Off to Ohio we Go!

James and I leave for Ohio this Friday to visit my mom! We have a fun, food-filled agenda, including driving around parts of Toledo and past my old house and high school. We will also have a full house. My grandma will be there, Melissa will drive down from Ann Arbor and one of my best friends from high school, Amy Fifer (Kronberg) and her family will be there. It should be a good time. I think we might be making ice cream, too! Yummy!

Rib-fest.

Kristin's family (a friend of James) has an anual rib-fest. Apparently it's held at a lake-house Northeast of here and is a summer, family filled event. James is very excited about going and asked me to go to. I accepted. Yes....I, the girl who eats no pork, am going to a rib-fest this weekend. This should be interesting.

My power is out....again.

There was a pretty nasty storm last night. I woke up this morning to see what time it was and my clock was dead. The power is out!! I called it in and they are aware of the problem but have no estimate as to when it will be fixed. I guess I won't be putting on makeup or making toast this morning. A bit hard to do with no power. That makes this the 3rd time this summer that the power has gone out. Seems a bit much to me. What makes it worse is that people a block south of us appear to have power and the neighbors across the street have power. Are we the only ones with a power outage??

My Packing To-do List

So, it's that time to start moving stuff over to our new place. I'd like to get as much packed and moved over by myself before next weekend so we can concentrate on large items next weekend. So much to do before next weekend:

• Buy more boxes and tape
• Living Room: CD's and DVD's, stuff in random drawers
• Kitchen: shelf, pantry, cabinets
• Upstairs: Linen closet, attic
• Bathroom: Drawers, shelf
• Bedroom: Closet, chest of drawers, bed drawers, take apart bed
• Call places w/my new address

Of course, there is more to do than this if you include all the cleaning that has to get done at our old place. Fun, fun!

One of those Summer Days

Today is one of those summer days when you want to be outside, preferably near a source of water to play in. It's sunny, the trees are green and lush, the cicadas are getting louder, and it's going to be hot. Oh, how nice it would be to have a lazy day in a park instead of inside at my desk.

Kiss those Payments Goodbye!

That's right!! As of yesterday afternoon, I no longer have car payments. I made the decision before I bought my car last year that I would be aggressive about paying it off. I followed through with that decision and am now car-payment free!!! Yay!

Oh, and after visiting the BMV this morning, I am also allowed to legally drive my payment-free car. That's always nice.

BMV, I dislike you today.

So, I got a lovely notice in the mail this evening from the BMV letting me know that I'm eligible to go ahead and reinstate my license on July 16th. That in order to do this, I need to go ahead and pay them $150 and show them proof of insurance.

Uhmmmmmmmm........WHAT???!?!!

So, apparently when you get in a car accident (which I did back in February), you have to provide proof of insurance to the state of Indiana. WHCH I DID!! I called Geico immediately after getting the notice from the BMV back in March. They submitted proof of insurance and I even called to confirm the next day with Geico. I recalled Geico yesterday and they confirmed again that they had faxed the certificate of compliance back in March.

Despite all this, they apparently suspended my license because their records showed they hadn't received it. What's worse is that they suspended my license back in April, but never told me!!! So, I've been driving all this time, not realizing that there was an issue. Had I known, I would have fixed it right away. I am very annoyed right now. I will have to try and fix this today.

Things to Look Forward to...

I'm back at work with no vacation planned at this point and a 5-day a week work-week set in for awhile. This makes me a bit sad after the fun week I had last week of visiting and not working (although the sprained ankle sucked). But there are a few things to look forward to:

• My make-up Birthday to be celebrated with James. Since he was in Albania for my actual birthday, we are doing a make-up bday this weekend. We plan on making and decorating a cake. Yay!
• Visiting my mom. James and I plan on going to Ohio in a few weeks to visit my mom for a weekend. I will be inviting Melissa back down to eat dinner and, if she wants, spend the night.
• Moving into our new rental house. My roommate and I are moving into our new place soon! Our lease there starts on the 15th and we have two weeks to slowly move our crap over. We are really excited about this move, as the new house is sooooo nice. I am going to have to start packing this weekend.
• Megan's visit. My friend, Megan, is going to be flying in from Denver around Labor Day to visit. It's always a good time when hanging out with her.

So, this is my summer excitement so far. We'll see what else pops up.

Three States in 24 hours and a Sprained Ankle!

I helped my friend, Melissa, move to Ann Arbor, Michigan on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. We left around noon on Tuesday and I spent the night at her place. On Wednesday, I decided that instead of driving straight back to Indianapolis, that I would stop by my mom's house in Toledo area in Ohio (she really lives in Wauseon, now).

So, Melissa and I made the hour south trip to have dinner at my mom's house and then I was going to drive back to Indy. Well, within the first 30 minutes of the visit, I sprained my ankle. It sucked. We were showing Melissa around my mom's property, which includes a chicken coop, their garden, their fruit trees and an old 100 year old barn. While we were exploring the barn, we thought we heard a cat meowing up in one of the lofts of the barn. So, I decided that I would check it out. I had climbed the old ladder leading up to the loft several times before with no problems. However, this time it had apparently rotted out enough that down I came aftr stepping on the third rung. I landed in a pile of old, rusty, sharp farm machinery. Luckily, all that happened was a sprained ankle and some bruises. Although I did feel like I was going to pass out after it happened. Weird.

So, I ended up staying the night at my mom's and driving back in the morning. Ahhh, what adventures one can have in Northwest Ohio.