What a busy month. We are still sleeping in our Camden Apartment but we are over @ the house every day moving bins and boxes in, supervising contractors and doing a lot of work ourselves. We have painters working on the front, side & screen porch and inside, in the library, stairway and trim in our bedroom. We use our bikes most of the time to go back and forth. The Van really doesn't fit well going in and out of the parking garage @ Camden. Doug bought some sandbags to help weigh the van down and took some air out of the tires and it still hits the padded bar of the gate. The gate actually broke on one of our last trips into the parking garage and came down on the roof of our van.
Doug has been having problems with his jaw alignment, not opening fully since last fall. He saw the dentist and he ordered him a mouth guard to wear @ night. We're sure it's from the stress of all that we have going on. We like this Dentist, father and son practice. We see the son and their office is right Downtown. Doug was not alone in exhibiting signs from our high stress level-I suffered with all over body hives for a few days. Doug had a CT scan of his abdomen as a follow up to his intestinal problems in the summer. All was good except for his fatty liver. We have been trying to walk everyday and there are many pretty parks and areas to explore nearby.
We are meeting more neighbors at the house. Jim lives next door upstairs. He's owns the house but is renting the downstairs to a couple with a daughter. The 2 guys who live across the street from Jim are Michael and Warren. We also love that Don and Sue, our Krogen friends are nearby in Tampa. We see them often. We are also enjoying checking out the neighborhood bars & restaurants. Don and Sue introduced us to a fabulous Italian Market, Mazzarro's. This is our go to for delicious premade take home dinners. We continued to see the friends we made @ Camden, sharing dinner with Boushra and Brent on the rooftop of Camden was a favorite event. Sally (of Randy & Sally) took me shopping for backsplash. Our JAX friends, Bette & Al were in Tampa for an RV show so they drove over to visit and see our house.
Doug is working hard @ the house: he took the old wood fence down around the driveway, painted the guest room & trim, power washed the wood fence, painted the block wall on the driveway side, fixed the sprinkler system. He has made many, many trips to Home Depot and Loew's. We shop garage sales and consignment stores. We hired Valentin Design, a landscaper. All female crew, Jude is the owner and her partner and sister are the crew. They work amazingly hard. They cleared all the overgrown bushes, cut down trees, trimmed the palms, dug up grass and then planted trees, shrubs, ground cover and put down mulch. We had a tree in the backyard cut down and the stump ground up.
Meanwhile, we are prepping for our 7 week New Zealand/ Australia trip. We obtained our NZ & Aussie Visa's and our flu shots. For our new home purchase, we had to get new drivers license, apply for a Homestead exemption and get the Van registered.
We had new flooring installed in 3 bedrooms. Real hardwood in ours and Luxury Vinyl Tile in the 2 guest rooms upstairs. Doug removed all the old carpets from the rooms. We also had them clean, buff and seal the existing engineered hardwood floors all through the downstairs, stairs and hallway upstairs. Speaking of wood, we hired a termite and bug guy to treat the house every 2 months.
We had special guests stop by: Paul, Jess, Hudson and Jess's sister Casey. Hudson had given himself a second degree burn that morning from a curling iron so Jess wasn't in a good mood. We toured them through the house and Hudson didn't let the burn on his arm keep him from being happy and very active. It was good to see them, Hudson even snuggled with me.
We officially moved out of the apartment and spent our first night in our new house on January 26. It was bitter sweet. We have been through many emotions. It was difficult moving off the boat-more for me than Doug. We really enjoyed living Downtown St Pete in the fancy apartment with a bay view and access to all the nice amenities. Our boating friends from the Harborage, Mike and Sue, helped us move the last of our things into the house and they were our first dinner guests. The house has needed a lot of work and Doug has really stepped up and got so much accomplished in a short time. Many pieces fell into place. The house is looking really nice and we leave for our 7 week adventure in 3 days. So while organizing, moving, cleaning, repairing, buying, and getting estimates, we also have been packing & planning. WOW and we survived with only a few tears and fits of hysteria. Most important of all-we are still loving each other.
