I don't Know Where to Put Anything

 This apartment is warm and quiet. I don't hear traffic like when we lived in Hartford. I hear an occasional jet or plane in the distance. The windows aren't icy with freezing drafts like the apartment in Hartford. Wind doesn't blow in around the air conditioners like the one in Hartford. The carpet isn't an ocean of waves like the one in Hartford (it needed to be stretched). It's not dusty because the one in Hartford was "painted" with tinted plaster that has been shedding dust particles since day one seven years ago.

I still miss the view. I miss the hills. I miss the places we walked. I miss how easy Hartford was to drive around in. I miss West Bend and Grafton and Delafield, so many familiar places.

I'm not sure how much I will be able to drive here, although I have Walmart figured out. It's easy, only 3 miles and no highways. I am hoping the clinic is not far. I like to be able to drive myself to the doctor or for labs. I asked on the Appleton group for recommendations but that one is across town by expressway. I have never felt comfortable on major highways. Hartford was easy. Appleton, Grand Chute, and all the others that make up the Fox Valley cities are sort of the same type of mayhem as Indianapolis and Madison.

My hubby loves the area. He grew up in a city. He feels comfortable here because he is surrounded by dozens of jobs. Thankfully they aren't stinky. Green Bay stinks. Hartford had a few jobs but the one that paid well died.

Back to the apartment. I have a decent view of sunsets now. There are birds singing! I heard a chickadee this morning. Did I mention it's quite? I can't even hear people running their appliances. In Hartford we could only run them between 8 am and 8 pm because we could hear each other's washer, dryer, dishwasher and disposal. To think that place was advertised and being sound proof! Here the water is soft and I have the cleanest dishes ever! In Hartford the water was so hard everything was encrusted in white, no matter how often it was cleaned. I have more counter space, and more cabinets, but less usable space. For some reason the cabinets have a poorly placed shelf that makes me practically stand on my head to see what's in there.

That middle shelf means I can't reach more than what I can see. I can bend over just fine, but because of my neck surgery I have to tilt my head sideways and try to reach in. It seems to be a mechanical difficulty.

Normal cabinet. I can see and reach everything

The bathroom has no storage and is butt fuggly. It has a walk in tub with jets. Haven't used it yet, just the shower. Taking a shower in there is like standing in a box.

WHY are the bathroom walls textured like this and WHY are they Sh-t color??

The entry way is narrow. I put a chair in there so we can sit to remove our shoes/boots, but I want it one place and hubby wants it in another. There is hardly room to do anything in there.

We can't decide on the placement of stuff in the living room. I have to consider that the A/C will blow down the hall from the front door, and the sun shines in from the southwest, and we are only comfortable sitting certain directions in relation to the TV.

Our bedroom has a fairly normal closet. The second bedroom has no closet, but it has a large laundry room with a full size washer and dryer. The hallway has a dinky "linen" closet. We are missing at least 100 sq. ft of storage compared to the old apartment. When I say I can't unpack anymore it's because I need to re-evaluate and re-organize EVERYTHING.

That's enough complaining for one day.

Getting Settled

 It's been a hard journey, all the packing and unpacking. The apartment is decent but the storage SUCKS. I have gone from roomy, walk-in closets to dinky little useless things. I guess cabinets and or shelving will be in order. Today I gave up unpacking and admitted defeat, for the time being. This was literally the only apartment available in January at our price point. Then some special watercolor paint I ordered (and gave the seller my new address) was still delivered to Hartford. Some of my friends are sad, depressed, etc. I shed some tears. It's just been so much to deal with.

On a better note, hubby's been in training all week and things are going well. 

Once the weather gets better we will take some walks, somewhere. I'm not familiar with the area.

Appleton has everything and people are nice. One of my friends always told me this area is the headquarters of the John Birch society and stay away. We have instead found a college town with people from everywhere. 

Now that I have vented a bit, here are some pictures.

Morning view, sunrise over Amazon fulfillment center 

Patio, facing south and west. I can see sunsets now, and hear lots of birds

Kitchen

Bedroom

Plants, south window

Plants, west window

That's all I'm willing to show right now. The second bedroom where my plants are has no closet, but a large, walk-in laundry room with a full-size washer and dryer, which is nice.

It's very quiet here. We can just barely hear the airport and hubby is only minutes from his work.

Take care everyone.

Finally We Are Moved!

