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We’ve been in our new place for an entire month, so I guess it’s time to blog about the fantastic experience we had.

So since we’ve been planning on moving for a while, Mark reserved a Uhaul several months in advance. We reserved a Uhaul at Graham Tire Company in Ankeny.

Well, as it turns out, we didn’t need a reservation because to Graham Tire in Ankeny, reservations don’t mean anything.  We called them the day of our move and they told us we needed to DRIVE TO MISSOURI to pick up our truck.  MISSOURI.  Yes.  Missouri.

This was completely unacceptable.  And every truck in the state of Iowa, and everything in a 2-hour driving radius was already reserved. You know, because it was July 31st, college town moving day everywhere.

So I get on the phone and call this place to see what they could do.  They didn’t offer any service.  They gave us the 1-800 number and Mark called that while I was on the phone with these people.  I asked if they could do anything else — if there were any numbers THEY could call.  They refused to do anything additional to help us get a truck since the truck we reserved with them wasn’t there.  The guy explained to me that they were a hub and they couldn’t ever guarantee a truck.  So I asked why they let us reserve one and why this wasn’t explained to us in the first place.  He apologized, and I did not accept the apology.  I called the manager’s cell phone and explained the situation but the manager has yet to call back on this customer service issue.

Mark is still on the phone.

So I call the Uhaul in Albert Lea (closest place we could think of that’s not a college town).  She said she has a few 14-foot trucks (we needed a 17-foot at least).  So she called a few numbers (like I’d asked the person at the Ankeny store to do), and got a hold of a few trucks that might be able to be reserved for us.

In the meantime, Mark is still on the phone.  He finally gets through to the people who tell us that there is a 26-foot truck in Coralville (yes, a 2-hour drive) that would be available at 3 PM.  They would give it to us for free, except for mileage.  So final review on Uhaul?  Don’t reserve with a hub (ask if they’re a hub up front!). Customer service is good on the traffic line (the 800 number) but don’t expect the same from business to business.  Graham Tire in Ankeny is getting a few honest reviews on yelp, google, and other sites.

Okay, so we have a truck now.  But the bigger problem is that we have to have all our stuff out by 2 PM (before the truck is ready) so the carpet can be cleaned. Or else it would have ended up costing Mark $500 between cleaning fees and money taken off their deposit.

So enter our roommate and our apparently extremely loyal friend, Ben.  While Mark and I drove to Coralville to pick up the truck (aka mini-semi), they moved all our belongings to the small patch of linoleum in the kitchen and to Mark’s parking spot in the lot (thank goodness it wasn’t raining!)

Side note — the trip to Coralville for the truck wasn’t a complete waste.  I remembered there was a Whitey’s Ice Cream in the mall.  And we had stopped there for lunch.  I picked up a delicious gyro salad from an authentic local Greek food stand and Mark had some Arby’s.  I definitely got some Whitey’s — black cherry frozen yogurt.

[Mark looks super enthused — he's about to drive the mini-semi across the state]

[gyro salad, but not as good as Gazali's in Des Moines]

[omg yum]

So we get home … and the carpet has just been cleaned.  We can’t go in the apartment for the next 4 hours.  We moved everything from the parking lot to the truck and waited.  At 9 PM we started moving stuff and weren’t done until 3 AM.  124 steps per trip up and down the stairs.  For 6 hours.

And then the next day we turned around and did it again.  Only backwards.  And into a new place.  Thus, drinks were had.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that besides the amazingly awesome customer service that we had at Graham’s Tire (amazingly BAD service that is), I ended up being locked out of my storage unit, where almost all my belongings had been for the past 4 months.  Apparently not only does a reservation mean nothing to Graham’s Tire in Ankeny, but if you sign up for automatic deductions from your bank account at Alexander Storage in Ames, they lose the paperwork and lock you out of your storage unit the weekend you’re moving.  Of course, they are only open 8-5 Monday–Friday — you know, the same hours I work.

Fortunately we ended up getting the Uhaul for an extra day, but had to return it by noon on Monday.  At 8 AM on Monday, I marched over to Alexander Storage in Ames and paid the bill that I already thought I had been paying for the past several months.  Oh, side note, I never received a notice that I was going to be locked out of my storage unit.  My overall review — terrible customer service but great storage units at good prices.  And not in a flood plain either.

Okay, so finally everything was moved into the apartment …

[living room]

[kitchen]

[laundry]

[hallway]

[barney's room/craft room]

[our bathroom]

SOooo glad that’s over with. Seriously, not moving.  Again.  for a long time.

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I’m moving again — and it better be the last time for a LONG time.

To celebrate … I’m having another moving sale on my etsy shop. Use the code BIGMOVE2011 to get 10% off anything.

As always … free shipping to Des Moines and Ames.

Here are [some of] the goods:

Stripey Little Zippy Pouch $12

Sofia Oversized Wallet $20

Little Birdies Cup and Saucer Set $10

Bonjour Beads and Lace Dinnerware Set $45

Happy shopping! Sale lasts through August 2.

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I just spent all of last week MOVING. Again. I know.

