Moving

This is the long talked about moving update post.

I moved out the the three bedroom house in the "country" last Sept. I always wanted to live in the country. It was very nice, but there were some things I did not consider. It was very inconvenient since the route I took to work did not go through a town at all. I therefore had to go out of my way on the way home from work for shopping and gas. And if I forgot to stop on the way home, it was again quite a hassle to go back into town. Living further from work also intruded into my sleeping and being at home (or out training dogs) time due to the extra travel needed to get there and back.

I came to the conclusion living in the country works best if you don't have to work, if you are retired, or can work from home. Second best is if a town is between your house and place of work or if you are married and your spouse does not work and has more time to do errands, or at least maybe your spouse drives through a town on the way home from his work. Some people might not even consider my old location the country. It was not a neighborhood but not nearly as rural as many places.

The extra space for the dogs and the peace and quiet was great, but could not make up for the high rent and even higher water bills (for all that grass.)

When I realized I wanted to move I contacted my old landlady and asked her to let me know if the place I had moved out of became available again. She was very happy to have me back as a tennant and the current tenants were moving out so that is how I came to be living in the place I moved out of a year ago.

It is so very nice to have $300 less a month in rent. Plus I do not pay the water bill or the gardener and this house is on gas instead of propane. Gas is cheaper. I am not teaching weekly agility and obedience lessons anymore, so I am not quite saving as much as it appears, but I am still coming out better off than if I had stayed at the country house. I still do have one private obedience student that I teach every other week.

I think I mentioned the grass I had worked so hard to plant last year had died. The good news is it is not quite as dead as I thought. I wish the gardeners would let it grow taller and not cut it so short. They prefer a buzz cut.

I love being back in the city of C. Everything is so close. Work is 15-20 minutes away and the stores are just down the street. I can walk the dogs on sidewalks without being run down by cars speeding on narrow country lanes. It is not as quiet as the old house, but neither do I find myself thinking it is too noisy. I can hear the neighbors in the other side of the duplex, but I do not find it horribly disturbing. It is good to be back.

I plan on staying here, unless I find a place to buy- which considering my criteria, is not likely. BUT- just in case, I asked for and got a month to month lease, with the provision that I should, if possible, give her longer than a month's notice.

I have no desire to ever pack, move and unpack again, so that will also figure into my decision to buy. It would have to be the best deal ever, on the most perfect house, in an amazing location and with an outstanding yard. Eventually I may move out of CA, and I hope by then I can face the task of moving. Yuck.

For the actual moving, I hired a guy and his brother from my work and they didn't do a very good job. First, they started loading small boxes, instead of a large furniture. They did not take my gentle hints so eventually I had to tell them to leave off the boxes and put in the furniture. This meant they had to remove some of the boxes. My cheap-o furniture has been moved quite a bit, but this is the first time I noticed scratches and damage on the bookcases, etc.

Even so, the price was pretty good. I found a great cleaning lady to clean the old house for the move out inspection and she did a wonderful job. I got my entire deposit back.

Too bad the "new" house was not as well prepared as I had left the old house. I found lots of random stuff in drawers, messy walls, stains on the bedroom carpet and trash in the back yard. The landlady eventually removed the trash (by putting it in my trashcan) and paid the little girl next door one dollar to help her clean up the cigarette butts. (Gross!) I threw out the stuff I found in drawers and got the landlady to give me paint to touch up the walls, which I haven't got to yet. I also had to buy a washer and dryer because the dryer didn't work and she told me she was not going to include it in the rent, like she did when I lived there before. I found a washer/ dryer set on Craigslist for $200 and they work great. The nice couple even delivered them and set them up for me. Now I just have to get rid of the old set.

I'm going to see if I can get a new dishwasher because the one in there does not work very well. It mostly cleans, but leaves soap everywhere, which is strange since I use the pre-packaged little thingies that have the exact amount of soap needed, plus the drying agent. Does not help.

I seem to be having a bit of trouble with mail. I've gotten some mail, but some is being sent back to the sender because the post office thinks it is old mail from the last time I lived here and the forwarding ran out. Not sure what to do about that. I may eventually set up a PO Box. They seem pretty cheep.

That is the moving story. I'm very happy to be back. Not sure if I mentioned it but Fancy and Pie remembered the house. Dottie was too young. One of the neighbors remembered me also. Speaking of remembering things, one more thing... I hung a lot of my pictures up where they used to be. The exact location because the nails were still there! I thought I removed the nails when I moved out (I know I did on the country house) so either I forgot or the new tenants used the same nail holes and put new nails in. When they moved out they left the nails and my pictures went right up where they used to be. For the quilts that I put up with tacks, the tacks are gone (had to remove them to get the quilts down (but the holes were still there and I made use of them.)

I like posts with pictures but I don't have any new ones, so here is a random old one. Fancy warning Dottie to stop being obnoxious. Someday I'll get an even better one showing the true horror of her threatening snarl.



Don't forget that she has to work extra hard to get her teeth to show through all that mustache. I believe the camera messed with her menacing, because this is not nearly as good as she can be. Or bad, I suppose.