Moving during a polar vortex is no fun, but we are done! Actually the weather turned quite nice, with today being in the 50's. Our new place is cozy, with no cold, drafty windows. The storage space is quite a bit smaller, which made for a more difficult move, sort of like trying to pack 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5 pound bag. We got rid of mountains of stuff. Our old apartment was bigger than my house in Indiana, so after 7 years of living there, quite a bit of stuff had accumulated in those big, deep closets.

Here is our new place. I'm not showing you the inside until we finish unpacking. We are on the 1st floor.

We are so tired, and sore! I can't wait to get unpacked. Will show you more later. Hubby starts his new job on Monday.

Outagamie County

 What a cute county name. It's also neat that we will be living on Technical Drive. Yes, we got an apartment, in Greenville! It has the middle-of-nowhere, in the county feel that I like and is only minutes from the amazing Appleton airport, hubby's work, and the city of Appleton.

Natural areas around Greenville

Appleton airport

The apartment is first floor and has a patio, slightly smaller than the one I have now, but we have one, and management is great, and says I can put flower pots anywhere. The kitchen is twice as big as the one here, the living room a bit smaller, and only one bathroom. However I will have a giant laundry room with a full size washer and dryer! We will have two bedrooms with bigger windows that I have now. The second bedroom with two windows will be my plant and craft room. It has two sunny windows that my succulents are going to love.

There has been a boatload of work to do, packing, hiring movers, finding cleaning help, signing the new lease, breaking our current lease, but things are coming together. We are driving up next week to pick up the key and set up my plants in the second bedroom. I just want them out of the way before the movers come on the following Monday. Then before the end of January we come back here to clean. I hired a cleaning service to help with the difficult things, cleaning the stove, fridge and bathroom.

Ok, back to work! Will share pictures later.

A Cup of Coffee Before the Work Begins

 It's nice to sit here and reflect a bit before I need to get busy again with packing, sorting, donating and more packing.

As much as I'm going to miss my view, I do have dozens of pictures, some quite beautiful, to remember it by. Truthfully, I have been quite lonely here. People move in and out like changing underwear. This apartment has a dust problem, from day one, because the walls are spray painted with tinted plaster, a problem which will probably be fixed once it's properly painted, for the next tenants. We have been here since 2018.

My thoughts on Appleton. It's more city that I'm accustomed to but we would be living on the edges. There is ample green space, lots of trees, fall colors, and nice people everywhere. There are companies and jobs in abundance, and unlike Green Bay, it's clean! Green Bay smells like Norhtwest Indiana. It's gritty with industries that stink. And, honestly, unless you are a Packer's fan, you will be overwhelmed with Packer stuff EVERYWHERE. If hubby's job would have been in Green Bay, we would make sure to live outside of town. 

Finding an apartment has been more difficult than I hoped, but Monday I am calling a property management company that was recommended to me by someone on the Appleton facebook page. They manage quite a few apartment complexes in the area, and we are hoping for a first floor, two bedroom apartment, Appleton or Neenah. The problem is, not many places are available this month, and since the company is paying hubby to move, we don't want to wait until February or March.

People are NICE. I was surprised at how nice and welcoming they are. We did look at an apartment in Greenville, just north of the amazing Appleton airport. The location was great, but the apartment needs so much work. They said they could have it ready in a week, but it involves paint, and I cannot handle paint fumes AT ALL. I asked about low VOC paint but they use the same paint and painter for all the apartments. She admitted it would smell like paint for at least a week. I can't, I just can't. On top of that, the apartment needed repair, which they said they would do, but it was just too much. The manager and her friend (manager from another complex) tried to help by calling their business friend to see if he had an apartment move in ready now. He did, but the rent was $1,300, too steep for us.

As I mentioned before, hubby had a successful interview, They told him they would let him know in a week. We were afraid to be hopeful (thinking back to the company in Jefferson), so we both took a deep breath and put it in God's hands. We stopped for coffee downtown and went home. The drive is slightly more than an hour, and we were 5 minutes from home when hubby's phone rang. He pulled over in a parking lot so he could talk. They were calling with an offer!

I can't tell you how happy hubby is to get back to working with metal. Two plus years with the company here in town introduced him to a new career. He and his coworkers became a team, friends as well. It was a sad day when all this was broken by the sale of the company. An exhaustive search turned up nothing suitable around here. That's how Appleton came into focus.

Did I mention people are nice? We already feel quite welcome there. There are so many things to do and places to see, nature to explore, etc, etc.

I just finished my 3rd cup of coffee. Time to get to work.

Fire Trucks

 Hubby got the job! He will be working for Pierce who builds fire trucks in their Appleton facility. So excited, and exhausted from searching for an apartment.

