ss_blog_claim=b1c8a347d19acb6069e7726e485dcc4d
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

No internet Update

*Coming to you from the Arlington Public Library.*

So, it's Tuesday, October 27th and I still have no internet. I have started notifying some of the winners so far of the blogoversary giveaways and I hope you all will continue to forgive my absence. I'm sure you know how frustrating this is for me as well. *sigh*

DH has started his new job, so for a first it is just AppleBlossom and me during the day. So far so good. I have read two books this week, and it's only Tuesday! I was unable to participate on-line in the 24-Hour-Read-a-Thon which was a real annoyance, but it was a joy to log on and find people had cheered for me anyway! That made my day. *grin* So, AppleBlossom is now about three months old. She is growing and going through another growth spurt, weee! We got out some pictures of me at age four last night, and she looks exactly like me! That's shocking, because before we could not really see it. I do not personally have in hand any photos of myself younger than age three, ultrasound not with standing, so I am bugging my mom to find some for me so that we can compare them.

I have been working on my computer offline and in addition to some FIRST tours, and various book reviews that I will start posting as soon as I have real internet (as AppleBlossom limits the amount of time we can spend in the library) you will get to see many new things. Some cloth diaper reviews from Kushies, Bambino Mio, Bummis and more as well as Glad Rags, Luna Pads, No Slippy Hair Clippy and Pediped too. There is also Smart Mom jewelry, Heart Strings, and others to come as well. And yes, of course, as promised more books to giveaway!

In the meantime, I plan to have some tours coming up in November from Waterbrook Multnomah as well including: Leaving Carolina, White Picket Fences, Faith & Fangs and a few CFBA tours like: Fit to Be Tied, The Prisoner of Versaille, and What the Bayou Saw. And of course many many tours from FIRST (if you are unaware, I post most all of FIRST tours as I am a FIRST Assistant Director...).

Once, again. Please forgive me!



*Coming to you from the Arlington Public Library.*

Monday, October 12, 2009

Moving tomorrow

I think I'm moving to a perfect place for me, but you tell me. Directly taken from the Town of Arlington's website.

Arlington has been called Shelby County’s best-kept secret and rightly so as it has remained a small quiet rural Town for two centuries. Despite its recent growth, the tranquility prevails in our neighborhoods while star-filled skies outshine street lamps.


First Settlement
Historical building

Settlers came in the area in the 1830’s and many of their descendants still live in Town. Originally known as Haysville, the Town was named after the original landowner, Samuel Jackson Hays, a nephew of President Andrew Jackson. The area began to grow with the development of the Memphis and Ohio railroad and the creation of Withe Depot within its boundaries. By 1856, about two hundred people called Haysville home, but growth ceased with the onset of the Civil War as our native sons joined The Cause, many never to return. Another nearby disaster, the outbreak of Yellow Fever in Memphis in 1878, also contributed to the stagnant population as the Town fathers quarantined this area, forbidding outsiders from entering the Town.


Historical building

In 1883, the name of the Town was changed to Arlington, a name suggested by Captain Henry Pitman. He had visited the national cemetery in Virginia and thought it was the most beautiful spot on the earth. Arlington is probably the only Town named for a cemetery!

The community received its charter from the State of Tennessee in December 1900, then with a population of slightly over 600. Like many small communities, Arlington suffered losses during the World Wars; the 1950 census shows only 465 residents, and the 1960 census lists 651. Arlington had 1,742 residents on its centennial. A special census conducted in early 2004 revealed that Arlington is currently home to over 5,000 people.


Community Development
Historical building

A real treat for the early citizens of Arlington was to board a westbound train for Memphis, sometimes becoming an overnight adventure in the big city. But, residents did not have a real need to visit the bigger city; the necessities of life could be found within its own Town square.

By the end of the 19th Century, the community boasted its own post office, physician, druggist, cotton gin, lumber store, several general stores, a blacksmith, a meat market, and an undertaker. The center of Town then, as it is today, was S.Y. Wilson & Co. In the early 1900’s, it furnished for its customers practically everything imaginable – meat, groceries, sewing notions, clothes, feed and seed. (Today it is primarily a hardware, feed and seed store.) Long-standing residents can attest to the changes that have been made.

