Duh!

Okay, so I was without access to a computer for several days. And without access to my own computer for several weeks. When I get cranked up again, I discover that four different businesses are debiting out of my checking account even though I had canceled my accounts. The mortgage company, the phone company, the house insurance company and a phone company that I hadn't used in years which evidently started charging me again when I canceled my Verizon account. I paid off my mortgage. That means that they shouldn't be taking money out of my account for it, right? Duh!

I called the bank and she said that even though we had paid off the mortgage and canceled all those accounts that didn't necessarily mean that the company "knew" I didn't need to pay them any more. She said,"well, they're big companies." Gee whiz! Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left hand doeth.

So here's the message from the chiquita at Wells Fargo. If you want to pay bills automatically, have them debit your check card. Then if they start taking money out they shouldn't, you can cancel your check card number and get a new one. So now I know.

On the good news side, two of my darling grandchildren are the stars of three commercials in Utah and my old high school and alma mater of two of my kiddos got designated an International Baccalaureate World School. And as you can see from the picture, the rhubarb is coming up fine. We have about five big plants so we'll be giving plenty away. My mouth waters just thinking about rhubarb pie!

A Post for the Grandchildren

Hello from Grammie and Grandpa Bond and Panda and Hedgehog!

I was in the garage at our new house. A dog came into the garage. He was black and very, very, very, big! But he was not a bad dog. The next day, Grandpa Bond met the man who lives next door. The big dog is his. The big dog's name is Jasper. The man says that Jasper is the best dog ever. The man also has a cat. The cat is very big and yellow. His name is Charlie. Charlie likes to chase mice. The man and his wife have two sons. They are six and ten. They like to play in the yard.

It is raining today and cold. Br-r-r-r-r! I want to stay inside today. I will try to take a picture of Charlie and Jasper later.

April Showers

"Though April showers may come your way" pretty much sums up today. Each day I try concentrating on just one room. I told Michael last night that I couldn't see any progress. But he can. He goes away and then comes back to fewer boxes. It's rawther frustrating to quote Heloise. Today I started putting Christmas stuff in an enormous closet upstairs in the attic. It disappears like magic. I discovered random things today--a navy blue dress shoe put in the red checked box with the electric hair clippers, for example. I also found all Michael's socks. He's been using the same four or so pair for weeks and weeks now. They were under some rather unimportant stuff from my chest of drawers.

The pictures are of the master bedroom and the itty bitty office. The master bedroom looks much more organized than it is. Can you tell the mattress is on the floor because the box springs wouldn't make the corner up the staircase? I put sheets on it today. I don't know if we'll sleep on it or continue to sleep on the bunks. The office is tiny but it should be sufficient and it has three windows which bring in a lot of light and quite nice views of our neighborhood and yard. The sugar maple in the fall should be stunning.

Today I got to get to know the Relief Society president (our church women's group) better. Too bad she's moving to Utah in a few weeks. She's from Samoa and blogs for a group called the "More Good Organization." Seems like a nice site. She called because I am helping provide food for a missionary meeting. I have a lot of compassion for these Pennsylvania missionaries. I know how rough it was for my son here. Lots of slammed doors. But he loved it here and I can see why. It's a beautiful place and the nice people are very nice indeed. It will be great when he comes to visit.

Lagniappe

In Louisiana, "lagniappe" is the name for something extra a merchant gives you when you make a purchase. After our house purchase we are now getting the lagniappe in the form of blooming plants, shrubs and trees all over the yard. It's weird. I was brought up by Momma and Gammie to know the names of all plants. Here we're very generic at the moment. Shrub, tree and flower are the only names we have for a lot of the things springing up in our yard. Kinda fun, but I feel ignorant.

Michael took the picture of the house with the azalea bush. It is covered with bumblebees--the gigantic ones that are all fuzzy. They are in such a hurry to visit every flower, you can practically see their little foreheads furrowed. We have daffodils (or maybe jonquils or narcissus--see generic above.) You can see the bumblebee on the closeup azalea picture.

Mr. Chadwick, the previous owner, had no color scheme. Michael says he was just having fun. So we have all kinds of color right now from purplish pink to yellow to blue to orange.

Trip down memory lane

Michael stopped off in Hot Springs briefly on his drive to PA. Although all the children have seen pictures of this house, only one should have any memory of it. The trees have really grown. I'm not sure I would have recognized it.

When we bought this house, we became house poor but we really enjoyed living in such a nice place. The neighborhood was wonderful and so were the neighbors.

