So, the first day of Spring has come and gome. It's a day I like to herald but didn't realize it was here. That's because we were busy moving the Muckheads into the new house. They were eager to get a move on (heh heh) so Todd got a great deal on a moving truck Friday and the move began. Bill works half a day on Fridays so he got the truck in the early afternoon and with Kip, my youngest son, here they started emptying the basement storage room. When Todd got home from work at the usual 5:30 hour, he, of course, joined in the foray.

The Muckheads are moved in now and Bill and I will move our stuff in two weeks. There is so danged much to do to empty a place. Though we lose a month's rent by keeping this place longer, it supposedly gives us enough time to move and clean up around here. But, I know how we are. Time will slip away and that last week we will be running around like mad rats and wondering why the hell do have so much crap.

Kip was a big help this weekend. It was spring break at OSU so that was fortuitous for us. Trouble is he spread his flu/virus around so now the Muckheads have come down with it. You know what that means. That it's only a matter of time before Bill and I get it. Right? Unless that flu shot I got last fall will take care of this one for me.

There is a lot to do on this new house. It was bought at a foreclosure rate and the seller put in as little expense as possible to fix it up so he could make a profit. I kept bucking buying this house because I could see this all over the place. I wasn't the only one that saw it, too, but every other house we looked at was too small, too cramped, too close to a very big barking dog, underwired, too sloping of a yard so there'd be no place to put our little pool, too weird inside, too dark, ceilings too low upstairs for Todd to walk around, doorway too small to get their super-sized boxsprings upstairs, too tiny, too busy a street, too close to a busy train track, too ugly, too bad of a neighborhood, too old...well, you get the picture. So we kept coming back to Carmen Avenue and feeling the roominess and feasting our eyes on the parklike setting in the backyard.

I will be able to reconcile myself to this place once we get the bathroom renovated. The big feature in the downstairs bathroom is a Jacuzzi tub. Well, this doesn't float my boat too ecstatically so I could live without it. The rest of the crew, though... Trouble is that the tub sits flush up against the toilet making for a very awkward and nearly impossible time on the throne for us fat people. We've found a nice plumber now who is going to tackle moving the toilet over and relocating the sink behind the bathroom door since moving the toilet over would then put it flush up against the sink. Oh, yeh, the foibles of home owning. Right?

Not much else new. You'd think there would be since I haven't written for a month. Only interesting thing to relate is that Bill and I went out drumming in the park last month. One of his co-workers is taking African drumming lessons and I expressed an interest in it so she invited us to Oxford, Ohio to sit in the park with them and do some drumming. Man, I'll tell ya, I had a blast. I had never done drumming in my life and I picked up on it right away. I got into those rhythms pretty easily and found that I could beat them out nearly indefinitely. That's me on the left.

Bill sat on the sidelines for an hour and then finally was lured into drumming, too. After they would play out the song they were working on, I would still sit there and experiment with beats. Bill joined in with me and improvised. Soon the leader, Pete, came over and joined in on our duet. When we finished, he commented that "We got it." Said he was drawn right into that one. He'd like for us to come to his Tuesday practices. Boy, did that feel good! I dunno yet but Bill said he'd go with me if I went. I'm thinking about it.

Meanwhile, back to scarfing up some more boxes.