Tag: moving

Sunday Post: Unpacking boxes & rearranging furniture

Connecting with others to talk about books plus a little about our personal lives

Sunday-Post

Kimberly hosts the Sunday Post each week. I like to take part because it gives me an opportunity to look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also love to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading.

Personal life

We’ve moved into our new house and it’s beautiful. We’ve unpacked a lot of boxes, rearranged furniture numerous times and mostly have things put away in the kitchen so it’s all coming together. Next week I’ll try to have some pictures.

However, our daughter who lives in the area is on vacation for three weeks so we’re taking care of her dogs. We don’t have a fenced yard at our new house so we’re traveling back and forth between her house and our house each day. We’re looking forward to moving in completely by mid June.

Blog Life

I’ve been absent from my blog since we moved in to our new house. I’m hoping next week I’ll have time and energy to spend working some on my blog and visiting other blogs.

Posts
Posts for next week
  • Can’t Wait Wednesday
  • Sunday Post

My books

What I’m reading
  • Where the Light Gets In by Lucy Dillon
Books read
  • The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths
  • High Stakes by Dick Francis
  • Conscript by Pamela Stewart
New books

What have you been doing during May? What are your plans for June?

Sunday Post: Monday = Move-in Day

Connecting with others to talk about books plus a little about our personal lives

Sunday-Post

Kimberly hosts the Sunday Post each week. I like to take part because it gives me an opportunity to look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also love to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading.

Personal life

We move into our new house tomorrow afternoon! First, of course, we have to sign all sorts of paperwork.

We had a little rain while we were packing our moving van, but it wasn’t too bad. Rain is forecast for Monday in Indiana, too, so we’ll see how that goes. At least it’s a little warmer this weekend and feels more like spring.

We packed our moving van on Friday and Saturday morning. Drove to Illinois yesterday and we drive the rest of the way today (only about two hours). The van is stuffed full! One of our daughters and one of our nephews helped us load the moving van and that made all the difference to getting it done. Both our daughters will help us unpack the van.

Blog Life

I will continue to be busy since we’ll be unpacking boxes and figuring out where it’s all going to go. Plus starting next week we’re taking care of our daughter’s dogs while she goes on vacation. So not too much commenting or visiting other blogs.

Posts
Posts for next week
  • Can’t Wait Wednesday
  • Sunday Post

My books

What I’m reading
  • The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths
Books read
  • One Lost Soul by J.M. Dalgliesh
  • Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
  • Decider by Dick Francis
  • Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells
New books

What have you been doing? What are your plans for next week?

Sunday Post: It’s January 2021, but not much has changed yet

A chance to connect with others & talk about books plus a little about our personal lives

Sunday-Post

Kimberly hosts the Sunday Post each week. I like to take part because it gives me an opportunity to look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also love to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading.

Personal life

2020 was a difficult year. I’m hoping for better things during 2021. But maybe that’s going to take some time.

Christmas

I made a Shutterfly calendar for my brother for Christmas and I liked it so much I ordered calendars for myself, my kids and my niece. The calendar had pictures of my parents–mostly from when they were young. The front of the calendar has a photo of the house where my brother and I grew up in Oregon. We all loved the house so much. My dad took a small, old house with no plumbing and rebuilt it adding plumbing and electricity. They moved to the house when I was a baby and I remember when I was a child there was a table saw in our living room since my dad worked on the house after work and on weekends.

We had a quiet, simple Christmas with multiple FaceTime meetings throughout the day with our kids and other family members.

More snow

Between Christmas and New Year’s we had a snowstorm with almost 10 inches of snow. The snow is still around. Our backyard is on the north side of our house so we still have a lot of snow back there.

Preparations for move

During these months my husband and I sold some of our furniture and other items. We’ve continued to find things to throw away, give away and things we want to take with us. My husband’s goal each week is to fill the garbage and recycling bins!

We are doing this move ourselves so we’ve started boxing what we won’t need for a few months.

We’re moving some furniture to one of our daughter’s homes next week. Since we’re renting a truck to do that we’re also taking boxes we’ve packed so far.

Once we finish packing as much as we can we will finish decluttering the house. All the pictures need to come off the walls, all the clutter packed away and massive cleaning plus some painting and any repairs that need to be done. We hope to be done with all that by the end of February so the house can go on the market in March.

