It begins again

Good Luck to Sparkling Squirrel on her first day of classes at the new school!

"Please Do Not Throw Paper Towels and Trash on the Floor"

I feel like such a fuddy-duddy, but I find myself thinking, "What has society come to when we need signs like that in a college women's bathroom*?"
*that, incidentally, has obvious trash cans right next to the paper towel dispensers

I'm a Yankee now

No more Confederate flags. Yippee! We relocated to the lush and liberal (relatively speaking) Hudson Valley, a mere 90 miles from NYC.....and with a view of the Catskills out our front window. I'm very happy to be in a new (albeit still not tenure-track) position, and the hubby is very happy to be going to school (a Masters in Regional Planning/Geography with the goal of ridding the world of cars). A crazy, somewhat spontaneous move on our part, but the pieces are falling into place. Our house comes equipped with kayaks, so feel free to swing by for a little boating or hiking or blueberry picking near our rural digs.

I hope you are all well. Though I don't comment often, I do check the blog and wish you all well in your respective corners of the world!!

Everything is OK!

So we've made it to Oklahoma, and, while it has been 96 degrees every day that we've been here, and we've had issues with our gas (solved), car (has appt. tomorrow) , dryer (one bit solved, but mostly not), drain (not solved), house in WV (mostly solved, but nowhere close to being sold) and have mountains of stuff still not dealt with, everything is okay*.

If you did not recently receive an e-mail telling you of my new contact information please e-mail me at my plant nerd hot mail address from your current e-mail, as it likely means you aren't in the right place in my contact list.

And make sure you add on to Jenny's book list below.

*I'm a little bit sad that the new license plates no longer say "Oklahoma is OK!"

Summer reading list

I would love to hear about great books that you've read recently, or old favorites, that you recommend! I'm going to be traveling non stop for work in the upcoming weeks, and good reading material always makes traveling more pleasant.

New car thanks to Prairie Wanderer

I'm finally getting a new car, thanks to Prairie Wanderer (is that her code name? JMW) driving me around car lots in the pouring rain on Monday (in lieu of kayaking). I needed that push to get me looking. And found one if it checks out with the mechanic - a 2009 Dodge Caliber wagon. Sally must hate it - I tested out the dogs in it and she darted out and ran away. She came back after a 20 minute jaunt.

Moving Issues?

As readers of my blog know, our stuff is stuck somewhere between our house in WV (where it was loaded June 25) and our house in OK (where it was scheduled to be unloaded July 1-3 and is now scheduled to be unloaded July 13-15).
Besides being really really pissed off about the communication issues (did our booking agent really not know there were no trucks? Neither the little WV company who loaded the stuff nor the national company in charge of hauling it thought to tell us that it wasn't coming until we called them on June 30 to see if we should expect it the next day) and feeling deceived (we went with this company because others couldn't get trucks) and without the appropriate stuff for the vacation I am leaving for, I am wondering how common issues like this are.
I don't think a moving company can stay in business if they regularly keep things what is estimated (by them and all on-line parties) to be 7-9 days (for a two day drive) 20 days-- but maybe they do.
Any experiences?