as.the.mercury.falls[part.finale]

so picking up where we last left off, just a little recap:

the.weekend.of.december.20|21

we've made our way up to this past weekend[dec.20|21]. at this point in the story im getting over being sick, its been pretty freaking cold, so far it was in the teens last weekend and that was the coldest it had gotten yet and we were smart enough to move out of our storage unit in that weather. but we had officially gotten out of the storage unit and had put up christmas tree and decorations at the house. in addition to all of that, the roofers had been making some pretty good progress at the house with shingling and such. 

so a few things i forgot to mention in the last post about friday. on friday while karen was off from work she had the privilege of taking some time to go christmas shopping. up to this point we'd both been so busy with work that we hadnt had a chance to do any real christmas shopping for each other save one afternoon earlier in the week for a half an hour when i was working late that she snuck off and did a little. anyway so friday karen managed to get all the rest of her christmas shopping done and wrapped and all while i was at work and even took all the presents to the house and put them under the tree. and to her surprise there were roofers at the house working on flashing and shingling the rest of the porch roof. so that was pretty awesome as well. 

so anyway, i think that covers all the things i forgot to mention in the last post, so getting back to THIS update...

[saturday]

well friday night we had made a solid decision that we were going to move out of the apartment this weekend[dec.20|21] because we didnt want to end up doing it over christmas and we definitely didnt want to pay another months rent at an apartment. so saturday we had decided to pack up and start moving stuff to the apartment and then sunday to do a lot of the same until we were out of the apartment for good. [hah, things never go quite the way you plan them to...] 

additionally, since i hadnt had a chance to go christmas shopping just yet, only purchased a number of things online, i was going to take some time in the morning to go and do all of my christmas shopping that still needed to be done and karen was going to start packing while i was out. 

well luckily things went pretty smoothly on saturday morning. i went out to do my shopping and got pretty lucky at it. i found just what i was looking for right away at the stores i went to and the traffic was only mildly horrific. after the shopping and a few coordinating phone calls to josh as far as whom was getting what for whom, i headed to the house to wrap my presents away from karens surprise ruining little eyes and was finished with everything by lunch time. 

not a minute after id finished wrapping presents karen called wondering when id be home and telling me that she was starting lunch, so by the time i got the apartment it was practically ready and i was greeted with not only a lovely lunch but also a ton of boxes packed and ready to go. karen had been a busy little worker all morning and had done a great job getting reay for the first load from the apartment to the house.

after lunch we loaded up and again it was getting very cold out and made for a very cold move. by the time we finished the first load we were both freezing and lunch-coma was sinking in so we decided to take a break and snuggle up on the couch for warmth and relaxation. well... that break turned into an evening, lol. and we didnt get much else accomplished on saturday, haha. we got hooked on a tv show and before we knew it wed watched a bunch of episodes and time had melted away. but all wasnt lost, we still had a whole other day to move and we had made a nice dent in what was at the apartment. 

now then, on a sad note, i feel like i should tell you all a side story about saturday as well. as youve all read by now, im sure, we've been attending a church near by since we moved here and pretty regularly at that. well as with most churches this one does a christmas production and apparently its a pretty big production at that. ive spent many years involved in christmas plays back at home in tx, its practically been a tradition in itself for the majority of my life, and id always thought that it was a pretty major event. but let me tell you, comparatively, this thing at our church in cincy was way bigger. theyd been showing us video clips of last years "awaited" and it was some serious stuff. there was all kinds of multi-media flare, pyro-technics, and more.

anyway, karen and i had reserved tickets to go and see the show on saturday night and were looking forward to it until friday afternoon. this is where the story gets sad. on friday afternoon the church released a statement about an incident that happened thursday night and as a result cancelled the rest of the shows for this year. 

basically in all of the production extravagance, there were some parts that involved a lot of people on wires flying around and such, which is pretty cool if you ask me and a great way to really use the huge volume of space that we have in the church auditorium. i dont want to get crazy images in your head or anything, so let me explain. there was one part where three girls, representing the 3 wise men apparently, were wired up and more or less were flying in from the upper part of the auditorium down to the stage level as part of a scene. well apparently one of the girls wires broke or come undone in some way and she fell 25 feet. she was immediately rushed to the hospital, the show for the evening was obviously canceled, and she was listed in critical condition. well as of friday morning, the poor girl passed away and as a result the church cancelled all of the remaining shows. so all that to say we didnt get to go although we were looking forward to it, but more-so to ask that you keep that family in your prayers as this will undoubtedly be a very difficult christmas for them. 

