revjim.net

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

– Robert Burns, "To A Mouse", 1785

It isn't well known, but Steinbeck's famous book title was taken from an 18th century Scottish poet, Robert Burns. The same poet responsible for "Auld Lang Syne" who also happens to be my Father-In-Law's favorite. We call and wish him a happy Bobby Burns Day every January 25th. But I digress.

First of all, we're no longer putting in hardwood floors. Thank you all for your offers to help. However, thanks to my mom, we discovered that carpet, even when installed for you, is cheaper than installing cheap hardwood myself. Go figure. So, we're getting carpet installed next week.

Also, the going away party on the 15th isn't happening. There's another party that night that at least half of our friends will be attending (including us). The party's name sake, Laura, offered to share the occasion, however, Jess and I were planning on inviting quite a few people outside of that circle of friends and wouldn't want to impose to many additional guests on Laura's event or Johnny and Rachelle's place.

So we have three options:

1. Reschedule the party for this Sunday, 9/2 (since the 3rd is a Holiday for most). This, however, would probably be too short of notice.
2. Reschedule the party for Saturday, 9/22. However, our house will likely be completely empty, so everyone will either have to bring their own chairs or we'd have to talk someone else into hosting the event for us.
3. Don't have one at all.

What do you think?

Jess (and I, though my say didn't mean much) picked out a Hospital and a Doctor yesterday. Hospitals are set up differently than they are in Texas. I don't know if it's better or worse, exactly; just different. That took some getting used to. But we found one. I was slightly disappointed with the first hospital we saw a few weeks ago. This one really makes me happy though. Jess is happy too. The mind set in seemingly all of the hospitals out this way are more in tune with Jess' beliefs (and mine). It's refreshing to know that many of the things Jess was fighting for in Texas are assumed to be the case here in New York.

Jess and I worked out a budget yesterday. Quite honestly, I don't know how we managed to not go absolutely broke when living in Texas. Even though our house costs more here, and we have to pay state Taxes, my raise was enough to cover all of that and still leave quite a bit left over. Since our utilities and gas and such will all be cheaper than they were before, all in all, we should have more disposable income than we had before. However, according to the budget, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel. So, like I said, I don't know how we managed before and I don't know how we'll manage now except that we've done quite well on less without incurring any credit card debt so I have no reason to believe we won't do the same now. Go figure.

Tonight, Jess and I are going to the New York State Fair. It's held in Syracuse (and only Syracuse) every year. I'll take pictures, of course.

Speaking of pictures, there haven't been any put up by me in a long time. I have tons, but the Internet access in this hotel, and the state of my failing laptop are such that it is simply impossible to get much more done than simple browsing. But, I'll do my best to get something up for you to see when we get back to Texas.

Speaking of Texas, we fly back in late Friday night arriving at 11:55pm. My mom is picking us up and we're probably spending the night at her place. The next morning we'll get up, stop by the carpet place to order carpet, and then finally go home to our things and our kitties who surely miss us very, very much by now.

5 weeks is a LONG time to be away from home.