I'm *here*!
And finally, I am back online as well.
The end of the moving period....
The final bit of moving went pretty well. The drive down took me two days. I didn't leave C-U until about 7pm on the 11th. I had lunch with Griff at The Great Impasta, then stopped by Needleworks to say bye to my knitting buddies. I also purchased 5 skeins of Mountain Colors sock yarn. I couldn't decide between the colors, then finally decided that since I wasn't going to be stopping in every two weeks to buy the skeins one-by-one, I'd just buy the lot and say it was for the next 10 weeks worth of visits. Nancy and Sharon gave me big hugs and I left my contact info for them both. I'll definitely be keeping in touch and stopping in the shop whenever I'm passing through C-U.
I had intended to drive straight through on Friday, but by about 9:30pm I was getting mentally tired and ended up spending the night in Salem. Had a most excellent night's sleep, startled the heck out of a Harley rider polishing his bike when I whipped open the curtain to check out the weather and even got my fix of old movies on TCM (the previous resident apparently had my taste in TV stations). So I got to the house by about noon. Took a brief break, then started unloading the truck. The whole unloading process of truck and the interior of my car took until about 4pm, which was quicker than I had expected. Didn't do much else that night. Sunday started the unpacking.
The Unpacking Process:
I decided ahead of time that the two rooms I needed to focus on were the kitchen and my bedroom. Everything else was not necessarily critical to sustained living at the house. So I'd work on the kitchen for a while, then switch to the bedroom when I got stuck or burned out. I spent most of Sunday finishing the cleaning out of the kitchen cabinets. I also put down shelf paper in the bottom cabinets and the drawers. I lined the bottom of both bathroom vanities since there was some evidence of water damage there. I have since discovered that the kitchen faucet leaks. The shelf liner, being plastic, caused the water to pool nicely for me and prevented any further damage to the cabinet. I had noticed the first day I stayed in the house that the kitchen faucet had a leak that caused water to pool on top of the sink, but hadn't noticed any water below. Apparently it leaks there too. So I will shortly get to learn how to change a faucet assembly. W00t! (Yes, I'm excited about the prospects of changing the faucet. I *like* fixing stuff like that.)
In the past week, the cardboard cubist sculpture has shrunk somewhat and been re-organized. There are still some boxes in the kitchen, mostly because the kitchen here is much smaller than the previous kitchen. I only have three small drawers for storage rather than five large drawers. Plus there are fewer cabinets. I seem to have lost the bottom to my antique cast iron chicken fryer. I imagine it is still in the cabinet in Champaign. I'd have the landlord send it to me, but I expect that it would cost a fortune to mail it given its weight.
I have started unpacking and organizing the living room. Mostly I did this so the poor cable guy could actually find the TV and cable jack. Of course, these two things are on opposite sides of the room from each other. I will need to buy a couple more bookcases. I got spoiled at my old apartment by the built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace. I don't have those here. I also picked up 3-4 boxes of books I had as a kid from Mom's house. So, less shelf space and more books. Not a good combination for keeping things looking neat and tidy. I may put the kids books in the guest room, though I'll still need a bookshelf for them and I don't know yet how much space will be available in there either. I think I'll spend the afternoon working on the living room with the TV running in the background. There is an Audrey Hepburn movie marathon on TCM today.
The office is mostly still a mess, although I got my computer set up last night in advance of getting my cable modem installed today. I need to get a plastic mat for the floor so I can roll my desk chair across the carpet. I have decided to put the computer books and public health/medical books in the office.
Other house news:
I got my front yard mowed with the push mower last Monday. I also used the weed whacker to get most of the really tall grass along the fence and flower beds. That was hot and exhausting, but it looked a whole lot better than it did when it was 18 inches tall. There wasn't any way I was going to mow the backyard with the push mower, however. So I went over to the local John Deere dealer and bought myself a lawn tractor. It was delivered the next day.
Did I mention I have a huge backyard? I do. It took me THREE HOURS to mow it.
Granted, it took a bit longer because the grass was so tall (over 18 inches tall in most places and closer to 2 feet tall in some spots) so I had to keep backing up to clear the clippings from under the mower deck. But it still took a long time. Part of the yard is steep enough that I'll only ever mow it in one direction. 
Now it looks decent, although in some places the mower didn't cut very well and there are spots where the clippings got dropped in a big pile, but it's a great improvement over the before picture, don't you think? I'll re-mow it tomorrow and it'll look even better.
