The Moving Chronicles - Part I

This will probably be the first of many posts on moving houses. It will have three distinct phases:
I. House preparation
II. Me moving into the house
III. Making it a 'home'

We are currently in Phase I from last week Fri through March 31. Phase II will be the weekend of March 31/April 1, Phase III will be from April 2 through eternity (at least for now...)

We got possesion of the house on Fri Feb 23. On Monday we moved a TV into the house in preparation of the Cable and Internet installation. That got hooked-up that day and was completed on Web Feb 28.

We also had a gasline put in for the Gas dryer and while the plummer was at the house had him check the water supply since we noticed some sulfer smells and not real hot water. Turned out the hot water supply was partially shutoff by the previous owner. Everything is up and running now.

Next week Wed Mar 7 the side-by-side (aka double-door) fridge and the microwave will arrive from our friends at Whirlpool to complete the kitchen.

Plenty more to come....

Two Moving Parties - Update

With Jens condo NOT being rented as of next month, my new house is still officially mine (yeah!) we need to organize ONE moving party.

The moving party will be in Cleveland on Sat Mar 31 and will be Saturday only. We need to load my gear into another (Penske...) truck and move it to the house.

Let me know who is willing and able to help us out!

Proud Home Owner

OK, all done now!! House is mine, all mine... at least for now ;-) No issues with any of the inspections and the subsequent closing. Thanks to Jim Pepper from Cutler Homes and Mike Stoffer from Stoffer Mortgage everything went smoothly.

Already looked at appliances and the first thing to get is the fridge. It will be a Whirlpool Side-by-Side in white. Would have preferred a aluminum finish, but since the rest of the appliances are all white (and Whirlpool) we're keeping it the same.

After that will come the washer and dryer, but that will be for early April after we get back from the Holland trip.

Let the bleeding begin... ;-)

Happy Valentines Day!

To all the love-birds in the world - and one in particular: Happy Valentines Day!!

Snowy days in Cleveland

Winter didn't have much a bite here until the midle of January. After that, oh boy... Arctic temperatures of -8F (BEFORE) windchill and yesterday and today we had a bit of snow... Ahum, a couple feet of snow is more accurate. Combine that with winds of up to 35mph it created VERY dangerous driving conditions.

Yesterday for most people the commute took hours, with completely grid-locked traffic. A co-worker and myself decided to get some food first at the hotel around the corner from the office and were able to make it home in under 50mins at an average speed of aobut 25mph.

Today, I'm working from home since I can't move my car out of the parking lot here yet. Maybe later today the plows can clear enough of the snowbanks (and not put them in front or behind my car) so I might be able to move the car, but for now I'm the Penske Downtown office...

Since my camera is still in Grand Rapids I took this shot with the cellphone. A little off the normal quality of my shots, but good enough to paint the picture...

Be Safe everyone!

Housing update

We have three properties in which we have some vested interest:

1. Jens house in Grand Rapids, MI
2. My apartment in Cleveland, OH
3. My - hopefully - new house in Uniontown, OH

We're trying to sell number 1 (and as of today we have a very serious lead...), get a renter in number 2 for the period between March 31 and August 30 and - Lord willing - closing on number 3 hopefully somewhere next week.

We so hope to have only 1 property to worry about soon, so all efforts to help (spiritually, and if you know somebody for either number 1 or 2, directly) are very much appreciated!!

Since '24' is starting a two-hour episode in 30 minutes and my stomach is growling at me, I'm gonna sign off.

L8r, mi amigos!

Another trip to GR

Last weekend we made another trip to GR (Grand Rapids for newbies...) to visit our friends Jen and Rich and Gabe and Emily.

Jen and Rich have been truly welcoming us every time we go there. Sometimes with a nice sauna - enhanced by the bountiful MI snow - or just with fellowship and generous hospitality. Oh and the Hawaian Coffee is absolutely fantastic!!

After an uneventful drive on Friday we slept in on Saturday and went to 'Van der Veen', a Dutch store in Grand Rapids for some goodies and a few other things. Among those, a nice NL-sticker for Mighty Mouse!

One other thing high on the agenda for a couple trips, but never realized due to timing constraints, was a visit to the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum. I can recommend it. It is a very good collection of the life of - as the people in GR call him - Gerald (ou)R, Ford. Very impressive.

It was quite surreal to learn about his passing when both Jen and me were out of the country. And with the internet being down in China at the time she basically missed the whole thing. We fixed that by buying the DVD of the news coverage by one of the local GR TV stations. Oh and eventough we have some nice outdoor-shots - to be posted later - it was brutally cold that day... go figure...

After Church we had dinner with our friends Gabe and Emily - which are in need of your help to be able to serve at Campus for Christ. We had some awesome conversation on both of our futures.

On the way to church we picked-up two movies to watch; American Dreamz and One Night With The King. Two very different movies, but both recommended. Watch for the small details in American Dreamz, hilarious...

Sunday was a nice relaxing day of just hanging out, doing some finances and a nice relaxing drive back to Cleveland. Home at 9pm, in bed by 10... not a bad way to end it... Sleep is SO under-rated!!

Result of the inspection

On Monday we had the inspection of the house and short of an issue in the water ventilation, a double-wired fuse and a breaker that didn't trip the house is in a very good condition. Insulation is well above the norm and with a high efficiency furnace the heating bill shouldn't cause major heart-attacks. The well and septic tank inspection result should be in today at the latest.

On to the close...