We is moved!

It's official! We are homeowners! Yipee!! Mortgage Payment!

The move went pretty much as perfectly as one could hope for - which was a nice counterbalance to the day of fun I had waiting on the Time Warner installation and dealing with the customer service reps the completely apathetic worker who pretended to sympathize with me. I already devoted about 230 tweets to this subject so I'll move on. Maybe.

Friday our team of movers showed up - BJ & Minez - and we went to dinner and then sat around and stared at each other. Boy, life without a TV, huh? The boys, including Z and my father-in-law, were pretty frickin amazing as far as a moving crew goes. Hubby had the truck in the driveway by 9, it was loaded by 10:30, at the new house and empty by 12:30. Cap it off with a visit by the ice cream truck chiming it's merry little bells down the street (PUSH POP!!! what what), and it was pretty much the most efficient and wonderful moving experience ever. Also, no TVs were dropped this time.

The moving crew, big fans of the now EMPTY truck.

Ice Cream Truck? Seriously? Best neighborhood ever.

What it took to move us: 26 foot truck, 2 CRV (full of clothing, pillows, camera, banana bread, etc, all things I did not trust to go into said truck), an Accord with all paintings, pics, mirrors in backseat, and a pick-up truck with our elliptical and lawn mower.

PS, there's just TWO of us. Yea.

And the pathetic thing is, I didn't feel like we own a lot of stuff until this move. I'm the queen of ebaying, and I'm constantly paring down my closets and warding off the accumulation of excess clutter. Yet, it took no less than 4 vehicles to transport just the two of us across town. What gives?

On a related note, see my ebay store! New and exciting stuff being posted by the minute! Eh?

After we moved in and chowed down on push pops, the boys went back to the old house to do some cleaning. Minez will forever hold a special place in my heart for cleaning the laundry room floor where the washer & dyer were located. While they were gone, my in-laws went to town unpacking the kitchen while I finished the rest of the boxes in the downstairs. By 7 pm, we had burgers on the grill, friends showing up with wine & guacamole, and the downstairs kind of looked like humans could live there. Nothing like having guests over on the first day to send you into an unpacking flurry.

You have to prioritize the order you unpack things.
Sheets & towels can wait.

I think I was on an adrenaline high, because I even made the most obscenely organized kitchen-overflow closet. If Williams-Sonoma had a 8x3 foot store, it would look exactly like my closet. I can't wait for Jamie, queen bee organization, to see it. (Yes, J, your approval on my closet space means a lot to me.) Last night, we sat on our back deck listening to the nothing-ness of living out in the country. I have come a long way, baby! From the shock trauma center in Baltimore, to the sounds of the cityscape in DC, to the rush of I-40 in our old house to.... CRICKETS. I can hear crickets. Awesome. We just keep looking around the place going "this is ours? Seriously? We get to keep it??"

My little slice of heaven, with some really fugly patio furniture, unfortch.

The only downside is that I find myself not wanting to be at work because there's about a zillion home projects I want to tackle while I still have the motivation of novetly. Including our bonus room.

Overheard on moving day: "Where does this go?" "Um, I don't know, put it in the bonus room."

Yea, that room. Sigh.

Come visit.

Dear Lucky Stars, Thanks. Love, Megs

Losing your camera and license in a cab is never a good idea, but it’s an especially terrible idea when you’re headed out of the country the next day. This is exactly what happened to me on my wedding night. After we were kicked out of our reception sight, the revelers from our party relocated to Foothills Brewery, and then eventually to Burke St Pizza. (Yes, wedding dress, bar sludge, pizza grease? Don’t know what I was thinking. Hey, you only wear it once, who cares what you get on it at 2 a.m.!) Somewhere in the midst of all this, I left a wristlet containing my driver’s license and camera in the backseat of a cab. Fortunately I did not have any credit cards – I guess I assumed the white dress would sort of be a “free pass” for having to pay for anything. (It was. NTS: wear more often?)

Just going for a stroll up Burke St.

