Mail Blues

I'm sad...we don't get mail here like I want to. I'd even take credit card junk or flyers from wal-mart but we get nothing. It's so upsetting to open the mailbox and have it empty. Part of the problem is that we are considered a "rural route". We actually had to call the local post office on two different occasions to ask them to deliver our mail. I guess typically this is not a normal service and people just come pick it up from the post office. When the post office finally got the message (or when we finally got some mail to deliver), we got a form in our box that we had to fill out to give permission for them to put our mail in our mailbox...so strange. The form also let us know that we can use our postal carrier as a post office, we can order stamps, get things insured, and pretty much do what a post office would do through our carrier. When I called the 2nd time to find out why we had no mail I found out our carrier's name is "Billy", of course it is.
But here's the other problem, we aren't even getting the forwarded mail from our old house. I just don't get it, I feel so helpless, like our mail is just out there somewhere and no one knows what to do with it. It's a strange disconnected feeling. Another thing that's irking me mail-wise is that it seems to take forever, we opened the box yesterday and had one lonely postcard from my mom that she sent last Wednesday...4 days for a post card? Doesn't that seem odd. I know I'm just spoiled by my suburban life but I feel like my postal carrier, you know, Billy, just randomly decides when he is going to hop in his UNMARKED truck and put what he pleases in my box. My final mail-related rant is that we ordered DSL last Wednesday and still have not received the equipment. I'm going crazy not having quick, accessible at a moment's notice, Internet access. I can live without a lot of things: cable, a grocery store that carries unsalted butter (What's up with that? Do people in the country HAVE to have salt in their butter?!), a garbage disposal, etc. but I've quickly learned how much I rely on the Internet for access to information. Maybe it's my library/information science background, but it keeps me connected with the world, especially now that our cell phone service isn't so great and our home phone is long distance. Anyway, I'm sorry if you read this whole post because it was really just a place for me to vent, now let's see if dial-up can handle uploading all these words...I promise I'll post pictures (as soon as I find that damn battery charger) and positive fun stuff about our new home soon. We really do love it and have had an "adventure" (as *A* calls it) everyday.

A Quick Hello!

We're here! We have very slow dial-up access for the time being, so I'm not going to write a lot. I just wanted to give everyone a quick hello and say that we're loving it so far. Our house is even better than we thought, we have so much room (except for the closets) and the porch, view, and quiet are amazing. We've eaten most of our meals on the screened in porch and saw a deer or two in our backyard while eating. We're slowly unpacking, but most rooms are set-up and livable. We discovered the university library and it's small children's section but huge video collection, I don't think we'll be needing Netflix. We went hiking this morning and it was breath-taking. The kids loved it, (H) in the backpack and *A* was a champ going up and down the trail. She hiked out to this ledge of rock as my knees were knocking together and looked at the view proclaiming "Beauuuuutiful!". We discovered the school's fitness center: Olympic pool, indoor track, etc. *A* ran 3 laps around the track and thought she was an Olympic track star, ^J^ gets in free and I got a family membership for 5 bucks...nice. O.k., I really should keep this short since I'm not sure how long it's going to take to upload.
We are having a great time, but we really do miss everyone. It's hard to meet new people. *A*, the social butterfly that she is, has made some new friends and we went to a playdate this morning with other seminarian babies and preschoolers. But she had a hard time the first few days not having anyone to play with, and I think she still thinks we're on vacation. As for adult friends, I just want to get over the "hey, how are you?" phase and have a real conversation. I know it'll come. We met some really great people on move-in day. There were about 12 seminarians waiting for us when we pulled in and they had our huge truck unloaded in less than an hour. Some of the spouses and kids came by to meet us or help as well. There's a cookout every Friday night, so we'll be able to see everyone again then and get to know people a little better. Everyone knows each other so well and I know once school starts we'll all be together constantly, but for now we are sort of outsiders looking in and trying to figure out where we fit. It's a really strange feeling, kind of nice, yet kind of unnerving too.

Packin' up

Here's why we're so motivated...


Our new backyard and huge screened-in back porch.
This part of the yard is fenced in and there is a lot more that isn't, and a quick walk through the woods leads to a small lake!

So, we're planning on moving in 3 weeks or so. We've been packing boxes like crazy and I finally found the floor of the closet in the study/junk room. There were things in there we moved from Decatur and haven't touched in 3 1/2 years! Sad. Speaking of sad, I've been getting kind of nostalgic about this house the past few days, it is a really good house and we've loved being here. We are outgrowing it though so even if we weren't embarking on this adventure, it would be time to move on. I just hope someone who sees what we see in it can find it soon and buy it! We're meeting with a realtor tomorrow, she seems pretty cool. Most realtors we've encountered have been snooty bee-ot-ches so we're hoping the one isn't. We just want someone to market our house like crazy and give us a fair deal, we know we're not going to make any money off it and that's o.k., we just don't want a mortgage payment while in seminary.
We're going to a dinner tonight at the bishop's house. Kind of scary. It's for upcoming seminarians and their spouses/partners. We had to get a babysitter, we aren't sure how we're going to pay her, maybe she takes partially used Starbuck's gift cards? Anyway, it should be interesting. ^J^ knows two other seminarians from his discernment group and there are some people from the diocese and maybe a few more seminarians from DYVE coming. O.K., the kitchen floor is starting to crawl away so I'd better go sweep.

A house!

We've finally been assigned a house! We were actually given a choice between 3 houses, this one was the biggest (3B, 2b) and unfortunately the most expensive but we're hoping for financial aid to come through. We really have no idea right now how much money to expect and if I should be looking for a job or not. It's just a tad bit stressful on top of the stress of trying to sell our current house. *sigh*.
Anyway, this house is exciting and makes it all more real. We love the stone, mined from the mountain, and we are excited about the yard and the roll-out windows. We don't yet have a floor plan or an idea of what's inside although if you look at the back you can see a peek of a screened in porch. Fun!

Time to change

I've updated this blog a little and changed the name. I'm trying to focus it on our journey to seminary and what we do/encounter while we're there. I've been keeping up with many new blogs and I'm always so impressed with their writing, family life, homeschooling, craftiness, etc. I hope to create a similar blog people can come to a get a little slice of our life On the Mountain.

Last week, J finally found out he was accepted to his seminary of choice and we're ready to move on. We actually called about housing even before he got his "official" acceptance letter! They told us they would be choosing housing for us using the application we sent but that they were pretty sure we'd be getting "one of the larger houses". I was slightly irked at first by this, I thought we'd have more of a choice in the matter, but I'm coping. This is not a choice I need to be worried about: it's only for 3 years and we'll make do with whatever we're given. Most of the houses are bigger than our current house anyway, so nothing would really be a bad choice. Our main focus now will be to get our house sold. I'm done with school and not going back until we get settled. We've painted, pressure washed, planted and pruned and the FSBO sign is in the yard. I'm not sure how we'll do by ourselves, it seems so daunting, but I think once we've gotten it listed online and in some papers we might get some action on it. We've listed it a lot lower than all the other houses in our neighborhood so I'm hoping that will help. Now to keep it clean and "showable", that's the challenge!