Our new house

The builders finally “broke ground” on our house in the last week of December. They poured the foundation this week and hopefully can start the building soon. We’re hoping we can move into our new house by May.

Blog Life

I didn’t post much in November and December. Just too much stress, so I mostly stayed away from the internet. I did do a lot of reading in 2020–120 books…beating my Goodreads goal by 30 books!

The first two books I read in 2021 were both books I read when the books were first published–one in 2001 and the other in 1993. I don’t reread books very often, but I enjoyed rereading these in 2021–mostly because I didn’t remember all the details!

Posts
Posts for next week
  • What I read in 2020
  • Can’t Wait Wednesday
  • My favorite 2020 books
  • My five favorite new authors in 202o
  • Sunday Post

My books

What I’m reading
  • No Past Forgiven by Valerie Keogh
Books I read last week
  • The Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr
  • Bitten by Kelley Armstrong
A few books I got recently

What are you hoping for in 2021? What are you planning for next week?

Sunday Post: I’m back again!

Sunday-Post

Kimberly hosts the Sunday Post each week. I like to take part because it gives me an opportunity to look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also love to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading.

Home

Daughter’s dog Bailey inside a box searching for food
Tomatoes growing in yard
Part of daughter’s backyard in Indiana

My husband and I drove to Indiana this last week where one of our daughter’s has moved. She sold her house in Iowa at the end of June (on the first day it was listed for sale!) so she bought a house in Indiana and signed the paperwork for it this week. My husband and I brought some of the things she had left at our house (including her two Labrador Retrievers!). Bailey and Juneau were so happy to see her!

Once the house was hers we painted her bedrooms, a hallway and living room. She wanted to get them painted before her household goods get delivered (next Thursday or Friday). I’m going to stay here in Indiana through next weekend and then meet up with my husband in eastern Iowa where he is working to get a house ready to sell.

Television

I didn’t watch any television this last week since my daughter didn’t get her internet connected until late in the week plus she doesn’t have a TV since her household goods aren’t here yet.

Blog

I haven’t done a Sunday Post for several months. I struggled earlier this year to get blog posts (especially reviews) written. I think I’m getting a handle on my review books so I’m happy about that. I’ve started just writing a few sentences for some of the books I read. So far that seems to work okay.

Since I’m travelling sometime next weekend I’m not sure I will get to do a Sunday Post and then the next week I won’t have internet for part of the week. I’m going to try to have some posts scheduled.

Last week
Next week
  • Tell Me Something Tuesday
  • Can’t-Wait Wednesday
  • Review: Spindle by W.R. Gingell
  • Review: Not a Sound by Heather Gudenkauf
  • Sunday Post (tentative since this is a travel day for me)

My books

What I’m reading
  • Body on Baker Street by Vicki Delany
  • Blackfoot by W.R. Gingell
  • Black Velvet by Steven Henry
What I read last week
  • Gun Shy by Donna Ball
  • Not a Sound by Heather Gudenkauf
  • Blood Hollow by William Kent Kreuger
Books I got this week

Stormy Cove by Bernadette Calonego

Black Velvet by Steven Henry

Drifters’ Alliance, Book 1 by Elle Casey

The Salaryman’s Wife by Sujata Massey

What did you do last week?

Sunday Post: Mar 27

Sunday-Post

This is a great meme to take part in every week and I thank Kimba for hosting it!

I like this meme because it gives me an opportunity to take a look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also like to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading.

Last Week–home and blog

Iowa here we come!

Our older daughter arrived Saturday to help finish packing, pack the U-Haul truck, help drive and then unload in Iowa. Two of my husband’s sisters arrive the morning we leave to help with the drive across the country and unpack at the end of the trip. It’s great to have family!

We are in frenzy packing mode now getting it all finished! Lots of little odds and ends to find a place for in boxes. My husband is coming back to Maryland to finish work and then take early retirement. We are leaving a few things for him–but very few since anything he’s taking with him has to fit in his car!

The cats are going in my car though they don’t know that yet. They aren’t too happy with all the chaos, boxes and disruption of their naps. They’re going to be even unhappier when it comes time to get into their carriers!

