Iowa Bound

<===My Lovely Bride

We are moving to Iowa. Yes, Iowa. Fairfield, Iowa. Now, the most frequent question I get is "What is it near?" The answer - Nothing! Well, it depends on what you call near. It's 30 minutes east of Ottumwa and about 60 miles South of Iowa City. The town has a population of about 10,000. That's small, but managable. They have a McDonald's, a Wal-Mart (small), a Burger King, etc. I think it will be a good life.

BUT I HATE MOVING! I'm not talking metaphorically. I literally detest the whole idea of packing up everything in boxes, loading a truck and hauling it across country. What I hate even more is getting a house ready to sell. I have been off work for about 2 weeks and have had a list as long as your arm (literally) of things that I had to do before I take off on Sunday to leave the rest to my lovely bride. I was rolling along pretty well until I started my drywall project on Saturday.

In May, the storm caused a branch to land on the power line that ran to the house. This was anchored to the upper deck of our two-story back porch. When it hit, it pulled the upper deck away from the house and caused the whole thing to pancake. When we rebuilt, we decided to go with a single story deck and to close the door off upstairs and replace it with a window and match it with a replacement window on the other side of the room. This resulted in part of the wall, which was nothing more than paneling, being torn up and needing repair. The logical thing for us to do is to tear out the wall and drywall. That's a great idea! We were not in a hurry and there was no rush to get it done.

Now we have to sell the house. So I have to get this done. The walls are not plumb, the windows are not flush and so I have had to shim and fur in ways that that I had not imagined and still the wall is cockeyed. Then I started mudding. I have never been so frustrated with anything in my entire life. And I still have stuff on my list.

Emily and I both decided that the local funeral home would be in charge of our next move when we moved into this house. We like this house. We wanted to die in this house. We were going to take the next 30 years to make it the place we wanted. Now, we have to accomplish all of this things in a matter of days. It's a pain!

So, if you happen to be going through the streets of Granite City this weekend and see a fat bald guy wandering the streets covered in joint compound, looking dazed and confused and slightly drooling, stop by and say, "Hi."

Thanks for reading