The next day I frantically called around to the different cab companies. “Can you remember what cab you were in?” Um, no, they all sort of look the same from inside, BUT I’m willing to guess if you put out an APB to your cabbies and ask which one shuttled around the BRIDE last night, you’ll narrow it down to one or two. After three or four cab companies said no one could recall having an adorably sweet woman in a poufy white dress in their backseat, we gave up. My passport would suffice for my airport ID and my mom lent me her camera for our honeymoon. I wasn’t too frustrated about my ID, since I had to replace it upon returning anyway – new last name and all. And, although I was upset to lose my camera, to me the priceless part of a camera would be the pictures – so, considering I had paid someone to walk around shooting pictures of the last 10 hours of my day, I felt confident that those would be replaced. Mostly I was just mad at myself and embarrassed – I was sober after all, and who leaves things in cabs when they’re sober? I pride myself on being someone who rarely misplaces thing (one cell phone, ONE… I know Matt is going to remind me of this, so I might as well “out” myself)… so I was just super annoyed at myself for losing it. We took off the next morning for Greece , and while I had plenty of other things on my mind that week (Ancient ruins!! Jeep tours of volcanoes!! New husband!!!!!) in the back of my mind was the nagging annoyance at losing my stuff.

Judging from my happy expression, this might be right about the time I realized it was missing.

Our return trip was exhausting and after nearly 24 hours of travel, including connections from Venice to Frankfurt to Newark to Charlotte (oh my!), and then driving from Charlotte to Winston, we walked into our house at 2 a.m. There, sitting on the corner of my coffee table in full view, was MY CAMERA AND LICENSE. I literally fell to my knees in shock and gratitude and a little bit of delirium and just kept going “What the! What the!” Part of me thought it was a dream, and when I woke up the next day I had to check it was still there.

The next day when I checked my email I found out one of my sorority sisters (who I had no idea was even living in Winston) got in the cab RIGHT AFTER ME and found my wristlet. When she saw the ID inside was me, she decided to hold on to it rather than turn it into the “lost and found” of the cabbie . Thank you, thank you, thank you brilliant Chi O sister. The next day she promptly drove out to my house (conveniently listed on my ID) and delivered it to my other friend who was house-sitting, who left it on the coffee table for me to find when I returned. I could not believe my good fortune that someone I knew would get into a cab right after me! It was almost too good to be true. I still think about that day as one of the greatest “gifts” of good fortune I have ever received.

What is the luckiest things that has ever happened to you?

Ready, Set, MOVE!

So hey internets, guess what... we are MOVING!

After about a bajillion saved entries on listingbook, endless Sundays spent going to open house after open house and creating price per square foot excel sheets like it was my job (or, you know, at my job), we finally found "The One." Kids, here's a tip you should know about house hunting: it is nothing like the HGTV show. You do not go to 3 nearly-perfect homes in one afternoon with your endlessly perky relator, you do not have to narrow down your decision going "hmm, do I want the granite countertops or do I prefer the extra big garden tub?" and you do not sit patiently in a coffee shop and wait for the counter offer to come after one commercial break. In fact, if you just take all those things and apply the opposite rule to them, you would have home buying.

(Although, we did have a very patient and wonderful realtor. And I'm not just saying that because she might follow my blog.)

Once we settled on the house, the process of mortgage application simply required turning over every piece of information about yourself including a DNA sample, your childhood pet's name, and how many visits to Starbucks you make each month (too many!! i'm sorry!! I'll stop if you'll give me a mortage.) via fax machines to strangers. So you know, just more FUN. I suppose this is the backlash of the former free for all mortgage industry, and I am thankful that change is so very transparent, but SHEESH....

While we were at the beach we got word that our mortgage was approved. We are all set to close on WEDNESDAY and move next weekend. NEXT WEEKEND! Holy crapballs.

So I came home Thursday from the beach, and I had already taken yesterday off to do a wellness workshop at a staff retreat for a company here. I'm glad I had that day off, because we started packing yesterday. It's been a whirlwind.... but we should be in our new house next weekend! We've got friends and some family members coming to help lift heavy things and unpack next weekend; then another friend arrives the weekend after that to stay for the week ---> graduation. Graduation Saturday we should have approximately ~15 people here for Matt's grad party. So you know... nothing like hosting a party in your house 2 weeks after moving in to force you to figure out what box you packed the napkin rings in. NTS: LABEL THINGS!!

