Sunday, November 22, 2009

Foggy Commute and a mostly finished guestroom

I have been spoiled for far too long. My commute had been 7-10 minutes door to door for years and now with the move I've stretched that to 23-30 minutes depending on weather and @$$holes on the road.
The pictures below are what I was met with as I was about to leave the house one morning this past week. Luckily it was worse out my backdoor than it was by the time I got to the slab taking me into town.





GUESTROOM:
This is the progress I've made on the guestroom. The bookcase was to go in the entryway, but it just didn't fit, so it finds itself again in the guestroom and yet to be filled. A brand new quilt for the bed and a green lamp I have had since high school that just doesn't work in the master bedroom works perfectly in this room.




My daughter Emily's baby cradle will eventually have netting surrounding it. The framed dresses will be hung over the cedar chest. The blue crocheted dress was made for me by my grandmother and great aunt when I was a toddler. There is a picture in the frame of me wearing the dress. The yellow dress was made for me by my mother and inside the frame is a picture of me wearing it when I was 3 months old. My beaded wristband from the hospital when I was born with "Thompson" on it is also in the frame. Our son Colin will be our first guest and I hope he likes it.

Settling In


November 17, 2009. A day that we worked harder than we have in years. We moved all our things (or most all our things) from our home on Vermont St to the new house on Park Ave. The night before was a restless one and neither of us got much sleep. The movers were the absolute best and were patient and kind as we tried to stay a step ahead of them in the moving process. It was a rainy, ugly day which matched my mood, but the rains slowed as the furniture exited the house and had stopped by the time we got to the new house. Six hours later they were finished and we were again living in Box City, just in another location.

This is the scene of the family room with the leather furniture arranged in a hap hazard way for now.

My livingroom/diningroom is pretty much put together and is the most relaxing room in the house right now. I have to fill bookcases yet, but it was such a welcome surprise when I got to the new house and there on the porch was the new 8' x 10' rug we had ordered.
The master bedroom is far from finished, but the new shades are up and they look smashing.

Recognition

On November 6th, 2009 Carle Clinic recognized employees who celebrated at least a five year anniversary in five year increments. January 2009 marked my 15 years at Carle (however 14.5 of those years was spent in the Carle Foundation Hospital Medical Research/IRB Office). The celebration took place at the new Colonnades Club at the top of the newly renovated Memorial Stadium. The view of the field from up there was amazing.
The night was warm enough that we went outside and sat in the new seats to eat our dessert and enjoy the view.








I'm not sure how many this long narrow space holds, but it was crowded and there weren't enough chairs inside for everyone. The food was amazing unless you didn't like seafood. The desserts were even more amazing, but I didn't get a picture of them.








All the old greats from a gone by era were there.
THANKS CARLE CLINIC ASSOCIATION, it was an enjoyabable evening.

Friday, October 30, 2009

FINALLY!

It wasn't easy, but it finally happened. We closed on Monday at 4pm and I have to say that the best part is not even having the house, it's having all these morons and so called 'professionals' out of my life and my personal business. Closing was a bit FROSTY since the sellers are in the middle of a divorce. The best decision we made (other than the house), was our choice of realtor. He was my saving grace at the end. He was the one who kept reminding me that we loved this house, he believed when I had completely given up hope that things would work out. He was the one who fought for us to the end, and in the end, he sat quietly at the table for 75 minutes and said not a word while we signed our names over and over and over and over.....he is my hero.

The house is coming along. Three rooms are now painted. The master is dark turquoise blue, the guest room is green, and my work room is what I thought was plum, but my daughter calls it "toddlers and tiaras" as it looks rather hot lavendar going on the walls. It's clean, it's fresh and I'll love it.

Merry Maids on Wednesday did a great job getting the place de-greased and made it almost spic and span.

We had the carpets cleaned by Brad Woo, owner of Steam Master and he is simply a magician. They look brand spanking new!!! THANK YOU BRAD! You will hear from me again, and everyone I know will hear what a wonderful job you did.

I worked in the kitchen loading cabinets after washing dishes, taking plenty of breaks to look out the window at the geese on the lake and the blue heron I've seen at least three times this week.

My next door neighbor Beth works in structural cell and biology at UIUC and we know many of the same people. We had a wonderful chat already and I look forward to many more.

