Guess what's got 2 thumbs and had the day off today? That's right, this girl! It was great, because I got to a) sleep in ( I got almost 10 hours of sleep last night, which I badly needed, having gotten less than 10 hours of sleep the past 2 nights combined), and b) work on cleaning and unpacking the new house. Our bathroom, the upstairs bathroom, and the living room are almost done, the kitchen and our bedroom are maybe 2/3 done, and the dining room actually has no boxes left in it. One of the upstairs bedrooms is pretty much set up too, actually, the one that Mike's currently staying in. (Oh, by the way, Mike's here. More on that later.) The office is a complete disaster, it's where we kept putting all the random stuff we had nowhere else to put as we were moving in. At least some of it's going to end up in the attic, but I probably won't be tackling it for another week or so. Anyway, we're much more settled in after today, which is nice. Hell, we're probably almost as moved in as we ever were at our last house.

So, Mike's here! He got in late Monday night (technically Tuesday morning, it was around 12:45am I think). He and Alfred have been palling around, as usual, though today I got to play a bit as well. Right now we're doing a power hour. It's our first, actually, which is kind of weird. Since it's been like 2 days. We were supposed to do one earlier but Alfred had a bunch of errands to run, so he was being all responsible and stuff. Lame. Last night Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara came over for dinner. And Mister. He didn't eat, though.

On Saturday we went to Mercedes' and Mister's birthday party, which was fun. They had a barbecue party. It was all delicious. And an ice cream cake. And a dog food cake for Mister, which Ilya tasted. Apparently he tastes all of Mister's treats, too. Full disclosure: I tried one of Mister's treats once, it was peanut buttery, it was actually pretty good.

We're talking about Mike's trip to DC. Alfred and I almost lived in DC. True story. I sort of wish we lived there now. I'm going to go ahead and post this now, because I've been working on this post for approximately 40 minutes.

we're getting there

We've been working hard on this whole "moving" thing. It's really not very fun. We spent about half of the day Saturday and then most of the day today at the new house, finishing up some cleaning and painting that needed to be done. We had painted all of the walls already, but needed to paint all of the white trim in the kitchen and bathroom. When we paint, I'm the one who gets to do all the edging, so most of my time was spent doing that. But it looks so much better now, it's amazing what a coat of paint will do. All we have left to paint now is a little touching up in a few spots in the kitchen. Alfred also put some insulation around one of the doors, there was a pretty big gap that is now much smaller. Our electric bill for that house was over $90 last month, and we weren't even living there! We do keep the heat on to about 58 or so when we're not there, partially to keep the pipes from freezing since it's been getting so cold at night, but that was still pretty crazy. To compare, our bill here was about $120. Little to no insulation + an electric company with the highest rates in FL = that sucks! Hopefully sealing the cracks around the doors will help.

Saturday afternoon and evening was spent with Alfred's family for Valentine's Day. Emily was home from school for the long weekend and had her boyfriend over, so we got to meet him. He seemed like a nice chap. We had Caesar salad (with dressing made by the incomparable Alfred, as taught by the incomparable Doug), some awesome red velvet ice cream cake, and then a whole bunch of fried things, thanks to Robyn and some of Emily's friends that came over after dinner. Then Sunday was spent mostly around the house, except when I had to go to work. Yeah, I had to work on a Sunday, on Valentine's Day no less, because of some stupid adult group that showed up 40 minutes late for an hour tour and then complained because they didn't get to do everything they were expecting to do. Here's an idea, move your asses out of the gift shop and get where you're supposed to be on time.

I finished a bottle of liquor tonight - 1 guess what kind it was! (hint: I still have some fat free half and half in the fridge...)

how is it already Tuesday?

First of all, congrats to Allison and her husband on their freshly born baby! Little Gabriel arrived Monday morning, safe and sound, though he caused a bit of drama by deciding not to cooperate and necessitating a surprise c-section. I stopped by the hospital after work today to say hi and visit, and to bring Allison some chocolate from Claude's. He's very cute, and she looked damn good, especially considering what she went through yesterday. So, congratulations all around!

We were actually quite social this weekend. Kevin called Alfred on Saturday and asked if we were busy, (which, other than packing, we were not) so we met them for an extended lunch (complete with plenty of colorful drinks) and then did a little sightseeing, for free of course. Then on Sunday we headed up to Alfred's parents' house for the Super Bowl. This involved even more eating and drinking. Plenty of frozen margaritas to go around. I think I watched about 10 minutes of football. So, plenty.

Other than that, most of our time over the past several days has been spent cleaning, organizing, packing, and getting things together to donate to Goodwill. They're really going to get to know me over there. So if posts are a little sparse for the rest of the week, that's why.