after a month and a half

I am back to campus and writing a blog entry.

Christmas was great. Charlotte came to visit us (though showed up late on Sunday night) and stayed an extra day. We cooked awesome food and fed everyone for Christmas dinner. I haven't balanced the checkbook yet from December, but I'm sure we made quite a dent in our reserve.

New Years was quite quiet. The students won't be back in Las Cruces until tomorrow so there were very few people here and the celebrations were short and did not go on into the night.

We've moved again. Thursday the 10th was M-Day and with the help of the Elder's Quorum and my friend Melissa, we got it done quickly and without a lot of fuss. Our former Bishop was the only one to help with the last cleaning and we were completely out of there by 9:00pm.

Our new apartment is wonderful and we love it. There is one drawback which we hope is fixed. Our next door neighbors, with whom we share one common wall and (for some reason) the ventilation system, smoke. It was so bad last night that we actually went over, knocked on the door, and let them know that their smoke was coming in through the ceiling vents. They were apologetic and said they would go out on the back patio to smoke. This will present a problem in the summer, but maybe they'll move out then. I was about ready to cry when we smelled it because we fasted and prayed specifically that our apartment would not smell like smoke from the previous tenants. We did not even think that we would get seepage from the other half of the duplex. Need I say that cigarette smoke is the one smell that will make me so angry that I could throttle someone? Charles and I are grateful that they were understanding. We now pray that they will do as they said and smoke outside. We also pray that they will be more careful of their health and quit.

I am doing most of the unpacking as Charles had to be back to work on the 11th. It goes well, but slowly. Saturday was the big success and we got the kitchen unpacked and the bathroom ready. Today I finished that bathroom by removing all the boxes and mopping the floor. It is the first successfully finished room in the apartment. But I make progress little by little and made a huge pile of boxes in the back yard.

Moving is always hard, everyone who has done it knows this, but it is always hard for me to see how much stuff we have that is not being used. I am a collector at heart and have several bins of crafts. This is balanced by the two sets of drums/drum parts that Charles has, one of which is now riding around in our car. Moving creates in me a desire to do better at not shopping for recreation. I had a huge urge to throw so much away, yet cannot bear the thought of so much waste. Both of product and money spent on it.

But I am finally in an apartment which I do not count the days until we can move from it. We are determined to bear with the bad because the good is so good. We hope to not have to look for housing until we can look for a house. I told Charles we need to get on really good terms with the elderly in our ward. They will either retire or pass away sooner than we will. I know it was mean, but it is true. And they won't have smoked in their houses.