Taking a break from unpacking

We have three rooms left: my office, Yvonne's office and the third bedroom.

For now, that third bedroom will be a closet/sewing room once it's not filled with boxes and miscellaneous furniture (two empty fish tanks, coffee table and a stool).

I'd say Yvonne's office has the most potential for completion, but she sorting a lot of old paperwork and stuff, which is tedious and takes time.

In my office, I'm sorting things like my old high school yearbooks (that head photographer my senior year really knew his stuff...), camping gear (do I really need an authentic Boy Scout canteen from the '60s?) and miscellaneous stuff like bar stools (we ain't got no bar, Sgt. Dan), shelves, and old copies of the "Lake Travis View".

Oktoberfest
We went to the Austin Oktoberfest yesterday. Yvonne put it best: It was a typical Austin festival with live blues, kid rides and beer and food, but it's not German Centric. There was one brat offering--the rest was corny dogs, pizza and nachos. There was no umpah, but plenty of booths to buy rasta (??!?) gear.

My conclusion is the Oktoberfest in Addison was better. Next year, we are going to try to go to Fredricksberg.

Livestrong
We also did the Livestrong Challenge 5k yesterday. I didn't run it as planned, but I'm about to restart my running training. There is the Turkey Tro 5k on thanksgiving that I might be ready for.

Meanwhile, enjoy the videos:

Rock Zoe from Nathan Stull on Vimeo.

Sliding Z from Nathan Stull on Vimeo.

Found the iPod

We just moved into a house here in Austin and the one thing I thought was completely lost was my iPod. Even Yvonne looked for it in my car, where I thought I left it. This morning on my way to work, I gave it one more look (almost out of habit). And, I found it wrapped in a receipt in a console we all looked in multiple times. Good stuff.

The move was a challenge and I'm glad it's over. We had a few hiccups along the way:

• Moving date was pushed back
• Kitchen was almost left as is (bad)
• Moving date was pushed back again
• Moving date was pushed back again--this time to ACL weekend (we used to live next to Zilker)
• We had free three-day passes to ACL with parking (apartment)
• It was someone's birthday?
  
• On the day of big moving truck, street work closed one half of our new road
• Rained on third moving day
• Our first week was sans city garbage cans and required a few stealth runs in the cover of night
  
• The new kitchen sink was clogged upon move-in and required our first repair request
  
• The AC stopped working after 5 days--second repair request
  
• Our dryer from storage stopped getting hot (repairman coming Friday)
  
• Still can't find my leaf blower
• The move was just enough interruption that I probably won't run the full 5k this weekend
  

I'm sure I missed a few...

Now, so I don't sound like a total whiner, a few good things:

• Zoe and Walker are good buddies again
  
• Two moving days began in the morning with the "Star Wars" theme played at Zilker by ACL
• Nothing was broken until unpacked
• We have already gotten rid of a lot of crap we don't need
• New TV from Old Skool rocks
• The house is a nice change from the apartment. It's a 5 bedroom, 3 bath near a Central Market. Jackpot!
• All the emergency repairs were addressed quickly and easily. I hope to say the same for the non emergency requests currently in limbo
  
• I found the iPod and will start working out again

And just to add to the fun, Zoe started a new school one week after the move. That has been a good experience and no real hiccups have occurred.

So, with that, I return to the blogosphere after a long vacation. Frankly, if I posted during that time, you would have been bored with all my complaining. Things were rough for couple months there and stress was high. It's a good day now that we can close that chapter and start a new one.

And now a video of the most patient dog on the street and a future blues singer/costume designer.

Bedtime for Walker from Nathan Stull on Vimeo.

Return of the Living Normal

We've moved into a house and things are returning to normal. I'm at this point with the blog where I don't really know what to say anymore. I'm not sure anyone is really following along?

Comment if you do and maybe I'll figure this out.