Busy

As you know our oldest is moving to New York City for a job starting July 14. It's an opportunity of a lifetime and I am happy for him. He graduates from college on May 18 but first has a project to present as well as finals.. We told him that we would start the apartment hunting for him. Well, let me just say that I thought my head was going to explode after just a few minutes of on-line searching. While I've been to NYC 3 times and am familiar with midtown Manhattan, he's not going to live on Park Ave or 34th Street or Broadway. Finding an apartment without knowing the area is brutal. It was decided upon that we needed some help. For $249.00 we signed up with a service that will locate apartments for you based on a profile of what you're looking for. I talked with our liaison and she was extremely helpful. She will forward the appropriate rentals and we do not have to pay a broker fee. Turns out many apartments that are listed are being done so by a broker. Sometimes you know this upfront, other times not until you're ready to sign a lease. To locate an apartment for you these brokers charge anywhere from one to three months of your rent. Yikes. We are going to have to find the time to go down to NYC (a six hour drive) to check out apartments that sound and look good online. Plus most apartments require a months rent in advance. Kevin will only have a few hundred bucks left by July so guess where it's going to come from. At least we should get paid back relatively soon since he has a good job.

In the meantime my schedule is as follows:

May 17 Graduation from Decker School of Nursing

May 18 University wide graduation

May 24 Graduation dinner for Kevin with family

May 25 - June 5 find the time to go to NYC to apartment hunt

June 7 2:00 Go to matinee of Wicked with sister in law

June 7 Immediatly after Wicked, go to University of Rochester to set up door prize area for senior bash. Did I mention I'm co-chair of the door prize committee so I've been pleading for donations.

June 7 9:30 pm Return to U of R to work the door prize area until 5:00 AM

June 8 Sleep all day

June 21 Graduation party for Cameron

June 26 Last day of school for me with students

June 28 High school graduation ceremony for Cam

July 1 Move Kevin to New York City

July 26 Celebrate a milestone birthday. How old do you think I look?

August 1 - 26 Get Cameron ready and organized to go off to college

August 27 Take him to college

August 28 Hopefully realizing that living in an empty nest isn't so strange after all.

Sept. 2 First day of school, start working again.

I realize that many people have larger things going on in their lives, whether it be illness or serious money issues and it seems somewhat silly to go on about this.

I'll leave you with a picture of our toad slayer. We have toads living in our backyard and Cody likes to play with them. When he finds one he'll nose it and make it hop. Usually he just "chases" it like this. Today the toad jumped into a clump of day lilies. He managed to get it out of there but pawed at it. Upon doing that he ended up eviscerating the poor thing with his claw. I'm going to have to be more vigilant when I see him find one. Once they get full grown he just barks at them.