[sunday]

sunday morning we woke up refreshed from our relaxation and ready to work. we knew we had a lot left to do if we were going to get into the house and out of the apartment. so after our morning routine we started packing up and by 10 we were ready to start loading up for the first haul. well, i went out to back the truck up to the door and as soon as i hit the door, the cold hit me, and boy-howdy was it a knock-out! the temperature had dropped significantly outside and it was now most definitely the coldest out that it had been yet. we didnt know it at the time but we later found out that it was about 7degrees out for the majority of the day on sunday! well we were definitely unhappy with the weather turning against us so wickedly, but we really had no other options and began loading all of the largest items we could for the first haul. 

after unpacking and doing some cleaning and re-arranging at the house we went back to get packing for the next load and bracing ourselves for the cold. it was bitter cold out and we were miserable in it, and i was very very unhappy about the whole thing. after about an hour of getting things together at the apartment we talked about the reality of our circumstances and about how the house was really in no way ready for us to move into at that point. so after our discussion we decided the best thing to do was take the load we had prepared and then spend the remainder of the day getting the house in a condition that we could actually live in it instead of making ourselves completely empty the apartment that weekend. we still had some time left before the end of the month and after that second load we had the apartment at about 70% empty, with the majority of our necessities at the house. well after we unloaded again in the bitter bitter frigid temperature of 7degrees fahrenheit, we started unpacking and setting up a little and quickly realized we were going to need to make a run to the store before we could move in. so we assembled a list of the things we needed - namely rods and mounting hardware for the closet in the attic so we could actually put away our clothes, and some other smaller items like contact paper and new door/drawer pulls for all the cabinets in the kitchen. you might thing new door/drawer pulls isnt really a necessity item, but as we had been cleaning the kitchen we realized just how disgusting these things really were in addition to being ugly. it was necessary. 

so we bundled up and headed out to the meijer and then the depot to get all the necessary items and spent a little more money than i would have liked for sunday, but we had the things we needed to make the house more liveable. we went home and spent the rest of the night cleaning and putting everything together as best we could. i actually had a lot of fun doing all my little projects: first i hooked up the new chord to the stove, which was something id never done before or even was aware of in my little suburban life back in tx. i didnt know that you could even buy a range without a power chord or that it was remotely normal, lol! anyway, i got that hooked up fairly quickly and what do you know, it worked on the first try! second, i installed on the new hardware on the kitchen cabinets while karen cleaned and started installing contact paper in them. that went very quickly and we're both very happy with the new hardware. lastly i went upstairs and got started on the closet hardware while karen cleaned the bathroom. im happy to report it went very well and i got both of our new 8ft rods installed and level without any hiccups and karen was able to start getting her clothes in there as well. 

by about 9 we were both starting to get tired and karen had settled down to do some ironing in front of the tv and i got to trying to get the tv series wed been watching online to come on. well dont ask me how i did it, but i managed to lock myself out of the damn router and i couldnt remember the passwords to get back in and i was pretty unhappy about it. we ended up watching an episode on her laptop [which was still working] before bed and i would just have to figure out how to reset my router monday after work.

the only other thing to report on sunday was that the roofers were out again! and on a sunday!! while they were there they flashed the porch roof and finally finished the remainder of the shingling, so now all the shingling is done and it looks great! as far as i can tell the only things that the roofers still have left to do is some trip work, some flashing, some painting, and installing the new gutters. but hopefully thatll go pretty quickly, keep your fingers crossed! 

