The weekend is almost over. Monday coming up. Back to the …. wait a minute! I am retired ! That’s really weird.

Saturday was sort of lazy. We caught the last part of the “Syracuse Days” parade, which has the typical small-town atmosphere. Local businesses, local farmers, horses, children dance academies, school bands and such. It was a nice day, again, with temps in the low 80’s, a bit cooler than normal. Compared to the 100+ in Sacramento (106 there today), I think we got out of town just in time.

We then borrowed the Jensen truck and wandered off to Lowe’s with a 10% off coupon in hand. Did some major damage; a ceiling fan for the scrapbook room, and some pre-built cabinets for the garage. Along with a couple of shelves for some basement storage. The garage cabinets are 24″ wide and that white-covered particle board. We were going to get the 48″ wide ones, but then discovered that each package weighed almost 200 lbs! So decided on the lighter 95-lb 24″ cabinets. We also got a couple of wicker chairs with cushions for the patio.

All of that fit into the back of the Ford Ranger nicely, although I did have to make an extra trip into Lowe’s for some wasp spray, since there was a small wasp nest in a corner of the truck tailgate. Then back home, where the Jensen gang came over. Jared helped unload the cabinet boxes, and the grandkids did their normal squeals of excitement whenever they see “Poppa” (that’s me) and “Grandma”.

All stayed for dinner; we did some steak BBQ with garlic bread and a simple salad. We visited for a while before the Jensen’s went off to watch the fireworks.

Sunday was the usual; leisurely morning, church in the afternoon, and a nice salad with marinated chicken. Then relaxing with the computers and TV.

On tap this week: putting together garage cabinets and bookshelves. And perhaps emptying some more boxes. That’s always fun, because, even though we tried labeling things as we packed them, there are still exciting discoveries when we open a box (“So that’s where that went!”)

Today’s chore was to finish the weeding in the back yard, and I was able to get that finished. The back yard is now weed-free, or at least weed-short. Since the surrounding lots in my little subdivision are not sold yet, my lot is surrounded by weeds. But at least I know the size of the yard (roughly), so I can start planning what is going to go where. Not planning on fencing the yard yet; I’ll wait for new neighbors to help with the cost. And I like the openness of the area without fencing.

Then, in a burst of energy, I decided to mow the front yard. A bit of weed whacking around the edges, and I fired up the new lawnmower for the second time. Got it all done, but I was a bit winded afterwards. Since my previous house had such a small yard, and it came with a cheap weekly ‘mow and blow’ service, my desk-bound body is not in that terrific shape (although I claim that ’round is a shape’). The new place gives me a bit of opportunity for a bit more exercise with yardwork, although I did opt for a propelled lawnmower. So no pushing, but I still have to walk.

The afternoon was spent with some updating of Jason’s music site (http://www.manimatronicrecords.com ) with the missing music links. Not sure why those links wandered off, but they are now working. There’s some minor updating needed for his ‘tribute’ site (http://www.jasonhellewell.com ) that is now higher up on the list. Jason was an accomplished self-taught electronic musician; we think that some of his compositions are quite amazing. It is, of course, sad that he decided to end his struggle with being bipolar. Whenever I hear some good electronic music, I think that he could have done so much more if he was still around.

This evening we went to a more upscale burger place (not really fancy, but good). The sky was a bit threatening, with dark clouds gathering. It looked like a good thunderstorm was brewing…and that was the result. A very hard downpour, with lightening flashes and thunder booming, lasting 10-15 minutes on the way home. The nice part about that was that it washed off all the bugs off the car from yesterday’s trip by Pam and Joelle (granddaughter) to Antelope Island. On the causeway home, they ran into a rain of insects (small bugs, not sure what kind), which attached themselves to the front of the car. But driving through the rain got rid of most of them.

When we got home, we had left a few windows open. The wind had driven in some rain, but a quick work with the carpet cleaner vacuum thing picked up the dampness in the carpet.

…back in the saddle….for today, anyway.

Today’s project was more weed-whacking in the back yard. Although the front yard is landscaped (well, a lawn and sprinklers, with a concrete edged area around the house with a few weeds), the back yard has never been improved since the builder levelled the lot. The result is a goodly pile of weeds.