After mowing the lawn for the first time, I decided that the fruit trees (peach, pear and apple) in the backyard needed pruning so I wouldn't have to duck to mow around them. I also pruned the crepe myrtle and Bradford pear
in the front yard, plus the boxwood shrub by the house (it was just overgrown) and the shrubby tree thing in the side yard.
Then I decided to rip out a bunch of the poison ivy in the backyard. Two trees in the backyard have poison ivy growing up them. Some of the vines are as thick as my forearm. Fortunately I'm not particularly sensitive to poison ivy, or so I thought. I did have the sense to wear gloves for this, but my forearms are mostly weeping sores
right now. If I hadn't worn gloves, I'd have probably gotten urushiol (the irritating oil from the leaves) into my eyes when removing my contact lenses. Wouldn't *that* have been fun? I'll have to clean up the loppers really well so I don't end up re-contaminating myself the next time I use them. In a week or two I should be able to be seen in public with short sleeves on. Right now I'm a big fan of oral antihistamines, topical corticosteroids and calamine lotion. Even so, about 5:30 every morning I get a bad case of the itchies and sometimes when I lean on my desk too. The good news is that there is only one tree left to clean up and I know enough now to wear long sleeves and be very careful about cleaning things up afterward. Remember, Round-Up is your friend. :o)
Speaking of work:
I have survived my first half-week on the job. It has been a lot of fun. The folks I've been working with are all very nice and helpful and very happy to have me on board. I don't know how long these people have been without an epidemiologist, but they've got all sorts of questions for me. I have already got an idea of some things I can do to help them out, including writing up a guide for one of the computer applications they use. There was supposed to be some training coming up for them, but it hasn't happened yet and they've having some trouble getting data entered in a timely and accurate manner. I have already gotten the reputation for being able to figure out why the computer isn't doing what they want it to do and how to fix it. On Monday, my boss will be in the office, as will the communicable disease section head. I should get a much better idea of what I will be working on at that time. I think I'll have a lot of fun working there.
I'm very surprised that people seem to be really amazed that I came down here, where I know absolutely nobody, just to do this job. Apparently you just don't do that sort of thing around here, unless there is family nearby or something like that. In any event, it'll be a great adventure both at home and at work! I'm looking forward to see what each day brings!
The end of the moving period....
The final bit of moving went pretty well. The drive down took me two days. I didn't leave C-U until about 7pm on the 11th. I had lunch with Griff at The Great Impasta, then stopped by Needleworks to say bye to my knitting buddies. I also purchased 5 skeins of Mountain Colors sock yarn. I couldn't decide between the colors, then finally decided that since I wasn't going to be stopping in every two weeks to buy the skeins one-by-one, I'd just buy the lot and say it was for the next 10 weeks worth of visits. Nancy and Sharon gave me big hugs and I left my contact info for them both. I'll definitely be keeping in touch and stopping in the shop whenever I'm passing through C-U.
I had intended to drive straight through on Friday, but by about 9:30pm I was getting mentally tired and ended up spending the night in Salem. Had a most excellent night's sleep, startled the heck out of a Harley rider polishing his bike when I whipped open the curtain to check out the weather and even got my fix of old movies on TCM (the previous resident apparently had my taste in TV stations). So I got to the house by about noon. Took a brief break, then started unloading the truck. The whole unloading process of truck and the interior of my car took until about 4pm, which was quicker than I had expected. Didn't do much else that night. Sunday started the unpacking.
The Unpacking Process:
I decided ahead of time that the two rooms I needed to focus on were the kitchen and my bedroom. Everything else was not necessarily critical to sustained living at the house. So I'd work on the kitchen for a while, then switch to the bedroom when I got stuck or burned out. I spent most of Sunday finishing the cleaning out of the kitchen cabinets. I also put down shelf paper in the bottom cabinets and the drawers. I lined the bottom of both bathroom vanities since there was some evidence of water damage there. I have since discovered that the kitchen faucet leaks. The shelf liner, being plastic, caused the water to pool nicely for me and prevented any further damage to the cabinet. I had noticed the first day I stayed in the house that the kitchen faucet had a leak that caused water to pool on top of the sink, but hadn't noticed any water below. Apparently it leaks there too. So I will shortly get to learn how to change a faucet assembly. W00t! (Yes, I'm excited about the prospects of changing the faucet. I *like* fixing stuff like that.)
