The First Commute

As many of you know, since I've moved up north a bit, I'll be commuting to B-N 3 days a week to continue my graduate assistantship at ISU. As a result of this, many of you have started asking, "How's the commute going?" I finally have a partial answer for this. My reply, "Ok so far."

I had my first official commute this morning. Leaving the house at 6:45 am in order to arrive early enough to take care of cats (am cat sitting), I discovered that the short drive out of my new town was a little slow since cars were trying to exit the northbound I-55 ramp. I soon discovered that I would need to be in the left lane instead of the right, which appears to move incredibly slow. In other words, I learned that the left lane was the one that would exit onto I-55 south - the direction I need to go in - a fact counter to my training in Interstate road exiting. Once on 55, the drive was as easy as can be. I was a little sleepy, a result of not getting to bed early enough the night before (Note to self - go to bed earlier), but all was fine.

Having made the drive numerous times before, I knew the route well and there were no surprises. I've decided that on the days I drive, I must invest in some books on tape or CD for the trip. Though I love listening to Whoopi on the radio, I lose her show around the Dwight/Morris area, aka Exit 220, and soon become bored with the other available stations. Today at work I took a moment to find my now-local library and will investigate their book resources this weekend.

I take a moment for a little digression...Can I just say how much work it is to move? I'm not talking about the actual lugging of boxes and furnature here. Instead, I mean the little things: changing addresses on every magazine, canceling accounts, etc.. Now having to think about going to the DMV is the latest thing I have to worry about doing. I think I'll try to take care of that here in B-N before I leave as I actually already know where the DMV is. I only moved once before, so these are things I didn't really think too much about or perhaps I found them fun and interesting. Now they seem annoying. Ken and I spent too much time talking last night about what all had to be done to change a name on a drivers license/drivers information file. After some internet searching, I think I've got it, but man, what a pain.

So I'm here cat/house sitting until Friday and will make leg two of the commute journey then. Will keep you posted if anything out of the ordinary happens then. Don't hold your breath.

P.S. Many thanks to all of you for commenting on my first post. It did my heart good to see that you're actually checking it! I've been kind of wondering if anyone would. Keep writing! I love hearing from you all.

Welcome Home

Hello Everyone. This is the blog I've created to share the life of Ken and Marcy - the now cohabitating couple. I hope I am better at posting to this than I can be writing and responding on other blogs. But I thought this might be a fun way of sharing our lives here with friends and family far away. The picture to the left is of our new place. Our apt. is the one on the first floor.

Today's big news! My first day at home after the big move. After a hectic weekend of moving -- with a great big thanks to friend Keely, and family Lisa, Matt, and Brother Tom, and of course Suzie & Rachel for their box-moving prowess within the apartment and numerous other friends who gathered and provided scores of empty boxes -- we have moved everything into the apt. The tough part is putting it all away. I've learned that Ken and I have very different philosophies when it comes to putting things away after a move. I like to open a box, put things away, and get rid of box. Ken likes to move boxes around, strategically locating them around the apartment. I have put away almost all of my boxes with the exception of a few boxes of books, boxes of pictures to be hung on the walls or placed elsewhere later, and the box or two that I know must be missing because I can't find my alarm clock or the coasters for the living room.

Other big news. Today was cable and internet installation day! Since moving out on my own, I have not had cable. For 4 years, I've been happy, even proud at times, to have been able to survive without it. For Internet, I used DSL, which suited my needs just fine. Now, however, there is no DSL where we live, so our only other option was to go with the cable modem. Fine, a little more expensive, but doable. The problem...now that I have cable, I'm very worried that I'll want to watch it more than write that dissertation or do my editing (both of which, incidentally, I should be working on now).

Anyway, I feel much more at home now with the Internet at my fingers and most of my boxes put away. I'll be housesitting/catsitting in Normal this week, so Ken'll be left alone with his boxes. I've already been told not to expect any grand actions this week in terms of them being put away when I come home. I can live with that. Life is good.