Some of the weeds are quite impressive. There’s a few 4 foot tall prickly plants with purple flowers, some foxtails, and other varieties of unknown (to me) names. Many are 2-3 feet tall.

Over last week and this week, I have taken my new weed whacking machine out there, along with long pants, work boots, ear plugs, safety glasses, and a hat. All of those are necessary items; there is the occasional flying weed parts whizzing by my ears.

Today I got another 1/3 of the weeds cut down. There’s one more patch left, about 1/4 of the back yard. That’s a job for another day.

This afternoon, an approaching thunderstorm brought a lot of wind – 20mph, with gusts up to 45mph (according to someones’ weather station a few miles away). A lot of dust blowing from the deserts on the other side of the Salt Lake. It was windy and dusty enough that I had to use the safety glasses when I wandered outside. The advantage of the wind was that all the weeds that I have cut down have wandered off to places unknown.

The weed-eating was my big task of the day. I spent a bit of time on-line looking at the mail, and working on updating my late son’s music site. There were some missing music file links on the pages that he built (and I slightly modified and moved the hosting after his death). I still have to upload the changes. But sitting in the basement was nice; there is a large finished family room down here. I’ve got the recliner and the older 46″ LCD screen down here along with one of the DirecTV DVR’s), so it’s quite comfortable.

We’re basically moved into the new house. All the furniture is here; the replacement mattress came yesterday. We got a new one when we moved in, but it was a bit firm for me. I’ve been waking up (early; which is not what I expected when I retired) with stiffness in my upper back. So we traded for the softest mattress, which was delivered yesterday. I woke up this morning with less back stiffness, so maybe it will be a better mattress for me.

I’ve gotten all the computers hooked up here. The desktop computer and a small Windows 2008 server are set up in the corner of the basement in the area that has been roughed in for a kitchenette area. The wireless network connects to our two laptops, and a wireless Canon MP 620 printer/scanner that’s upstairs in Pam’s scrapbook room (one of the bedrooms upstairs). There’s a small laser printer on the desk downstairs that is connected to the desktop computer, but I have a wireless box for it that needs to be installed.

We’ve got one of the grandkids to spend the night (Joelle; age 9). That’s fun for them, and not too hard if you only have one of them. She had a dance recital two nights ago; there were about 20-25 different classes of varying ages (dancing, cheer leading, and tumbling), so the program was about two hour. But a fun time was had by all.

Tomorrow’s plan? Finishing up the weeding. Although there is a new thunderstorm due tomorrow (today’s was just wind in our area). It’s been an unusually wet June for this area, as for others. But I like the cooler weather. And the basement will be nice when it gets warmer outside.

Catching up on all the changes here.

Last week: Monday was the final packing day. The last 10 percent of the packing seems to take the most time. There were boxes everywhere.

On Tuesday, the two guys we hired to pack the truck arrived at 9 am. I called them Mutt and Jeff. They were just about as efficient. I thought it would only take about three hours to load the truck. They ended up taking over 7 hours. But the truck finally got loaded – we filled it up.

We had some help cleaning up the place. Once the house was emptied, the entire house was vacuumed, floors cleaned, etc. There were a few rooms that needed rug cleaning, so we arranged to have that done the next day.

We had thought that we would load the truck Tuesday, and travel on Wednesday. But we decided that was a bit too optimistic. There was some minor cleaning that needed to be done Wednesday, so we decided to stay at the hotel two nights instead of one. But we got it all done by noon. We left the keys and some notes for the new owner, and headed back to the hotel.

So we relaxed at the hotel. Wednesday night we had an impressive thunderstorms, which are unusual for the area. There were lightening flashes every few seconds, and a few brief downpours. An impressive show.

Thursday morning, it was back to the old house to get the other car (we left it in the garage). A final check around the house, and we were off in separate cars to Utah. The weather was really nice – partly cloudy, temps in the 70s (F), and a few very brief showers. We got to the Jensen’s house (daughter’s family) about 830pm.