This little historical town may no longer be a best-kept secret, but its people and its charm will continue to remind us all that we must preserve our past while planning our future.


Arlington Town Hall
5854 Airline Road
P.O. Box 507
Arlington, TN 38002
Phone: (901) 867-2620


Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Thoughts: Unemployment, New Job, Moving and an 8 wk old baby

Sanity? Seriously?
(I type this as the - "I do not believe in sleep away from Mommy's chest baby is in a front carrier.")

On June 16th (at 8 months preggo) I wrote:
It was about six months ago while eating lunch with my husband that I told him that I could not be any more perfectly happy. We just bought our first house in November. It had been over two years of really wanting to get pregnant and having it just not happen.

And now...

We moved in November 9th a wonderful weekend complete with menses. It was that cycle, and Thanksgiving night that God deemed we deserved my little AppleBlossom. This house is just where we were meant to be for this time in our lives. Apparently this will be the house I spent my pregnancy in, and just about only that...

Early on we got a false reading on an u/s dealing with nucal fold and had to endure several scary expensive specialist visits. All worked out, and as we were starting to relax into this pregnancy, my husband came home one day to tell me he had been laid off. In a division merger, the company that we always thought was fabulous and a dream to work for let go about 90 people in closing a division/merging it into another. With two months to go in my pregnancy, my fairy tell that had been shaken already by medical threats to my baby was just a bit worse.

In attempting to manage the stress... hoping that all will go well at this point... At 27 1/2 wks pregnant, I was diagnosed with
Gestational Diabetes Mellitus. Woohoo. So my ultra sensitive non existent appetite was now even more restrictive. I had to eat when I did not want to eat, I had to carefully observe what I ate and how much and what was in it and basically dissect everything. Just watching the food was not enough, so then I had to take a medicine that would drop my sugar too low and send me into fits that almost put me to fainting with horrible shakes and dizziness. Not to mention pricking my finger every four hours. All this for my last trimester of my first pregnancy. What a dream. (Yes, the end result is worth every drop of blog and sugar plummet).

After getting "notice," DH worked for two more months (mandatory to get the severance) and then has been home for two months. He spent those four months looking and interviewing. Every time we got a little sicker of hearing, "You really fit perfectly, but we're going to hire from within the company." Finally, one day we got two incredible offers on the same day. Our decision is a great company (better than his previous job even!) in Memphis, Tennessee.

Side Note: I love having him around, and having his help at the end of my pregnancy and first almost two months of AppleBlossom's life has been incredible and I would not trade it for the world. God knew what he was doing and I can definitely see the good in something that looked like there would be no good. And even though bits of my pregnancy was stressful and painful, she is perfect and worth it. (And that's not even going into my delivery story, go back to a previous post for that, oh and if you want more details on the u/s fiasco.)

*sigh* (Daddy gracefully removes baby and offers to hold her a while for me. Yay! Wow that's what 10-13lbs lighter feels like...)

So. Now. DH has a new WONDERFUL job! Yay!! It's in Memphis. Um. Okay. Adventure! Both of us were born and lived our whole lives (before college) in the same house in Georgia. Backgrounds fairly similar, but in GA. Now, we will both be moving out of state for a brand new experience that is both exciting and scary. With the idea of moving, what does my husband do? Well he has decided that he hates my cats.

After three years of marriage, and five years of a relationship with nary a word, he now hates the cats and has "no plan to move with them again." What they come with the house to the new owners? Are you kidding? GET OVER IT. *sigh* Am I suppose to give in? Is he being unreasonable? I want to make him happy. Is this one of those compromise issues, which one of us should compromise. HK has been in my life since I was in fifth grade. Yes, that means he was there through the awkward middle school, depressed high school, and roller coast college years. Now you want me to ditch him? He's 13 years old for goodness sake! Patches, she was born on the day we met and given to me as a gift from my friend for my 20th birthday. Yes, sometimes she decides that she would rather use the litter box for urine only and put her feces anywhere else on the carpet, yet she still likes to snuggle. *sigh* Nobody would take them if I tried anyway, (I half heartedly did try). In way of a response, I stopped trying to talk through it and started the preparations for taking them (up to date on vaccines - we were two months overdue due to oh wait, no money - and tranquilizers for the drive). Now he kinda talks about them as if they'll be there too...

