What Happend to July?

Goodness, it looks like I forgot to post for more than a month!

And I was so hoping to have at least one post on this blog for each month this year. Oh, well. It's not really important.

The Haven 4th of July party was great, and for my birthday on the 23rd, I borrowed the sjoelbak from Grandma S. I took it to the Haven, and taught anyone who wanted to learn (and wasn't too busy preparing for Pennsic) how to play. It was much of the fun.

For those of us who didn't go to Pennsic, there was the "Anti-Pennsic Pool Party" on the 31st, which Carl threw at his parents' house. That was great--it had been a long time since I got to talk to some of the people who were there, since I mostly end up in the private gaming room on Thursdays for Brian's neolithic D&D game.

The three of us found out either late in July or early this month that our land lord is raising our rent. We can't afford to pay the higher rent, so Anna's been looking for a new place for the four of us (me, Anna, Tim and Dylan) to live.

So far, I've seen one place that we all liked--in Knoxville--and Anna and Tim went to see a place in Smithsburg that they say I would probably like. We haven't heard anything from the people who own the Knoxville house, but the owners of the Smithsburg house are definitely looking over the rental application, because there have been phone calls made to at least Anna's work, and one other person.

We're definitely going to be out of this duplex before September 1st though, so I started packing this past Sunday. The way I pack for moving is last-in-first-out. First, I pack the most non-essential items I own, and then I work my way from those to the stuff in my bedroom, which is usually the stuff I use most often and/or need daily.

Once everything has been moved to the new house, the first things I unpack are the those daily/most-often-used things, and then I go backwards(-ish) to the first things I packed originally. On Sunday, I started by packing my books. As much as I love to read, I know that my books are the absolute least essential things I own.

Once I had all of my books packed, I packed up all of the movies in the basement (Anna's, Tim's and mine), and then I packed my music stuff.

All I have left to pack now is the stuff in the laundry room, the paperwork and office supplies in/on my desk, my extra bedding from the linen closet, my stuff from the bathroom, and the absolute essentials--my bedroom. When I get around to doing that packing, everything but the bathroom and the bedroom will be done at once, and will probably take less than an hour. The last bits will be done the day before I plan to sleep at the new place--wherever that will be--and will be unpacked as soon as it gets there.

I made it!

Sunday marked exactly five months since I moved into the townhouse in Dearbought. Yesterday marked exactly two years since I started working at PublishAmerica. I've survived!

Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal days.

Wednesday, the fourth, I woke up around eleven, left an IM for Ryan saying "Happy Fourth!" even though by that time it was already the fifth for him, and then got ready to go to Mom & Dad's house.

Got to Mom & Dad's around 3 or 3:30-ish, and then me, Dad and Jason drove down to Grandma's house for dinner. Dad was going to be grilling, but it rained, so he just cooked hamburgers, hot dogs and bratwurst on Grandma's stove. Other than the family members who live in Grandma's house (Grandma, Aunt Tammy, Aunt Peggy, Uncle Dan, Katrina and Michael), Aunt Barbara was the only other person there. Uncle Andy's now in Utah, and CJ and Danielle were out visiting him. Tim was elsewhere. We were going to watch Independence Day when we got home, but Kimba was watching Project Runway, and Dad had a headache, so we didn't watch the movie.

As I said, yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of my hiring at PublishAmerica. I asked one of my bosses how they were going to go about scheduling my review (since I've been working in the other building for the better part of the last three weeks). She said that they have a list of people who still have to have their own reviews, so they hadn't forgotten me, and they'd contact me when they were ready to schedule my review. It's all good.

I decided to change banks. I've now got a checking and a savings account at Wachovia. I have yet to transfer more than the minimum starting deposit to either account though. I'm waiting until after July 21 to tell the HR people at work that I'm changing accounts (for my direct deposit), because that's when Amazon will take the money out of my old account for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. After that, I'll just have to fill out a new direct deposit form (I'm going to have it deposit somewhere from $50-100 every paycheck directly into savings), then change my records at Progressive so that they withdraw from the correct account. The rest, I usually pay myself, either by phone or by mail, so I won't have to worry about changing their records, just making sure I use the right checks and the right check card.

I'm on chapter twenty (out of thirty) of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'm trying to draw it out so that I'm not tempted to read something else between books six and seven. I figure, since I'm taking off of work on the 13th (to run some errands as well as to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), that leaves nine work days. I can usually read one chapter per lunch break at work, so that's nine chapters. I'll just read the last chapter of book six on Saturday the 21st before book seven comes. That just means I'll have to find other things to read and/or do at home before then.