No camera usb = No blog posts

I have a lot of great pictures from my sister's birthday, but I have no way of getting them to my computer. The one thing that I HIGHLY regret packing up is my camera's usb cable...ugh! So I have some great pictures that I can't wait to share, but they are being held hostage by my camera. I'm going to try to borrow one or find the box that has it and get the pics up soon.

Monday is the big day. Monday morning at 9:00am we close on the house and will hopefully begin moving immediately after that. So this weekend is a total work weekend. All day today (Saturday) we're going to be working hard on the Checkabiz project. If we make some considerable progress, then tomorrow we'll be getting all of the everyday sort of things into boxes so that we are completely ready to go Monday. Its super nice weather (85 degrees) so its killing us that we have all of this work to do, but at least we won't be moving in the rain.

So, about the existing house. We had listed with that agent "Assist2Sell" which is a flat-fee realtor and were stuck in that 4 month contract. We found out this week that it was going to mean that we absolutely couldn't list our house for 4 months now. We called around, got some great advice, and ended up talking to the other owner/broker. He ended up letting us out of the contract, so now we are FREE to go ahead and list with another agent. We're going to get right on this during the week and then hopefully have some more traffic to our existing home. We are getting ready to be in for the long haul though. There are quite a few houses in our neighborhood out on the market, so lots of inventory. Thank goodness this is the best time for buying a house and we're not having to sit with our house off of the market due to Assist2Sell.

So CJ took second place on the work biggest loser contest. He lost about 25 pounds! There was a little work controversy because him being the competitive guy that he is decided to starve himself for the day and work out for 2 hours to try to get a better weight in a last minute weigh in. (We had all weighed in during the morning) His final weight ended up making him the first place winner, but he decided to concede to Scott since the morning weight had said otherwise. CJ said that he felt like the bad guys from that cartoon by Hanna Barbara, "The Laugh Olympics", who are always cheating at the last minute to win the race...so he congratulated Scott and Scott ran his mouth as usual :) Oh well...we know who the REAL winner is!

Bachelor has had a blast these last couple of weeks. We've been sending him to Nona's house to play with Lacey during the day so that he wasn't around when potential buyers were looking at our house. Every evening he's been just exhausted! He has so much fun at "grandma daycare" :) CJ has been teaching him a really great trick. He gives Bachelor a 'scent' to smell, like lunch meat, then he goes and hides a packet of it somewhere in the room. He then tells Bachie to 'findit' and Bachie runs around the room sniffing it out. When Bachie reaches it, he sits beside it and barks. It's really cute and very impressive.

It may be a week or so until I post again, because I am anticipating being very busy and not having access to a computer. But when I return, I promise some cute Bachie moving pics, finally posting some Becca's Bday pics, and lots of great stories about the big move...stay tuned :)

P.S. The SweigartSpot has reached over 1000 views! We're always super amazed that anyone actually reads our silly blog. Thank you so much for reading and keeping up on our lives. It makes us feel special. Please leave more comments so that we can see WHO is reading.

Updates...

• Today is my sister Becca's 16th birthday! Happy Birthday Bec! I'm planning on taking her out for the evening tomorrow, so I'll be blogging about that on Thursday.
  
• By this time next week, we'll be moving into our new house. We're super excited, but still very consumed with lots of other work and priorities. We're still working hard on the CheckaBiz project which is that programming project CJ is working on. We're getting to the end of our deadline with this project, so it is crunch time for us.
  
• The car just got out of the shop and luckily this time we only needed to put about $150 into it. It's definitely not an expense we wanted to pay right now, but we're relieved to be able to get the car out of park and have a working air conditioner.
  
• We haven't had very much luck with selling our existing home so far. We think this is because we listed our house with Assist2Sell. We've only had one viewing so far and we believe that our house is priced competitively. We were hoping to save some money on commission by going with this company, but have been really unhappy with the amount of traffic their program has sent to our house. Also, the owner is a very rude guy. CJ called him to discuss the problem with the house getting little traffic and this guy insulted him several times and was extremely rude to him. So at this point, we want to tell anyone who is thinking about Assist2Sell to stay far far away...because our experience has not been good.
  
