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Pick-up

I discovered that my posts have been going up on European time still ... changed that. Amongst other things, I have been picking up aroud the apartment and town.

Yesterday (Thursday) I cleaned the apartment for the finishing touches. I organized the two storage closets, eliminated the boxes in my room, and did a few other random things. I also tried the walk to school from here. 2.7 miles is pretty warm at 11am. I did the walk then because I would be walking around 12:30-1pm actually to arrive on time for my classes and I wanted to get a sense of the weather. The path is pretty well covered with trees for the first half of the trip. I din't know about the rest of the way yet, because I didn't make it that far. There were two main reasons for this: it was blasted hot out there and I had not brought water and I encountered "the Beast."

The hill by Sibley Hospital will henceforth be referred to as the Beast because it goes up at between a 45 and 50 degree angle and will severely inhibit my ability to ride a bike to school without having to get off and walk. It was seriously like climbing stairs just to walk up it. But, I am going to drive the rest of the route and try to fairly evaluate the terrain, because I would really like to double whammy saving money on transportation at least two days a week and making sure I am exercising.

Speaking of exercising, I jogged a short bit of my "walk" to school. I also searched the internet and managed to find a pick-up volleyball game about 5 miles from the house. Off I went to play some well earned fun games. The net wasn't quite men's height. It was senior height. More than half of the guys there were over 50 and the rest were pushing it. But they could still play pretty well. And boy were they sticklers for the rules more than even competitive kids are. It was good fun, though I think I'll try a few of the other local places first before going back - just so I can play with people a little more inclined to do position work. Don't get the wrong idea - three or four of the players have played at Nationals in the past three years or so and one even made the America's team (in his age bracket); I just like playing with people who call the ball and aren't weirded out by my energy.

When I got home I took out the trash and recycling and then spent about two hours fiddling with the television (with a little attempted assistance by my landlord Steve). We can't figure out how to get the DVD player to work in the family room - and Steve and I agreed that the TV is just too old to support it. However, that assessment took about ten minutes. The rest of the time wasspent reprogramming the DirecTV and the TiVo because the guide stopped popping up. In the end I determined two things: one, that I should turn the unit off completely more often and that the "daily call in" feature is a gigantic waste of time. (The number programmed for it to dial in was so old it didn't work anymore but you had to dial in to retrieve other possible dial in numbers. I didn't figure that out though until I had carried the entie set up across the apartment to the one phone jack that happens to be working at the moment. I will not be doing that again.)

So I picked up stuff, a television, and volleyball. But the most impressive picking up was yesterday afternoon. I filled an entire wheelbarrow (a real sized metal one) with future kindling. All of it was collected from along the path to our apartment. I hate how there are really unmanicured lawn and garden patches all along the dirt path, so I decided that if I picked up the sticks, it would improve the look and help eliminate places for all those stupid bugs to nest outside. I came in after filling the bin, although the "gardens" (boxes that are supposed to be gardens but are actually full of wild plants and weeds) still have a fair amount of stuff in them. I didn't continue there for:
A. lack of storage place for the kindling at the moment
B. the mosquito bite on my face (very irksome considering I was wearing long sleeves and pants to avoid bites)
C. The strange holes that populate the path and "gardens."

I have no idea what may lurk in these odd sized, yet perfectly circular, holes everywhere, but figure that it is not worth the risk to get bitten by some strange bug or snake or small mammal just to make the path look nicer - especially when I won't be landscaping there after I clean it up anyway. When Dad comes to visit next week I'll ask him about the holes and hopefully then I'll know if they are benign or not.

Okay, that brings us to today, which was pretty much more of the same in terms of getting stuff done, except I haven't left the apartment all day. I am going to go stir crazy if I don't get out of here tomorrow, so I will probably search the internet for free stuff going on in town tomorrow. I was supposed to be heading down to Richmond to hang out, but I simply cannot afford the gas prices (sorry J).

As much as "being stuck" in the apartment has been frustrating, I have gotten alot done. Much more than I have ever done when moving into a new place. My stuff is organized except for one very short stack of papers that has been sorted and not filed. I called the school to confirm my course listings before buying books (the ones listed so far look so good I would have read them if I ran into them in a bookstore anyway!). I am waiting for one of my rerouted pieces of mail to arrive from basically anything looking official so that I can get my new driver's license. And tomorrow I should be able to get started on some work from HOBY that I promised to do.

I can't wait for all of you to see my new place. More than that, I can't wait to see some people again! I want to try and catch most of my friends before they run back to school smeplace farther than an hour away. But for now, I am going to use my newly re-established Guide on the TV, grab my knitting needles and relax for an hour or so before resuming my place in The Right Stuff or The Essential 55, the two books I am reading right now. Okay, my dinner is officially cold, Gotta run. Love always, ~Heather

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