It's interesting comparing this move to the one to Hot Springs in 1979. We were so anxious to move and so excited. Michael had finally finished school and had landed a really good job as an engineer. And I don't think he's had a job since which he enjoyed more. We were living in Baton Rouge in a small two bedroom apartment with two small children. The Pine Meadows Loop house had three big bedrooms, two baths and a two and a half car garage. So the accumulation of stuff began! On this move to PA, I was dragged kicking and screaming away from the house, ward and town of my dreams. And we are having to downsize like crazy.

But in this move as in all other moves, we are content here and are finding the many advantages to the new area we've moved to. After dinner last night, Michael looked out one of the windows and sighed and said how happy he was to be here in our beautiful house with our beautiful yard in such a nice place. The weather here continues to be perfection although Michael says next week won't be so nice. We are finding warm and friendly folk here as we have found everywhere we have ever lived. Here was surprising as all my relatives were rather brusque. We are not finding that at all here. And we are settling into a new church home with righteous people who are trying to do what's right. So no matter what the attitude toward the move, the result seems to be the same. Happiness is where you find it.

Pictures at long last!

Here are some pix at long last. The first one is the view of the living room with boxes stacked up to the ceiling. Pretty much every room in the house looked like this when the movers left. This included the basement, the attic and the garage. The second picture is the most important one. It's the Kim Possible sleeping bag that my granddaughter C. was so worried about. See, sweetie! It made it here just fine. So you can come see me sometime and it will be here waiting for you.

My oldest, Naomi, won a huge quilt contest this week. Check out her win at www.killerbeedesigns.com. That call certainly made my day yesterday.

Continuing saga on the differences between Texas and Pennsylvania. I called about a new box spring for the queen mattress today. Our mattress barely fit up the stairs but the box springs was a no go. The movers told me I could buy one in two pieces like a king box spring in Texas. I called several places. They all were totally familiar with the problem (old house with small staircase) and keep the two piece queen box springs in stock. They even make two piece double bed box springs for some really tiny staircases. We'll need a new set of box springs, we'll also have to pay a delivery charge, buy a new frame and pay the furniture company to haul off the old box spring. Makes sleeping in the bunk beds seem more fun that it is!

I'm back!

I'm so back! Plugged in the computer and it likes the new DSL just fine. The holdup was getting the Steelcase desk back together. I have missed this so much. My next challenge will be getting pictures added to my blog.

It's a beautiful spring here in PA. The azalea in the front yard is a glorious purple color and we have daffodils everywhere. It is amazing convertible weather too. Can't beat that.

It was very gratifying to have a fellow in our ward (church congregation) come to pick up boxes and packing paper. He's being shipped to Iraq and his family decided to spend the year not here at his most recent assignment but back home in Utah. So we saved them some considerable money by donating moving boxes and paper to them since the Army won't move the family back. I love it when things work out well like that.

Incommunicado

I've been incommunicado for days and days. Not only did we move into a house with no furniture, I didn't have a car either as Michael's wasn't working and the Lexus died on the way to closing. So for a week, I sat in the house and leaned on the wall or sat on the steps. A neighbor lady came in to look at the new floors and felt sorry for us and brought over some folding chairs.

Lots of things have happened this week. I'll fill in later. For now, it's enough to know that I've moved from the largest kitchen of my life into the smallest. What am I going to do with all my stuff? You remember that scene in Cinderella where the stepsister tries to get her foot in the glass slipper and she only has her toe in? That would be us right now. We are in for some serious downsizing.

It is great to have a bed. Not my own bed, mind you. Our box springs wouldn't make the corner of the stairwell. So we're sleeping on the bunks until we can get a split queen size set of box springs. Didn't know they made such a thing. But they do here for all the small old houses with narrow staircases.

The movers were definitely of the Moe, Larry and Curly school. One guy fell off the truck twice! (With our stuff, of course!) They were ancient movers. We're thinking they're members of the Moving Van Teamsters or something and can't be fired. Watching them manhandle our stuff was full of nailbiting and near death experiences.

Problems to the last

We were supposed to close at 2:30 today but of course, there were problems. For one thing, the amount we were supposed to come up with for closing was 1700 dollars more than we expected. So we got that straightened out within minutes of the closing time. Five minutes before we were supposed to begin, I got a call from Michael. The Lexus he was driving had just quit. I had to empty out my baby car (which was full of stuff I was going to take to the new house after closing--mostly embarassing dirty clothes) and go pick him up.

Everyone was so kind in spite of our car troubles and woes with the mortgage company and relo company and we have officially bought a new home. We continue to be impressed by the graciousness of everyone here in PA.

