Dana's Dirtworks: 09/01/2009

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Brute Strength

This is what happens when you are putting together new furniture, and you are just too strong for your own good! This is now a "chipped head" screwdriver.

Our Kitchen

Here are pictures of our kitchen when it was first put together and organized.

Here are pictures of it now after I painted it Spring Green.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

IKEA has been very kind to us. In our old apartment, IKEA gave us light, a place to put our feet while sitting on the couch, a safe place to store our china, and LOTS of help organizing our kitchen. IKEA has already begun work on our new home.

Feast your eyes on our new dining room table with matching, comfy chairs.

Here is our new china cabinet that matches the table.

And here is my new office desk that I have been salivating over for a year.

More Niece Pictures

More doting Aunt pictures--this time, mini-J.

Playing the fishing game. The first day we got this game, it entertained her for a solid hour!

Pretending to be a ferret

Playing with the ferret

Riding the Dora car

Playing the Monster Game with Uncle Nicholas

Playing with Aunt Dana's necklace

Much needed time at the park after days and days of rain

Playing the "Save Me" game with Mommy

Looking for fishys

Pretending to drive Aunt Dana's car. The picture after this is of Daddy trying to get her to sit in her car seat.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Moving In

A long overdue post!

After our 11 Day road trip and a week stay in Dallas, we finally head to Austin 18 days after leaving Rhode Island. We had shipped Nicholas' truck to Dallas through an auto transport company, so we both drove in separate cars. We stopped for lunch and gas in West, Texas, home of The Czech Stop. A must stop on the drive between Dallas and Austin for yummy kolaches.

We arrived in Austin around 4pm. Nicholas' mom met us at our house. Our PODS was waiting in the driveway. We opened it up to check on things, and then started unloading. Nicholas' dad came by after work, and we were finished unloading by 6:30pm!

This is the PODS about 1/4 of the way emptied. This is pretty much how it looked until the end...like a Tetris game!

I didn't take many pictures of the unloading process. It went so quickly!

This is moving the bed up the stairs into our room. Why don't they always put handles on mattresses?

After we finished we went out for dinner and stayed the night at Nicholas' parents house so we could do laundry, and I could use their Internet to work. Moving is exhausting work! We have everything out of boxes except stuff from Nicholas' studio. That's in our GARAGE! It looks like all the glass torsos survived the trip, unscathed, thanks to egg crate foam from the Eide's! We have only found 2 things that broke, which is pretty amazing consider half the PODS was filled with glass. We are continuing to arrange things, but haven't gotten to hanging pictures on the wall, yet. More house pictures to come.

Have a Little Faith?

I flew to California on Saturday to stay with my nephews while my sister attends a conference. I was scheduled to leave Austin at 10:10AM (cdt) and arrive in Oakland at 1:20pm (pdt) which is 3:20 central time. I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to get through security and check a bag on Southwest. I even had an A boarding pass! We boarded the plane, and it was a pretty full flight with many stay-on passengers from Dallas. We pulled away from the gate on time, but after a few minutes, the pilot came on the intercom and said we had to return to the gate because there was a mechanical issue that needed to be remedied.
Then we sat on the plane for an hour while the powers that be decided what the next course of action should be. Of course, the mechanics had to come from Dallas to fix the issue. Luckily, we didn't have to wait for them to get there and service the plane. Southwest found another plane for us to use. So, we deplaned. As we did so, we all received a number, so they could reboard us...since Southwest has no assigned seating. Of course, I was sitting at the back of the plane. I received number 113 out of 123...Grrr...So much for the A boarding pass. What is worse is that I actually ended up being the very last person on the plane because they just boarded in groups and not exact number order. Not that it really would have mattered. I would have ended up in a middle seat anyway. On a 3.5 hour flight to LA.
We left Austin at 11:40AM, an hour and a half after we were supposed to. We arrived in LA at 12:50 local time. I was happy I didn't have to deplane and change planes since my flight continued on to Oakland. There were people that had to rush off the plane to catch their connecting flights.
And then the funny Southwest staff told us that our flight had been discontinued and that everyone continuing to Oakland was being booked on other flights. I laughed. Seriously? They weren't kidding. AND they weren't sorry.
I had a 2 hour layover in LA before catching my 1 hour and 10 minute flight to Oakland. BUT we arrived 10 minutes early! My sister picked me up at the airport around 4:40, roughly 3.5 hours after I was supposed to originally arrive.
My not so short day of flying, while it is not in the Top 5 of my worst flights, I think it might make the Top 10. I find it hard to complain about Southwest catching a mechanical issue before we got into the air and something really bad happened. I also find it hard to complain about things not going perfectly, when in the grand scheme of things (especially for how often I fly) I don't really have many delays/changes of plan. What I do wish I had from that day was a better apology for the way things ended up once we got to L.A. I mean I did CHOOSE to fly Southwest, and would like my loyalty acknowledged.
I can only hope that my return flight is a little better. Because, really, it shouldn't take me longer to get from Austin to Oakland than Providence to Oakland. That's just wrong.