It will be a race to the finish to get everything packed (all the furniture emptied and boxed) so we can get the movers in here in the next week or so and finally call Mermaid Lake our home.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

A week of misery

Hours to go before closing, (9am Monday Oct 26) or so we thought, but it won't happen. We plan to do the walk thru Monday morning and show good faith in our committment to purchase this house we have so much time, money, effort, and emotion tied up in. (Hell, we already have a paid insurance policy on it, not to mention earnest money we put out 6 weeks ago, the inspection fee, attorney fee regardless how this goes down at the end, etc). Anything more required of us by this bank, I'm not in for. This week "I" managed to get my verification of employment for the bank since they couldn't get the job done, even after I gave them the HR phone number. Took me 10 minutes max to call HR, get a letter and scan it and send it to the banker. Then as the week runs out, I find out yesterday morning that the HOA fee is an issue. Apparently the owner never paid his for 2009 (due Jan 1) despite the hounding from his realtor to get it done, and the underwriter and appraiser made it an issue. The treasurer of the HOA, at the hospital with a sick family member rather than at work, couldn't manage to get a signed letter to the realty company for the bank. I had tried to get this HOA Treasurer (an attorney) on the phone a couple weeks back to ask if this had been paid and what the costs were. She refused to take my call, so I brought it up with my realtor and attorney. Not really sure why it bugged me so much, I just had this recurring feeling I had to find out about it. Anyway, it was finally paid this past week, the check has cleared, but the bank demands a letter from the HOA Treasurer stating such. The whole mess should have been nailed down weeks ago, but our loan coordinator apparently isn't doing her job (so says the loan officer we're dealing with). It's all a load of crap and now the whole thing is in jeopardy as our documents expired on Friday and the loan officer got a waiver for them to fly on Monday. If we go to Tuesday, or Wednesday closing, we have to push everything back, cough up new 30-day bank statements, new 30-day paystubs have a new credit report run, etc. The signed letter did get to the bank, but that was very late and on a FRIDAY, so we know we don't close on Monday morning.

To top off the week, our cancer research group came under attack once again thanks to a story in the NY Times. Local media is bound to make an issue as it was already on the local news station last night. Oh the joys of feeling screwed in both ends.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

One more week

I have to tell you that on Friday I was all but ready to just screw this deal, to just tell some bankers to simply go JUMP! I was so tired of people being in my personal business that I could scream. Just let me say that if I had done with their medical information what they did with my financial information, I would have been fired. (We need a HIPAA for financial info). Since when is it too much work to ask the person involved, who has everything to loose to provide a little more information for the underwriter? Why not just be honest, upfront and forthcoming about everything? Why all the phone calls to the wrong people, faxing things to an entirely WRONG phone number so that everyone you work with knows your personal information? OK, now I feel better, thanks!!!!! Lucky for me, my car was in the shop that day, so I was trapped at work, and at the end of the day, my husband was the voice of reason to calm me down.

Moving on.....the days are going fast now, the boxes are stacking up and I'm feeling the pressure. OMG, we are so surrounded by 'stuff' that we can hardly move. Off loading some of this will have to happen before the movers can come in and move the big stuff out. Anyway, I'm having such fun finding things I had forgotten about. Books that I cherish and want to re-read once we get settled. So many photos to go through and do something with, so much stitching that I need to sell, finish or just dump on someone else. Movies I want to watch again, jewelry I need to polish, computer files I need to clean, stories I need to write, and clothes I probably need to burn. But right now I'm being forced to pick out colors for the bedroom walls. That's my punishment for letting my husband watch HGTV. White walls don't do it for him anymore, he watches too much Color Splash, (thanks David!). So I pray I make all the correct decisions and can live with them once made. I promise to come and share pictures of the finished product once we're moved and things are put away.

Anyway, it will be a LOT more fun at the other end going through boxes and putting things away and really concentrating on things a bit more than I can now. I'm ready to let the decorating begin.

Fall is here, but you wouldn't know it. It feels a lot like winter out there. I shouldn't complain, as the northeast got snow and we did escape that, but I'm not ready for the cold just yet.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

2 weeks to Closing, but who's counting?

