Cleaning, Painting, Moving In, "Ohhhh the basement is flooded"

Hi Everyone!

I'm in a coffee shop down the street from Mark and I's new place. We don't have Internet there yet, it should be installed sometime this weekend, but we are not quite sure of the day. It's amazing how much of a pain it is not to have Internet. Ha! I have grown soooo use to constant access.

Anyway... whew! This month has been a doozy! So much has happened since we left Seattle I can't possibly fit it all into this blog post :) But I can tell you that we got to Madison in one piece on Friday the 15th at about 6:00pm. We were so tired from being on the road that we just vegged the rest of the evening. I think we went to the local food co-op and got some soup, then laid in bed and watched a movie on my computer. Since then we have been going non-stop it feels like. Here is a list of some of the stuff we have been doing since we got here a week ago: (yeah, I like lists :)

1. Cleaned our new house top to bottom (it was very dirty and is 100 years old this year! Happy birthday house! To bad you haven't held up very well in your old age. You need about 100 face lifts) So, needless to say, is a run down and needs way more work then we can do. But it's home and it's much better after the deep clean.

2. We spackled and painted the living room and the half bedroom in the back. It is now a very soothing gray blue color, very light and calming. MUCH better then the Coral/Vermilion/Dark Pink/Mauve color there was before. You could say the rooms were this color:

YEAH!!! I know! not only is it pink but it's a dark gray sort of pink, sorry if any of you like it and decide you are now going to paint your rooms this color, I just don't care for it, it's waaaaay too dark.

3. We got all of our stuff on the 19th and have been unpacking since then. We were so tired from cleaning and painting that we haven't made too much progress in the un-packing process yet, but, we will.

4. Home Depot. Yeah, we went there 3 days in a row. 3 times total. It became funny after a while, I would wake up in the morning and be like "Ok, what are we gonna get from THD today?" We needed all sorts of things: cleaning supplies, paint, hornet nest spray, light bulbs, trash cans, shower curtain, CLR (they have hard water here and the faucets are totally calcified) and more.

5. I had two job interviews this week. The first with The Creative Learning Preschool and the second with The Preschool of the Arts. They both went very well and I loved the preschools. They are both very well established in the community and have a diverse student and teacher population. You can tell they really care about the arts and it's place in early childhood development and the classroom. I got a great feeling from both of them and they seem well organized and caring places to work.
One of the preschools made me a substitute teacher offer today. It's a good offer, even though it's not a full time position, but it can lead to a position in the future and it will be a good way for me to try out the school. Plus, the director told me that they need subs every day and it can vary from 2 hours to 8 hours of work a day. So I think that's good. Then, the other school asked me to come back for a second interview for tomorrow morning. They want me to spend two hours in the classroom with the kids and do a little creative drama. I really hope I get that teachers Assistant job there. It would be from Monday- Friday from 1:30-5:30. So I would still have time to do some subbing. They also said that there might be a possibility that I could do some creative drama with the other classrooms in the school, which would be great. So, wish me luck :)

6. We have been to some good restaurant's this week too. There is a great Mediterranean place called Bunky's Cafe near our house. Really cozy and welcoming and they have great food! We also went to a good Thai food place in the Willy St. Neighborhood. A colorful place with lots of plants. We had an amazing duck curry and a curried fried rice dish with shrimp. We also went to a Taco Bell because it was like midnight and we were starved after painting all day. We also went to a gas station quickie mart at 11:30 one night to try and find a meal. It was a super sketchy place, the man behind the counter even had 2 inch thick bullet proof glass between him and the customer. We got some water and packets of ramen noddle soup. When we approached the counter to buy our dinner I asked the man how often he has been in the situation where the bullet proof glass was necessary and he said all the time. People come in here and fight all the time. He said that he tells people that if they don't mess up the store he wont call the cops, they can beat each other up as much as they want just don't mess up the chips and candy bars.

Well, I will update more when I get Internet at our house and I will take pictures of our place and post um :) Much love!

Sarah

Ohhh yeah, and our landlord taught us how to use the boiler for the radiator heat. And he left on the water valve that fills the boiler and forgot he had. Then he went down in our basement to get something and said to us: "Want to see what happens when you leave the water on?" So we went down to take a look and there was water flooding the basement. We were like "Ok, note to self, don't leave the water on for the radiator." But the water all drained out and he turned off the water.