How are YOUR holidays going?

Pretty much covers it

More pet torture here.

I love this town.

There are only two pizza shops but they both deliver. We bought locally today (groceries, hardware) and tonight I’m going with Pizza Hut. Lame, I know, but I love their breadsticks.

Our TV finally showed up today and it’s pretty spectacular. We also changed out the very ugly 80s style light fixtures on the hallway and bedroom ceilings. All of the guest rooms have been made up (as of Sunday they will both be occupied) and I’m slowly figuring out where I’m going to hang our pictures and artwork.

All bedrooms have a lamp. We have sufficient rugs to get through the house without ruining the floors. I have worked up a makeshift pantry. I even baked some cookies today.

A majority of the big things have been crossed off of our to-do list and it’s just a matter of unpacking boxes further and determining if I need a chest of drawers.

It was snowing to beat the band this morning.

Piper and I went for a walk.

Right near the house

We’re waiting for the TV to arrive, so I have been doing odds and ends around the house. I posted some pictures of the basement areas and will probably get back to unpacking some boxes real soon. That or looking for a good samosa recipe. Or baking gingerbread. O, the options!

Watched The Mentalist this week and felt like the episode was sort of meh. I mean, the flashback thing was a weird addition – at least with the superfuzzy light – and I didn’t really think that Sophie and Patrick had any sort of chemistry. The part at the end, though, when Lisbon realized she had maybe made the wrong kind of joke was phenomenal. The two of them are just fantastic together, nonverbally. I still heart the show but it was definitely not the strongest ep.

Mountain time is totally jacking up my TV schedule – that and a lack of DVR. Hopefully I’ll get all that figured out – or be able to watch on the internet when I get a spare minute that doesn’t involve boxes or snow.

Local photos, by request

Since Middle-Aged-Woman asked for them, here are some photos from our outing today.

Not far from home

deep in thought

And if you ever wanted to know what it’s like to drive across Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska – here you go:

yes, all the central states look the same

The only difference was the amount of snow and there was surprisingly little pretty much everywhere until we were west of Denver. You can probably imagine how exciting that drive was.

I’m here!

I have finally arrived in Leadville. Well, I arrived in Leadville yesterday. It took approximately 24 hours of driving but was largely uneventful.

My awesome friends in Saginaw gave me a gift of meaningful road snacks and a great mix CD. What are meaningful road snacks? The Dark Chocolate Raisinets that a guy at the movie theater told me were “the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.” The Ho Hos that Spouse asked me to buy for Carly, because Carly really wanted them, but when I got home it turned out they were just for Spouse. The Mint Milano cookies that are my favorite. You get the picture.

The mix CD had memorable songs from memorable events in the last three years, which was fantastic. I pretty much jammed out all the way across country. And the first thing I did (once I was functional) was hook up the wireless connection. Because I’m a geek like that (not internet obsessed or anything).

Today we’re taking our guests out and around the local area, hopefully eating some great food, and picking up odds and ends. And then spending the next three weeks unpacking boxes.

Nobody cares

That I’m officially done with school for the semester, but I am. My joke of a paper (more like a 5 page book report) is finished and now I just have to turn it in.

I also have to get the oil changed in my car, pick up some paint supplies, prime the bathroom, paint the bathroom, (hopefully) get the online billpay for our new bank set up, wire money to the new bank, close the old bank account, cancel satellite and internet services, throw away/donate food items, sweep the house, bag up and put out the trash, collect the windchimes, sort and pack all the things that have to be packed in my car, and lower and tie on the canoe.

Probably there are some things I’m forgetting. Like teach yoga tomorrow.

I woke up this morning a little sleep-drunk, so I’m headed to bed now. You don’t ever really catch up on sleep so I’m going to try and stave off the deprivation, at least. I also uploaded some (but not all) of the holiday music.

WTF H$liday Mix update

It is completed. It is excellent. It is not uploaded to imeem because I have been doing mover stuff all day and now have to cram for a Micro final tomorrow morning, right after I teach yoga tonight.

