First Night

Tonight we finally get to spend the night in the new house. We are buried in boxes. I know we'll get through it eventually, but it's hard to get anything done. Just walking down the hallway, I'll pass a box and feel compelled to open it and start putting stuff away - even though I was on task to do something completely different. It is pretty cool to finally be HOME. The challenge with this house will be storage - the house itself is quite a bit smaller than our last and there's just less storage space overall. It's going to take some creativity to solve the problem. Especially since we're minus an office ROOM. My new office is now basically a hallway. So no office closet or anything like that. To compensate, I put a book shelf in the hallway with me, and bought some pretty baskets that fit on the shelves to put stuff in. So when you walk down the hallway, instead of seeing a bunch of office supplies hanging out everywhere, you just see the pretty baskets on the shelves. Our kitchen has a lot of available space, but to make the most use of it, we'll have to get some roll out shelves. Wherever I can put a piece of furniture that can hold things, that's what we're doing. And of course, we're continuing to junk as much stuff as possible. But even with all the boxes everywhere... I'm still so glad we're done.

Ah, the fun never ends

We were so close. Every night I close my eyes and pretend I'm sleeping in our new house. In our new room. I picture Rachel in her room. Zach in his room. BOTH in their own SEPARATE rooms down the hall from us - as opposed to sharing the same room like they have been the last two months. (I use the term "sharing" very loosely here. I'm not sure constant yelling at each other constitutes as "sharing") The new house is within walking distance of town, so I picture us waking up Sunday morning, throwing on some clothes and walking to the pancake restaurant that's around the corner from us. Most especially, I had really wanted to spend Christmas there. I was so sure things would be reasonably settled that I even planned on hosting a New Year's Eve party. (Family members only - since they would understand/tolerate the fact we'd still be mostly in boxes) It was so close I could taste it. And now it's gotten just a little bit further. Today was the first day we could go in the house, despite the fact that the sellers have been out of the place for a few days. We were told they wanted to hang onto it an extra few days to "clean." Riiiight. When we moved out of our old house, I hired professional cleaners to come in and clean everything. They scrubbed the kitchen, bathroom, vacuumed every room and closet. Dusted. The place was probably cleaner than it ever was when we lived there. But in our case, despite telling us they were "cleaning" the place, I did not get the same treatment on our new house. Hair all over the showers and tubs. Garbage on the floor in the closets and in some of the drawers. Paint we didn't want, left in the garage. Dust piles on the baseboards. Dust and dirt throughout the floors. Hair even on the dirty counters in the kitchen. Toilets that haden't been cleaned in at least a few weeks (they had that tell-tale mold ring where the water meets the bowl). But as grossed out as I was - that wasn't even the worst of it. The worse was the strange pile of something that looked like sandy dirt in the corner of the master bedroom. Termites. We still have to get someone in there, inspect and officially confirm, but based on the pictures I've seen online, what we saw is EXACTLY the same as the examples of evidence of dry-wood termites. The house was inspected for termites and had "section 1 clearance" - which means that the inspector said there were no termites. I don't understand how we can go from that assessment, to OBVIOUS evidence in such a short amount of time, and on the first day we can get the house. I have no idea what recourse we'll have, and who will have to pay (we're already strapped for cash - so I'm just afraid what this means for us) On top of that, the painters came in today, but didn't get as far on the job as we would have liked. Our movers are, at this very moment, making their way here and will be here on Thursday, but I have no guarantee that the painters will be done. (In fact, I'm 99% sure they WON'T be done and will still have paint and tarps everywhere) As well, I don't know what we'll do with our stuff if we have to have the place fumigated. Oh, and the New Years Eve party? I can pretty much forget about that - as well as having Christmas there. Until the place is cleaned and termites dealt with, I'm not staying there and we can't unpack. So... you can probably guess I'm just a WEE bit disappointed. And freaked out. And grossed out. And SERIOUSLY pissed off. After this whole experience, I NEVER want to move again. Ever.

