February 5, 2014: Snow Day

We were anticipating the blizzard last night so I was all prepped to work from home today. I woke up around five and heard something that sounded like typing but it was the ice hitting the side of the house. I went back to sleep and slept in for several hours. It was wonderful. Knowing that it was going to be a snow day and a guaranteed late start at the office made for a quiet, snuggly morning. No need to run down to determine that everything was too awful to drive. A quick peek out of the window shows that the plows were not keeping up with our own driveway and that little Spark was not going anywhere. We had six inches of snow or more and a solid sheet of ice over the top of that.

I have my loaner laptop from the office so in the later morning I set that up down in the basement on the desk, the only desk that we have so far, and logged into work there. Today is officially a “snow day” with the office effectively closed but that just means working from home but it does mean that it will likely be a pretty quiet day. I am very thankful that I really did not need to make any judgment call on that and got to just work from home today without feeling guilty.

Dominica did school with Liesl much of the day down in the basement. Liesl did not get a snow day. It was fun getting to see her doing school today, though.

We did not go outside all day, in fact the front door was blocked by a bunch of cardboard all day. Dominica was pretty annoyed that I had taken over her desk, though.

We got a little more unpacking done today here and there although, overall, pretty little. I am still resting up after the moving the other night. I don’t feel bad but it is a good day to take it easy. We do have a bit of a panic to get a lot of stuff put away over the next few days because dad is coming to stay with us in less than a week and there isn’t any place for anything, the house is just a collection of boxes.

The really big, awesome news tonight is that we got our house in Texas rented! This is a huge deal. What is amazing is that we had two people “fighting” over the house for the last few months. It has been going on since months before we left Texas. At first one friend committed to taking it and has been stating that she would for months. So we felt bad with other friends said that they had wanted it and we had not saved it for them due to some severe miscommunications. But then, while the Ralstons were there, the first friends looked at the house again and ended up deciding that they couldn’t take it. Then the second friends, tonight, decided that it just didn’t make sense for them. So two seemingly “definite” renters both fell through this week. We haven’t been even thinking about renting the house out all of this time because one person had committed to taking it and another had been almost begging us to give it to them instead.

But tonight, everything came together, and a third friend, out of nowhere, asked if the house was available and committed to it tonight. We expect that he will probably be moving in by this weekend. We are so happy that that is over and done with. Now we have someone that we know going into the house and we know that it is happening soon rather than at some indefinite time in the future and we will have the rent coming in from that house which is pretty critical as we have been just outright paying for both places for a whole season already. That has been exceptionally financially painful. Paying for an empty house with lawn care, electric, FiOS Internet access, etc. is not cheap. That has made being in New York not very cost effective. That is probably our single, largest point of stress at the moment taken care of.

We stayed up a little late tonight watching Doctor Who with the girls, we are in the first half of the seventh season watching it straight through with them. Then I read them “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and we got them off to bed. The two of them are currently sharing the queen guest bed that we set up in their room for the Ralstons. They are so cute snuggling together in that big bed with tons of blankets, stuffed animals and such. We are up to the “dark island” late in our book. Liesl is just loving the story.

The weather let up today so no reason to think that I will have any issues going into the office tomorrow.

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