In the past week, the cardboard cubist sculpture has shrunk somewhat and been re-organized. There are still some boxes in the kitchen, mostly because the kitchen here is much smaller than the previous kitchen. I only have three small drawers for storage rather than five large drawers. Plus there are fewer cabinets. I seem to have lost the bottom to my antique cast iron chicken fryer. I imagine it is still in the cabinet in Champaign. I'd have the landlord send it to me, but I expect that it would cost a fortune to mail it given its weight.
I have started unpacking and organizing the living room. Mostly I did this so the poor cable guy could actually find the TV and cable jack. Of course, these two things are on opposite sides of the room from each other. I will need to buy a couple more bookcases. I got spoiled at my old apartment by the built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace. I don't have those here. I also picked up 3-4 boxes of books I had as a kid from Mom's house. So, less shelf space and more books. Not a good combination for keeping things looking neat and tidy. I may put the kids books in the guest room, though I'll still need a bookshelf for them and I don't know yet how much space will be available in there either. I think I'll spend the afternoon working on the living room with the TV running in the background. There is an Audrey Hepburn movie marathon on TCM today.
The office is mostly still a mess, although I got my computer set up last night in advance of getting my cable modem installed today. I need to get a plastic mat for the floor so I can roll my desk chair across the carpet. I have decided to put the computer books and public health/medical books in the office.
Other house news:
I got my front yard mowed with the push mower last Monday. I also used the weed whacker to get most of the really tall grass along the fence and flower beds. That was hot and exhausting, but it looked a whole lot better than it did when it was 18 inches tall. There wasn't any way I was going to mow the backyard with the push mower, however. So I went over to the local John Deere dealer and bought myself a lawn tractor. It was delivered the next day.Did I mention I have a huge backyard? I do. It took me THREE HOURS to mow it.
Granted, it took a bit longer because the grass was so tall (over 18 inches tall in most places and closer to 2 feet tall in some spots) so I had to keep backing up to clear the clippings from under the mower deck. But it still took a long time. Part of the yard is steep enough that I'll only ever mow it in one direction. 
Now it looks decent, although in some places the mower didn't cut very well and there are spots where the clippings got dropped in a big pile, but it's a great improvement over the before picture, don't you think? I'll re-mow it tomorrow and it'll look even better.
After mowing the lawn for the first time, I decided that the fruit trees (peach, pear and apple) in the backyard needed pruning so I wouldn't have to duck to mow around them. I also pruned the crepe myrtle and Bradford pear
in the front yard, plus the boxwood shrub by the house (it was just overgrown) and the shrubby tree thing in the side yard.Then I decided to rip out a bunch of the poison ivy in the backyard. Two trees in the backyard have poison ivy growing up them. Some of the vines are as thick as my forearm. Fortunately I'm not particularly sensitive to poison ivy, or so I thought. I did have the sense to wear gloves for this, but my forearms are mostly weeping sores
right now. If I hadn't worn gloves, I'd have probably gotten urushiol (the irritating oil from the leaves) into my eyes when removing my contact lenses. Wouldn't *that* have been fun? I'll have to clean up the loppers really well so I don't end up re-contaminating myself the next time I use them. In a week or two I should be able to be seen in public with short sleeves on. Right now I'm a big fan of oral antihistamines, topical corticosteroids and calamine lotion. Even so, about 5:30 every morning I get a bad case of the itchies and sometimes when I lean on my desk too. The good news is that there is only one tree left to clean up and I know enough now to wear long sleeves and be very careful about cleaning things up afterward. Remember, Round-Up is your friend. :o)Speaking of work:
I have survived my first half-week on the job. It has been a lot of fun. The folks I've been working with are all very nice and helpful and very happy to have me on board. I don't know how long these people have been without an epidemiologist, but they've got all sorts of questions for me. I have already got an idea of some things I can do to help them out, including writing up a guide for one of the computer applications they use. There was supposed to be some training coming up for them, but it hasn't happened yet and they've having some trouble getting data entered in a timely and accurate manner. I have already gotten the reputation for being able to figure out why the computer isn't doing what they want it to do and how to fix it. On Monday, my boss will be in the office, as will the communicable disease section head. I should get a much better idea of what I will be working on at that time. I think I'll have a lot of fun working there.
I'm very surprised that people seem to be really amazed that I came down here, where I know absolutely nobody, just to do this job. Apparently you just don't do that sort of thing around here, unless there is family nearby or something like that.
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