Settling into the new area

I sent Nicholas to work on Monday and Tuesday so I could run some errands and have some alone time. He was happy to go to work because he was ready to have the chance to fly again and he did get to fly twice so he was excited about that. We out to run some errands yesterday and since we were only 10 mins from his job we stopped by so I could meet a few more of the pilots and nurses. I had just taken my camera out of my purse before we left so I took some pics with N’s phone and I need to get them uploaded because they are pretty cool. There are some really nice areas around Birmingham. We went to one shopping area called The Summit and it was FANCY!!! We ate at Chuy’s Mexican Restaurant and they actually had valet parking! N had on a polo shirt and khaki shorts and said he actually felt a little underdressed! It wasn’t that fancy and thankfully we weren’t underdressed once we got in there but I couldn’t believe that! We’ll be going there to window shop when we want to kill a few hours but I doubt we’ll be buying much out there!! And the funny thing is when we were talking to N’s boss he said there is another area that is even more expensive and fancier! Not sure when we’ll have time to make it out there to explore with N’s schedule being full up the next couple of weeks but we have plenty of time to take it all in. He’ll leave on Sat for a few days in LA and then when he gets back he’ll do more training and get to know the area better. His boss was saying yesterday that he’ll probably start his shift on the 22nd and that’s when he’ll be flying alone.  It’s hard to believe so much has happened in just the 2 months since his interview.

 

This is my one of my favorite pictures I’ve taken. This was Friday night after we moved into the house. We went to Logan’s for dinner since it’s right down the road and when we got home N laid on the floor and passed out. He probably slept there for 30 mins before I got him up and made him go to bed. If I had known where some painters tape was I would have made and outline of him. You can see in this pic how nasty the carpet is, the guy that rented before us had 3 dogs and traveled a lot. Apparently the people that he paid to come take care of them didn’t bother cleaning up after them and he didn’t have it cleaned after he left either. Our landlord told us to get it cleaned and take the amount out of the rent for next month so that’s nice!

This is how we have the livingroom set up now. Notice that Ki is in her spot. We are going to get a tv for this room, it’s on the list!

The new curtains for the french doors. I’m already planning to paint this room because I think it’s a little dull and bland. N of course likes it and can’t understand why I want to paint.

The new rug I bought this week. I was SO excited to find it because if you remember a couple of months ago I found a small version of this rug in Nashville and fell in love with it. I looked online and couldn’t find it so I was hoping I would find a bigger one once we moved and I did!! It was the last one there on the floor and pushed up where you could barely see it. I only found it because I was looking at all the rugs they had hanging and happened to look down while I was holding 2 apart and saw it.

Looking from the hallway

The little rug in the hallway

And a couple of pictures of my favorite features in the kitchen. I LOVE these slider and drawers. It’s so nice to have an area to contain the plastic containers and lids that don’t fall down on my head when I open the door.

If it ever cools down a little (I know, summer in the south, there’s no such thing as cool!) we need to do some yard work. Some of the shrubs and trees are getting a little out of control in the front yard and the flower beds are a little grown up in the back. It’s not *that* bad but apparently there are some people called “The Environmental Police” that work for the city of Birmingham and they are crazy and will cite you for really off the wall stuff. One woman in the neighborhood has been fighting them in court for a couple of years now because they don’t like the way she has her back yard landscaped. It’s a little insane but I don’t want them bothering me! I might work on that some while N is gone this weekend.

I think that’s all for now. I’ll get those pictures off of N’s phone soon and get them up so everyone can see his new helicopter and all that cool stuff.

Welcome to Alabama

This past week was absolutely crazy. We ended up changing our move date and our week went from “oh we’ll get that later” to “AHH we have to do it NOW!”. Of course we would end up moving during a random unbearable heat wave that made everything twice as miserable. It was 99* in Clarksville on the day we moved and I took a picture of the gage in my car when it hit 100* on the drive down to Birmingham. We ended up filling a 26 foot Uhaul as full as it could possibly get. I really didn’t think we had that much stuff. We didn’t have a big house and everyone knows that N loves to throw stuff away if he doesn’t see a use for it so we don’t hoard unnecessary items. I really don’t know how anyone with a bigger house or kids can move their stuff in that truck. 

And now for pictures because that’s what everyone wants to see!

Front door

Gate to the deck and side of the house

View from the front door.

Kitchen Sat morning

Kitchen Sat night

This house actually has more cabinets than I have stuff to put in them! Granted we have all our food in the big wooden pantry so that saves a lot of space but there are A LOT of cabinets!

The room that we put everything in until we figured out how we were going to use it. And let me add that this is after N had spent 3 hours taking boxes down to the basement before I got up.

Looking toward the front door.

Now it’s the dining room.

The doors in the den that lead out to the side deck. I have new curtains up already. Need to take pics of them. And the hot tub is now drained and will be removed soon.

This is N’s room. He will have the old tv and entertainment center in here and he can play video games and watch whatever he wants.

The den, we are planning to put a flat screen tv on the wall across from the sofa.

The only bathroom. And it’s small. This is the only complaint I have about this house. LOL I’m just used to us having our own bathrooms!

We haven’t really finished putting the bedrooms together. And the pictures I have of them aren’t great so I’ll take more soon.

This is the deck down the side of the house. You can see the french doors to the left. We had been letting the dogs in and out of there and now even though N has installed a dog door from them at the back door they want to come in here still. Ki gets mad when we tell her to go around.

Looking down onto the lower deck. Pooh loves this one.

