change is in the air

Today is a pretty exciting day because, as of this morning, pretty much everything changed around my house.

The movers totally flaked on me yesterday. They were supposed to show up at 1 but by 1:45 they weren't here and when I texted them they said they were stuck at a previous job which was more complicated than they thought it would be. Sigh. They asked if they could reschedule to the next day.

Normally I wouldn't agree to take time off work (which costs me money) because of somebody else's mistake but in this case it was ok because I had already planned on staying home on Monday morning for the cable guy to come install the Internet. More on that exciting development later.

So the movers finally made it (an hour and a half late) this morning and I kept them busy moving boxes and furniture into the garage and then moving furniture from one room to another here in the house.

Here is the living room yesterday. That's pretty much the way it has looked for over 19 years. I bought all the furniture for the house in 2 hours after landing in Florida at 6am on a September day in 2000. We had to fully furnish the house right away so that we could start renting it out for vacationers. Taz couldn't get away from work to help me so I did everything in 5 days so that the whole house was ready when he finally came at the weekend. So I have a big emotional investment in these couches even though they are looking a bit shabby these days and we had plans to completely replace them. But they can't stay the way they are now because the family moving in has their own, nicer, couch which we're going to use.

So I had them move the big couch into my bedroom. First, it's so comfortable that I've been sleeping there since I broke my arm. At first it was necessary because I needed the support on my bad arm and I continue to sleep there because it feels less lonely than my empty king size bed. It's silly but bumping up against the back of the couch almost feels like I'm being cuddled. I guess that's pretty pathetic.

Secondly I wanted the couch in my room so that I have a comfortable place to sit and hang out when I feel like being alone. I can stream TV or work on my research or nap. And if I want the kids hanging out with me we all have a place to sit.

It wasn't easy to get that big couch in there. It's a sleeper sofa (not that I have the room to pull it out anymore) so it's HEAVY and it wasn't going to go through the bedroom door easily. One of the mover guys was ready to give up but I was quietly insistent that they figure it out. I suggested they take the door off the hinges but they shot that idea down...until all their bright ideas didn't work. They finally took the door off and the couch got through the opening fairly easily. Men are so silly sometimes...and by silly I mean stupid and arrogant and annoying.

In order to have room for the couch they needed to move my big dresser, which has been sitting in this spot since it was delivered there in 2000, over to another wall.

Luckily this was accomplished much easier than the whole couch maneuver. I spent a lot of time measuring everything to make sure it would all work but I couldn't help but giving a little squeal and doing a dance of joy when it all really worked. 

And this is the new interim living room. It doesn't look all that different from what it used to be (remember the picture on the top of this post?) but it seems like a world away for me. In place of the big couch I have moved the smaller matching loveseat. That loveseat will be replaced in a week with my new roommates' couch but I need somewhere to sit for right now when I'm surfing the 'net and binge watching tv while guzzling soda and eating red meat. Got to enjoy all my bad habits before the rules of the house change.

I also had a small floral loveseat moved out of one of the bedrooms and it's going to be a permanent feature of the new living room. It was originally my mother's and Taz and I hauled it to our house 2 years ago when mother moved from her cottage to assisted living. It was almost never used at her house so it's like new and I just love the mauve floral pattern, kind of Victorian. It will probably be my regular seat from now on; it's just big enough for me and Charlie. I don't imagine I'll spend nearly as much time just sitting in the living room watching TV from now on so I don't need much space.

It's kind of sad that my routines will have to change and I won't be watching TV in the living room anymore because I FINALLY HAVE INTERNET/STREAMING AGAIN!!!

Yes, while I am relieved to finally have all the furniture moving over with, the most exciting news of the day is that my Internet drought is over. Thank goodness. I called the cable company last week and set up an appointment to get the Internet re-installed and wifi set up so that we all can stream and surf from any room.

The guy came first thing this morning and it only took 15 minutes to bring me back into the 21st century again. It was really hard to be so unconnected for the past 3 months, despite what some people said on Facebook about how it would be so wonderful and the best thing that ever happened to me. I love to research things and it was painful to not be able to grab my computer any time a thought struck me. I could use my phone but a) it's ancient; b) I'm ancient and I prefer a laptop; and c) I ran through my cell phone data pretty quickly each month and then the cell company "throttled" me which meant my connection was glacially slow and frustrating.

I wasn't quite as frustrated with my lack of cable tv because I installed a digital antenna and was pretty pleased with the selection of channels that you can get for free. That's why I decided not to re-install cable today. I am going to get by with streaming and I'm able to use the cable company's app and my antenna to see some live tv. 

One good thing that came from my internet deprivation for 3 months is that I qualified as a new customer (because I'd not had their services for over 30 days) which means that I can take advantage of the new customer deals and I'm now paying about 1/3 of what I was before.

I am so damn happy to have it all back that I could barely wait to leave work today (after finally getting there at noon) so that I could come home and play on the Internet.

And look what I decided to do first - a blog post! No more having to wait until I get to work to type up whatever is on my mind. Hopefully this means more regular blog posts and being a little more productive at work. ;-)

So, lots of changes happening in my little world and many more to come next week. I am trying really hard to be serene and zen about all of this and just go with the flow.

I'll let you know how that works out for me.