Our future home

On Friday, we took a quick tour to Southern California to see Ashling and also to visit Chapman. Flew in Friday and spent most of Friday at Chapman. I was able to take care of some things to make sure that I can hit the ground running on June 2nd. I am set up with email, phone and card key access already!

Most importantly, we figured out where we are going to live initially. An AVP from Facilities took Gordon, Ashling, Ashling's friend Audrey and I to visit a few University-owned homes that are available to rent. We quickly settled on a lovely home very close to campus. It fits our needs very well - three bedrooms, two baths and a garage. A very nice yard where I am sure I will spend many evenings. A nice grapefruit tree and orange tree.

After we were done with our business at Chapman, Gordon and I spent the evening in Newport Beach enjoying some Spanish food, and finished up our visit with Ashling on Saturday. We flew back to Sacramento on Saturday evening to find that it had poured in Sacramento on Friday. Gordon found that to be a positive on Sunday, as he had some more yardwork to do here in Sacramento to get the house ready to rent. He plans to finish up some drainage and terracing work in the front yard, and he and our neighbor Max will build a fence between our back yards. While we do have a garage in the new place, it is smaller, so the big thing for us is to continue to eliminate things from our garage. Next up - old pictures that have been stored out there for five years.

Take my furniture - please!

So I mentioned that we are trying to purge before we move. I've started to work on boxes in the garage - old Christmas lights, wrapping paper, rafts, sleds etc. All have found a good home. Today, I even brought a box of Halloween costumes into work for people to pick through, that's going well. So far I've gotten rid of WonderWoman, an Inuit and Queen Amidala.

But furniture has been more of an issue. I called a charity that does pickup in the area. They did note that picking up is at the discretion of the driver. I left a couch, loveseat, two chairs, and end table, and a file cabinet in the driveway. The driver exercised discretion and only picked up the end table! My neighbor, Bob,took the file cabinet. I didn't want to drag the couch and love seat back into the house, so I left them outside. When Ashling came home, she suggested that we look like a frat house. I do have to say, though, it was sort of convenient to have them outside. A place to sit when I'm talking to my neighbors, a place to put things when I'm packing up the car. But I was a little concerned that my neighbors might complain about the frat house look. So I turned to one of my favorite resources, freecycle.org. Posted the couches, chairs and a lamp. Gone by the end of the day! People will take anything for free, except for old TVs.

Purging

One of the good things about moving is that it's an opportunity to go through your stuff and get rids of things. Or so they tell me. Obviously "they" have not moved that often. And "they" have no idea how it feels to own a dozen pair of boots, each one a little different and appropriate for a different outfit. I mean look at the picture. How hard do you think it is to part with boots like that?

So it's hard, but it makes sense to try to minimize how much we bring. My weakness is the closet; I have clothes that have been with me longer than either of my children. How can I get rid of them!! But the fact is, the weather is different in Southern California. I don't need winter suits, coats or boots. So I sorted through my clothes and put all those together in one place. I invited my girlfriends over to go through them, and some of them went home with new things for their closets! I like it when that happens. The remaining pieces will go to St. John's Shelter for Women.

Old furniture also should not move. Especially old furniture that's been scratched by cats over the past several years. The problem with that, though, is that nobody really wants furniture with kitty damage. We arranged for a truck from a local charity to come by and pick up some big pieces. We dragged them out to our driveway in the morning. On our way home, I was very excited, looking forward to seeing an empty driveway. That was not to be. Of the eight pieces of furniture we left out, they took two. Our neighbor came by and took one more. We took smaller pieces back into the house, but now, we have two couches outside our house, I am sure our neighbors are thrilled with us! But we do intend for them to go away, and it doesn't make sense to drag them through the house again.

I am actually scared to look in the garage. What are we going to do with that stuff???

New homes for the animals

We've always been catlovers, but since we moved to Sacramento from the Bay Area, we've added to our menagerie. We've had six chickens and two fishtanks full of tropical fish. There's no way they were going to move with us.

The good news is that we had no shortage of people wanting to adopt the fish or the chickens. My co-worker, Kevin, claimed the fish. He came over one Tuesday night after work to pick them up. This was a big job! First, he and Gordon had to fish around to get the fairly panicked fish out of the fish tank and into the awaiting buckets. Covering the buckets with fish matters! Those things will jump right out if they get panicked enough! Anyhow, we emptied and disassembled the tanks and packed everything up in Kevin's truck. It took us about two and a half hours, most of the time on draining those extremely large tanks. I felt bad for Kevin, he had to go home and set them up after that. I think he was up until after midnight. He did lose two fish on the way home, two small catfish I think, but most of the fish, including the very large plecostomus (two of them) are thriving now, I hear.

My co-worker Lucinda, who lives up in the foothills, and her husband Steve decided to adopt our six chickens. We also agreed that Lucinda could take the chicken coop. So moving the chickens became a very large task - not just catching the chickens and putting them in cat carriers, but also extracting the coop from our chicken yard. Here's a picture of the coop in Steve's truck. I am not sure how this happened, since I know we moved the coop into the chicken yard, but the coop does not fit through any of our gates. So Steve, Gordon and our friend Doug ended up removing two gates to carry the coop out to the truck. I helped, I really did! I also helped catch the chickens. That was interesting. We chased the chickens into a corner and then tried to pick them up. apparently, chickens can fly, and when you reach for them, well, they fly right at your face as a defensive maneuver. I found myself outwitted by the chickens several times; but ultimately, other people (definitely not me) caught them and put them into cat carriers for a ride to their new home. Lucinda had read that chickens are traumatized by moving and generally don't lay eggs for a while afterwards. Not these chickens. By the time she got home, two of them had laid eggs in the cat carriers.

Here's a picture of the coop being picked up and moved. That was hard work! Afterwards, Gordon, Doug and Steve broke into the Irish whiskey to recover. you can see why they needed to drink!

We're moving!

Earlier this year, I applied for the position of Chief Information Officer at Chapman University (www.chapman.edu) in Orange. Orange is in Southern California, adjacent to Los Angeles. After a rigorous process - four steps, including a two-day interview and a day of visits - I was offered the job. I'll be starting my new job on June 2nd so Gordon and I will be moving to Orange at the end of May.

The positives about moving, in addition to the fact that I am moving to my dream job, are the weather and the beaches. Many other people would talk about the fact that we're so close to Disneyland. Not being a big Disneyland fan myself, I'm not ready to put that in my positives list. I'll also be closer to Ashling, since it's about 30 miles from Cal Poly Pomona, where she's going to school. The big negative, of course, being the distance that we'll be moving away from Dara, Zac and the boys, as well as Nan. We are thinking that we'll do a lot of visits each year.

The big challenge now for us is the moving. We are planning to rent our home in Fair Oaks, and to sell our home in Hercules. No change on our Berkeley home yet. But there is significant work to getting two houses ready to sell or rent! And not a lot of time to do it! We are trying to go into purging mode. I've started that with my wardrobe. I have offered all my winter clothes and many of my boots to my friends and colleagues. We've had some visitors come over and enjoy going through my closet to take what works for them! But this weekend, I plan to donate the remainder to St. John's Shelter for Women, along with toys and blankets. Next up is books. Then pictures! We're even trying to purge furniture. Sadly, some of our couches and chairs have been scratched by the kitties and don't seem to be much in demand. However, we've already cleared out one room. Gotten things out of the garage. Brought Nan two cases of wine. Nobody that comes to our house goes home empty-handed. But there is still a *long* way to go!