Standing in the same spot as above but looking toward the back door, this come out from the kitchen.

The whole back yard. It’s not very big but it’s enough for the dogs. And we have everything off the deck because the landlord came and restained  the deck on Sat. The gate and steps lead down to the basement garage and the driveway off of the ally in the back.

The garage door.

So far we really love the house. I’m not to fond of the paint colors but I can live with them for a little while and he’s already said just ask him first before painting so I don’t think he’ll mind. This neighborhood is really nice and so far all the neighbors that we’ve met have been super friendly. I’m excited to get to know everyone better.

Fun and Business and Stuff

We are home now! Nicholas left on Sun for TX to spend a week training for his new job and on Tues I left for Destin with friends to spend the rest of the week having fun. I didn’t see any point in staying home by myself all week with nothing to do and it seemed like the perfect time to spend a few days with my best friend that I’m going to really miss when we move. We also invited a girl we met in zumba along and we had a blast! Nicholas didn’t have nearly as much fun as I did unfortunately, I guess learning about technical stuff doesn’t have the same awesome factor as floating in a pool on a sunny day.

At one point on Friday this exchange took place.

N- “what are you up to?”

Me- Ahhh beach.

N- Blood born pathogen training. MUCH more fun than the beach.

 

I still think I won that one.  

I have a few pictures but Mari and Maria took a lot on their cameras and have some good ones. I have to get them because Facebook has made it a lot harder to save pictures that are uploaded on there.

This week will be spent eating what food is left in the house and packing up everything that isn’t already in a box. We pick up the uhaul next Monday and head to Birmingham on Tues morning.  I’m sure it will be a busy week getting all the last minute stuff taken care of before heading south. I can’t believe it’s finally time to hit the road.

Project Time

When Nicholas got home in March we knew we had to get the house ready to go on the market so we did a lot of cleaning and organizing. Of course that involved cleaning out the garage and putting all the tools away which was a sad day for all involved. Since then we’ll  randomly mention how much we miss building but we couldn’t decide on anything that would be worth pulling all the tools out. Yesterday was the day though. I built chairs last year and at the time I really didn’t like the way the back was designed but figured I would give it a try anyway, well over time 2 of the chairs have broken and we would rather start over with a different design then try to fix them. We’ve also decided to lower the table so that standard size chairs will fit instead of the altered taller chairs. Yay woodworking.

A day of woodworking     always starts with a trip to  Zaxby’s before heading to Lowes for supplies. I must find the closest  Zaxby’s in Bham.

 

 

The garage was all clean and perfect when we started.

It didn’t stay that way for long! The chair that we decided to try out uses a 2x4 for the back and legs and the piece needs to be cut out with a skill saw.

After a couple of bad cuts and a quick trip back to Lowes for another 2x4 N had it under control and we were good to go!

The 2 backs with the side aprons and front legs.

Now it looks like a chair!

My new sander. It is AMAZING!! We have named it…

Sandasaurus

the sanding pads counter rotate to reduce vibrations so my hands don’t go numb after a few minutes of use. On the downside it’s pretty heavy so my arms still get tired. It is a super nice sander though and I was so excited to finally get to use her.

So much for that clean garage. We had to use N’s truck as our work bench since we took the table apart and the other work bench isn’t deep enough to put the miter saw up there.

And it was kinda covered in the rest of our crap.

I’m going to make a cushion and will be covering the seat in fabric but we wanted to bring the chair on inside just to see how we like it and really decide if we want to make more with this plan or try something else.

If we go with this plan and make more they will be stained the same color as the table so it all matches. We probably won’t get around to doing anything else until after the move because after sitting down to look at out calendar for the next few weeks we won’t have much free time. It sure was fun to get out in the garage for a few hours together though. I always forget just how differently N and I do things until we start woodworking. LOL We had a few moments where we just ended up staring at each other because we were coming at a problem from 2 completely different angles and it took a minute to get on the same page. I think it just adds to the fun.

Hail and Fair well

Or as we call it in the CAV, the ol’ Hail and Bail, hail the new guys in and say fair well to everyone bailing. N has been with the same troop our entire time here at Campbell and Friday night we had a H&B to honor a few of the guys coming into the troop and a few of the people leaving. We expected N to get a Saber because that’s the standard gift but since N has been there so long he got a super special gift that is really cool. The Commander gave a little speech about Nicholas and said what a great worker he is and called him a “quiet professional, but if you mess up he’ll call you dumb” and I wanted to fall out of my chair giggling. I took a video but it was a back yard BBQ so it was a little hard to hear over people talking and the kids. I did get some pictures though.

Nicholas and his Commander

At attention while his orders were being read. I wish you could hear the video better because it better because their Australian guy was the one reading. I might try to upload it later just to see if it will work at all.

His gift. This is a replica pistol and really cool looking and that’s a troop photo on the back from Afghanistan.

It was hard to get a picture of the plate but it has his call sign and dates of service.

Nicholas is looking forward to having a room in the next house to put all his Army stuff on display, I think this is really a cool piece to have out.

And now a few pictures of N with his favorite dog. She really needed some attention and made sure he was well aware of it!

They had a little convo about how spoiled she is.

And then they took a little puppy nap together.

Ki was glad to me in my lap instead.

Tomorrow I’m heading to GA to work at the shop for Mother’s day and Marklin and Derek are heading up here to get ready to head to the Derby on Friday. I’m sure they’ll have a fun weekend. I made sure that N knows I expect LOTS of pictures of all the crazy hats!!