Hello again blog readers. I hope there are some left of you after my little blog hiatus. I temporarily had to abandon my blog because I've been packing, moving, more packing, a little home remodeling, long vet visits with Phantom, the BIG move followed by unpacking, dealing with setting up new Internet, new direct TV, etc. You get the picture?
We were without Internet for almost a week until they got here to install it. Then they were so motivated to set us up that they tried to do a new install not once, but three times on two different days! Now we Really need three Internets set up here! NOT!
Last time I was on this blog we were enjoying October on the beach in Pensacola Beach. That seems like a zillion years ago. I was really dreading leaving Pensacola Beach because we love it there, but I was excited about moving to the St. Petersburg area too. At least we are still in a beach community even if it's not Pensacola Beach.
We packed all our stuff up and loaded up the cats and left Pensacola Beach to head back to Birmingham to get our house there ready to list with a Realtor. Trying to sell it ourselves while we were hanging out on the beach in Pensacola didn't work so good. We spent a week in Birmingham picking out granite for the bathroom counters, hiring a painter, picking out new carpet, packing, etc. We left before we even got to see the final results, but the house is in good hands and will go back on the market this week.
Moving day was long. The movers couldn't get everything on the truck so they had to store it until they could find a truck heading to Tampa. I don't really know why they even sent a guy out to look at what we had to move and then give us an estimate and not even send a big enough truck out. We are imagining that they are having a huge yard sale with whatever was left in Birmingham. Thank God the Babysitter was over saying good bye to us when the movers told me that they weren't going to be able to fit one of my triathlon bikes in the truck.
The Babysitter looked at me and said you need to get that bike in your car somehow if they can't get it on the truck. My car was packed full and I already had two other bikes on the bike rack, so I told the movers that the bike HAD to go in the truck. No exception. Now I'm thinking that if I didn't get it on the moving van when I did, then I wouldn't ever see it again. When we FINALLY get the rest of our stuff we are going through every box to make sure we aren't missing anything.
Mr. Frosty better be there among my Christmas stuff too! I just KNOW those movers had their eye on him!
And all my Christmas ornaments and my trees because I only kept two of them. The other three or four are history so those two better show up.
And my entire "Little House On the Prairie" series from when I was in elementary school. I am positive he movers are just wanting to get their hands on those books!
The Boy's collection of beanie babies all made it safe and sound. One of the movers did notice them and asked me how old the Boy was. When I told him that he was 21, he laughed and said, "well tell him we really appreciate moving all his beanie babies." Secretly, I'm probably more attached to the beanie babies than the Boy is.
Ok, I admit, the Boy doesn't even know I still have the beanie babies!
We left Birmingham a day sooner than planned because of the movers. They came and took our stuff on Thursday ( well they took 3/4 of our stuff) so we decided to head back to Pensacola Beach for the night since we had furniture there and it would break up the long drive and be easier on the cats.
Easier... HA!!
Soooo after a long day dealing with movers, we drove 4 hours to Pensacola, spent the night and then on Friday afternoon drove 7 more hours to St. Pete arriving at a dark, empty house around midnight that we had only seen one time before. We were very happy to finally arrive, especially the cats who were a little tired of car riding despite the cool jazz I had on the radio.
The air mattress we had to sleep on was awful, but we survived. The next morning I went to find coffee first thing. Then the movers showed up to unload in the rain. This time we had some better unloaders than loaders. The loaders were not so good. Otherwise we'd have all our stuff, not just 3/4 of it.
It took a week to get Internet, but we finally have everything set up. We love it here! The house is perfect. We are renting for at least a year so we can get use to the area better before we purchase anything. Everything is super tropical and it is over 70 degrees F here as I type. I hear Birmingham got down to 20 something degrees F last week while our "cold snap" was in the upper 50's. I think I can handle that!
There is a screened-in, kitteh approved porch/room at the new place so the cats are happy and loving the new place. Especially when the movers left.
There's also lizards running around all over the place. This drives the cats nuts!
Also, we have beaches EVERYWHERE here! All roads west lead to a beach... from St. Pete Beach up to Clearwater Beach and all the cool beaches in between.
Triathlete heaven.
Professional beach bum approved!
