Final Year Send Off

Sarah left for school this morning.  With any luck, this will be her final year before graduation.  I'm not sure exactly what she will do yet.  If she decides to stay with PA school, she'll have to take a couple of extra classes, which means no graduation in May.  If she goes with just getting the human biology BS and intends to go get an advanced nursing degree, she could graduate in May, but she'll have to take 17 credits this semester and 16 in the spring.  Or, she could split it up so she doesn't have as many credits, and graduate next December.  We'll have to see how this semester goes.

In any event she packed up her car last night (for the most part), finished putting a few things in today, and she was gone by noon.  Unfortunately, she couldn't get everything loaded up in her car, so I told her we'd drive up the few things she left tomorrow.  I figured that if we left early, we could be back home by 3:00.  Plenty of time to finish prepping the driveway to get resealed on Monday. 

A New Computer

After the hassle of the last couple of days with backing up phones, and syncing to iTunes we have FINALLY decided to get a new desktop computer for Kris.  THe whole problem had been the fact that we were still using the Dell we bought as the extra computer for Sarah to do her homework on when she was in either 5th of 6th grade.  I think it was 5th, but I could be wrong.  It was originally a Windows XP operating system, and I upgraded it one to Vista.  It had been slow, but was good enough for what Kris used it for.  Until of course Microsoft stopped supporting the OS.  Since then its performance has been getting progressively worse.  

The last straw was when I found out that I could not update iTunes to handle Kris's new phone.  After discussing it, we decided to bite the bullet and get a new one.  The good thing is that we only needed a new tower.  No need to get a new monitor, or keyboard, etc.  In addition, it was on sale so I also saved almost $100 on it.  Now, we should be completely updated in both phones and computers for the foreseeable future.

New Phones

It was finally time.  Everyone on the family needed a new phone, and I finally went ahead and replaced them.  We have been an AT&T family for somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 years.  It is probably more like 16 or 17.  I think we switched when I started my job at Krueger Bearings.  We have been with them since before they were AT&T, they were still known as Cingular Wireless.  So that tells you how long it has been.  But at first it was just me and Kris.  Then we added a phone for Sarah when she started middle school, and the same for Ali, though I think we may have gotten her phone when she was in 5th grade.  But they were always add-ons.  It was never a whole sale replacement of phones, mainly because of the timing and cost. 

Since I contacted AT&T to see if we could get a deal on phones since we have been customers for so long, but they couldn't do anything for me.  Amazing that if I were a new customer, I could have gotten four new phones for the price of two, but because I have been a loyal customer for 15 plus years, they said, sorry.  Well I said sorry too and decided to change carriers.  Verizon had a BOGO deal going so I took it.  And we pretty much end up paying the same amount, except for the monthly charge for two of the four phones.  I guess I'll have to start playing "the game" of switching services every few years now to get the newest phones for the best price.

There was a small problem though when I picked them up last night.  The girl at the Verizon store asked if I had ported the old number.  I thought that meant transfer, so I said yes.  And then when I got home Kris informs me that all of a sudden, no one had any service on the old, existing phones.  My plan had been to set them up one at a time, making sure to transfer everything and ensure the new phone was working properly before deactivating the old one.  That plan went out the window and I spent the rest of last night setting up Kris's phone as well as the girls.  And what a mess, because first they wouldn't transfer, then I found out that the sim cards in the phones were mixed up, Sarah had Kris's number, Kris had Ali's, and Ali had Sarah's.  I also found out that the version of iTunes on Kris's desktop was not compatible with the newest iOS.  Which meant before transferring data, I had to set up profiles on my laptop for everyone, sync their phones (which took about 60-90 minutes each) before I could get everything transferred to the new phones.  I spent a total of 9.5 hours doing it so everyone had their phone set up for when they woke up in the morning.  The only one who didn't have a phone was me.  Luckily it still worked over the wifi, so I could text if I needed to, plus I actually just got a new phone for work, so I could use that one until I got my phone set up.  So now we should be good for the next 2-3 years.

U-Haul Blows

Sarah will be moving out of her apartment at the end of the semester and moving into a new place next month.  In the meantime, there is going to be about a two week lag between Sarah and her roommates moving out, and when they can move into the new apartment.  This predicated the need for a storage unit.

Sarah knew about this back at the beginning of the semester, so she went looking for a storage unit she and a couple of her roommates could rent for a month.  I suggested the U-Haul facility in LaCrosse, since it was close by and reasonable on their rates.  She went online back in March and looked for availability, and was lucky enough to find a 10 x 20 unit, indoors and climate controlled for the month, so she snatched it.  Fast forward to today.

I get back to my desk and see that there is a call on my cell phone from Sarah.  I call her back and she says she is screwed…  She is at U-Haul and they told her they don’t have any units available.  I said, “But you reserved one two months ago”. And she said the manager at the U-Haul place said she was sorry.  She then pointed out she has a confirmation that says she is supposed to “move in” today, and the manager told her the reservation system doesn’t work that way.  They told her basically all they had for her was a 5 x 7 storage box.  Which won’t even fit everything in her room, let alone her other roommates.  I told her to take it for now and I would have to see what we can do.

