A picture is worth a thousand words

Well, I finally got unpacked enough to deal with pictures and my silly digital camera! So here are some random pics (none of my house yet - I'm not done decorating, so I don't want to take any until it's 'presentable'....). They aren't necessarily in order, but oh well. Enjoy!

Maggie says: "Don't even think about touching my favorite duckie toy - especially while I'm taking a nap with it."


This is Maggie on our only piece of furniture (air mattress and Maggie's favorite blankies) for the first week of living in the house. Luckily she didn't puncture it with her jumping!


This is me at Alamo Title Company in Colleyville getting the keys to my house at closing! Teresa thought I needed to remember this moment (I'm so glad she brought her camera!).

Yay - Arlington!! This is my new home!

This is the Walmart that is across the street from the site of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. Even Walmart has longhorns on it!!! Also, around the parking lot, there were brick pillars that had stars on them and then a baseball sculpture at the top of each one (this Walmart is also next to the Texas Rangers baseball stadium). Now that's a customized Walmart!

Not sure why this picture turned out so purple, but whatever. This is the new Dallas Cowboys stadium that is being built as I type. It's about 10 minutes from my house and this pic was taken from the Walmart parking lot across the street (Walmart will be knocked down eventually to allow for stadium parking). Apparently the stadium will be done in 2009 - yeah right!

This is my baby Maggie sunning herself with her ducky toy in the office before the furniture arrived. She LOVES the carpet in the new house (traction and warmth) and she has cat-like tendencies with the whole sunning herself thing. I think she has identity issues. :)

This is a pic of me and a decorated longhorn steer outside of Chick Fil-A while Teresa and I were searching for houses. There are a million of these decorated steer around Dallas/Fort Worth - like the Snoopy's in St. Paul and the frogs in Toledo. I think they are so awesome!

This is another example of NON-creative naming of restaurants/cities (see blog post in March)!

These are the wieners that I babysat at Tammy's (orange one is Stretchy, black one is Tyson):

They were obsessed with sitting in my suitcase - not sure why.....So cute!!!

PS - Maggie was pretty jealous of the attention they got.

Here's the gecko that I saw at Teresa's house:

Sea of Boxes!

Wow - time flies! I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last blogged! A lot has happened since then. First off, the plumber replaced the leaking, cracked toilet tank in the guest bathroom, so that's all done. Ashley Furniture delivered my magnificent new bedroom furniture and they will be stopping by tomorrow morning to deliver the last nightstand since the first one came in damaged. Yay! I also have a garage door & garage door opener that will be installed in the next week or so, and then I should be done with that kind of stuff for a while - woo hoo!

The movers arrived on Wednesday morning with all of my earthly possessions (I have never longed to hear a big diesel semi tractor engine so much in my life!). It was like Christmas when you are 5 years old and you are just sure that there's a Barbie doll in one of those boxes under the tree! For me at 30 years old, I just wanted to see those boxes labeled SHOES. :) And of course, they are all unpacked and organized already. There are literally boxes up to the ceiling in the living room and kitchen right now - it's sooo overwhelming! But I am trying to tackle one room at a time - I have finished my bedroom, bathrooms and then cleaning supplies/household stuff. The kitchen stuff is very daunting, but that's my project for tonight so that I can start cooking the groceries I bought. This weekend I'm staying at home all weekend to unpack everything. My internet and cable TV were hooked up on Wednesday afternoon, so I'm soooooooo excited to get back to my favorite shows. I'm so TV deprived that I have the TV on all the time when I'm home - upstairs and downstairs so I can hear it when I'm running around and unpacking at all times!!

**Note - I dug through my 'office' boxes and found my camera cord too! I will post some pics this weekend when I get my camera and computer synched up. :)

We had a few tornados and SUPER heavy storms come through the southern metroplex (which is where I live) the other night, so I had to manually maneuver my garage door (the broken one) so that I could squeeze my car in the garage to avoid hail damage. And when I say 'squeeze', I mean SQUEEZE. I have so much crap out there in boxes still that isn't organized that it almost took a contortionist or a gymnist to get the car in the garage and dig through the stuff to get back in the house! But my car was safe from the storm. :)

**Confidential to future visitors - Important news flash - I went to my new favorite store Garden Ridge and bought 4 big fancy water noodles for the pool, so come on down and bob in the water with me!

