiations for these folks to buy the house two days later. Pretty impressive that he managed to work his magic from inside a box half the country away...I do have to talk to him about working on his financial negotiations....I probably needed a different saint for that one!

I really owe a big thank you to everyone who picked up a roller, picked wallpaper, pulled up carpet, or entertained me while I pulled up tackstrips. Without your help, we never would have gotten this joint in good enough shape to sell at all. We really would have been in trouble. Oh, one last thing, if Jake and I ever talk about buying a home that "needs a little work" ever again you are to kick us in the heads and remind us of the last two years!

Wow.

I am trying to put in a picture of the football/basketball watching set up at my home. I really thought when we got rid of the HUGE tv that we were calming down the insanity. Apparently I was totally wrong. I am hoping the picture turns out as it is totally worth 1,000 words

Thanksgiving

I was definitely missing everyone on Thanksgiving. However, we managed to get through it unscathed and in one piece with only 1 or 2 meltdowns on my part. That is pretty good as far as I am concerned for me!

Jake and I went to Greenville on Thanksgiving Eve as I was assigned the pecan pie and Jake ate all of the "good" pecans I purchased the week before...His defense was that I didn't tell him NOT to eat them. My defense was that I didn't think anyone could eat that many pecans in two days and still be alive... Anyway, off to Greenville we went because I wanted South Carolina pecans that would be fresh and fantastic for the pie (Jake assures me that the first batch I had from Greenville were indeed delicious) so we went to Whole Foods. I am sorry if some of you hate Whole Foods, but they really have it figured out. They have it rigged so that you can buy a bottle of wine there (regardless of day of week/time/whatever) and drink it while you shop. You can't leave the store with it on Sunday, but you can drink 10 bottles of wine if you want to as long as you are in the store. BRILLIANT! So anyway, they had wine and cheese sampling randomly going on that Wednesday evening that basically turned into a party. I dare you to find a party in your neighborhood Dillon's or Scott's Thriftway... Then we went next door to get some dinner so we could be legally sober to drive home. Then I baked 2 pies. It was a long day for sure, but a pretty fun Thanksgiving Eve.

We got up the next morning and watched Christmas Vacation. Everyone should do that at least once this time of year. I am convinced it is good for you.

My boss was nice enough to invite us over on Thursday. She is a very nice person who makes me look like a slow moving, unpassionate, quiet person. I love it. I am never the craziest person in the room when she is around. Nice feeling to have occasionally! Anyway, she always has Thanksgiving for the "homeless", not the actual homeless of course as much as the folks at work that live too far away to get back for the holiday. This year it was her family, her parents, Jake and I, and one of my co-workers and his girlfriend. My boss has a mother that is a carbon copy of her, only 75. It was hysterical to watch. The kitchen is like roller derby, you want to jump in and help with something, but I was worried I would be knocked over by someone and accidentally tramped by someone else before they even realized I was down! It was nice to see chaos in someone else's home and it made it feel like home!

Clemson Game

I got to go the Clemson game the weekend after my parents left. My friend from work Caroline ended up with an extra ticket and invited me to go. She is a South Carolina fan (major Clemson rival) but is a bigger fan of sports in general so she goes to as many games as she can get her hands on tickets for...not to mention the fact that her ticket source is so fantastic that you get to sit field level with faculty and family of the players. Clemson is only about 1-1.5 hours from Greenwood, but most of it is on freaky two lane highway. Which is how everything is here, but I for some reason thought there would be large highway/interstate all the way to the front door of the ball game like KSU. I was very wrong. The Clemson tailgate experience is major for sure. Not to mention complete chaos. It makes me very proud of how orderly the KSU stuff is but at the same time the mayhem makes for some interesting stuff. All of the paved tailgate areas are spread out all around the stadium, then they have a whole bunch of open fields they have folks park in. I realize that the set up at KSU is similar with the area north of the stadium, but I know most first grade kickball games are more organized than what I observed! No one was in charge of parking anyone or making sure anyone was obeying any sort of rules of orderly anything. There are also an additional 50,000 people tailgating, which I suppose complicates things a bit. Oh, they also put one of their porta-potties half on the curb...which is the one I got..which subsequently caused my beer to tip over and soak all of the remaining toilet paper that I hadn't used...whoops. Nothing can make you feel fatter than knowing there is a giant line of people standing outside the porta-potty watching while you almost tip it over turning around in it since it is on the curb. Luckily the guy behind it was a lot heavier than me, so any memory of me rocking the potty was quickly erased when he actually did almost tip it over...for real.
The game itself was pretty amazing. The girl who routs for KSU and the girl that routs for South Carolina University both ended up on the Jumbo Tron more than once as they were on the front row of the end zone during the most important game of Clemson's season against Boston College. Kinda surreal seeing yourself in greater than lifesize with 100,000 other folks watching. Lots of things go through your head: "Don't look down at the camera, you'll have five chins!", "Do I have anything hanging out of my nose?", "Why did I decide to wear the orange shirt under the purple jacket, Nikki is going to kill me if she sees this on TV!"
The realization of how having no one in charge of organizing anything can be a problem was made very obvious when we tried to leave the tailgating area....It took us an hour to get out of the parking lot. I mean sitting in the car as there is no traffic flow happening anywhere for an hour. Not a cop, not a kid with a light up stick, not any help at all for dog eat dog world of the parking lot after a loss. Then we had to drive in stop and go traffic for another hour trying to get onto the interstate. Then it was an hour home. So, it took us twice as long as it should have...2:30 in the morning is when I got home.. And it was my weekend to work so I was up at 6:45. Not awesome at all. Yikes.