Unemployment. It will take a while to trust that the job will be there. Also a month or some to get debts back in order. It's amazing how the only money in money out thing works, yet even when there is no money in, money still has to go out... Stupid Emory. That's another story for another time and a pittance of $19,000 that could have been spent elsewhere. (Did I mention my one semester was more expensive that his five years playing around in college???)

New Job. Very excited. Better benefits and a great salary. Life will be good and get even better.

Moving... I already touched on the stress of moving with the cats. Been there, over that. As mentioned we bought this house in November last year. It is our first house. We really kinda bought it in August, but did not get it until November (go back to previous posts to read about that). That was such an event that we were certain that we would not move again for several years. In the end we ended up with an incredible deal and really paid about 90k less than what the house should have sold for and planned to keep it for years and then one day make some of that money back. Well now it's on the market and our Realtor does not seem hopeful. Fabulous. I'm losing my 28,000 sq ft, 4 bed, 2.5 bath, with HUGE bonus room Craftsman style home. Why?! We cannot buy another house until this one sells and right now that's doubtfully soon. So we're off to rent a house or apartment.

We spent this weekend (Sunday - Tuesday) looking for rentals. We found one in our price. Much smaller but fabulous! It was the first one we looked at. Tuesday morning we called to say we wanted it. Well guess what. Someone who looked at the house a couple hours after we did is going to buy it. Well great. We spent the rest of Tuesday looking at refuse. Anything else in our price range is set at 2 bed 2 bath and previous smokers home. Great. Now it looks like we will have to find an apartment. Awesome. I now have to figure out how to put my almost 3,000 sq ft belongs into a 1,000 sq ft apartment. I no longer will have my mailbox meetings with the mailman. I no longer will have door bell rings from my deliveries. Nope, back to apartment life. You assume that's over once you buy a house, but no, it's back. Back to neighbors encroaching your personally space. Good luck getting that baby to stay asleep.

Now for the fun part. The movers are coming in 12 days. My life is going into multiple boxes in 12 days. I have no idea when I will see my books again. If we're in an apartment, DH said I get one bookshelf. HAVE YOU MET ME? Have you seen my TBR pile? And you're taking it away from me? Oh, and the quilts, the quilts are all going in storage. Well, that will get me to complete them. My UFOs apparently will stay UF (un finished objects).

What about my book reviews? How will I read books that I have no access to? How long will forwarding take? If they are coming UPS/Fedex they won't forward. Will we have time to come back to check for packages?? Are my publicists going to black list me for being late? How long will it take for me to catch up? *sigh*

I have 12 days left with my normalcy. I have 12 days left to figure out what baby clothes/items to keep out. How do I keep them out? How do I survive? Will we be living out of suitcases? Will we remember which boxes we need sooner rather than later? Oh... wait. One more thing... Where are we moving?? That's right, no destination as of yet. Well. Huh. So when the movers get here in 12 days, where are they going to take our stuff? When they called yesterday to set it up, they said, "So all we're missing is the destination address." Well. Huh. Me too.

Oh and for reference. No cloth diaper stores and no quilt shops.

Oh, and btw. AppleBlossom is now screaming her head off. (Yay for inconsolable gasey babies - DH is trying this shift...) Yeah that's right. Read all that remembering, there is an 8 wk old baby involved. Woohoo!!!

Thursday, November 13, 2008

I'm back!!!!

I'm so sorry about my absence! I have missed you all desperately. Boy do I have some great books to tell you about. I'm so worried that they will all come in a rush at you, but please take your time with them, they are so worth it!

I cannot tell you how great having my own house is! It is so wonderful in many ways that I never would have imagined! Today it took hours, but finally we got the internet up and running, and now my computer is practically overheating with all the action. There were a good 500+ emails and more than 2,004 things in my google reader to get to.. *sigh* Emails are sifted, and I'll get to the reader later...