**Confidential to Stacie - I tried Whataburger for the first time - it was average, nothing to really write home about. I know you mentioned wanting to try it out - I just tried it to say I've tried it because their buildings are so obnoxious. It's just another burger joint with chicken sandwiches. Also - is Ice Road Truckers Season 2 going to start up sometime soon???

Random Texas Observations:

1. Dr. Pepper is headquartered or has some big plant in Frisco or Plano here in Texas and so it's a big deal and it's EVERYWHERE. It is standard to have Diet Dr. Pepper in most of the fast food restaurants - on tap! WOO HOO!!!!! Why didn't I move down here years ago?!?!?!?

2. If you are from the north, you are called a "Yankee" down here - I've been called one several times. Haven't we moved past the civil war yet? Really?? Yankee??

3. Apparently crazy fundamentalist religious cults like to settle here and make 13-year-old girls get married to gross old men and have their children. Ewwwww.

More to come this weekend......including some pictures!

Another Saturday Night.......

Just to let you all (I mean y'all) know how exciting of a life I have, I'm back at Panera for the 2nd time today because I'm an internet junkie and I need to feel connected to something/someone since I have no connection to the outside world at home except my radio. Ugh. I spent the afternoon at Hobby Lobby and Home Depot (I actually saw Isaac in the millwork department again today - we're on a first name basis at this point and he remembered that I was from Minnesota!). I am so pathetic in that store, that in about a month, I will be on a first name basis with the entire staff. Both the Lowe's and Home Depot in Arlington are WONDERFUL and their staff is top notch and gave me all the answers I needed. I'm going to become a home improvement guru pretty soon! In a year, you can all (sorry - y'all, I need to starting learning how to talk down here so I stop getting made fun of) call me and quiz me!

Today my purchases were new locks for the front and back door, a different size of plexiglass to work with the doggy door installation, grippy stuff for the stepstool for the doggy door (I don't want Maggie to slip on the stepstool in the rain), nails for hanging decorations (once they FINALLY arrive), and I think that's it. Soon I'll be done with all this start-up shopping (yeah right) and I can actually keep my bank account steady. :)

I was soooo proud of myself today (I know you're all going to groan) - I used my new 6' ladder and changed lightbulbs and fixtures myself!! I realize that that sounds ridiculously easy, but I'm kind of new at this whole home improvement thing and it was a small victory and definitely a confidence booster. Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to change the locks myself - yikes! If anyone wants to hear a lot of swear words, just come to Arlington and you'll hear a ton, I'm sure of it.

Random Texas Observations:

1. There is a store between my house and Panera that is called Condom World - it's an entire store for condoms (well, I'm sure there's more in there)! I'm going to take a picture now so that I can post it when my cord gets here.....

2. People have horses in their yards in random residential neighborhoods - very bizarre!

3. I live down a side street from the new Dallas Cowboys stadium that is being built right now, as well as Six Flags Over Texas, Hurricane Harbor water park, and the Texas Rangers baseball stadium. All of those places are about 10 minutes away. Anyone want to visit????

4. The bluebonnets are in full bloom in the ditches along the freeways!

Well, I guess I need to sign off - Panera closes in 15 minutes. :(

Weekend in Limbo

OK, the things I do to stay connected. I don't have internet access hooked up yet, so I'm sitting in Panera just so that I can get WiFi access - I'm a junkie, I admit it.