[monday]

haha, well, we spent our first night at the house! and it was a cold one! brrrrrr! we stayed pretty warm snuggled up in the bed, karen is an awesome space heater, hehe, but the morning was ridiculously cold. we still had the thermostat programmed at 50 and we were pretty set to leave it that way to try and save some money, especially since we were only occupying the attic space for the most part anyway. but damn that morning it was cold! i got up and staggered into the bathroom only to discover that someone had replaced our tile floor with blocks of dry-ice! im surprised i havent lost any toes yet to be quite honest. well i turned on the shower and the hot water came on just fine, but the cold water didnt... uh-oh. well we are lucky enough to have the new hot water heater and it gets hot really really well, so well in fact that without the cold water on itll scald you pretty damn easily. so this wasnt good for us. the cold water wouldnt come on no matter how i turned it and on top of that the tub wast draining. ef. so i roused my sleeping wife [much to her dismay, i assure you] and we decided we were going to have to run to the apartment to shower and get dressed and then come back to the house for breakfast and coffee before work. hopefully we wouldnt be late on top of all that. so we got packed up with what we needed and headed over to the apartment [my wife was NOT happy with me, haha, she was just a tad grumpy not getting her usual extra hour of sleep in the morning]. well the kicker here is that the temperature had dropped yet again! it was seriously just ridiculous outside. they informed us on the radio as we were headed to the apartment that it was 3 degrees outside!! brr... i left denver for a reason, and it was it. i do not like it to be in the single digits outside. id prefer it to never get below 40 if we're being honest. [make that 60 for karen, lol!] well we managed to get showered and dressed and back to the house for breakfast and coffee and then off to work and still make it only 5 minutes late. but wow was it cold. it was so cold that it hurt. seriously. my toes hurt like heck and my legs did as well. 

id looked all over for my thermal underwear but i couldnt find them in all the moving madness and could figure out where in the world they might be, so after work karen and i made a trip to target to get some new ones for me and to get her some period because she didnt have any. after that we went home to try and fix our two problems, the shower and the internet. well we got some drain-o for the shower at target and i was ready to call the router manufacturer if necessary. first the shower. we went and turned it on and the cold water was working. actually, by the time wed left that morning it had finally kicked on, but only just before we left. i dont know if it was just taking its time getting up to the attic or if there was a block or a freeze in the line, but it took about 20 minutes to finally kick on that morning - however the tub still wasnt draining in the morning. well that evening the water had finally drained during the day and we had the drain-o so we poured it in and let it do its thing and luckily i can report that it was fixed. next was the internet. well i sat down with it being less tired and having a lot more patience and after restoring the router to factory settings and setting it up from scratch, i had it working properly again and got karen and i both re-connected to our network, problem solved! 

additionally we were blessed to have a number of packages arrive in the mail from my parents and some that id ordered for karen, so i wrapped while karen worked on dinner and we discovered that one of the presents from my parents was broken, bummer... but we're getting that taken care of, so no worries!

[tuesday]

well thats today, haha, and im at work right now. this morning went much much smoother. the shower worked properly and man it was nice. very hot, very soothing, and when i got out i found that there was a literal cloud in my bathroom hanging about 6 inches from the ceiling, so that was pretty interesting. it dissipated pretty quickly, dont worry. the morning was still very cold, especially that dry-ice bathroom floor [we really need to find our bathmats this evening!] but we got back into our normal routine with ease. karen got her extra hour of sleep [and was much happier about it, lol!] and i got lunches and breakfast made with no problems. we left for work on time and we actually made it in right on time! its still frigid out, but the temperature has made its way up into the lower 20's now. according to my internet its 22degrees out right now, which is much better, but its still really cold.

however there is one small probelm. yesterday i promised you all pictures, and i came in with my camera fully intending to deliver. however, after a struggle to get them off[the camera battery is dead and that proved to be an obstacle], i discovered that none of the pictures of the tree had turned out - they were all blurred, probably from a combination of very low battery and low light levels. so i have to apologize for not putting any up, and i promise to try and take better ones this evening when we get home. but for now, thats all ive got to report, you are all caught up to the very minute and i better try and find something to do now at work, haha!

happy holidays to you all, we love and miss you and hope you have a very merry christmas!!

p.s. to those of you that havent recieved our christmas card yet, we promise we'll try and get them to you as soon as we can!! love you!!