So guess what? We’re moving.

Where are we moving? Across the parking lot to the opposite end of the same apartment building.

Seriously.

We’ve had nothing but headaches with our downstairs neighbor. She’s keyed my car. She’s threatened to sue the apartment complex because she thinks Nick’s Jeep’s front bumper is hazardous, and she complains constantly that we “drop things on purpose” to be noisy and disturb her. Basically… she’s a psycho.

We finally had enough of it and when we noticed that the apartment on the opposite end of our building was empty and available to rent, we decided to ask about switching. It’s the identical layout to our apartment, but the mirror-image. It’s also the downstairs unit, so we’ll be losing our vaulted ceilings and skylight — but after living in our apartment for over a year, I won’t miss them. They’re a nightmare to heat and cool. Plus with being on a bottom floor, the dog and cat will be able to run around and play without worry that we’ll disturb the downstairs neighbor.

The fun part? We may start moving as soon as tonight. I’m not joking. When Nick talked to them earlier, he suggested that we could move Monday and Tuesday (his days off) but we’re going to see if we can start moving over the weekend and take a few extra days, being that it’s just the two of us and the apartment has been sitting empty for a couple weeks anyway. I hope it works out that way.

I’m dreading the thought of moving all our stuff … we have a LOT of stuff … a lot of HEAVY stuff. But at least we’re only moving it across the parking lot. I’m sure we’ll go rent a dolly of some sort to make it a bit easier.

The other thing I’m dreading is having to change our apartment number on all of our utilities, magazine subscriptions, etc. UGH. And I know it will get screwed up, because the apartment number will only be two numbers less than our current number — so I’m sure when I send the places address change info, they’ll glance at it and think it’s the same. Ugh. I’m thinking gratuitous use of a highlighter is in order.

Anyway, if anyone needs/wants our new address … let me know!

Erica and Alan ferret-sat for me the other night. While the boys were staying with her, Erica took some amazing photos.  I just had to share a couple here:

This is my “little old man”, Shenanigans, hanging out on the sofa.

This is my little boy, Bink, attacking a stuffed chicken.

You can see more of the ferret photos here on Erica’s Flickr page.  You can also see more of Erica’s wonderful photography at her photo-blog.

I had to post this because I know our family residing in Pennsylvania (particularly Erie) will find this humorous.

Pretty much all the schools in middle and eastern Tennessee are closed today for this:

Nick’s Conquest covered in snow

I’d started cleaning the snow off the Element so I could drive to work.

Our apartment building, surrounded by snow.

I had the quickest commute to work ever this morning. Everyone must have been staying home with their children who were off school, or they were flat out too scared to drive in this “treacherous” weather. The roads were just fine though. The only ice I hit was actually on the sidewalk right outside our apartment door, where I almost fell flat on my bum!

Well, Dennis requested an update, so…

Things here are going well. Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 26.  I had a pretty quiet birthday.  I got to sleep in (yay!) and my friend Erica treated me to a late-lunch in the afternoon.  Then we did some shopping.  Nick had to work part of the day but brought home a frozen-custard cake from Ritter’s for me!  It was yummy.

I got some lovely gifts for my birthday, and lots of birthday-money too.  I’m putting all my birthday money toward the spinning wheel that I’m hoping to buy soon.  (I have this idea in my head that I want to spend my summer on our back patio spinning yarn and sipping lemonade… sounds heavenly to me!)

I’ve been doing lots and lots of knitting lately (you can read details about that on my knitting blog).  On Saturday I even helped with a sock knitting workshop at my local yarn shop.  It was a lot of fun.

Nick has been keeping busy at work.  He’s been spending a lot of free time playing video games — he’s currently hooked on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.  He’s also thinking about buying a new (used?) vehicle soon.  I think we’re going to get rid of the Neon and he’s thinking he’d like to get a Jeep Cherokee.  I have my reservations, being that we have too many cars as it is, and I just want him to pick out something dependable that he won’t want to tinker with too much.  And I know him and Jeeps… ha ha.

Nashville weather has been completely wonky this winter — 70 degrees one day and 30 the next.  We haven’t made any trips up north this winter though, so we haven’t really seen snow.  We get occasional snowflakes here but nothing that actually accumulates.  It’s been very strange going for a whole year without seeing snow drifts.  I’m hoping spring is around the corner though — I’m more than ready!