Highlights (Not Just for Children Anymore)

It seems like for-absolutely-ever since I've posted. I went six whole days without my computer. Six days! And then, just for kicks, when we tried to set it up, the DSL wouldn't work, so I had to wait another day for the local phone company to send somebody out to check the line.

Just to catch up briefly:

• Last month we spent a week driving to and from South Dakota for a series of interviews Adam had set up, and to check out the area and see if we'd like to live here.
  
• He was offered a job that sounded just perfect at the last place he went. We had less than a month to get our stuff together and move ourselves across two states.
• We secured an apartment long-distance and started pulling boxes out of the attic. After much discussion, we realized the move itself would take nearly a week, so we planned two weeks for packing up our stuff, one in transit, and a final one unpacking before the new job started.

Our moving sale went well. We made over $100, which was my goal. Plus, it made for a nice break from the packing.

The last day of September, a bunch of our friends came over to help us load the truck. The next day, another friend came over to help clean. She also brought her daughter to entertain our daughter and keep her from too much "helping". I need to send out a big THANK YOU to them both, because I don't know how we would have managed on our own. We certainly wouldn't have finished in time for dinner followed by swimming at the hotel pool.

Traveling was pretty uneventful, just as you hope driving a 26' moving truck hitched to a trailer carrying your car will be. We managed to make it the whole trip without losing anything or having to back up.

My brother lives in town here, so I had enlisted his help in collecting a crew to help us unload. When I spoke to him on Friday night, only three guys had said they were coming, and one could only be there an hour. Thankfully, in the end we had six strapping men (not all of them were young), plus Adam. We were able to get everything into our new apartment in less than two hours. Now we just have to get it all unpacked.

Meanwhile, the computer is set up, the phone is working, and we're trying to figure out what TV channels we get (I found channels that aren't listed in TV Guide--I've never had that happen before). This past Sunday was my first week of Bears withdrawal. It went pretty well. I was able to watch most of the Packers' loss to Atlanta and the Steelers' win over the Jaguars. And the Bears won again, which is more than I can say for another ursine sports team that makes its home in Chicago.

Oh, and in other news, I have sound for the first time! When I got my current computer, our friend who built it had installed a sound card, but didn't include speakers. I've had so little experience with computer hardware that I had no idea how simple it would be to plug my $10 speakers in and hear everything I've been missing. Now I, too, can watch Hulu.

So, what's been the highlight of your week?