 Cherry blossoms and monuments

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The cherry blossoms are at their peak this weekend in Washington D.C. We decided to take some time off packing to see DC one last time. It was great. We went early in the morning thinking there wouldn’t be too many people–haha. There were masses of people already and no places to park. I stayed with the car at one point and it was lucky I did, because the police were ticketing cars. Luckily, he let me move the car and luckily I was able to call my husband and daughter so we didn’t lose each other! It is all beautiful and wonderful to see and we will miss DC, but are ready for the next chapter in our lives.

The blog

I’ve got posts written for next week, but haven’t answered comments or visited blogs. I love all your comments and hope to start visiting blogs again the first week in April. Once we actually get moved I hope to have more time as I gradually unpack.

Blog posts

My books

What I’m reading
  • The Gray Ghost Murders by Keith McCafferty
What I read last week
  • Arena by Holly Jennings
New–Books, E-books, NetGalley, Audiobooks–purchased or free or from library

Next Week–home & blog

We leave the middle of next week for Iowa. We start packing everything into the moving van in a couple days. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to do a Sunday Post next week or not.

  • Review: Silenced in the Surf by Kate E. Dyer-Seeley
  • Top Ten Tuesday
  • Waiting on Wednesday: March 30
  • April books on my list
  • Review: Skeleton Blues by Paul Johnson
  • Sunday Post

What did you do last week? What books did you collect? What are you planning?

Sunday Post–May 18

rp_sundaypostmeme13.jpg

 

The Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Kimba at Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

I like this meme because it gives me an opportunity to take a look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also like to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading. This is a great meme to take part in every week and I thank Kimba for hosting it!

Last Week

Around the house

I’ve been in Des Moines all week. My daughter and I have packed boxes and delivered them to her new house all week after she gets home from work. Also putting shelf paper in the kitchen and unpacking a few boxes. I’ve been at the house several days for the carpet cleaner and satellite hookup. Saturday was moving day so we were busy most of the day. I did a bit of reading and audiobook listening during my random moments! The house is full of boxes, but it looks great. I think she’ll be very happy!

Internet was connected at the new house on Friday, but when we tried to connect on Saturday evening it didn’t work so I’m finishing up this Sunday Post at Starbucks! I won’t comment or answer comments until we get the internet connection working. I will comment when I can.

Blog posts

What I’m reading

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley (audiobook)

Iron Night by M. L. Brennan

What I read this week

The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

White Night by Jim Butcher

E-books bought

murder-in-a-mill-town
Murder in a Mill Town

Murder in a Mill Town  by P. B. Ryan

From Audible

Splintered by A. G. Howard

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Fledgling by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Saltation by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

The Line by J. D. Horn

Next Week

Around the internet

Bout of Books 10

I’m participating in the Bout of Books 10 Read-a-thon and hoping to read at least three books plus take part in some challenges and twitter chats. I haven’t had a chance to figure out what I need to do so I’m hoping to work on that!

Sync

Sync downloads

Sync is a site for young adult audiobooks. In the summer (beginning May 15 to August 20) they offer two free audiobooks each week. These books are available from May 15-21:

WARP: The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

The following books are available from May 22-28:

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Oedipus the King by Sophocles

Check out the entire Sync schedule.

Around the house

I’m in Iowa another week. My daughter and I will unload boxes and try to get the house in order. My husband and older daughter are coming for Memorial Day weekend. We’re hoping to have a barbecue and do other fun things as well as some projects!

Posts on the blog

  • Bout of Books posts
  • Review: Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop
  • Review:
  • Sunday Post

What books did you collect last week? What are you planning next week?

Bout of Books 10 Goals

bout-of-books-10I signed up for Bout of Books 10 before my daughter asked me to come to Iowa and help her move into her new house. Thus, I haven’t had a chance to join challenges or twitter chats. The only thing I’ve done is some reading and listening to an audiobook! My daughter doesn’t have internet yet at her new house and I’ve been there putting in shelf paper

White Night
White Night

and waiting for people to show up for TV service and carpet cleaning. Thus, for now I will just give my reading goals:

  • White Night by Jim Butcher
  • The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley (audiobook)
  • Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick by Joe Schreiber
  • The Iron Night by M. L. Brennan

I doubt I will get all this read or listened to, but I’ll try…LOL! Check out the Bout of Books blog for a list of other people who have posted their goals.