I am officially in my new house now, but only with the stuff that I brought down here in my car (including Maggie and her new duck toy from Grandma and the doggy raincoat that Allison sent her from Minnesota!). Once I get my camera cord, I'm going to post a pic of Maggie in that yellow raincoat - it's HILARIOUS!! She hates it, just like she hates any kind of clothing besides her collar, but I don't care - I think it's funny. :)

Today my fridgerator and washer/dryer arrived and I love them. My fridge seems a little small, but I had a height limitation to work with (there's a built-in wine rack above where the fridge goes and it's about an inch and a half lower than the clearance for a 'regular' fridge, so I had to get a little bit smaller one). But for those that know my cooking habits, it shouldn't be a problem. :) I love it though, it's the kind that has the freezer on the bottom as a drawer and then the whole top part is the fridge at eye level. Yay! And my washer/dryer are very pretty and they will work out perfectly. My new bedroom furniture comes on Tuesday and the moving company is going to arrive either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday - I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!! The sandals arriveth!!!

The garage door opener guy came as well, but he said that my garage door is bent up and he couldn't install the opener the way it is. Sooooo, now I have to buy a new garage door ($500-$600 or so) and have that installed and then I can get the opener people out here again. It seems to always be something! I was at Lowe's last night until they closed at 10pm, and I got lots of cool stuff - a garden hose, a stepstool for Maggie to use with the doggy door, contact paper for my cupboards, a bathtub stopper, a towel rod, a fiberglass ladder (a 6' ladder fit completely in my little Mazda!), a welcome mat for the front door, a mat for the back door, etc. etc. etc. I was watering my new mystery flowers at 11pm last night - I feel like my crazy Grandma Larsen that used to trim her hedges in the middle of the night!!! Oh well - who cares - no one ever said that the Larsen women were sane............

Update on Maggie - she's a bit confused that we moved again and that there's no furniture (her favorite napping location on the couch hasn't arrived yet), but she's enjoying the carpet (she has traction now) and the staircase (up and down and up and down and....). She is going to the back door to go potty already, so she understands the system. Pretty soon I'm going to change the system and have the doggy door installed - but she's an expert at that too - she's been practicing. :) What a smart wiener I have. She is going to be a very protective wiener at this house. I had a plumber/electrician out yesterday to get some small jobs done around the house and she barked when the doorbell rang, which was good, but every time he went out to his truck and came back in, she barked like he was an intruder. I have the most attentive watchdog known to man!!!! I guess it's a good thing, especially since I have a 2-story house and she hears what's going on downstairs while we're upstairs - those stealth orange ears!

Tomorrow I'm going to try out a church that is here in Arlington (Joel Osteen's brother-in-law is the pastor). We'll see - I've heard great things about it, so I'm optimistic that I'll like it....

I'm a little bit lonely at home over the weekend since I have no furniture, TV, Internet, etc. The only piece of furniture is my air mattress. Yesterday it was 75 and sunny, so I just went out on the back patio and laid on the concrete to soak up some sun and get my overdue dose of vitamin D!

Well, that's about all I know right now - I feel like my head is spinning and I have so much to do, but really, I'm on/ahead of schedule and things are coming together. This is just a TON of freaking work for one person, but I'm so stubborn and a control freak, so I'm going to do it all, even if it kills me!! It's the Larsen way. :)

PS - Sorry there aren't any pics today - it's freezing in this restaurant and I want to get out of here!

Confidential to Golnaz & Dan - HAPPY BIRTHDAY yesterday!!!! I wish I was there to celebrate with both of you (in MN and OH)!!! I hope you had fabulous birthdays!!

Confidential to Tammy (if you are reading this) - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for letting me be a part of your family and your home for the last month. I appreciate it more than you know and you have shown me tremendous kindness, generosity and hospitality. Your kids are beautiful and so well-behaved and Derrell is an awesome guy (tell him thanks for the salsa and margarita mix!!) If there's anything I can do to help you guys (sorry - y'all), just let me know. And I really want to invite Katie down for a playdate with Maggie - the doggy door should be installed very soon. :)

Little Pink (...or brick) Houses

Well, it's official - I'm a homeowner!! I closed on my house at 10am and got the keys by noon. I went down there to drop off some stuff and just check it out again, and realized that somebody planted flowers and put mulch in the front of the house around the bushes so it looks pretty and nice. I'm not sure who did that, so it's kind of a mystery! I will probably change it a little eventually, but what a fun surprise!

