Archive for November, 2007
Yes, it’s Thanksgiving already, and we have been able to spend it with family. Yesterday, we drove back to Trempealeau so that we could be with family. This morning Shane made homemade Parmesan herb rolls which we baked at my dad’s for Thanksgiving.
At dad’s we had our traditional huge family Thanksgiving dinner. It was wonderful to see family which we haven’t seen in months. I had a great time and it was wonderful to see my cousins, aunts, and uncle. My cousin Jean Ann has undertaken the planning and organization of our traditional huge dinner since my mother died. And this is greatly appreciated by me. As strange as it sounds I think her taking over the planning as made things easier and less likely to have family squabbles over it.
Personally I also enjoy the fact that she has added meatballs to the menu. I know that I certainly appreciate the fact that I don’t have to either eat a bit of turkey (which I absolutely hate) or do without meat for the meal.
We stayed at dad’s until almost 7 pm at which time we went to Shane’s mom’s. His family had decided that they weren’t getting together en masse. When we arrived at Karen’s we found her on floor. She had fallen and wasn’t able to get up on her own. She had taken a nap there for almost two hours when we arrived. Both Shane and myself were needed to help her back on her feet. While she has Life Alert, she wasn’t wearing it when she fell. Hopefully she’ll remember to wear it more in the future.
It’s been a little hectic here. We arrived up in the Twin City area on Wednesday and stayed that night at Super 8 in Cottage Grove. Shane had some problems dealing with the scent of their cleaning chemicals so on Thursday we moved to LivINN in Mapplewood a small chain of hotels which are more designed for long term stays and had an excellent rate ($150 a week less than Super 8’s rate).
We looked at a few places on Wednesday, and then on Thursday we saw one in Prescott, WI that we both really liked. It has 1400 sq ft, 3 BR 1 1/2 Bath, with an attached 2 car garage. It’s about 200 sq ft larger and 2 car rather than 1 car attached garage for just over 2/3 the cost then the one we were looking at in Cottage Grove. Definitely a much better value for the buck and only about a 15 minute drive for Shane. We learned on Monday that we are going to be able to move into this place on Dec 1st.
We spent time on Friday and Saturday trying to get a feel for the lay of the land and to find our way around. We spend a little bit of time going to a couple of furniture stores and looking to see what we would like to put into our new home. Never hurts to do a bit of dreaming (or planning depending on who you ask).
We had intended to spend some time in Prescott on Sunday. Instead, on our way there, we lost part of the muffler. When we had our last oil change last month, Shane had specifically asked that they look over the exhaust which they said it was ok, but it certainly shouldn’t have rusted out in a month… Anyway we ended up spending 3 1/2 hours on Sunday, trying to find a place open that would do muffler work. When we finally did find someone, they weren’t able to get the necessary parts.
On Monday, Shane started his first day at his new job. On his way into work, he took the van to a dealership for the exhaust work. He used their courtesy shuttle to get to work, but once he received the quote, he certainly wasn’t going to have them do the work. The other big thing that happened on Monday is that Shane stayed LATE his first day of work. It was 11 pm before he left work. He had things that would keep him busy, but part of the delay was that he was receiving a ride back from a co-worker. (Who ended up working until 3 am once he arrived home.)
Today, Allyssa and I rode in with Shane. Once we dropped him off, we then went around Cottage Grove getting quotes for exhaust work. On the up side, we were able pick up Daddy and go out to Chinese buffet for lunch together.
One of the places that I stopped at was a full service garage. When I asked them for a quote, they actually recommended that we go to Muffler Doctor’s saying that’s who they send all their muffler work to, because they do great work, have the best prices, and have the parts. According to the owner I talked to, it’s also the only other garage in town he recommends for any work. You know a garage is good when another garage recommends them. I had already been to Muffler Doctor’s when I stopped in and they did have a far better price than the other quotes we had. This was where we ended up getting the work done.
Besides all this we have finally had a chance to start Allyssa on cereal. While we had intended to at her 6 month birthday, with everything so up in the air as to whether we were moving, and then packing and worrying about finding a place we kept delaying it. Well now, even though we are living in basically a hotel room so space is at a premium, we have the time to work on cereal. She has been enjoying it, and has been extremely quick in understanding how a spoon works. Not that she is using the spoon, none of us are ready for that mess yet.
Well currently, Allyssa and I do not have any plans for tomorrow; we’ll just see what tomorrow brings.
Well, for those of you in the know, which of course you all will be shortly, we are no longer at our apartment in Trempealeau. Currently we are spending our time at the LivINN Hotel in Maplewood, Minnesota, which will be our new home for the next few weeks at least. We are actively searching for an apartment in the area, and will either end up in Cottage Grove, MN where I will work, or in Hastings, MN or Prescott, WI – wherever we can find a reasonably priced apartment we can call home for a while. Until then, here is our new home:
Although I will actually have an office at work where I will spend the entire day, there is still a lot of stuff I have to do from home, for personal stuff as well as old clients. So I have set up a temporary office with my second monitor, laser printer, and even our broadband based phone system, so our old number will still reach us. Ironically, I actually have more room here for my home office then I did at the old place, so I can’t really complain. The hotel offers free wireless Internet access so I can keep in touch with family, update this blog, and do my work.
The bedroom, located directly behind me when I am sitting at “the office”, basically consists of a king size bed and a place for Allyssa to sleep, when she doesn’t sleep in our bed. Again, here we have a bigger bed then we have at home – a queen size – so we can’t complain. We brought along our own pillows so it feels like home, even though we know it won’t be the same. But this is home for at least the rest of this month.
At the end of “bedroom” is our living room / kitchen / entertainment room / pantry / whatever-else-we-need room. We do have a large color TV and cable television with free HBO, but we didn’t think to bring along a DVD player and DVD’s so the evenings could get kind of boring. Looks like we will be playing more card games until we get into our more permanent home.
Directly to the left of the living room thingie described above is our kitchen(ette). It consists of a small refrigerator, microwave oven and our brand new George Foreman grill which will help keep our dining budget down. The refrigerator has no freezer section so when we want ice cream we have to go in to town. It’s a good excuse to get out of our palatial mansion we are calling home.
And if you think this is small, check out the walk-in closet / bathroom we have! Lot’s of room in there.
Well, it’s home for about 3 weeks unless we find an apartment we like that’s available before December 1st. We lucked out to find an extended stay hotel that has wonderful weekly rates, only $199.01 per week. Though I would prefer to use that money to pay rent, I need to be in the area for work and this is better then a 2 1/2 hour commute from Trempealeau every day.
So, now you know what’s up with us. Keep an eye out here as I will try to share all the great new changes in our families life, including the wonderful (hopefully) new job I have.