Welcome back from vacay. Time to get moving. Literally.

F-Stop Sunrise

In other news, I haven't been up this early all week, and I took advantage of the quiet of the morning to play with my camera settings and capture the sunset. I'm still getting mixed up between F-stops and apertures, and I should probably just RTFM, but I've been going more along the lines of just mash buttons and twirl settings until I get it right. Here's what I gots.

Just peeking.

A front row show to His glorious creation.

In the neighbor's windows.

Compliments of my mom: caught in the act, snuggie & all.

Reality Check: The Beach Version

So after the initial excitement of family beach week, one would hope that the week had had it's quotas of OMG moments. The next couple days of beach week passed by in a blur of SPF 30, which library book should I read?, carrying squirmy beach towel wrapped burrito babies back to the house, and rapid fire rounds of Pictionary around the table after dinner.

Then yesterday, we were lying on the beach when my uncle, looking up at the sky, said “Hey look at those weird clouds…they look more like smoke.” Sure enough, it turns out about 3,000 acres of land to the north of us, including a bunch of houses, 2 golf courses and some forest areas, ended up burning in 3 massive wildfires that burned from about noon until early this morning.

Standing on the walkway from our house to the beach we could see the flames licking up in the air behind all the high rise hotels up in Myrtle.
(We’re south, closer to Murrells Inlet)

My friend, who lives down here, was visiting for dinner and as we’re watching the news she’s all, "Hmm, that's near my house... weird." Sure enough she goes home after dinner and there’s a sign on her apartment door that says something along the lines of “well you don’t have to leave, but you probably should.” (Funny, I remember the same quote being said towards the end of most of the frat parties I attended in college.) The fires were about a 1/2 a mile in the woods behind her apartment, so about midnight last night she and her 5 lb Yorkie returned and bunked up with me. It was a rather sleepless night as the little pup was all :::Timmy down the well::: whine whine whine all night.

I woke up at 5 with her this morning so she could go back and check her apartment – fortunately it’s still there and I think the fires are finally out. No word on how they get started, and I'm sad for all the people who have lost homes or businesses in the blazes.

What a week. I’m about to go have my fourth cup of coffee and there’s a 3 yo hovering over my shoulder going “CAN I SEE THE PINK PHONE AGAIN???” and a the 2 yo is hollering from the other room “COME FIND ME MEGGY COME FIND ME.”

I should take vacations more often. They make me miss the relative calmness of the life I was just declaring INSANELY CHAOTIC a week ago. NTS: Children, head injuries and natural disasters most DEFINITELY trump balancing working, wife-ing, running, softball, blogging and wine drinking.

Dear Self, You Have It Easy. Love, Your Life.

Big Family. THANKFULLY, Even Bigger House.

It's been a little windy the last two days, so we've been at our pool rather than on the beach but hey, turns out you can still get a wicked sunburn without getting any sand in your swim suit. I SWEAR I USED SPF 30. Small children clambering on you = stealthy sunscreen removal process.

The fam that eats clams together stays together.
(Because there's only one butter dish, so you have to huddle together real close.)

There are 20 of us here in one house - but the house is huge, and there's these little nooks (i.e. where I am hiding with my computer, although the 4 yo found me hiding a minute ago and asked me to play.) There are 5 children under the age of 5 -like little stair steps they go 5 yo, 4 yo, 3 yo, 2 yo, 7 mo. If there was ever a "are you ready for parenthood?" boot camp, this is it. (Answer: I better get a dog.)* The smallest one is the snuggliest sweetest girl ever.... DANGEROUS. If I could get a guarantee my first would be like that, I'd pop one out tomorrow.

Who know drool was the secret potion of love?
And also, sunburned, I know.

*Family factoid: At the age of 25, this was my Grandma's life. 5 children under the age of 5. Oh, and she couldn't drive a car. Suddenly, the biting sarcasm and penchant for Dewar's is much, much better understood.

Just five of the seven siblings. (#'s 1, 3, 5, 7 & 4.)

Blog: The Beach Version

We are at the beach. We are happy.