• Only one week left for our work's biggest loser contest. Its looking like Scott is going to win, so I'll update you further on how badly he rubs this in. :) But CJ is a close second...so that is great! CJ has lost 7.9% of his original weight! I'm very proud of his hard work. Hopefully this summer we'll both get closer to our weight/health goals by riding bikes to work. We think we can focus more on our fitness when we're not in the middle of selling/buying a house.

As if moving weren't enough...

Our car broke down!
Today we towed our bug from the parking lot of our work because the silly thing wouldn't get into gear. It was permanently stuck in park, and would not let us move it to any other gear. So off it goes for the fourth or fifth time this year to the repair shop. While it is there, we're fixing a bunch of other quirky little problems as well. I'm just smiling and trying to look on the bright side...in only 10 days we'll be able to bike ride into work and let that bug get some rest from long commutes. Happy Weekend everyone!

Countdown...

Only 11 days left until our big move! Today we scheduled a u-haul and finished signing some loan paperwork needed for closing. We're getting super excited and this whole thing is really consuming us. I can't wait for the move, but more importantly, I can't wait for our life to get back to normal. Luckily, we're well prepared and will have a fairly easy time moving. We've got most everything packed up and the u-haul should help us move quickly...make less trips back & forth. The only remaining things are some basic yard work, some window cleaning, some cabinet cleaning, and some wallboard cleaning...oh yeah and some laundry ( 5 loads). Hopefully after this weekend, we'll be completely ready to go to the new place.

Although this move is SO exciting and marks such a neat new time for us, I'm finding this time to be somewhat stressful. I'm so happy and thrilled, but the anticipation of our new home makes it hard for me to 'live in the moment'. How is it that at such a great exciting time I could be so stressed? How silly! This is such a great time, yet I find myself consumed and stressed about everything we need to get accomplished. I know that my mind is overwhelmed because I am having dreams about the move. So 24x7 for me is this obsession with our move. PHEW! I am so excited that in 11 days my mind will settle a little and I will be able to go back to life as normal...in the new house.

The Big 29!

What a great 29th birthday I had today! Thank you everyone for your cards and birthday wishes. CJ & I had the day off work today, so I was treated to a wonderful morning of sleeping in and then we went shopping. I had my eye on some new spring sandals and CJ surprised me with them. They are quite a bit sassier than I am used to wearing as they show WAY too much toe, and they also have quite the heel, but they are tons of fun. (and probably a little uncomfy for everyday wear) But I love them just the same because it is a way of celebrating that I AM still in my 20's and can own uncomfy, unpractical, sassy sandals.

After our little shopping spree, CJ and I headed over to McGrath's Fish House for some lunch. Afterwards, our plan was to grab some movie snacks to sneak into the theatre and then catch a movie. On our way to the movie I changed my mind about what I wanted to do and we ended up at home in front of the xbox dueling each other at Star Wars. It was EXCELLENT, lots of fun, but CJ won as usual. During the evening, CJ and I had pizza and ice cream cake with the fam. We watched some America's Funniest Videos and laughed so hard that we cried. It was a great evening and I had so much fun just taking it easy all day.

With only one day to spare...

The Sweigarts finally got their taxes in. This year, we owed....and we owed huge! We're not sure how it happened, but apparently our withholdings need some adjusting. With one day until my 29th birthday, I'm feeling like quite the 'old fogey' chatting about how crappy taxes are and the how price of gas is climbing.

A Hard Day's Week

It's been a hard day's week and we've been working like a dog... that is why we haven't posted in a week. Every night this week we've been fixing the old place up and packing + moving all of our stuff into our storage unit. This weekend we got up early on Saturday morning and headed down to a cute little restaurant "Granny's" for some yummy breakfast and some much needed R&R. Then we unloaded a truck load into the storage unit. When we came back home, our goal was to unload all of our garage onto the driveway and pressure wash the inside and floors of our garage. It was quite the job and effort, but when finished, this is what our garage looked like...