I have not had a nap; I have not cried. I cannot promise that one or both of these things will not happen later.

Okay, that’s melodramatic. I’m not going to cry unless Carly wants to watch P.S. I Love You.

Maybe when I start procrastinating later, I’ll upload.

The yoga of moving

I’m only half-kidding with the post title. Yogagrrl’s yoga of relocation consists mainly of neck stretches and deep breathing. Well, not TOO deep because of the dust and the dog hair. Even as I write, a very nice group of men is gathering up all the boxes I have packed, furniture I have dismantled, and things we previously agreed they’d pack and/or dismantle and moving it out into an enormous truck. But a Yogagrrl story is not complete without complications.

Last night, Shane came over to help motivate finish the last of my packing. If I’d thought kitchen packing was tedious, clearly I hadn’t given much thought to bathroom necessities. Ugh. WHY DO I HAVE SO MUCH LIPSTICK? At any rate, he used my computer, which meant I couldn’t access the internet, which meant that I packed (at least, right after yoga class). I packed, he wrote a paper. We both finished up at about 12:30 this morning. The movers are scheduled to arrive at 8:30.

My car was very low on gas and, due to rearranging things for the movers, I couldn’t park in the garage. I went out to fill up and buy a gallon of milk. I locked the doors and drove to the store. I am going to have cereal and a good night’s sleep and never look at cardboard again. When I got home, I opened the garage door (the way I always do) and walked in to open the back door of the house (the way I always do) and discovered that – contrary to what I always do – I’d locked the back door.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem except that last week I signed with a realtor and gave her the key off of my keychain. And the spare keys were in the house. And Carly was in Ann Arbor. So at 1am, I’m in my garage, desperately searching for some wire to pick the lock with (as though I could? I’m watching TOO MUCH crime drama) but of course I have been wildly efficient and packed the ENTIRE EFFING GARAGE. There is no wire to be found.

There is no locksmith to be found.

I call Shane and ask if I can bunk at his place on campus. Because I am old and lame. He asked if I could stop and get him a 2 liter of Diet Coke. I did. And my milk, because I didn’t want it to explode in my car. And I slept on his air mattress. Did I mention the movers were supposed to show up at 8:30? I got up at 5:30. At 6 am I called the realtor and asked if there was any chance she could come let me into my house with the key in the lock box. Luckily she has kids, was getting ready to take them to school, and I was kind of on the way.

I bought some light timers, stopped at McD’s for breakfast, called Carly to share what a colossal idiot I am, and then headed back to the house. At about 7:45 she arrived (my savior!) and I was able to brush my teeth and look mostly human by the time the movers showed up. Except that I hadn’t disconnected the tank from our gas grill and then had to hunt up the keys to the myriad toolboxes so that I could detach it. Then I had to scrape snow off of the patio furniture that we’re taking with us.

Then my modem stopped working when I moved the shelving it was sitting on.

It has not been a restful day. I am supposed to teach yoga at 7:30 tonight and am despairing of not getting a nap. The yoga of relocation is to curl up and die in a sleeping bag on the floor of my empty house.

To add insult to injury, I really really REALLY want Taco Bell and they do not deliver. CURSES!

I’m feeling pretty accomplished right now.

Each room of the house is essentially done being packed. Both bedrooms, the office, the dining room, the kitchen, and the entire basement are all boxed. All that remains are the things I’m using for the next week, the food, the toiletries and bathroom supplies, and the important paperwork I need to keep with me. Unfortunately, I may have to cancel my Monday class because the movers are showing up right about the time I would be leaving to go to the gym.

TV notes:

Grey’s Anatomy:

Dear Grey’s, you are getting a SLIGHT reprieve from me but only because I read a spoiler to find out WTF is going on with this Izzy/Denny thing. Spoiler notwithstanding can we PLEASE get it over with? It is full of Fail and Ew. Please to be replacing it with more Lexie Grey/Mark Sloan (GrOan?) and Yang/Hunt. I love, love, love Kevin McKidd. He was smokin’ hot in a toga (Rome) and is just as hot in scrubs. Much love, yogagrrl

Chuck:

I continue to love this show.