Old El Paso Giveaway

During the week I just don't have enough time to make several trips to the grocery store, so I try to plan our meals for the week, and make just one trip to the store on the weekend. The only problem with this plan is that I tend to use a few meals each week, which means we get sick of them pretty quickly. Some meals can withstand the test of repeated time - others, after having it every week for a month or two, I never want to eat it again. My new plan is to now plan *two* weeks in advance and to only double up on ONE meal I know we could stand to have each week. I'll still go shopping each week - as some food won't last the two week wait in the fridge, but planning out 14 different meals, I'm hoping we won't get sick of them quite so often. One meal that will surely be going up on the list of meals is taco night! Tacos are fun and easy to make and everyone in the family loves them. (Except Zach - he's a helpless carboholic. He eats bread and cheese. That's pretty much it. But that eating-issue is for another post). A few months ago MyBlogSpark sent me an Old El Paso family taco night prize pack complete with a packet of Old El Paso Taco Seasoning, a Cactus Chip & Dip Serving dish, a set of 3 Fiesta Chili Pepper serving dishes and a $10 gift card to purchase taco fixings. If you'd like to try and change the usual sibling bickering during dinner, you could also try a game during dinner time: El Tacodor™, a family taco night game. Challenge each other with trivia, wordplan and pantomime. To play visit www.ElTacodor.com today to download instructions, a score card, and a challenge sheet for even more fun on family taco night! Interested in trying some different kinds of tacos? Check out Old El Paso's website for tips and recipes.

GIVEAWAY

If you'd like to win your own Old El Paso family taco night prize pack like mine, simply leave a comment on this post and tell me what your favorite taco topping or side-dish is. For additional entries (up to 1 additional entry awarded per day) just tweet the following (and leave a comment on this post for each tweet) GIVEAWAY: Win an Old El Paso family taco night prize pack! http://bit.ly/dRp4EZ Contest ends December 30th, 2010 at 10pm PST. There is no purchase necessary to enter the contest. I will be using random.org to choose the winner. I’ll contact the winner via email, and he/she will have 48 hours to respond. After 48 hours, if I don’t receive a response, another winner will be chosen. Disclosure: Old El Paso provided me with the products, information, and giveaway through MyBlogSpark.

Merry Puzzles – iPhone & iPad game

Did you know there's only like 9 days until Christmas? (We do both Hanukkah and Christmas in our house. Yes, there's probably a reason for tweets like this one: Heh. Truth be told, I haven't finished shopping - so a note from Santa is still a possibility. But I'm sure they'll be angels the day before just to make me feel guilty if I didn't get them anything... In any case, one present I got earlier this month was this Merry Puzzles app (available for both iPhone and the iPad). There's a bunch of adorable illustrations, cut into random little squares that you have to put back together again. The illustrations have built in animations you'll see once the puzzle is completed. There's a few different levels. Zach has stuck to the easy level. I tried one at the "expert" level... yeah, I'm no expert for sure. So there's definitely a huge range of challenges there! Merry Puzzles iPhone App: $0.99* Merry Puzzles iPad App: $1.99* *Price at time of this writing. I received a copy of this app for review purposes.

Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick Candles Giveaway

I am significantly behind on reviews/giveaways. This one has been sitting on my desk for awhile. Before we move to our house and all my materials get officially lost, I thought it would be a good idea to post the giveaway. I'll include their product information below, but I will say that I really do like these candles from Febreze. Right before we sold the house, I had the chance to try them out and I was really surprised to hear/see that the "wooden wicks" in the candle really do crackle. It's a very relaxing sound. 😀 And the candles smell really nice too. I'm looking forward to using them in our new house! Here are the product details from the manufacturer: No fireplace, no problem. Breathe a sigh of relief because the new Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick candle has you covered. Bring the calming crackle of a burning fire into your home anytime of year with 80 hours of “ahhhhhhhh.” Available in nine premium scents, these tranquil candles are specially designed with a wooden wick to recreate the ambiance and sound of a crackling fire indoors. Offering a brilliant range of everyday fragrances, Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick candles can help inspire a scent and design transformation in your home. Be sure to look for Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick candles at your local Walmart in fragrances like Green Tea Citrus, Pomegranate Mango, Cranberry Pear, Orange Honeycomb, Rosewood Plum and Willow Blossom; as well as seasonal scents that include Anjou Pear Spice, Gingersnap Vanilla, and Yumberry Sangria.

Giveaway:

I have one Walmart gift card to giveaway with $15 on it so you can try out these candles too! All that's required is that you leave a comment telling me which scent you're most likely to try. For an additional entry (up to one additional entry per day awarded) tweet the following - and leave a comment here for each tweet you make: Win a $15 Walmart gift card and try out a Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick Candle! http://bit.ly/fLCGoV Contest ends December  27th, 2010 at 10pm PST. There is no purchase necessary to enter the contest. I will be using random.org to choose the winner. I’ll contact the winner via email, and he/she will have 48 hours to respond. After 48 hours, if I don’t receive a response, another winner will be chosen. Disclosure: Febreze provided me with the Febreze Wooden Wick Candle Kit, information, and the $15 Walmart gift card to giveaway through MyBlogSpark.