So far so good...

Not to jinx it, but so far so good in the new place. Renting is not the optimal housing situation for us, but we can't afford to buy in these parts. So we'll see what the future brings in that regard...
But for now, this house is working out well. We've had a good month of rain here since we moved in, and thank goodness no leaks in the house. The next door neighbors are the epitome of your typical white trash: mullets galore, oil stains running down the driveway, a home-made wall built up in front of the garage/side yard fence area, and of course about five cars parked on the street that Mr. mullet man works on for most of the night (midnight & later in some cases). But even so, it's so much better here - I am not stressed out when it rains, we are warm all day and all night without having to crank the heater up, and our water & PG&E bills are much lower.

So, enough about the new place. I have a webcam that I run when I am on Yahoo, so just click on "view my webcam" when you see me online on Yahoo! Cool, huh? My niece Valerie is due in a couple of weeks, so I'm excited about that. I don't live by her, so I won't get to see her and the baby until July. I'm looking forward to that visit! My sister Sheree's birthday is tomorrow - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHEREE!!!! I will see you in August! Let's see, I guess that is it. I hope this finds everyone happy & healthy. Send me a quick hello or something -- keep in touch!

And, We're Done

Whew, that was a long freaking month!! It rained so much, making it difficult to really get moving going. We finally finished and now, of course, it's sunny and beautiful. That's okay, at least we're out of that place once and for all. We still have a ton of unpacking and sorting to do here at the new place. Which reminds me, I guess I better get back to it. All my love to my family & friends...
Starla

Moving, Part Two

Well, two more weeks until we are supposed to be out of the house. We really lucked out and found a house within three days of our landlord's notice. It's still a four bedroom house, although it is smaller in actual size. We started moving in over this last weekend, and we have most of our furniture over here now. We have so much crap, though, I don't know what we're going to do with it all -- we'll have to go through everything and decide what goes to storage and what gets tossed. So, anyway, the new house is small, but cute. It's close to Alex's high school and not too far away from the twins' middle school. It turns out the house is only about six houses down from Lindsay (Alex's girlfriend), which is convenient when you consider how much time we spent driving her home. And it's a little bit closer to the office where I work as well, so that's great. Um, yeah, I guess that's about all there is for now... :-)

Moving

Well, as you probably know, we have been very anxious to get out of this hole that some might call a house. Leaks, faulty wiring, broken appliances, a landlord who never fixes anything, it's all had us really wishing we could just find a new place and move. The only thing that has kept us from looking for a place is that Cingular Wireless bought out AT&T last year and we were just waiting until the reorganization completed so we knew whether Dave would be relocated or whether he even still has a job after it's completed. That still has not happened yet. It's still up in the air.

However, our landlord has decided to renovate this house and sell it or something, so he gave us a 30-day notice to vacate. What a jerk, gosh I cannot stand him. Anyway, we are having to move very soon. We have been looking for the last couple of days, and I have looked at three houses for rent so far. All of them are smaller than this one, and about the same in age I'd guess (built-in painted-white cabinetry must have been all the rage back in the day). I just hope we can stay in the same area and something works out soon so we can just put this place behind us. Although I really feel like this is "home," I think ultimately we'll be happier & better off living in a different house, no matter how much smaller.

Weight Loss Results

Okay, so we started a low-carb diet in August of 2003. I don't know if I ever posted our results. Dave lost about 30 pounds within the first three months. At that point, he plateaued and didn't lose much more. I lost about 12 pounds in the first two weeks, plateaued, and then lost another 12 pounds within the next four months. I lost 24 pounds total. I went from 144 pounds down to 120 pounds. I kept it off until just after Thanksgiving & Christmas 2004, around which time I gained about 5 pounds back. So, now I'm trying to get back on the low-carb diet to lose the weight I found. :-)

Dave found out he has high cholesterol last summer, so he has had to eat low fat, low cholesterol food. He usually eats nonfat, and he isn't really worrying about carbs. After all, what could he eat - cardboard? LOL... Anyway, I don't think he has lost weight from that, though, but he hasn't been back to the doctor yet to find out about his cholesterol yet. I hope it's going down.

I'm wishing all of you the best in health and happiness!! Love, Starla