NCIS:

Has gotten funnier? There’s been a lot more Abby this season, which I heart. I’ll take a cute geek girl over action just about any time. There’s an added double-bonus in that the most ass-kicking character on the show is also a female.  Go girls!

Real Housewives of Orange County:

I’ve been watching this mostly for Carly. I remember why I didn’t watch it before. It’s chock full of entitled, self-absorbed bitches. All they care about are their looks, to an extent that’s kind of disturbing. The really scary thing is that they are all supposedly ‘empowered’ and independent women, but with so much vanity and insecurity they can barely function (Dear Jeana: Not you.). It’s like high school but older, bitchier, and with more money to use to be mean to you.

The Mentalist:

If I was going to get you to watch ONE show that you aren’t watching, this would be it.

Private Practice:

Whoa, Dark Horse! They came out of nowhere this week with an intense abortion-issue show. Nicely done. Yes, it’s a complicated issue and yes, we can all agree to disagree.

Ghost Whisperer:

Do you want to know how messed up I am? I only started watching this show when I saw the promo that they were going to kill off Melinda’s husband. I had literally never watched an episode (nor been interested) right up until that moment. I am not a nice person. That said, I’ve watched since then and I’m kind of intrigued with how they’re handling this whole spirit-in-another-body thing. Like I said, not nice.

Heroes:

Has been jacked up for a while, but this week’s episode was my favorite of the season (and second favorite probably ever). Watching everyone having to deal with suddenly being a normal person again, combined with the comic geeks, meant the episode = love.

House:

Of the good, as always, and with considerably less gore than has become the norm.

Life:

Not sure how it happened, but I missed a couple of episodes and had to catch them on the web. And then I watched this week’s on DVR. Man, I love this show. It’s an interesting crime procedural, great conspiracy mystery, and fantastic characters. I even love the Tidwell/Reese storyline even though everyone else hates it. I take it back – watch this show too.

Progress, at last! (Plus a PSA)

The master bedroom and basement are completely packed up. As in, I don’t have to go in those rooms ever again packed up.

Tomorrow we will finish the guest bedroom. That leaves only the office. We will SO be done by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. I am completely and utterly relieved. Unfortunately there will be almost no room in my car for people.

In unrelated news, this blog has gotten over 5,000 hits. A large number of them (possibly a disturbingly large number) are searching for ‘naked family.’ A lot of Ariel Tweto fans have stopped by (as well as Ariel!) and True Blood fans. I’m pretty consistently surprised how many people are looking for yoga playlists. My playlist page gets a regular number of hits, so I’m hoping people like the mixes.

Once I get moved all the way out west, I’m sure there will be more yoga blogging because I’ll have more time for it (yoga and blogging). There will also be lots and lots of pictures.

For those of you with RSS feeds, you may have noticed a domain change. I’m actually at yoga-grrl.com now (though the wordpress link will obviously still work).

I’m having a hard time finding my motivation today.

My solution is to drag Shane to an afternoon showing of Twilight.

Speaking of movies, I overheard the weirdest conversation yesterday. I was sitting in one of the cafe areas on campus and heard two college guys talking about HOW EXCITED they were to see MADAGASCAR 2. That’s right, Madagascar 2. “The first one was hilarious and I heard this is way funnier!” I was kind of gobsmacked. I mean, if they’d been talking about being excited for Quantum of Solace, I wouldn’t have even blinked. So. Strange.

At any rate, the timeline for our move is highly dependent on how much stuff we get done this weekend so after my little movie motivator I’m going to crank it out.

Ugh

We have seven boxes of books packed up to move, and we haven’t even GOTTEN to the room that has most of the books.