Thanks to my wonderful friend Beth who supervised, the moving truck was successfully loaded up on Tuesday in Toledo. I guess the driver is adding another load somewhere on the route on Friday, then he will drive to Texas over the weekend and I will have an arrival date of Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday next week. They said that they would call with 24 hours notice...So the end is in sight!!

This Saturday will be super busy - I have lots of deliveries (washer/dryer from Home Depot, fridgerator from Sears, garage door opener installers from Home Depot, and possibly Ashley furniture with my new bedroom already). I will also be doing some grocery shopping (once the fridge is cold enough), Walmart trips, changing locks, trying out a church, planning out where all the furniture is going, etc.

Random Texas Observations:

1. No state income tax coming out of my paychecks is AWESOME!!!

2. Did I mention that it's REALLY windy here???

Confidential to the BBC Club - I miss you guys - enjoy the Bloomington Applebee's for me!! I hope you're continuing my around-the-world-tour of that Applebee's location!!

Almost Paradise

I'm sooooo close to being a homeowner! WEDNESDAY at 10am is the magic time of the closing and I'm a little nervous, but not as much as I thought I would be. I think I've done all the panicking already - I don't have any nerves left so maybe I'll walk into the closing with a margarita in my hand so I can celebrate as soon as I sign away my life. :)

The moving company is loading up the truck in Toledo tomorrow (Tuesday) and it will arrive in Arlington sometime between this Friday and next Wednesday (I know - very large delivery window). I cannot even express in words how excited I am to see the light at the end of the tunnel and know that my stuff is on its way down to Texas. I think I'm going to kiss the boxes as they come in the door!! This has been a very trying process and I'm soooo glad it's almost over. Today I prematurely celebrated moving by going to PetSmart and engraving a new metal collar tag for Maggie with her new address and my new cell phone number. That makes this all official, right??

Well, this weekend was a VERY busy one. My Mom came to visit in Arlington, on her way through the Dallas/Fort Worth area on her way to Minnesota for the summer at the lake. We stayed at a hotel near Six Flags and the Rangers baseball stadium. During her visit, we accomplished a lot as a team: I bought a washer, dryer, fridgerator, garage door opener, doggy door and a whole new master bedroom suite!! We also drove up to Flower Mound where I've been staying so Maggie and my Mom could see each other and play for a while. Then we went to Irving so I could show her where I work. Then it was off to Dallas to go to Sam Moon to do some hard core jewelry/purse shopping. We ate out, hung out in the hotel, and in pure mother/daughter fashion, we went shoe shopping too!! Hey - we have priorities (and I got the shoe addiction from her, so we're dangerous together in a shoe store!!).

For those of you that are in Toledo, you might know that I'm obsessed with finding a new bedroom suite since I sold my other furniture to a friend. I insisted that I would find a four-poster canopy bed and I wouldn't settle for anything less. Well, I bought the furniture at Ashley and I think I'm going to love it! Here's a link to the pictures of what I bought:

http://www.ashleyfurniture.com/Showroom/Showroom.aspx?PageId=Showroom&CategoryID=17&ItemNo=B551-72&SetDomTab=1&SeriesNo=B551&CollectionId=&style=&PageNumber=1&IsClicked=1&CatPageNumber=7

Random Texas Observations:

1. A common phrase that I have heard several times down here is "I tell you what" - and then nothing after it. That's the complete sentence - it's very funny to hear and I usually laugh out loud when someone says it.

2. You get made fun of for calling pop "pop". Down here apparently it's all "Coke" and then the waitress/waiter will ask you what flavor of Coke. This just seems insane to me. I will stick to calling it pop - I'm being true to my Minnesota roots. :)

3. There are virtually NO basements in Texas. People just do not have them - something about the clay and the humidity or something. Anyway, nobody has them. However, EVERYONE has central air conditioning - don't even have to ask, it's just a given.

There's no place like home.....There's no place like home......