Boxes, Boxes everywhere, and actually I don't have all that much packed up. Things still hide in closets, bookcases, dresser drawers and kitchen cabinets. It will take us what will feel like forever to get out of here I'm sure. Things with the closing are moving along and I'm just ready for it to be OVER already! Two more weeks at work and then I have a week off to paint, clean, pack some more and just move things. I actually can't wait to get to the other end and go thru things that I have completely forgotten I have. Let the decorating begin....at least in my mind.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Moving on...Literally


The decision was made, the house was found and in three weeks, we'll have a new address. The name of this blog will have to change from "On the Shores of Lake Vermont" (which was in reference to the lake we had in the street in front of our house when it rained) to something more appropriate now that we'll actually be living on a lake. (pic: the back fence at our new home).
Back in March we decided to find another place, and since then we'd been going to open houses, looking at houses online and just cruising neighborhoods in search of "FOR SALE" signs. Then suddenly we found a few places that interested us enough to contact a realtor we liked. So just like HGTVs house hunters we looked at three properties that weekend: 1) a beautiful brick ranch in Cherry Hills in need of some updating backed up to a lovely park with a loft and bedroom upstairs, 2) an adorable condo townhouse in Stone Creek with two bedrooms and bath upstairs and 3) in a nearby town where my grandparents lived when I was young child, a sprawling ranch in Crestlake with too many rooms, but wonderful flow, lake out back and a park across the street. Being in the same basic price range, nothing compared to the underpriced #3. Next summer the area along the back fence will be known as the flamingo garden. Let the mermaid windsocks fly!


Sunday, March 15, 2009

Orlando & Cocoa Beach Florida Nov 2008




I'm so ready for spring, but I think the entire country is feeling that way. It was a long hard winter and it started far too early.
Hubby and I went to my conference last November in Florida. We flew down early once I found there was a night launch of Endeavor scheduled for November 14th. I got us a hotel on Cocoa Beach (88 degrees) and that night we simply walked out the back door to a restaurant on the pier where we had dinner and then pulled up a chaise on the beach and waited for launch time (7:55pm). It was an amazing thing to see (see pic above). First you see it, then you hear it and then you feel it. The shuttle lights up the spacecoast beach like it's the middle of the day and you can see that all eyes and cameras and cell phones are trained on that speck rising in the night sky.
Otherwise we just relaxed and enjoyed seeing Cocoa Beach again as we haven't been there since 1972. The waves crashing sounded so good, the sand under your feet felt so good, the warm sea breeze never gets old and the seafood is to die for. It's a large port for cruise ships and I have to say I could have easily gotten on one. The day after the launch we visited Kennedy Space Center's Visitor Complex and I was very impressed. A little worried about what the shuttle experience ride was going to be like, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.
Back in the day (Summer of 1968) on a vacation to Florida with my family when I was a teenager we visited Kennedy space center and I remember my father driving us around the complex, right by the launch pads, not a person in sight, but no more.
Nowdays, as you enter the Visitor Complex you have to decide up front if you want to do a bus tour to see buildings, launch pads, etc. We had a great tour bus guide who showed us around the launch pad from the pervious nights launch, (garbage and chairs still intact) and some of the other sites on the island, such as the NASA Causeway, the Vehicle Assembly building, and the Shuttle landing strip as well as the site where the astronauts come out suited up to board the bus that takes them to the shuttle site. Once the tour ended we saw a movie about the history of space and walked under a restored Saturn V launch vehicle. Back at the Visitor Complex we saw an IMAX movie about doing a spacewalk outside the space station and NO THANKS, that's definately not for me.
In Orlando we stayed across the lagoon from Epcot at the Swan and Dolphin Resort (see pic above). I had one day to play, so we went to Epcot. DisneyWorld opened in Oct 1971, we were married that May and visited DisneyWorld the next summer (1972) for our honeymoon so a lot of things were new to us. We had a beautiful day doing the circle around Epcot and taking in all the shows they offer and took lots of pictures. We enjoyed the spaceship ride inside the large Epcot globe and afterwards sent the picture they took of us to family back home from computers they have as you exit the ride. Canada had a fantastic show in the round of sights and events in Canada, much like the one I remember at DisneyWorld in 1972 put on my Monsanto that made you feel as if you were a bird flying across the United States over the western mountains into the east coast fishing harbors. My favorite thing was after dark, listening to the Celtic group "Off Kilter" (bagpipes and all) on stage in Canada and singing along with the "British Invasion" doing Beatles songs at the UK pavilion. We stayed for the fireworks, but it was desperately cold that night and once finished we rushed to board the first water taxi back to the hotel. Our room had a balcony with Epcot view which was amazing every night at 9pm, but the entire time it was far too cold to just go out there and sit.

The conference was good, but the hotels are so large that things were spread far and wide and finding your way around was another story. By the time you left one session to get to another in perhaps the other hotel, it had already started. This conference has grown very large in the 15 years I have attended with more than 3500 people attending and I expect it will only get worse.