She said she and her roommates have been calling other places trying to find a storage unit they could rent, but no one has anything available.  It makes sense because it is the end of the semester and anyone going home for the summer is storing their stuff rather than hauling it home, and then hauling it back to school in August.

I ran into the same problem with U-Haul two years ago when Sarah was moving out of the dorms at the end of the school year.  I went online looking for a unit and found U-Haul advertising they had one, but when we got there they said, “nope”.  I thought it was partly my fault for waiting until two weeks before to look for something, so I figured that if Sarah found something two months ahead of time (actually almost three months) it would be a sure thing.  After all, if there was a problem there was plenty of time for U-Haul to let her know.  I guess they just don’t roll that way.  I told Sarah not to worry about it, that I would figure it out.  She didn’t need to stress herself out (since she is about to take finals) and I’ll handle it.  She was coming home for the weekend anyway to help Alison with prom anyway so there wasn’t much she could do about it now.

I started looking around online and there wasn’t a whole lot available.  There were places that didn’t answer the phone, other places with nothing available.  After about 45 minutes of looking, I was able to find a place in Sparta that had some storage units available for a reasonable price, so I called to reserve it.  I got a recording saying to go online to view their availability and to reserve a unit.  When I did, I got an error with the system.  ARGH!  I was planning on calling back and leaving a message figuring I would have to take care of it on Monday, but someone actually answered.  After explaining to him what I wanted and was trying to do, he instructed me to just text him my contact info and he would make sure it got reserved, and then we would just take care of paying for it next week.  That was a big “whew!”  One thing I don’t need to worry about for the weekend now.  Although I am so tempted to cancel the truck I am planning on renting from U-Haul to move Sarah next week.  If I knew of any other moving truck rental places, I would do it in a second!

Varsity 2020

Alison found out her team assignment for 2020, and no surprise, she made varsity again.  I say no surprise because Kris and I expected her to make varsity again, but then again, you can’t take anything for granted.  Their team is going to be the same as last year, with the addition of one freshman.  There was one girl who is in Ali’s class who got bumped to JV last year, and was trying out again this year (She was an alternate on Varsity Ali’s sophomore year).  I thought that the coach may at the very least let her be an “alternate”.  Even if she wouldn’t be on the competition team, she could at least cheer for games.  But no, she didn’t make it.  So now we have about a month before practices begin for the upcoming season.  I am hoping Ali has a good senior year.  It is going to be very hard to top last year in terms of nationals, and I don’t count of state much, just because I feel like we get screwed by that governing body.

The Holy Spirit

  

Today we celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit at Alison’s confirmation.  Alison is now officially a Catholic.  Boy, was it a long ceremony/mass!  I remember Sarah’s confirmation being long, but not three hours long.  We had the Arch Bishop actually do the mass/ceremony, and not just a regular bishop, so it was a pretty big deal.  We were warned ahead of time that the Arch Bishop usually speaks to each candidate for a minute or two before he does the anointing.  And there were about 90 candidates, so the anointing portion took roughly two hours to complete.  I managed to get a few good photos, and was able to take a couple of pictures of Ali being anointed.  That was discouraged when Sarah was confirmed.

 

We found out after mass from Ali’s sponsor that the Bishop was impressed with the Saint name that Ali chose, St. Gianna Beretta Molla.  He told us that there is a shrine to her in LaCrosse, which surprised me.  I knew there is a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe, but I didn’t know there was a shrine to St. Gianna there.  I think that is pretty cool that she can connect with her Saint that way.  The next time we go to LaCrosse we’ll have to stop by and have a look at it.

Lawn Care

We had at least a decent weekend weather-wise so I thought it would be a good time to actually go out and rake the grass.  Last year because of the wet April that we had, I only managed to rake the front lawn, and didn't do much in terms of fertilizing because of having all my free time taken up by the kitchen.  So this year I wanted to get out and get it all done.  

As of about a week and a half ago, the ground on the north side of the house was still frozen, but with the warmer weather it has since thawed out.  So yesterday I spent a good eleven hours outside raking.  I got out and started around 7:30 AM and finished at 7:02 PM, with about a half an hour lunch break.  I managed to get a good 3 bags full of grass, and one that was filled with sticks/twigs and bark that was scattered about the yard.  The down side of doing it all in one day was that I could barely move when I was all done.

The next step is going to be seeding and filling in bare spots that the squirrels have dug up in order to level things out.  I also noticed when I was raking there is a lot of moss (and when I say a lot, I mean wherever there wasn't grass there was moss growing).  I'm going to have to look into how to get rid of that before I start seeding and fertilizing.  Hopefully this year I can keep the weeds to a minimum and thicken up the grass.