Nov19

We Got a Phone Book!

Posted on by
We Got a Phone Book!

This might not seem all that exciting to anyone who hasn’t tried to navigate the maze known as “Customer Service” at Verizon. I was holding off, holding off, crossing my fingers each day that the phone book would arrive and I wouldn’t have to try to get someone at Verizon to send it to me.

So last night, in addition to the thrill of finding out that electric ovens SUCK for making pizza, even with a pizza stone, and that hot tubs are GREAT when the weather’s in the 20’s, my evening was spent perusing the yellow pages for insight into this strange new land of Toms River.

You know you’re in South Jersey when you look at these yellow pages. We could eat at a different Italian restaurant every night and still not visit them all before we died. 6 pages of listing under “Boat”. And it’s big. Really, really big. But now we can find things, and that’s good.

The other thing I did was find the recycling center. I had called and left a message on the town’s answering machine asking about when to recycle, because the information on the town website was vague, but didn’t hear back, so I figured that as long as I still had Mom and Dad’s pickup, I’d use it. We have a >lot< of leaves. I was so enchanted by the evergreens on the property, I didn’t even pay attention to the deciduous trees, and thought leaf raking wouldn’t be an issue. Silly me. So, anyway, I get to the recycling center, charm the guy into letting me dump my leaves even though I don’t have any ID with a Toms River address on it, and ask >him< about recycling. He was at least able to tell me how to put it out, but he was no more helpful than the website or the phone message as to >when<. It has something to do with my garbage pickup day. However, nowhere is it published what day that is. His advice was to look out the window and see what the neighbors are doing. I think I’ll just talk to them. “Oh, gawd, here comes that new lady AGAIN with some stupid question. . .”

The garbage gets picked up by a robo-truck, so we have to use robo-cans. If you have anything that doesn’t fit in the robo-can, you’re supposed to call and request a special pickup. This makes me nervous, because I didn’t get called back the last time. I think we’ll just put a little of the moving garbage out each week, and in 10 years or so, it should all be gone. . .

Nov18

Stupid Commercials

Posted on by
Stupid Commercials

We’ve been hearing a lot of them on the radio since the whole moving thing started.  Of course, anything from Friendly’s is stupid; I don’t know how their ad agency stays in business (and Teriyaki Chicken. . .topped with cheese. . .is just gross.)  However, even daughter #2 figured out how dumb the new one from Meineke was.  The scenario is a guy talking about his romantic wedding in a remote country church, and how after he gets lost, his car goes into a ditch because he didn’t get his brakes fixed at Meineke.  So while he’s waiting to get out of the ditch, his bride and best man, who’ve been in love behind his back, get married.  He concludes that the moral of the story is that he should have gotten his brakes fixed.  Carolyn was making a funny face at this, and had already figured out that in this case, the guy was clearly better off not having had his brakes fixed.  Duh.  Yeah, I should have fixed my brakes so I could have married her and then divorced her later when I found out she was cheating on me. 

Nov13

In the New House!

Posted on by
In the New House!

I’m sitting down. I’m blogging. This will be brief, because there’s so much more to do. However, we’re in. The old house is ready to go. This one has a lot fewer boxes than it did, thanks in a big way to mom and dad, who stayed over a couple of nights. It gave hubby time to do wiring and furniture putting-together. We’re very, very tired.

I have to get fixtures for the master bath, storage for the kitchen (pull-outs and racks and stuff – the kitchen has space, it just needs to be set up), some yard care things (who’d’a thunk we could forget a rake, eh?). We need to get mattresses for the kids, and we can’t put their bedrooms together until their rugs are installed.

It’s good, though. The neighborhood is quiet, but we’ve met a few of the neighbors already. I’ve cooked a real dinner for the first time in what seems like weeks. The cats have learned their way back home. The dog will even have a bunch of friends to play with.

We’ve found a good sushi place and a good Chinese place, we’ve located the supermarket, and Lowe’s and Target are just a stone’s throw away. In another week, we should be ready to start getting things out of storage and seeing if and where they fit.

Once I’m more together and my PC is set up, I’ll tell more and give out props.