The fourth time was a charm. I've been working with Rachel Harper, who with her son Lester owns Harper Realty in Aiken. She had two house to offer, one that was 50+ years old but well-maintained, close to downtown, and not too far from the job-site. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, hardwood floors (which is a turn-on for lots of people, but not for me), a carport, and came with a washer and dryer. It's in a nice older part of town (one that I can remember driving through often between my hotel/work and whatever we did for entertainment downtown, back when I was working in Aiken. It was reasonably priced at $875/month, and if that was all there was, I'd have been quite happy with it.
However, Rachel told me about another house, only 2-3 years old, in a development south of Aiken (towards the job-site) that is so new, it isn't yet labeled on Google maps (although you can see the first few houses being built on the terrain view). It does show up on MapQuest, however, if you're interested in seeing it. It's at 909 Watsonia, Aiken, SC, 28903 (and that's my new address, right there, folks!), and it is a full house, with a great room, a back porch and a front porch, a 2-car garage, and a yard. It's $200 more than the other one, but since I could be there for as long as three years, I've decided I might as well be comfortable. I'll probably hire a lawn service to maintain the yard (since I don't have a lawnmower and don't want to invest in one), and I may even lay in some potted plants for outside, if there aren't many plantings already there (Rachel says it hasn't grown up much, since it is so new).
I'm including a scan of the floor plan Rachel sent me yesterday. I thought about the three places that I've been told about last night and this morning, and then did a Cybil Shepherd (told myself "I'm worth it"), called Rachel, and cemented the deal for the Watsonia property, the most expensive. As Karen pointed out today, though, Rachel says I'll save 15 minutes each way on my commute, which adds up to 2 hours a week. Right there is a substantial savings of time, which really helps make the extra $200 in rent not a problem at all!
I'll send the paperwork in to Harper Realty this week, call the various utilities (Rachel has supplied me with all of that information--the electric company is SCE&G, which is who I indirectly worked for on my 3-month job earlier this year--it sure is a small world!), and get that set up, and pass on my new address to those who need to know (like my old utilities and the Post Office, etc.). All that's left now is to actually get there!
That means continuing to pack boxes here. I've still got some more books to pack, but as of this afternoon, I have officially given away all the books I've been able to part with (and for this former English teacher, that has been an amazing pile of them!), as well as 37 issues of Cooking Light, 13 issues of Light & Tasty, AND 16 issues of Etude Magazine, which was a large monthly publication containing lots of music for piano students. Almost all of these 16 magazines were published before I was born! I was reluctant to let Etude go, but I tried twice to sell them on eBay, and neither time brought more than 2-3 nibbles. I donated all of this today (and half my videotapes last week) to the library system, which is having a major sale this coming weekend (coincidence? I think NOT!). So I figure someone who will really use this music will buy it for cheap and enjoy it. That is a MUCH better fate than languishing for more years in my cupboards.
JR (my fabulous mover) comes Friday night. Now I not only have an address for him to give his driver, but I have a floor plan. I can now show JR where I want the piano (the interior wall of Bedroom 2), where I want the small wicker table and 2 chairs (the breakfast nook), which wall to put my desk on (the outer front corner of Bedroom 3), where to put all my mother's boxes of photographs, etc. (the outside wall of the garage), and so on. Am I boring you? I apologize, but I have to say this is SO exciting to me that I'm having a hard time remembering that it is NOT world-altering and earth-shaking to anyone else.
I guess that's it for tonight. I probably won't get back to my blog until I'm on the road. To give you a thumbnail of the trip, I expect to get from here to Salt Lake City on Sunday, on to Denver on Monday, a night with my sister-in-law Kay and her husband Rick in Ardmore, OK, on Tuesday, with arrival in Austin sometime mid-afternoon on Wednesday. I'm spending Wednesday night with Lisa (though I hope to see Karen and the boys for at least a while Wednesday afternoon. Today was their last (half)day of school, and Karen, as is her tradition, took the afternoon off and picked them up and brought them home to start celebrating. Unbelievably, Jon-Michael is now officially a fifth-grader, and Jason will be starting 1st grade in the fall. I can't resist (and this blog is light on pictures anyway), so here are some pictures of the boys at the crawfish boil they enjoy each year up in Fort Worth.
Here's Jon-Michael quietly playing his gameboy, while the world goes on around him.
And here's Jason, up to no good with one of the guests of honor at the crawfish boil. . . .
And here's what happens when you mix those ingredients!
But just to reassure you that there's not always such excitement with these two, here they are exhibiting some of their very best behavior.
Onward. . . .
1 comment:
OK, it has been a month since your last post. Even with running around this weekend, out of three days and part of it spent on the computer - give us an update - how about it???
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