Tuesday is my birthday! YAY!!!! I'll be a whopping 24 years old *snickers*. DH bought me a really fancy camera. Won't that be a great addition to my blogging life... Now if only I can figure out how it works... like I said... "fancy".

While I was gone, I hope you were able to keep up through some of the links I provided with the great books, but if not, be prepared in the next couple of days for a storm of book suggestions and previews. I promise it will not always be this way, there are just so many you need to see!

Please email me or leave me a comment. Tell me, what I have missed in your blogging world?

Want to see more quilts? Hear about house repair attempts? *snicker* Let me know, and I'll blabber on more and more... I just feel like exploding it has been so quiet!! I miss you!!

Oh and yes, do not forget about the new mailing address. Let me know if you need the update.

I'm back to blogging and back on Twitter. So find me here there and a little bit of everywhere...

OH!!!! AND CHEcK THIS OUT! I'm "published" per say. I have a column in the November edition of the Christian Fiction online magazine... GO SEE!!!


http://christianfictiononlinemagazine.com/home_publisher.html
Publishers Choice column features CFBA reviewer
Margaret Chind


Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Crazy life

Ok. Here is the official statement. Life is a little crazy right now. We finally got the house. So excited! But with that comes the craziness! We need to get the house ready before we can move. (It was a foreclosure and is not exactly clean...) Then there is the moving part. Then the unpacking part. I do not know when we will shut off the internet here, or when we will hook it up there so I'm afraid I might be out of the loop a bit, and I'm so sorry. I'm going to try to get on a post at least my cookie cutter posts, but they might have to wait. I'm sorry! Please forgive me! To make sure that you do not miss anything (most things, anyway) I want to give you a couple places to puruse while I'm out and about.

Deena's A Peek at my Bookshelf
FIRST Wild Card Tours - almost everyday
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance - every monday and wednesday

Here is a little bit of what you might have to wait until I return to appreciate:
The Irish Woman by Patti Lacy
The Rosary by Gary Jansen
Faking Grace by Tamera Leigh
How Harry Cast His Spell by John Granger
Forsaken by James David Jordan
The Shack by William Young
Blessed Are the Meddlers by Christa Banister
Rain Song by Alice Wisler
God's Prayer Book by Ben Patterson
Out of Her Hands by Megan DiMaria
Me Myself & I AM
Murder on the Ol' Bunions by S. Dionne Moore
Until We Reach Home by Lynn Austin
Charting the Course by Bruce Howard
Picture Perfect by Beth Wiseman
One Holy Night by J.M. Hostcheler
League of Superheroes by Stephen Rice
Church as a Safe Place by Peter Holmes and Susan Williams
The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner

So look for them when I'm back around! There will be random posts I'm sure, but when I'm really fully back. I'll let you know!

Please pray for everything to go smoothly!

Monday, October 27, 2008

New Snail Mail

It's official. New snail mail addy! Email me to get it.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

We Bought a House!!!!

Publicists and Influencer lists, PLEASE TAKE NOTE!!!!

We bought a house! I will have a new mailing address. Please e-mail me cherryblossommj (at) gmail [dot] com to make sure you have that correct mailing address!

I do not want you to lose money shipping a book to a wrong address and having it returned to you! I also do not want to lose my chance to preview and review any fabulous books meant to come my way!

I will still have access to my current address for some time, but please be ready to make the change!!!

Questions: email me cherryblossommj (at) gmail [dot] com

In Christ,

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Update on the House


Tomorrow morning we are doing a walk through of the house after 8:00, then at 11:00 we are meeting with the lawyers to close. Please pray!!!!



Friday, August 15, 2008

MOVING

Publicists and Influencer lists, PLEASE TAKE NOTE, we are in the process of buying a house. If all goes as planned in late September, early October I will have a new mailing address. Please e-mail me cherryblossommj (at) gmail [dot] com to make sure you have that correct mailing address! I do not want you to lose money shipping a book to a wrong address and having it returned to you! I also do not want to lose my chance to preview and review any fabulous books meant to come my way! Within the next two weeks I should know the final details.

Questions: email me cherryblossommj (at) gmail [dot] com

In Christ,

Margaret (MJ)