Every home has a smell to it. I don’t care who you are, what type of smell-goods you use in your home. Your house has a unique smell to it. So we move into the new house. And it smells like a new house. You know, that smell of new wood mixed with new carpet, mixed with paint. But as we moved our belongings into it, I noticed that the smell was starting to fade and the house was, instead, taking on the smell of the old house.
Being the anal-retentive, slightly neurotic person that I am, I…Washed…Everything! Instead of the clothes being hung in the closet, it was all piled in the kitchen outside of the laundry room (which is really just a very functional closet). Those poor machines are working overtime, but I am almost finished. The new-house smell is in full force, mixed with the scent of Glade cinnamon apple candles. ( Hey, I love Yankee candles. I love Woodwick candles. But these little babies work just as well, and were 2 for $4 at Wally World.)
But for those of you who have never moved into a newly constructed home, I have a warning. It is not all peaches and cream. Yes, it is nice to know that you can walk bare-footed on the carpet and not worry whose funky feet have trodded on it before you came along. I didn’t have to cringe at the idea of placing dishes in cabinets without shelf paper. And yes, the house is pristine. But there is a drawback. None of the companies recognize my address. We waited the requisite one week for the telephone company to switch our service to the new address. We were about to die, being cut off from the rest of the world with no phone and no internet, when Ahhhhhhhh! There was a Verizon truck behind the house. But wait! The phone man is telling us that we cannot have a phone yet because there is no line to the house. It will take 2 weeks to get a line ran to the house and buried underground. Wtf. I begged. I pleaded. Then I played the I-am-a-healthcare-provider-and must-be-reachable card, with the requisite It-could-cost-me-my-JOB kicker. So now we have a phone, but we also have a fluorescent orange phone line stretching, on the ground, to the telephone pole on the street. Yes, it is unsightly, but I have a dial tone.
Internet is a different story altogether. When we called to order all of the services at the new address, we were told that DSL is not available at the new house. We were going to just get internet through the cable company, but I was seriously bummed. Despite our incessant computer problems in our household, we have never had trouble with our internet. We had a strong internet signal to the modem, even when there was no computer hooked to the modem. I wanted that same service. My neighbors, Jon and Trish, had internet through the cable company and had nothing but problems. I. Didn’t. Want. That. But when the tech installed the phone, he said we COULD have DSL here. It turns out that when they put the new address into the computer, it recognized it as out of the service area because it had never had a phone line run to it. As soon as the tech completed the work order in the computer, it turned out that not only can we have DSL, but we are even closer to the doodad that receives the signal, so our service will be even better!
And as for cable…We MUST have cable. Our cable provider carries the Big Ten Network. And when a Buckeye marries a Wolverine, that is as necessary in the home as electricity and running water. But the cable company said it will take 2 whole weeks to get the address situated in the computer system, and we have to wait that amount of time to even ORDER service. Blah!
In the meantime, all of that time away from the internet has made me very productive. I have washed everything, and the floor is no longer piled with laundry. Most of the boxes are unpacked. I have completed 3 more sections of my MCAT review. (Okay that’s not so great. I would have had more done by now, but I am only working on it between boxes.) Maybe I am an online junkie.
Being the anal-retentive, slightly neurotic person that I am, I…Washed…Everything! Instead of the clothes being hung in the closet, it was all piled in the kitchen outside of the laundry room (which is really just a very functional closet). Those poor machines are working overtime, but I am almost finished. The new-house smell is in full force, mixed with the scent of Glade cinnamon apple candles. ( Hey, I love Yankee candles. I love Woodwick candles. But these little babies work just as well, and were 2 for $4 at Wally World.)
But for those of you who have never moved into a newly constructed home, I have a warning. It is not all peaches and cream. Yes, it is nice to know that you can walk bare-footed on the carpet and not worry whose funky feet have trodded on it before you came along. I didn’t have to cringe at the idea of placing dishes in cabinets without shelf paper. And yes, the house is pristine. But there is a drawback. None of the companies recognize my address. We waited the requisite one week for the telephone company to switch our service to the new address. We were about to die, being cut off from the rest of the world with no phone and no internet, when Ahhhhhhhh! There was a Verizon truck behind the house. But wait! The phone man is telling us that we cannot have a phone yet because there is no line to the house. It will take 2 weeks to get a line ran to the house and buried underground. Wtf. I begged. I pleaded. Then I played the I-am-a-healthcare-provider-and must-be-reachable card, with the requisite It-could-cost-me-my-JOB kicker. So now we have a phone, but we also have a fluorescent orange phone line stretching, on the ground, to the telephone pole on the street. Yes, it is unsightly, but I have a dial tone.
Internet is a different story altogether. When we called to order all of the services at the new address, we were told that DSL is not available at the new house. We were going to just get internet through the cable company, but I was seriously bummed. Despite our incessant computer problems in our household, we have never had trouble with our internet. We had a strong internet signal to the modem, even when there was no computer hooked to the modem. I wanted that same service. My neighbors, Jon and Trish, had internet through the cable company and had nothing but problems. I. Didn’t. Want. That. But when the tech installed the phone, he said we COULD have DSL here. It turns out that when they put the new address into the computer, it recognized it as out of the service area because it had never had a phone line run to it. As soon as the tech completed the work order in the computer, it turned out that not only can we have DSL, but we are even closer to the doodad that receives the signal, so our service will be even better!
And as for cable…We MUST have cable. Our cable provider carries the Big Ten Network. And when a Buckeye marries a Wolverine, that is as necessary in the home as electricity and running water. But the cable company said it will take 2 whole weeks to get the address situated in the computer system, and we have to wait that amount of time to even ORDER service. Blah!
In the meantime, all of that time away from the internet has made me very productive. I have washed everything, and the floor is no longer piled with laundry. Most of the boxes are unpacked. I have completed 3 more sections of my MCAT review. (Okay that’s not so great. I would have had more done by now, but I am only working on it between boxes.) Maybe I am an online junkie.
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