I'm moving to Smithsburg!

We officially have a place to live again. Anna told me today that we got the house in Smithsburg. The land lord for that house is going to e-mail her the lease agreement, and they'll sign when we've got the security deposit paid. Don't know exactly when we can start moving in, but it'll be either the last week of August or the first week of September.

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.

Finally, an Update

A lot's been happening the last couple of weeks, not all of it productive in the strictest sense of the word.

As of last week, I've joined a Buffy RPG game on Thursday nights. The story is set after season 3 episode 4, and I'm playing Faith. So far, we also have a Willow and an Oz, and room for two more players.

The Friday night game is going well--last weekend, we spent a "year" training and fighting in the plane of Akron (don't know if that's the correct spelling or not). My character, a ranger named Laina, gained a point of strength (for a total of 16) and lost a point of constitution because she'd been beat up so much (for a total of 12). Everybody also was given a level of dual-classing in fighter, with most of the extra stuff that comes from leveling. Next time I level though, I'm going to have to decide whether I want to be ranger 5/fighter 1 or ranger 4/fighter 2. Not much of a huge dilemma, but it'll be fun to figure out which would be best.

After we all figured out how dual-classing worked and made the necessary changes to our character sheets, we got to another plane of existence and found ourselves in Sigil, the City of Doors. We looked for a way to get back to Eberron (the world we're playing in), but it would cost us 500 gold per person, and even I'm short at least 80 gold (I'm the least broke of the party), so we looked for a job to do. This guy sent us to find some magic fungus in a cave rumored to have Medusae in it (wouldn't that be Gorgons though?), but when we got there, the Medusa was an illusion--we were actually fighting Driders instead! Laina took 10 points of temporary strength damage, 7 hit points of damage, and got stuck in a web for the last half of the combat. Then we were done for the week. I can't wait to find out what happens to us next! We still have to find that fungus.

When I got home on Friday, I watched episodes 3-14 (plus special features) of Firefly. Yes, you read that right, 3-14. I was so psyched about finally getting to watch the whole series (what little there is of it) that I didn't want to turn it off and go to sleep--so I didn't. The special features finished around 9 Saturday morning, so I put Serenity in the player and started it going. About fifteen minutes later, I was dead to the world. Good thing I'd already seen the movie.

Three hours later, Anna came over asking me stuff about Pittsburgh and New York, but since it was my "stay home and clean" week, I told her I wasn't going to come.

I went back to sleep for a while, and somewhere in there I remember eating some leftover boxed mac 'n' cheese, but I pretty much stayed asleep until around 5:30 on Sunday morning.

I layed there in bed for a while with my eyes closed, 'cause I couldn't make them stay open, then I popped MacGyver in and watched an episode before I went downstairs to get some cereal. I watched another episode while I ate, and by then it was about 7:30. There hasn't been much luck on the roommate finding front, so I started packing my movies and books. I got all of my stuff on the first floor packed up, plus a good portion of my books on the third floor, before I ran out of empty packing tubs. (I use the Rubbermaid 21.5 gallon things.)

At that point, I was kind of physically exhausted, but nowhere near sleepy, so I watched a couple more episodes of MacGyver before heading out.

Dinner at Mom & Dad's was kind of quiet, what with Anna and Kayla not there, and Kimba taking her dinner to her room. I pretty much hung out with Dad and Jason for the evening, and then after dinner we played video games. Kayla got in around 11 or so (Anna left again after dropping her off), and then I went home a little later.

Before I went to sleep last night, I watched the last two episodes of MacGyver season 2, so I can put that season in the tub now, and start on season 3 next time I watch.

I always pack my movies and books first, because no matter how much I like to have them out and organized, I know that they're actually the least necessary items in my possession. So I pack them first, and then I pack everything else with increasing necessity over the course of a month, ending with things that I absolutely need from one day to the next. And I put sticky labels on the lid of each tub with semi-detailed (but concise) descriptive words. That way, I'm not stressing about losing something, or not being able to find it later. Plus, I'll know which rooms to put which tubs in the next time I have a place to put them and I won't need a million cardboard boxes, just a dozen or two Rubbermaid tubs.

You're probably wondering where that drabble I posted earlier today came from.

Well, they added a new forum to the Haven message boards specifically for creative writing. So I suggested that we have weekly drabble challenges where someone contributes a challenge word, and anybody who wants to posts a drabble based on that word. The first word was "silver," so I got to thinking of thieves and then I thought to myself that it's pretty much a given that you should never trust a thief, but you should never hire a thief who has naught but two coins to rub together. And then I wondered if that were necessarily true, and decided to write my drabble based on the assumption that it wasn't.