I will say this. I am thoroughly sick of green and brown. When you travel, you know how you kind of go with one color scheme so that all the clothes mix and match? Well, most of the clothes I packed had green or brown in them. Who knew I'd be wearing the same clothes over and over from March 19th to April 18th? Michael is determined to give his winter jacket (also green) to Goodwill as he has been wearing it every day for three months. He says someone will get a good jacket. He's been trying without success to wear it out for three years now.

Now begins the even greater adventure of living in a house with no furniture for a week. We have some clothes, two towels and four washcloths, a single air mattress and a folding camp chair. No bedding and no pillows. Baths only since we have no shower curtain. Also, no way to heat food up! No pots and pans, no plates or cutlery, and no microwave. We will buy a microwave but the other stuff I can't bring myself to buy since we have more than enough of all of it in storage in Scranton. Since the fridge came with the house, I can always eat ice cream, I guess. Br-r-r-r! It's still cold here and is supposed to snow one day next week.

I've read every single book we have with us so I'm hoping I have enough credentials to get a library card on Saturday. I have to be in the house all day Monday and Tuesday because I have to be there when the water, electric, gas and phone guys (or gals) show up. On Wednesday and Thursday, I won't be tied to the house and can go hang out somewhere that preferably has comfy chairs.

Settling down to closing

We're closing tomorrow. Seems impossible after all the waiting. But tomorrow we'll cease to be homeless. I am having trouble remembering that it's called "settlement" here, not closing. So we're settling at 2:30 tomorrow.



I finally made it to the driver's license bureau on a beautiful top-down day. Here is the list of documents you must provide in order to transfer your license from another state:



Driver's license (duh)

Completed DL-108R form sections A,B,C and D

Original social security card (No letters accepted)

Two proofs of residency. Acceptable proofs:

Current utility bills

Lease agreements

Mortgage documents

W-2

Current weapons permit (!! They'll give you one of those before they give you a driver's license?)



One additional form of identification (original documents):

State Issued birth certifcate with raised seal

Certificate of US citizenship

Certificate of Naturalization

Valid US passport



They don't want much, do they? And they don't take cash, only checks and money orders! I'll need a briefcase to carry it all!

I'm guessing that this has to do with the age of the bureaucracy. After all, the government in Pennsylvania is almost two centuries older than the one in Texas. That's a lot of time to create more red tape.

Not a good day

Today was not a good day. Migraine and nausea. Do you know how bad television is these days? I can't believe it. I wasn't feeling good so stupid tv was in order but the channels available here at the hotel are awful. They have about twenty and none of them are any good. It explains a lot about some (not all) of the high school students I've been teaching in recent years. If this is what they've been watching, no wonder they're foul-mouthed, amoral, inured to violence and apathetic.

The big news today was the beating of one Texas girl by a bunch of girls who filmed it for YouTube. I'll never forget my darling student who was so beautiful and so popular (Miss Denton High School, even) who ran into my first period classroom one day splattered with blood. She told me she had to go back home to get more clothes. Seems a fight had started in the front of the school and a group gathered around to watch. She couldn't stand there and watch these guys hurt each other so she just jumped in and separated them and got some blood on her in the process. Go her! Like Harry Potter, she had moral fiber.

They want to move up our closing to Friday. That means a few more days in the house with no furniture, dishes or towels. (Actually we have one towel. Michael bought one for his apartment in Scranton. Maybe he will share.) Either that or we pay a hotel ourselves. Hey, I'm flexible right? I have a car so I can go hang out at the library or the church house or the mall. Can't believe how difficult this move has been. At this point it's laughable. But I'm not about to ask what more could go wrong because they haven't moved our furniture into the house yet. Luckily, they are highly motivated monetarily to avoid any claims for broken stuff. I'm hoping at least that part will go as well as it did in Denton. We were so pleased with the movers at that end. I want that last part of the move to go really well so I'm not going to let myself get upset by the weirdness in between.

Quiet Day

Today was very quiet. Just me in a hotel room with a Terry Pratchett novel. (So at least inside my head weird and noisy things were going on. Thud!) Malheureusement, that was my last book. I'm out of reading material.

Zach had said that he went by the Ridgecrest house to pick up a package and found that no one had moved in. Now I know why. Our relocation agent called to see how things were going. She said that the Ridgecrest house just closed today. Seems this difficult guy who was buying the house found a poisonous spider and wanted the entire house fumigated. It's Denton, Texas for goodness' sake! What were the chances of not finding a poisonous spider? Also, he wanted all the ivy torn down off the front of the house in case of possible termites. Oh man, some poor woman has to be married to this guy! I'm so glad it's not my house any more and I can forget about it. I will just keep our beautiful memories and pictures of happy times there. Considering all the changes the guy has had made to the house, you would think we were living in a death trap! If I were vindictive, I would wish that he would someday have to buy real estate here and have to avoid mine shafts, radon, and flooding.