So Far, Looking Promising

 Hubby had a good phone interview and is scheduled to have an in-person interview tomorrow, including a plant tour. I will go with him and wait in the truck.

I am tired. The apartment search long distance is exhausting. I have most of my little things packed, going through some bins and creating donation piles. 

Short post today. Don't want to count the chickens before the eggs hatch (remember what happened with Nestle).

Later.

A New Direction

We have been searching far and wide......as far south as Kenosha (closer to Indiana), up the coast to Sheboygan (love Kohler-Andrae State Park), northwest to Baraboo (breathtakingly beautiful), but one area keeps holding the promise of good paying jobs....Appleton. We have been to Appleton 3 times, counting today. We wanted to drive by two of the companies hubby has applied to for work. He has a phone interview Thursday with one company. 

Appleton is on the north end of Lake Winnebago and the Fox River runs through town. Appleton has every available shopping one might need, and parks everywhere, and excellent healthcare. Between Appleton and the lake is a cute community that we have gravitated to each time we have visited, Neenah, Wisconsin. We wanted to move there before, but a steady job here in Hartford prevented that. Now......??

I will certainly update here if something is promising. I am actually looking forward to packing. So many adventures up there, and Door County is about an hour northeast. SO much more nature to explore that we haven't explored yet. More north...more cold? Cold is cold. Throw on warmer clothes. It's more north, more of a chance to see the northern lights. And there are a few apartments for rent, reasonable.

Here are some pictures of Doty park. It's beautiful in the snow or frost (none of which we had today, only bitter cold)

I have Hope again

Long Loom Struggles

 I can't tell you how many times I started over again trying to figure out how to turn around and go the other direction! I joined a Facebook group for help. Turns out I'm not the only one struggling with this. Before I continue, let me explain. Many people suggested videos on YouTube but each one I watched showed a completely different way to wrap, or cast on, I think it's called. I mean, really different, and fast.....everyone goes too fast. Finally some one posted a link to a video with step by step instructions. I'm going to link it below so I can actually find it again. First, here is a picture of where I got stuck.

My finger is pointing to the peg that has only one wrap.

Here is the cast-on. I'm not using the full loom.

This is the yarn. I learned that medium weight should be doubled, and I could have used the chunkier kind instead.

Here is the video:

In other news, we didn't take a walk. We might today. It's colder and snowing slightly but we know the Chickadees at Harrington Beach are hungry. The last time we walked there we were met by a chattering flock of about a dozen, but we had forgotten seed. Thankfully other people feed them as well.

And lastly, we had gone shopping and I saw a mortar and pestle like the one my mom had. Well, hers was wood and this one is bamboo, but almost the same. It gave me warm and fuzzy feels and was only $7.99, so it came home with me.

Have a great day!

5 PM EDIT.....it was COLD. We were bundled up so much that if one of us fell we would have bounced. We only took a short walk and left a pile of seeds on two picnic tables. No wildlife was around, probably all hiding in the holes in the trees. The wind was icy. We decided to head home.

Wish It Was a Happier New Year

 Don't get me wrong, I was so happy to visit my daughter in Indiana and she and her family were happy to see us. We exchanged gifts. We were gifted some laser-cut ornaments my son-in-law designed and cut at work on the plasma laser. We also stopped by the cemetery to lay flowers on my former hubby's grave and my younger daughter's grave. We drove down on Saturday morning and returned Monday morning, December 30th. Hubby worked Monday night and now is off for a few days until January 6th. We took a walk yesterday and plan to walk again today and every day that we can, bundled up.

Yesterday we stopped by Hobby Lobby and bought some yarn and a loom pick tool for the long loom I was gifted. I bought an artificial fern for my desk. I don't normally like plastic plants, but it looks real and I can't grow ferns.

My desk fern

Last night hubby and I talked, a much needed talk. I know he is grieving the loss of his beloved father. When he is sad, I feel it. too, like our energy reflects on each other. He is also still looking for a job. I was confused, I thought everything was ok. Apparently not. He didn't tell me they back-pedaled on the "good news" they previously gave him. 

I wish I could say I was confident in our future. I feel unsettled with the thought of leaving this apartment. rent is too darn high everywhere. I have plants. They need windows. I have been blessed with three windows here in this apartment. Three windows are rare as hen's teeth in apartments. I have been paring down my collection and going through boxes of stuff, sort of "pre-packing". I'm not sure how confident I am in hubby finding a good job. He is concerned as well. There are some well paying jobs over an hour away. Typically companies don't hire people that far away. We would need to move. 

Thankfully today is sunny. We are going for a walk later. I'm leaving today's blog at that, will write more later.