The DVDs are all boxed up. The office is slowly but surely beginning to resemble a room again.

It’s Friday and there’s no relief in sight

I’ve got a living room full of partially-filled and mostly-labeled boxes. There is is still a small sized mountain’s worth of laundry to be done.

I feel marginally accomplished this week, though, because I DID sort through the nightmare paperwork cubby. I sorted a small portion of our books (keeping vs. donating) and did a small mountain’s worth of laundry.

How do we accumulate so much CRAP? And really, we don’t have that much crap. It’s mostly clothes and books. And albums. We’re moving to a house that is nearly twice the size and my goal is to reduce our crap by half. It’s enough to make me think happy thoughts about UNpacking because there’s going to be much less of it.

Also! Life *and* The Mentalist are on tonight and my mom is on her way.

There are very few twitterers tweeting on my list.

Travel dos and don’ts

Do NOT

• Fly US Airways.

• They will charge you to drink a soda. Seriously? The only reason I get soda on a plane is because I don’t want to have to wait for someone to come and refill my water. And now you’re going to charge me $2?
• They will give you a boarding pass that is covered with US Airways logos. And then when you can’t find your departure gate, and ask for help, they will treat you as though you’re mildly retarded because it says RIGHT THERE, UA which clearly stands for United Airlines (rather than US Airways, moron) and JESUS why can’t these idiot passengers read all of the codes that are SO OBVIOUS. This will all be crystal clear to you thanks to the utter disdain in their tone and the squinting “Are you an idiot?” facial expressions on all the staff.
• And if you fly into Phoenix as a connector, their partner airlines will be located in a different terminal, so that you have to go OUTSIDE, take a bus to said terminal, and then GO THROUGH SECURITY AGAIN. WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, BATMAN?
• Fly into the city where the Democratic convention is taking place on its last day. Or, for that matter, fly into the city where the Republican convention is happening on its FIRST day. Yes, I somehow managed BOTH.
• Go househunting when The Tide is in. It is possible that house shopping is fun for someone. Probably someone with an unlimited budget. But it is not fun if you a) have a budget b) have limited choices c) have a short time frame and d) your wife has PMS and doesn’t know it.
• Strangle your spouse for an inability to follow your directions when you are reading the map and DO TOO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.
• Smart off to the idiots in the airport who are screening your luggage. I didn’t but feel compelled to make up for it now.

Hey, Mr. TSA guy at Denver International: I just want to let you know that the fact that Spouse and I combined our gels and liquids into a ONE GALLON bag instead of having TWO ONE QUART BAGS shouldn’t stop your cunning ability to detect flammable liquids with an XRAY MACHINE. Which detects things that are NOT LIQUID. I get that your job is thankless. I get that people are rude to you. I, on the other hand, was not rude. It was an honest mistake. That you felt compelled to be a dick and try to school me on math and lecture me on the location of Spouse’s toothbrush didn’t make me feel any safer as an airline customer. Suck it.

P.S. Dude, on my last 4 flights not only have I NOT separated my gels and liquids from the rest of my toiletries, I also HAVEN’T put them in a plastic baggie and pulled them out of my bag for extra special ineffective XRays and NO ONE IN ANY AIRPORT HAS EVER ASKED ME TO. Even after they scanned my bag. I say again, Suck It.

DO

• Fly Northwest. For the most part they are still providing great service. My only beef was that their boarding process is First class, Elite, and then everyone in all rows. I will admit that my only snarky remark during ALL of our travel came as we were getting on this last flight. The flight attendant next to us kind of raised her voice when saying people should get out of the aisles once they reached their seats. At that point I turned to Spouse and said, “Hey, maybe we should have boarded BY ROWS. That would have helped.”
• Go to Colorado. The people were super friendly and the scenery was gorgeous.
• Be nice to your spouse when you both realize she has PMS. Because really? REALLY.

There is still a metric asston of stuff to do. Ugh.

Humongous photo

This view is available EVERYWHERE in town.