Blog Catch Up...

Just realizing that I didn't write about a couple things that have been going on so today is going to be a catch up day. Not exactly timely, but everyone will still get the idea of what we are up to.

All Over South Carolina

My parents and Nikki came to visit last weekend and they got to see almost every inch of South Carolina from the mountains to the ocean. Whirlwind weekend for sure, but lots of fun.

We started out in Greenville, then up through the foothills of the mountains to see some of the fall colors. SC has been SO DRY that I think it is usually a little more colorful, but it was still a beautiful drive. We headed to Greenwood and spent the night. We had initially planned on going to Charleston Saturday morning as I thought it was only two hours, but then Jake informed me that I had slept through part of the trip and it was actually 3 hours...whoops. We decided we should go to Charleston anyway despite the drive, and we dropped off Ike at "dog camp" and headed out.

Charleston was great. We stayed at the same hotel we stayed in our prior trip with Travis, and were able to walk all over the city. It was a fall day for sure in SC as it was about 60 degrees, but we had great time looking in local art galleries, seeing the ocean, and we even took in some steamed oysters and live music. My father spent most of the trip looking for the perfect pecan pie, almost to the point of being a pecan pie stalker, only to miss out on the one time the girls stopped and found some while he and Jake were booking the golf outing. Hehehehe! He got on the plane without ever getting a bite of the greatest southern creation they have come up with so far. On Sunday morning the guys hit the golf course and the ladies headed for Isle of Palms to the best place to brunch I have found yet. Crab cakes Benedict all around with a cup of coffee, then we stuck our toes in the ocean while wearing jeans and heavy jackets....I never said we were smart. I am pretty sure the water temperature was higher than the air temperature!

It was a long drive all the way back across the state to get them to the airport on Sunday, and from what I hear an even longer ride back to Kansas. Anyway, it was definitely a good time despite the fact I was still recovering on Wednesday! I had a great time with everyone, but it made me realize how much I am going to miss not being home for Thanksgiving this year. Oh well, we are going to try to get home for a week at Christmas and that will be more fun than a quick trip home and turn around to be back.

Seriously?

I was flipping through radio stations today and heard Christmas music. Then I promptly nearly drove off of the road. Then I walked into the portal to hell otherwise known as WalMart and was greeted by a 15 foot tall fake Christmas tree. When did Halloween become the starting date for the holiday season? I remember when I couldn't wait for the day after Thanksgiving to start hearing Christmas music and begin the fun holiday season. Now the Christmas trees are coming in with the school supplies. Seriously? I am becoming a grumpy, old codger apparently as I am going to refuse to buy Christmas gifts before Labor Day...which is when I am sure they will start with the Christmas music next year.

Making me nuts.

I am angry at my dryer. I would throw it off of the deck of my apartment if I thought there was anyway I could get that done without having to ask Jake for help with moving it. I don't think I can talk him into helping me. The stupid dryer door is on the wrong side and opens in a manner that I cannot effectively get anything into or out of it because it is in the tiniest space ever, sitting one million feet from the wall for some reason, and I really feel the washer and dryer hook ups are backwards put into by some cracked out electrician/plumber with a very ill sense of humor. So, in light of this I did what any self respecting woman would do...I threw a fit, took the dryer door off and tried to put in on the other way. And will now walk away and ask Jake to fix it as I am too angry to even look at it. Dan Worcester told me that the door could not be reversed when we moved here and I did not believe him because it is ASININE that the dryer door is not reversible. Well Dan, you are right, it is really dumb. Is it some sort of sick attempt to make you buy another dryer if you need to make the door open the other way? Dear lord. I would write someone at Sears a letter or go to the store, but I am afraid the men with the white coats would come get me after I went to Sears and threatened someone when they offered to sell me a new $200 RIGHT SIDE OPENING dryer door to replace my LEFT SIDE OPENING dryer door..AAAHHHH. I did not realize the architectural commitment I was making when I bought my dryer two years ago. They should hang up a sign in the dryer department of the store or something.

I do realize that it is only a symptom my actual angst regarding the size of my current living space. Yes, I know it could be worse and it normally does not make me homicidal, but this is a special Saturday. I have to go to the storage unit and attempt to find some of my sweaters, but also sort out some of my summer clothes to trade out b/c there is not enough room here. Probably b/c there are mountain bikes in one closet, all of my kitchen stuff in one hall closet, Jake works out of one bedroom, and our regular sized furniture takes up a gigantic amount of space in this place. Jake, myself and our possessions could fit here easily...if we were midgets with tiny furniture, tiny clothes, and smaller junk...but then we could not reach the shelves..so that wouldn't even fix the problem...AAAHHH