Well, I used that Wizard of Oz reference in this post's title for two reasons:

1. I'm going to have a home next Wednesday and I have waiting so long and wanted this so bad - cannot wait!

2. Some tornado activity rolled through the Metroplex (what people around here call the Dallas/Fort Worth area) last night and we had 70 mph straight-line winds, roofs were torn off, and a couple 18-wheelers were actually overturned by the wind. It was insane - but strangely enough, Maggie and I slept through it all!

Update on the house:

Everything is falling into place for me to buy/close on the townhouse in Arlington next Wednesday! I had a home inspection done on Tuesday and there were some things that need to be addressed, but we're going to ask the seller to pay for some of them. Otherwise my financing, the title company, State Farm, the two realtors - everyone is on board and I think things will go really smooth. The closing is on Wednesday and I am having the moving company load everything up in Toledo on Tuesday, which would put the delivery window at next Friday to the following Wednesday. So next weekend I might actually be reunited with my couch and all my shoes!!! Yay! I cannot wait to have my own place down here - it will be nice to stretch out and enjoy getting unpacked and settled. I'm chomping at the bit (ha - a horse term!) to decorate the new place!! I think Maggie will go through some sort of depression when we leave Tammy & Derrell's house here - she loves the kids and their dog - all the action. It will be very quiet for her again at my new house - not sure how she's going to react....I think down the line I'll have to get another wiener......

Well, tomorrow is an exciting day - my Mom is coming to visit on her way through Dallas/Fort Worth, onward towards Minnesota for the summer! I got a hotel room in Arlington and we're going to have a slumber party for the weekend. I am going to take her to Sam Moon (super cute, inexpensive purses and jewelry!), probably the Sixth Floor Museum (located in the building that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy out of) and the grassy knoll where Kennedy was assassinated, maybe the cattle drive in Fort Worth, driving around Irving and showing her where I work, playing with Maggie, appliance shopping, looking at my house, trying out a church in Arlington which is only 5-10 minutes from my new house (the pastor is Joel Osteen's brother-in-law). I'm glad she'll be here to keep me occupied so I'm not counting the minutes until I get into the house!

Other than that, things are pretty quiet - still love the job and Texas!! Keep me posted on what's going on in all of your lives!

Home Sweet Home?

It sickens me after all this time of waiting for the house I posted a long time ago (6 weeks to be exact!), but I could not wait any longer. Teresa and I went house shopping on Sunday in a vain effort to pacify me and my incredible impatience and I found a different house that's not a foreclosure that I really really liked! The picture above is the front of the house - it's a townhouse/duplex (3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 1602 sq. ft., 1 car garage, fenced in backyard, all new carpet, all new interior paint, ceramic tile in kitchen and bathrooms, loft on second floor with extra seating area, fireplace, laundry room - completely move-in ready and very cute!). It's part of a HOA with the monthly fees only being $47 and that includes all maintenance of the front yard and includes a community pool one block over! The house is being offered as a rental or to buy, so I put both internet ads below as links - there are tons of pictures! I was at Teresa's house until 10pm on Sunday night drawing up the contract - this one would be a little cheaper and it's only about a mile or two from the other one, so the same commute to work. I think the utilities would be cheaper in this one too. Take a look and let me know what you think! The two realtors were counter-offering back and forth today, so we should have a done deal by tomorrow and then I can do a home inspection and the tenative closing date is next Wednesday!

http://www.realtor.com/search/listingdetail.aspx?zp=76014&mnp=18&mxp=16&bd=4&bth=4&typ=7&sid=1f5c3c810ad94ad188dd51cbc5481728&lid=1087903990&lsn=1&srcnt=3#Photo

http://www.rentalhouses.com/view_listing.php?id=186853

OK, on to other things.....