The house I was living in sold, so I was given 30 days to skedaddle. Moved in with my boyfriend and his roommate (who I was planning on moving in with ANYWAY come August) and now we have a pretty sweet setup.

I’m not going to post pictures of their place before. They would be forever ashamed. But here’s what we’ve got going now. Also I have to point out that we have like 11 game systems between the 3 of us. Yeah. It’s pathetic.

After combining pillows, we have ELEVEN pillows on our bed. There is no room for people. Or a dog. The good news is that since Mark’s bed is a full size, we can build the pillows up on the side to make it a queen. Kidding. But seriously. Also, we’re thinking of painting his red and blue furniture a more grown-up color … like a taupe, black or brown.

Girlie stuff + boy stuff. And I now have access to my all-in-one printer. It was on the tippy top of my desk before and I didn’t use it at ALL in my last place. My summer project (amongst many) is to scan in all of my photo albums and digitally archive them so I don’t have to cart them around with me for EVERY move. You know what that means? More installments of Time Warp Saturday.

Um. Our kitchen is awesome. Just saying. By some strange coincidence Mark and I had the same set of canisters, so now we’ve got tons of stuff all canistered-up. On the stove is this month’s batch of Mark’s marinara sauce.

And more kitchen. In the crock pot is a pot roast experiment. If successful, I will blog about it. On the wall: artwork by Kim Kullmer.

So that’s about it. For the next 4-5 months anyway. We are moving on July 31 to our new 3-bedroom and I get my doggie back. (BTW I did not mention that Barney is with my parents because we can’t have animals here)

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I just got done moving apartments, but I forgot to mention that I moved cubes at work.  We recently staffed up, so we did some shifting. Here’s my new (and maybe temporary — we should be moving buildings this summer!) digs:

And don’t forget the rabbit … this was a thrift store find from my co-worker. It uses a beer bottle tab as a hanging unit. For real.

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It’s weird when all your belongings are moved out of a space that you used to call your own. It’s just … empty.  A shell.

I was sitting in my empty apartment waiting to get checked out when it hit me that I wasn’t in my home anymore. Then I got to thinking about all the stuff that happened in that apartment. First thing that came to mind was the time I got epically sick with the stomach flu and wound up lying on the bathroom floor all night. Then I remembered going through the breakup last fall and how I couldn’t stand coming home to that apartment because it didn’t feel like home to me. It was just the place I ended up when my last boyfriend didn’t want me around anymore.

But then I remembered that my first kiss with Mark was in this room.  The first time he came to Des Moines he spent time here.

That’s about it. Honestly, I’m not going to miss this place much. I’m going to miss the fact that I can’t go home and shower over lunch after a workout, craft over lunch, take a nap over lunch, or just chill out and watch crappy TV over my lunch.  Otherwise, I consider it just a place to store my stuff. Not really much of a home.

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Barney moved in with me (finally) on Saturday and he’s settled in pretty well …

… as you can see, he’s pretty tired from the move.

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well, technically maybe 11 hours of actual painting.

I’m moving this week and I started off by painting and cleaning my new place. I agreed to rent this place on one condition: I had to be able to paint. Previous owners had painted the kitchen two shades of BRIGHT ORANGE. Not sure how they were able to cook while being simultaneously blinded, but to each their own.

So, I gained access to my new place yesterday and picked out some paint.

I had asked a bunch of people if they had some paint they’d be willing to give me, but decided to see how much paint actually cost since I was only painting one room and possibly a wall upstairs. Not bad. And Martha Stewart just released a line of paint with Home Depot. I figured if anybody could fix the orange mess, it would be her. So, I bought some of her paint along with a large bucket of greyish paint from the “oops” section for $5.

Anywho, I forgot that in order to paint, you have to tape everything off. This part is kind of a pain in the but. I enjoy painting, in fact, time flies when I’m painting, but taping stuff off? annoying.

After a couple hours and a roll of masking tape (which, by the way, do you guys have a preference on tape for painting? I got regular masking tape and the boy said I should have gotten the blue stuff. I hate the blue stuff! I’ve had issues with it. sorry. tangent) … I finally got around to painting.

It took two coats to cover the orange.  Not bad. I figured it would have taken three. Overall — Martha Stewart’s paint covers really well. The grey paint I bought was the kind that has primer in it already and MS’s paint covered just as well.

I finished painting the kitchen and the boy offered to help paint the blue wall upstairs. Apparently I should have hired him for the kitchen because he taped it off fast and like a pro. Not to mention, he’s a whiz with a roller.  We started and finished upstairs in 1.5 hours. Rock. On.

Anyway, I shall now  regale you with photographs of the experience.

This is the kitchen before I started painting.

The kitchen after adding 2 coats of the grey paint

The kitchen — finished, aside from touchups to the molding and to cover some of the orange peeking out of the edge.

Upstairs — before. I was intrigued by the paint job on the outlet.

Mark volunteered to help. I tasked myself with the hard job of photographer.

As you can see, it’s a really tough job.

Matching paint stains! Besties.

Mark was proud of a job well done. Don’t worry guys — I did buy him ice cream afterwards. Even though it was after midnight (guys, he’s not a gremlin, so I can feed him after midnight. it’s cool).

