Home Sweet Empty Home

Mid morning, after yesterday’s light dusting of snow had melted, we stuffed the back of the Mini with a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff we bought over the last week and drove over to our new home. These were things that we needed because we donated or left behind their predecessors back in Aiken (microwave, toaster and a Keurig.) There were also some things that we will need to occupy our empty home until our household shipment arrives after the first of the year in there too (towels, sheets, a blow up mattress, and some cheap silverware and plates.)

We brought over with us a take and bake pizza from Papa Murphy’s and ate lunch in our empty living room. When we came back “home” after to the AirBnB we ordered a new washer and dryer from Home Depot. Because we are a rural area they have none in stock, everything has to be ordered, so those won’t be here until after Christmas. Tomorrow we will go buy a 40″ TV to place over the fireplace because our existing 50″ one is too big. That one will stay downstairs in the “bonus” room with the futon for watching while washing clothes because the laundry room is on that level.

We’ll be probably go over for a couple hours each of the next three days farting around and will start sleeping there either Wednesday or Thursday night. We have to be out of the AirBnB by Friday morning at 11:00 AM.

Dirty Tricks?

I spent most of yesterday changing the utilities of our new house into our name. Water comes from the city and trash pickup is supplied by Waste Management (in Aiken both these came from the city.) Then there was electricity from Pacific Power and natural gas from Avista (in Aiken both these came from Dominion.) Today we signed up for cable.

What all these places had in common was that they never asked for proof that in fact I was moving into this particular house. This got me thinking of a really evil dirty trick to pull on somebody. It might cost a bit, so to reduce your investment pick one that does not require a deposit, and sign up for it in your name. Make sure to sign up for paperless billing and then when the first bill comes, pay it. Wait a week and set a date to shut off service. The current occupants probably wouldn’t notice the missing bill, but they sure would notice when the water stops flowing or the lights go off.

I am totally not recommending this. For one it would be pretty easy to figure out who did it because all these places ask for a drivers license or social security number for ID. Anyway, I just thought it was odd that no one asked for some sort of proof I lived there…

Here Comes Our Stuff

After being told, with the holidays and all, we would be lucky to get into our new Klamath Falls home by January 10th, we learned last night we can be in the place this coming Sunday. The closing isn’t actually until next Friday or at the latest Monday the 23rd, but we are paying 8 days of rent to the seller, to get into it on the 15th.

First thing this morning I notified both the Mayflower movers and the car shippers that it was time to send us our stuff. Dash Auto Logistics was first to respond and the Miata could be here the day after Christmas Day. Not long after that, the movers got back to us, our household goods won’t even be loaded onto the truck in Augusta until the day after Christmas. So we might end up with a convertible that won’t be usable for another 3 months and be waiting an extra week and a half for our pots and pans, couch, TV and bed.

That’s of course the worse case scenario. With the car pickup date and travel time ranges and the household goods travel time range they could actually get here only two days apart, December 30th and January 2nd respectively. It is winter and and we are in the Cascades, so weather might be a factor here as well.

Comfort TV

We tried several other different TV shows on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime after polishing off both the 2 seasons The Kominsky Method and 6 seasons of Grace and Frankie and finding only one, Episodes, a little ditty with Matt LeBlanc. It wasn’t great television, but it was fairly entertaining and we watched all 5 seasons while not wanting anymore after we were done. With that finished, we were completely out of stuff to watch that was new to us.

So we opted for comfort TV, we reverted back to watching a show we’ve already watched all the way through about a have a dozen times before, The West Wing. In the past week we have watched 3 complete seasons and the first 6 episodes of season 4. That’s 73 episodes or approximately 54 hours of TV. Hey, it gets dark early out here, what else do we really have to do.

Weekend Wrap

On Black Friday, we, along with quite a few Klamath Fallsians, went shopping. And while most everyone else was looking for bargains at all the retail stores, we went to Fred Meyers to do our usual weekly grocery shopping.

On Small Business Saturday we walked the mile and a quarter into downtown. Not really to shop though. We had purchased some advanced tickets to participate in the city’s Annual Chocolate Walk, a fund raiser for the Disabled American Veterans organization. A total of 30 downtown businesses were participating. After getting our wrist bands we visited a couple of places on the way to the furthest spot and the place we were going to have lunch.

That out of the way, we started the trek of visiting as many of the 30 businesses as we could to collect chocolate treats. A few places were handing out just store bought chocolate candy and we certainly didn’t turn any of it down. The businesses are in competition to be voted best treat and some places go above and beyond to make some delicious homemade treats, this the real draw. The both of us agreed that the fresh made truffles offered by an Avon store were the best of the best. Some of the other yummy treats included several barks from pretzel to peppermint, fudge, popcorn covered with white chocolate and a thick drink made with heavy cream and shaved Italian chocolate. Oh my. Felt like trick or treating for adults.

We visited several businesses that we never knew were there. A few of which we will be returning to for any help we need for decorating our new house once we are in it. About two thirds of the way through we stopped eating the chocolate treats and started putting them in the small paper bag they gave us at the start. For various minor reasons we missed just 4 places.

Along with the Chocolate Walk there were 15 places doing something called Shop Small, several of which were on the walk too. For every $10 you spent you received a raffle ticket to be entered into a drawing for several prizes ranging from gift baskets to a seven day trip. We ended up with just 4 entries, which pales in comparison to the 2 folks who stopped into the bike store and bought high-end bicycles netting then over 200 entries…

As we walked back up the hill to our rental spot the weather turned much cloudier and cooler. And after changing into comfy clothes, we looked out the window and were treated to a windy white out of snow. By sundown we ended up with about an inch of the white stuff that covered up everything we had shoveled off on Wednesday.

On Football Sunday, where we typically watch 3 NFL games back to back to back, before we even got to the early game we had to go outside in the snow and do some cleanup. Yesterday’s 1″ of snow was followed up by another 2″ overnight. Donna started by shoveling off the sidewalks and a path to the Mini and then I took over by sweeping snow off the car and cleaning up our make-shift driveway to the street.

Donna looked at me during this and said, “I’m still not as tired of doing this as I was raking leaves in Aiken.” To which I replied, “I don’t remember complaining about raking leaves for the first few years we lived there. Give it time.”

More than likely all this snow will be gone before the end of this coming week anyway, after tonight’s upper 20s low it is supposed to be above freezing, even at night, until next Sunday.