We've gone into the garage a few times since and just been amazed at how different this garage looks without our TONS of stuff inside it. It looks just like new again...hopefully it will entice a buyer soon :)

Bachelor's First Peep

My Aunt Lori sent us a very cool little easter package in the mail which included 4 little pink peeps. I'm sure this isn't what she had intended for the peeps, but Bachelor could smell those sugary little demons so we figured it was high time for the boy to have his very first 'peep'. But not until we tortured him first....



Yes that's him with a peep stuck to his nose. I can tell by the look on his face that he is probably planning on leaving a pink poo somewhere in the house to get me back for this one. Happy Easter!

Family Photo Gone Bad

So we wanted to take a family picture so that we could send it to the people who own the house we are buying. Since the seller dealt with us through their real estate agent, we never got to meet them. We thought it would be nice to send them a little family picture and a note thanking them for selling their beautiful home to us and assure them that we'll take great care of it. So I setup the auto picture setting on my camera and we couldn't get Bachelor's attention for ANYTHING! Everytime we tried to get him to pose in the picture, he'd go running off. So after about 10 tries, this is what we got...a picture of CJ grabbing Bachelor and displaying his rear to the camera! I think we'll choose the second picture below which was taken at a time when Bachelor was at least a little more compliant...

House For Sale

This last week we've been doing nothing but fixing up and cleaning the house to put it up for sale.

There have been so many things to do to get ready for this move and I am amazed at how time consuming and exhausting this entire process has been. Last night CJ and I talked about how much we are enjoying our current house right now. Our house is the cleanest its ever been, and also the emptiest. We've unloaded almost everything that we don't need and have taken care of a lot of the honey-do's. So now the house is sparkling clean and we're loving our last days here. I have to admit that when we were taking the pictures to sell our house, I kind of felt a little choked up. Its funny how attached you can get to a house...especially a first house. And although CJ and I have only had this house since Aug 2002, we've had a lot of great memories here. This is actually the longest that I have lived in a house since I was little. I'm so grateful to have had such a great first house. I hear stories of how the previous generations had to 'ruff' it for their first homes and I am really appreciative to have had a picture perfect first house. CJ worked really hard while we were dating to save for this first house and I feel so lucky and thankful to have been able to live here for the past 4 1/2 years. We're going to miss this house.

Weeds

Despite their pretty picturesque appearance, these guys are the worst! We have had a couple years now of a massive dandelion problem. I used to love these when I was a little girl. I'd happily scatter their seeds on the grass as I was skipping in the breeze. Little did I know, these things would become my worst nightmare as an adult. I cannot believe how hard these are to get rid of!

Last night CJ and I spent a couple of hours....errr CJ spent a couple of hours pulling all of the weeds/dandelions from our flower bed in the front.

We still have more...at least hours more!

Happy Birthday Theresa!

Yesterday was our little sister Theresa's 14th birthday. She lovingly shared her birthday celebrations with our '24' night. We spent some time chatting with her about her day, seeing all of the cool gifts that she got, and eating some cake & ice cream. It was a great time. I thought that in honor of her birthday, I would list out some of the qualities that we love about her and that make her truly special.
Theresa is...

1. Thoughtful: Last night was her night, yet she was still so kind and thoughtful to help us pick up our dishes.
2. Affectionate: It makes us so happy that every time we see her, she throws her arms around us and gives us a big hug.
3. Caring: We're so proud of her interest in learning sign-language and spending time with those who are hearing impaired.
4. Giving: She is so willing to help out and lend a hand when we need. Whenever we've asked for her help, she jumps at the chance.
5. Beautiful: Theresa is gorgeous inside and out! She has a beautiful smile and a glowing personality.
   

Happy Birthday Slick! We love you!

We're Exhausted

Moving stinks. No matter how great and exciting the prospect of a new house, you are forced to deal with stuff that you have been ignoring and shoving in corners for months, even years. We were so fortunate to have a good friend from work who donated tons of boxes to us. If we hadn't had these millions of boxes, I am sure that we would have spent more money on the boxes than the stuff in the boxes! We've now hauled three giant truck loads of boxes to a storage shed and I still have three rooms left to pack! Not to mention that I haven't even touched all of the stuff that we need on a daily basis.