I think I will have Michael take me out for a hamburger tonight. The problem with this is that they can't seem to distinguish between cheeseburgers and hamburgers up here. I do not like cheeseburgers, Sam I Am. There's a restaurant here that specializes in "hamburgers" and there's not one of them on the menu. They all have cheese on them.

General conference

General conference is a bi-yearly broadcast of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This year's was historic because of our new prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. Michael and I were uplifted by all the sessions. We watched the Saturday sessions and the Sunday afternoon session in our hotel room. Michael went to the priesthood session on Saturday night. He and Zach went for a hamburger for many years after the priesthood session but he came straight home last night.

We went to church for the Sunday morning session because the ward was putting on a pot luck dinner at the chapel in between the morning and afternoon sessions on Sunday. Morning session is only a figure of speech here. It started at 12:00 noon. The small children there were fairly unhappy, being both tired and hungry. Although I always enjoy the talks, the music in this spring's conference was exceptional. Who would have guessed they would sing "If You Could Hie to Kolob" with a different tune?" "Called to Serve" with men's voices only was as memorable as anything the Tab Choir has ever sung at conference. My daughter had mentioned her favorite hymns on her blog and I noticed that she had a favorite included as did I.

It's so weird being in a building that is shared with no other ward. We haven't been in a situation like that since Decatur, Texas. The pot luck lunch was totally organized because they had everything already set up. They have baskets full of plasticware, pitchers (the pitchers in the Old North road building in Denton disappeared years ago) for water and all sizes of paper plates. No one really seemed to be in charge but everyone pitched in and got it done. All the missionaries seemed to have investigators there which is amazing and refreshing.

I wondered what everyone would bring since it was bound to be different from potlucks in Texas. Here's what they brought: A whole roast turkey with mashed potatoes and about a gallon of homemade gravy, roast chicken thighs, a chicken casserole, meatballs, chili, three different scalloped potato dishes, corn, rice and rolls. (Heavy on the starch is not instructions to the laundry around here.) They also brought three different chocolate cakes, chocolate chip cookies and a white cake and some sugar cookies. One of the cakes was a decorated cake. It was two-layer and as big as the bottom of a very large wedding cake and had marzipan flowers on top. No green vegetables, no salad and no fruit. I brought five-cup salad (coconut, sour cream, crushed pineapple, mandarin oranges, and marshmallows). Michael said that they picked out all the mandarin oranges so next time I will make it six-cup and put in extra oranges. Now obviously a potluck is just that and the next time I go there might be all salads and green vegetables. But I was in awe of the generosity of the members who brought huge amounts of food to share with their church friends.

I met a lovely young mom from Longview, Texas and a man who graduated from Aubrey High School (he remembered going to the Martinos' ranch) and another woman who was born in Caddo Parish which is where my folks live. Small world.

One of my favorite things about watching conference is knowing that people all over the world are watching too. Time zones may separate us from our friends and family, but this worldwide church meeting brings us together twice a year for a common purpose.

No mail

Okay, the mail is lost. I've been checking and checking the mailbox on Center St. and I've finally realized that they're just not forwarding it to the new address. So now what? I've already stopped into the Shavertown post office to buy stamps and the postal employee (could she be the postmistress?) was surly at best. I can't wait to tell her she's lost all my mail. Maybe some of my readers will remember that this happened when we moved to the house on Ridgecrest Circle and that a big bundle of mail turned up months after we moved in. Swell! And people were ticked that we missed their weddings! To say nothing of random bills that might be lurking in all that missing mail.

We did peek in the window of the house while we were checking the nonexistent mail and could see that the new kitchen floor we picked out is down. Nice vinyl tile which looks like marble. We had no idea such a thing existed. (Don't know what planet we've been living on.) It's great. Not only does it look like tile or stone, but it's not cold like the real thing. Nor does it shatter if you drop a can of green beans on it. We chose the marble looking tile rather than the tile looking tile because it didn't need grout to look good. Less places for spinach to hide.

Happily, the happy car is back. It was a pinhole leak in a hose which is such a good thing. Only cost 85.00 to have it fixed. Michael explains that they had to take the airbox out to get to the hose. Otherwise I would question why a hose replacement would cost that much.

We now find out that the moving company up here can't get our stuff out of storage and move us in on the day after we close on the 14th. So we'll be sleeping on the floor for four days after we close (or we'll have to pay our own way at the hotel here.) Michael's not worried. He has an air mattress! He has offered to buy me one too which is awfully sweet.

