US POST OFFICE

So we sold our house--and furniture--and moved. The house closed earlier than expected but I'd put in an address change the week before. We'd already rented a post office box in our new city so we'd have a forwarding address and thought we were all prepared.

The nice people at our island post office took my address change card and stopped delivering mail as per my request. (This happened two or three days before closing.) We assumed in a week or so, we'd be getting our forwarded mail in our new post office box.

Not so.

A week passed. No mail. Then ten days. No mail.

I went to the post office branch where we had our box and inquired.

Seems for some reason, a hold had been put on our mail. A hold? What kind of hold? Why? Was it because of my Indivisible activity?

Everyone denied responsibility. We were advised to wait a few more days and see if it showed up.

After two weeks, we inquired again. Nope. Still no mail, they said. Sometimes it takes a while.

I had gotten a couple of emails saying they'd sent confirmation of our address change to our old address and our new address. Then I got an email saying my online account was locked, but if I'd put in the confirmation code listed in the letter, I  could access it again.

By this time, I was getting paranoid. I went back to the post office and complained that our mail was being held and told them about the email saying I had to put in a code that I wasn't able to get. A visiting supervisor promised she'd look into it and call me no matter what she found out.

After a few more days, I printed out the email and took it to the post office, telling them that I'd be happy to put in the confirmation code except that the letter sent to the old address had probably been forwarded to the new address.

And I couldn't get mail at the new address because someone had put a hold on our box.

Maybe I came across as a little unhinged. Anyway, the clerk looked a little alarmed. He sent me to the main post office but promised he'd look in the back and if he found our mail, he'd personally put it into our box. I believed him.

The supervisor at the main office was the same one I'd encountered a few days before at the branch. She said there was nothing she could do, that our mail hadn't shown up, and suggested I call the old post office and make sure they were doing their job.

I knew they'd done their job but I called. It was so nice to hear a friendly voice! Yes, he said, the address change was in the computer. He took several minutes to go to the back and check the carrier's mail. No, he said, there was no mail in it for us. Our mail was being forwarded as per my instructions.

On the off-chance the branch clerk had found our mail, we went by the next morning and checked our box. And there it was! A big wad of junk mail, bills, and two refund checks from utilities we no longer use.

We're still expecting a couple more checks and a car title, but at least we have hope they'll eventually show up.

I hate complaining about the post office--this president's as likely as not to cut its funds out of the budget and I do use it a lot. But some branches go out of their way to help while others...

PACK RAT

Still pooped from moving and company may be coming Memorial Day so not much time to blog. I did want to get this in though.

In case you don't know, PACK RAT is one of those companies that bring a storage bin to your house. You load up all your stuff, they cart it to one of their nice warehouses, and store it for you. Then, when you're ready for your possessions' return, they bring the storage bin back (to the old address or a new one) and you unload all your precious things.

A perfect solution for that gap between moving from the old house into the new. Sad they can't choose which stuff needs to never return, but I digress...

Somewhere during our move, we happen to have lucked into a miniature replica of the Pack Rat storage bin. It's cute as can be and it works perfectly for storing my salt and peppers. And here it is. Advertising and all.

BACK YARD

Our back yard is lovely. Miniscule but lovely. Whoever lived here before us planted very carefully, because all of a sudden it's burst into bloom.

Stepping out the back door and looking to the left, we have lovely yellow daylilies:

Then, slightly to the right, a fragrant jasmine:

Past the jasmine are roses and some purple flowery bushes:

And toward the end of the walk, one lone poinsettia:

And the cats are licking their chops over the birds they see out the sliding doors. They keep begging to go out, but I keep telling them they can't. But I think they're going to like it here anyway.

That's assuming we ever get settled.

PAINT

I've been looking at paint. I know today's colors are rich and bold and vivid, that pastel is out. But I like light colors and luckily so does my guy. (He's learned from living with me!)

Today we got a sample of pale, pale gray I want to use throughout the living room, dining and kitchen areas. My guy is obligingly painting a wall with it this afternoon so we can see what it looks like. At least I hope he is. He finally got all the tiny little shelves down. To his horror, they were glued to the wall so part of the sheetrock peeled off that he now has to fix.

Yesterday the plumber spent all afternoon wrestling the old hot water heater out of the attic. Oh, and it seems the attic stairs are only wide enough to get a skinny water heater replacement. It's on order and should be here next Friday. Since the flooring was kind of bending under the weight of the old one, we're having to reinforce that, too.

The dishwasher's sitting out in the middle of the floor because it wasn't level and needs to be fastened in securely. He's got to put down some plywood and a block of wood in the back. Or something like that. I don't understand these things. Luckily, he does.

He's also getting bids on painting, roofing, replacing fascia, tile, carpet and wood flooring... The cats and I are staying in our condo where it's nice and cozy, though I occasionally run over to look at carpet or take him a sandwich.

The cats have no idea, heh heh heh. They think they're settled for life.

LAST CHANCE TO WIN EARRINGS

Just to remind you:

Today and tomorrow will be the last day to comment with the word 'earring' in your post to have a chance to win these earrings.

I'm putting the giveaway on hiatus for a while after this month. It has brought some more traffic to my blog, but I'm not sure how much. Anyway, looks like we're going to be moving--yes again!--and I'll be pretty busy  with other things. But maybe this fall, I might bring it back. We'll see.

Anyway, here are this month's pair you might win:

These would be perfect for the formal dinners the Warwicks host in WARWICKS OF SLUMBER MOUNTAIN.

Although I have a similar pair I wear with jeans so it depends on the person, I suspect.

HOUSE UNDER CONTRACT!!!

After a year, we have our house under contract. Yeah, it was finalized on Friday the thirteenth and yeah, there are some details to be worked out.

But...

Things are going okay and we're hopeful of a closing next month. So we're going up to pack some books, and other odds and ends, and to bring some things down here. Winter clothes, canned goods, suitcases, files, stuff like that. We also have to go through and do away with stuff we don't need. We've done this once but in the year we've lived up there, we've added more stuff, lots of which we don't need.

Have you ever noticed how much we accumulate? And how much of it we seldom use or how much we get tired of right away? We tried to be good, we really did. But it didn't work out.

I'm glad someone wants to buy our house. Much as I've loved it and the lake, it's time to leave. But this moving is the pits.

Wish someone else could pick out what we need to keep and what we need to throw away. And then move it and throw it away! I bet we'd never know what got thrown out.

MOVING

Still moving. It will never end. Go up to the lake and take stuff, come back down, get more stuff, take back up...

The cats are scheduled to go soon. They are about the last thing down here. Been putting off taking them because of the ordeal in bringing them down.

Then we overdosed one, didn't dose the other enough. She slept for three days. He yowled for six hours. Hoping to strike a happy medium going back.

Air still not working up at the lake and neither is the thingie we need for internet connections. My guy's seething and is sending it back. Maybe the replacement won't be bad.

Tired but glad to be back down here for a few days.