The upstairs — finished! I have a bit of touchup, but far less than I do in the kitchen. I love how the green and the wood color mix.

Also, for your enjoyment. Me after a long day of painting.

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I spent the whole weekend in Ames since it was graduation weekend and the BF FINALLY graduated. We went out Friday AND Saturday. I managed to squeeze in an hour-long run/walk yesterday while he was doing the big graduation ceremony (I didn’t go since I couldn’t sit for that long)…and we went to Applebee’s with his family for supper (mmmmmm huge ass apple walnut salad!)…and then we watched StepBrothers until super late last night. I got up early today but wasn’t very productive at all (it’s after 7 PM!!). 

First, I spent most of my morning putting together a 5K training plan for one of my BFFs, Adria. I convinced her to run a 5K with me in September or October and she’s up for it. Updates on that will follow.  I’m finishing up the program and will be hopefully sending it to her tonight so she can start on it.

Secondly — the obvious — I spent most of my afternoon moving my blog (formerly runningchimes.wordpress.com) here and doing a quickie design that will suffice for now until I get time to do a real design and redo my portfolio. I’ve been paying $10 a month for this domain, I might as well get SOME use out of it!

Finally, I spent a lot of the evening listing some things on my etsy store, re-figuring some prices and retagging some items. I’ve got quite a bit of design up. My store got some traffic the other day when I posted that black prom dress that I’ve decided I’ll never be able to squeeze into.

Unrelated: I had decided not to work out today, but then re-decided that I should. AND if I do, I get to eat the ice cream that I have in the freezer. Don’t worry — it’s just a single serving. I plan to do a half hour of biking since I haven’t biked for a while and then some strength training and stretches. Maybe 45 minutes of biking. We’ll see. I plan to go at 8 PM. That’s later than usual, but I’ve got a new rule: something is better than nothing!  I have a hard time working out late, but I figure biking easy for 30 minutes is better than sitting on my ass for 30 more minutes. 

Anyway, that is all. I shall be posting more crafty stuff hopefully and more running stuff. I need to take some photos of my crafts and post them here, facebook and on etsy. Also, I’m going to probably start using the nike+ again this week since I can run 1 mile consecutively. I’d like to know what my pace is…just for s&g’s.

Finally: Shout out to PerpetualSpiral (whose real name I don’t know…which I feel bad b/c she’s pretty awesome) — fellow craftster and twitterer.  She’s always got some kind words and praise for me!  Yay for tweeps that I’ve never met in real life.

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So Kasey informed me that he’s not really interested in University of Oregon (in Eugene, OR) anymore. Some really badass professor he has for his poetry grad class and his nonfiction class this semester told him they don’t have a good program and that “…if I could do it all over again I’d go to University of Alaska, Fairbanks…”

Thanks a lot, asshole.

So now Kasey’s interested in Alaska again…and Spokane, WA, which doesn’t sound terrible, but I am not interested in moving anywhere unless it is Oregon or Arizona (not sure why, but I really want to go to these places!).

Anyway, my weather research continues. 2 days ago he informed me that it was 34° in Fairbanks, AK versus our -20° weather here.  Okay, well that isn’t bad, right?  WRONG. Unseasonably warm in Alaska. Here’s their 10-day forecast:

Okay, so it is better than our last week’s weather… but still.

Here’s Des Moines:

Spokane:

and… Eugene:

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haven’t seen that time for a while.

i’m up cuz i’m doing laundry… not the most glamorous thing in the world. 11 loads total — 3 left to go. w00t.

homes for thanksgiving — took the day off tomorrow (thank goodness cuz i’m up doin laundry!). hopefully i can get some sleep in tomorrow…but who knows. not sure what all the deener has planned and emee will probably be up and letting us all know she’s awake tomorrow (or in just a few hours more likely).

sometime last week i decided to move this blog from runningchimes.blogspot.com to runningchimes.wordpress.com. ideally i’ll have my own blog on my own site, but i’ve got to build my own site first… and who knows when that’s going to happen. i’m kinda swamped at work now and i’ve got a couple of freebie freelance projects i’ve promised ppl (why I do that… I don’t know).

anywho, this blog isn’t going to just be a bunch of running graphs and nerdy spandex, shoe and gadget talk.  although, i’m not going to promise there won’t be any nerdy design talk… yeah. this blog is a little bit more about life than the other one.

the sole purpose for the original blog was to get me excited for the des moines marathon and create awareness that i was training. basically, without that blog, i probably wouldn’t have ran the marathon. sad how technology impacts our lives. if i didn’t have something holding me accountable, then i wouldn’t have done it (kind of like the rest of my life).

which brings me here. if i blog about my goals, does that mean maybe i’ll achieve them?  well only time will tell.

ok one thing i do miss about blogger is the foxytunes signature insert.. :/

well for anybody who cares, i’m listening to a bunch of 80s music that i’ve been downloading in  preparation for our Party Like it’s 1985 new year’s party… which is going to rock. bloggity blog blog blog to come.

right now: The Cure: Friday I’m in Love (an old classic)

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