Lucky I'm so calm and laid back. Otherwise I'd be upset about just one more setback.

We were happy to hear that a good friend of ours has been called as an area seventy of our church. He'll make a great church leader. But his wife's life will be as disrupted a lot. She'll be traveling almost every weekend with him. And she's a lovely person who really enjoys being home and close to her family. So if I think about whining, I'll just remember Jenny and how gracious she'll be about the whole thing.

Nepotism

Without exception, everyone (people on planes, people at church, people at Michael's work) I have talked to has told me that you can't get a teaching job here in the Wilkes-Barre area unless your uncle is on the school board. (Does it help that my grandfather was president of the Forty Fort School Board in 1936?) So I was reading some books on the area and one of them as much as said the same thing. It seems that in this valley being a school teacher is a high paying job (who knew?) and the four-year colleges around here crank out more teachers than they can use. So guess who gets to be a teacher? Cousin Matilda.

I'm not sure I want to look for a teaching position here so I may never find out if this is true. But it's weird knowing that I might not be able to get one if I want one. Even being a certified ESL teacher isn't going to help as there are few immigrants coming into the area. (No jobs!) And I'm sure not joining a union to be a teacher. Getting a job in Texas would be so easy!

You get used to D/FW and its phenomenal growth. Denton ISD is building two new elementaries every year, a new middle every year and a new high school every four years. Here they get really, really excited if someone opens a new restaurant. And you can't find a new house to buy because they can't sell the older ones already on the market. It's a mind shift for sure.

I've just finished two histories of this region. These poor people. It's like reading about the ten plagues of Egypt. Famine, flood and pestilence. And yet, everyone we've met has been so upbeat, kind and helpful. Very resilient people.

The family names around here are over the top! I love them so much even though I can't pronounce them. Some of the big immigrant groups after the Welsh, English and Irish were the Italians, Poles and Slovaks. My two favorite names so far: A lawyer named Limongelli and the County Recorder of Deeds named Mary Dysleski. Not kidding!

Steam heat

We are moving into a house with steam heat. That will be an adventure. I've never dealt with radiators before. But yesterday I had a real life experience with steam that I could have done without. My little Miata, "the happy car," was delivered on Tuesday and we drove it home from Michael's work. On Wednesday I decided to go pick up the drivers' license handbook but never got there. Luckily, I realized that the car smelled funny (like hot coolant) as I was passing by Michael's pharmacy. I do most of my car diagnosis by smell. Sometimes Michael doesn't believe me but hot brakes, coolant and motors all have a distinctive smell. As I slowed down to turn into his industrial park, I could see the smoke coming out from under the hood. I had been watching the temperature gauge like a hawk since we had had problems with it overheating so I knew the engine wasn't hot. By the time I drove the two blocks into his parking lot the smoke was pouring out. I parked it, went into the lobby and called Michael. I knew he had important meetings so I spent a few hours in the lobby working Sudokus and crosswords in the newspapers that were lying there. Lucky me! Cheryl, a co-worker of Michael's from Montreal, and I had a super chouette French conversation while I was waiting. She's so enthusiastic and has the most wonderful Quebec accent. I also got to chat with Doug, the HR manager, who lives just five minutes away from our new house. So all in all, it wasn't too bad as car disasters go.

After his meetings, Michael diagnosed it as a coolant leak. We don't know whether there was some damage to the car's radiator en route or whether we were just really lucky (unlucky?) to have it happen as soon as it got here! He had actually already ordered the radiator for it so we have that ready to install.

I have to admit. I did enjoy having a rent car for the past week. No worries!

Moving

The travails of moving! Today I'm going to try to find my mail which is lost in some sort of USPS Bermuda Triangle. I'm also going to go to the driver's license bureau to pick up the inevitable booklet. How many feet does it take to stop a car going 50 miles an hour? Who has the right of way at the intersection of a state highway and a county road? How long should you wait before beeping at the poor lady from Texas who is trying to pull out onto a twisting mountain road that's loaded with traffic? (I already know the answer to that one. Three seconds.)

I'm also going to work on furniture layouts for the house we haven't been able to move into yet. I have little cutouts that I will put on graph paper. Guaranteed that our furniture won't all fit. So I have to decide what gets sold and what gets relegated to the somewhat damp basement.

The happy car arrived yesterday so I'll at least be driving around in my own little Miata. But yesterday was the only potentially top down day since November and I didn't get the car until evening. Today it's colder again.

It was rather interesting that both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama were in Wilkes-Barre yesterday. Who knew that the eyes of the world would be on our little area because of the Pennsylvania primary?

My most important task today is mailing out a birthday card for my precious soon-to-be six-year-old granddaughter.