Well, last week I signed up for Match.com and went on 3 first dates and 1 second date. I don't want to go into a lot of details on my dating life here on this public forum, but it's been a fun and interesting week, even though I don't think any of them are 'the one'. I did, however, get to tour the Dallas Cowboys headquarters at 11pm - private tour of the team locker room and I got to see Jerry Jones' office (the owner of the team)! Also, another of the dates was in downtown Fort Worth, which is beautiful at night. We walked around and saw the courthouse, live bands on the streets, went to Billy Miner's (a bar - it wasn't anything that unique to me, but apparently it's a big deal to go there), and then took a horse carriage ride through Sundance Square - it was so much fun and very pretty!

Random Texas Observations:

1. The definition of a "honky tonk" is any bar that has live music played inside of it.

2. Geckos are cute and fun on Geico commercials, but they are actually pretty gross looking in person (I say that because I saw my very first real live gecko last night at Teresa's house - and it was almost white! It was tiny and man, do they move quick! I heard a rumor that if their tails get cut off, they can grow it back - EEWWWW!!

OK, in the time it took me to write this post, I bought a house! I just got an email from Teresa that they accepted my offer and I will be a home owner in about a week!!!! I'm so excited and scared at the same time!!!!!

Random Act Of Kindness

Man, this week is flying by. My cold is pretty much gone, so I'm feeling much better and I have my energy back - yay! And my week started off great when I received a special delivery at work - my fabulous Mom sent me a basket of flowers at work!!! She even remembered that I don't like pastels very much and specifically told them to put all bright colors and especially red in the basket! Thanks for being so great and being there on the other end of the phone whenever I need you, Mom!

OK, I think I experienced a HUGE Texas milestone the other day......I said "y'all" by accident!! I didn't even mean to and I wasn't trying to say it on purpose to be funny or trying to talk southern or anything - it just slipped out when I was talking to my new friend Jason on the phone. He's from a small town in Virginia, so he has a THICK accent - I guess it's starting to wear off on me since we have talked a lot on the phone in the last week. I'm not sure whether to pat myself on the back or to shriek in horror?!

House update: OK, this is getting ridiculous (I feel like a broken record!)...apparently the seller's realtor, the title company and the seller's bank all met yesterday at 2pm - to do what, I'm not sure, but they met. My realtor, Teresa, thinks this is all going to happen and that I'm going to get the house - but you know me, I'll believe it when I see it! I'm getting pretty anxious since it's now April and I'm paying prorated rent to have my stuff sitting in the Toledo house every day that the bank putzes (is that a word?) around. IMPATIENCE ALARM! IMPATIENCE ALARM! My tolerance level for this crap is going WAY down each day now....(Dandar & Danielle - EXTREME Lauri is out in full force - beware!)

A tidbit for anyone at the SeaGate Centre - I drive past the IAAM headquarters about 3-4 times a week while I'm staying up in Flower Mound. It's a pretty building in Coppell - right on 635. I had to chuckle when I saw it!

Random Texas Observations:
1. People here apparently don't call parking ramps, parking ramps. They are only parking garages. If you say "I parked in the ramp", they look very confused because they think you are saying you parked on the off-ramp from the freeway. PS - it takes a whole conversation to straighten out the misunderstanding. I know from experience.
2. You will hear some grown Texan adults (mostly women) call their Dads "Daddy" for their whole lives.
3. You have to take your car to a mechanic to get a "state inspection" (and pass the inspection)before you can renew your car tabs/tags and get the new stickers. Also - you don't put any stickers on the license plates like you do in MN & OH (I guess they have had problems with people peeling them off of cars and stealing them) - you have 2 big stickers that you put on the inside of your windshield on the driver's side.
4. The temperature can swing 30 degrees in one day and nobody bats an eye - that's perfectly normal here.

Update on Maggie: No update to report - she is keeping up on her doggie door skills and I get the feeling that she doesn't miss the snow and cold one bit!

Update on the job: Still really enjoying the job and the people!

Now it's a countdown until my Mom comes to visit me for a weekend on her way through the Dallas/Fort Worth area, heading back to Minnesota for the summer. I think she will be arriving next Friday! My first visitor!! Although we are probably going to get a hotel room since I don't know what's going on with the house - but who cares, my Mom is visiting me!