So, homeless, we’ve been staying at their house while the new house gets ready for closing. There were a few minor delays, but we finally got to sign all the papers yesterday afternoon. The sellers were supposed to sign today. So the purchase should be finalized by the end of today.

Tomorrow (Thursday), the moving truck will arrive by noon. We’ll have some help unloading in the evening. And there’s lots of new furniture that will be delivered tomorrow.

And there’s lots of details that we’ve been working on: utilities, phones, Internet, satellite TV, etc. Lots of phone calls that Pam has made.

But, with any luck, Thursday night we’ll get to sleep in the new house.

And then the unpacking of boxes will begin.

Almost. Going into the last two weeks of the job; my last day here is the end of the month. I’ll still be available virtually by remote connection, but next month will be using up all the leftover vacation and sick leave time.

At the office, working on finishing up several projects, including documenting settings, etc. It’s unclear who will be supporting things, but I want to leave all the necessary information to get them started. And I am slowly cleaning out 23 years of stuff out of the office, along with the same amount of disk files that need to be deleted or saved.

On the home front, our house sale is waiting for the final underwriting of the buyer’s loan. They seem to be a bit backlogged, so it’s taking a few days longer than we thought. As for the new house, the builder has accepted our offer, and we’ve locked in the financing at 4 1/2%, which is a pretty good rate.

So we’ve planned on moving day to be the first week in June. Have arranged for a truck (from the www.u-pack.com guys, and some bodies to load it). We’ve made arrangements to give away some unneeded furniture to friends and relatives. Just about everything is in boxes piled high in the garage. A bit more packing is on the agenda tomorrow.

We’re making progress in the move. Exciting times.

Lots of changes. Our house is sold, and closes the middle of this month. We’re staying there (with the permission of the new owner, of course) until the end of the month.

We went back to Utah last weekend, and found a nice house close to the Jensen’s (daughter’s family). It’s actually a ten-minute walk away. A nice one-story ‘rambler’ with a full basement; three bedrooms upstairs, and two downstairs. One of the two downstairs bedrooms will be transformed into a nice scrapbook room for Pam (and visitors), the other will probably become an office area for me. The basement also has room for a family room that will be finished later.

Pam and I turned in our retirement (that’s a funny word in my mind — retirement is supposed to be for old people) papers yesterday. We’ve arranged for the moving truck and a couple of strong bodies to pack it neatly. The new house is going through the usual escrow stuff (inspections, loans, etc).

And there are boxes everywhere in our current house. We are about 80% packed, I think, but Saturday will be another packing day, including (probably) the rest of the garage and the office.

Trying to wind up some projects at work. Some are progressing well, others are just time-consuming.

Lots of changes.

Lots of changes…

We sold our house sold in about 30 days. Got a good offer, with a fairly quick closing date of mid-May. Nice couple with a teenage daughter that is excited about her ‘bedroom suite’ (the builder made one room out of two small bedrooms, so there is sort of a sitting area separate from the bed area). They are moving out from Florida.

The result is that there has been another flurry of packing. We packed up a lot of the house while de-cluttering to make the house ready for sellers to wander around. That meant that we had to keep the house really clean (nothing on the counters). That is a lot easier when it’s just the two of us.

Now that we have a sale, we’ve done some more packing. I worked on the garage last weekend; about 20 boxes worth. Had some help doing the bonus room which had a lot of books and DVDs in the bookcase area.

And we’re spending a lot of time with virtual searches of houses in the new area of Utah. Pam has been doing a lot of on-line searches, and last weekend we started funneling those possibilities through the Realtor in Utah. We made up a list of requirement to help out, and this weekend (and this week) we are fine-tuning the list a bit.

The next step is a trip to Utah to wander through the houses on our list. That will keep us busy for two days before we have to get back home for more packing.

The last day of physical presence at work will be the end of May, then I will use up vacation and sick time through June. The closing date on the house is mid-May, so it’s unsure where we’ll be living during the transition between old house and new house while I still have to be in town to work.

Perhaps there will be some room in Sacramento’s Tent City. I’ll have to ask Oprah.