Hurting for something relevant to say?

I know I don't post here very much. I always have the best intentions, but I let life get in the way. My friend Brian always has TONS of relevant and interesting things to say on his blog. Then again, he's not above posting links to the inanities of the web. Of course, I'm so lazy and bored that I can't help being sucked in. Blame him for this little gem:

Your Monster Profile

Shadow Lunatic You Feast On: Bananas You Lurk Around In: Movie Theaters You Especially Like to Torment: Pop Stars

What's Your Monster Name?

Gas prices got you down?

I have double the amount of money I spend on gas each month in the last year. I know that other countries have had expensive gas for a long time. So, I'm swallowing this medicine without too much grumbling about it. On the other hand, the cirucmstances surrounding the price increase have been stewing a bit.

1) Our current administration is headed by two "oil men". [ Whose friends have been profitting from the increase in oil prices. ]
2) We are enmeshed in an unpopular war with an oil rich nation. [ How about stepping up production in Iraq? ]

On another note. Driving home last night, I noticed that the cheapest fuel at the gas station is diesel. I want to be a friend to the environment. But, diesel powered vehicles are looking more and more attractive to me. One of the downsides is that diesel engines often have issues in colder climates. Now that we don't have a garage, that could be problematic.

Since we don't typically join the lemmings on Labor Day, and drive off to the beach, we won't be changing our behavior this weekend because of gas prices. We will be staying local. We'll probably go to see Transporter 2, and go out for dinner, sometime this weekend. Other than that, we have plenty of home entertainment options. Or, we could unpack some boxes .... yeah ... that's the ticket!

Back to school, and I'm jealous

This past Monday, Kiel had placement testing at his new middle school. There was a brief orientation in the library for kids and parents, before the testing. The building is just a year old. Kiel and I walked around a bit before orientation. After orientation, the kids went off to a room for their testing. Parents were told that the kids would be done by noon. So, I headed out to the town library and signed up for a library card. I ended up not borrowing anything that day. However, I did wander around the stacks for nearly two hours.

Monday evening, all three of us are going to the school for an information session for seventh graders and their families. We'll get to see Kiel's "team area" and to meet his teachers. Plus, Ben will get to see the school for the first time. I've been there a couple times at this point.

Kiel and I hit up a few office supply stores looking for some preliminary back-to-school things. We'll probably have more shopping to do after this weekend, but there were some things we knew he'd need before getting any sort of specific list from a teacher. Of course, I simply LOVE shopping for school supplies. I have always loved getting ready for school. Getting organized and the promise of all those empty pages in my notebooks, just waiting to be filled.

Then again, I really liked school. School was always something I was good at, something I had mastery over in my life. During my elementary school years, I would run "play school" for my friends. And most of them would foolishly allow me to teach them and give them tests during perfectly lovely summer days.

Kiel's first day of school is Wednesday. Bizarre as it sounds, school is then closed on Friday. Fortunately for us, Kiel is registered for a YMCA camp all this week. So, he'll be in camp on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. And, he'll be in school on Wednesday and Thursday.

Blog spam!!!

I am furious beyond belief.

Someone posted a comment to my last blog entry that was basically spam. I couldn't figure out how to delete their "comment". So, I deleted and reposted the entry.

Spammers: Definitely first up against the wall when the revolution comes. Lawyers must really love them, since the lawyers are no longer first on so many peoples' lists.

So, we're moving

I have been so caught up in my day-to-day life, that I haven't had the time or energy to update this blog in FIVE MONTHS! How lame is that! (Note the lack of a queston mark.)

This winter, we decided that we would put our house on the market this spring. We love our house in Beford. However, we need to cut our expenses. We'd already made our decision, when our taxes went up again. The town's inability to decide on getting a high school cost tax payers a huge pile of money, since Manchester was able to blackmail us for $10 million over the course of three years, after we wouldn't sign a 20 year contract (and we hadn't built our own high school yet). So, the town was saddled with paying that on top of paying to build the school. Brilliant!

We ended up finding a townhouse/condo in Merrimack that we really like. It's not much smaller than our single family home in Bedford. The condo fee is high ($330/month), but there's a chance that it'll go down in a couple of years. The property was mismanaged for a few years, and the new management company had to play catch-up. In any event, the fee was exactly the same as another development we liked, where the houses weren't as big, and the amenties weren't quite as good.

In all, we'll be paying about $450/month less to live in our new house than we're currently paying for our Bedford house.

Coordinating a sale on one house with the purchase of a new one is an absolute pain in the ass. Every time we turn around one side of the transacation or the other is throwing another monkey wrench at us. I have been so stressed out I've been violently ill several times in last month.

We both hate having to give up the house that we love. However, Ben's been great at coming up with ideas of how to make the new house more appealing and more our own. In the near sixteen years of our marriage he has refused to paint a wall anything other than white. Shockingly, he actually suggested that it might be interesting to paint a wall in each room with an actual color. Also, he had an epiphany about building a window seat in a nine foot niche in the living room. The window seat will give us extra seating and inconspicous storage for our massive CD collection.

I'll try to post again closer to the move (7/27).