Howdy Strangers!

It feels like forever since I have posted.  In the past (almost!) two weeks, we packed up our house and moved a whopping 1/5th of a mile away from our old house.  Though it is close, it feels like a whole new world over here.

Just to give the highlights of the move:

• We hired movers because we are lazy and didn’t want to impose on our friends to schlep our 250 lb treadmill up and down several flights of stairs.  When the movers arrived, they were three guys over 70 years old.  I felt so awful about making them carry our heavy stuff, I had to leave and not watch it.  Also, I was afraid someone was going to call the elder abuse hotline on me.  They did a great job though.

• M has been very dramatic about her saaaaad feelings about leaving the old house.  I get that, I am sympathetic to a certain degree.   I have patted her back as she wailed and knashed her teeth about NOT. WANTING. TO. MOVE!!! But there is a limit.  We left a nice “Welcome Home” on the chalkboard in our old kitchen for  the new owners, and M lost a chunk of my sympathy when she marched up to it on our final walk through and scrawled “YOUR STUPID” under the nice “Welcome Home”.  Girlfriend got in a little trouble for that one.

• In happier M news, her new bedroom has an interior window where she has set up shop and is selling her remaining Christmas candy for $.25 or $.10 a pop.  She is making a killing.  She apparently learned her marketing strategy from successful crack dealers everywhere: she gives customers their first piece for free, but after that you have to pay.

• L seems completely unimpressed by moving.  She settled right in like a champ and is stoked to have a candy store in her VERY OWN HOUSE.   Now, she just needs to find a way to earn some money so she can buy all M’s candy.

• Mr. A and I are gearing up for a new project.  My parents gave us a lifetime subscription to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University for Christmas and we are getting ready to start our classes.  I think we are going to do the online version because it is hard for us to commit to a single night a week.  Once we start, we are going to try to make an audacious savings goal for the next year.  Only saving a hefty chunk of cash is going to make me feel like the hassle of moving (twice!) was worth it.

Anyway, my dear blog-reading friends (if anyone is still out there), I am going to try to post four more times in the next four days.  I have a lot of backlogged thoughts and there has been a lot of other stuff going on too.  I missed you guys!