It's been a long month and a half.

[MSperoni]

Ever since I broke my arm in May things have been relatively unstable.

But this isn't about what happened three months ago, this is about why I haven't been around anywhere online (aside from Twitter and FB) for the past month and half.

I don't feel like going into details because it's too long of a tale and it's stupid and boring (if someone asks I'll tell though). We moved twice in the span of about a month and half (three times for me if you count me moving a bunch of old stuff out of my Dad's place when he retired).

There was a period of time (about two weeks) when I was staying with a friend and didn't have my computer set up since I didn't have a room to set it up in.

But I'm back now. I have a home again and it has internet. Plus my computer is all set up in the basement so I can finally get back to making drawings!

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Good to have you back Matt!

[Overcast]

I look forward to our drawing filled future Matt. And am more than willing to get bored by you telling us about how things have gone down over the past month+1/2

[MSperoni]

Well back in May my stepdad's dad passed away and we inherited* his house after some deliberation with the family. None of the siblings thought taking the house was a good idea aside from my stepdad's overly sentimental sister. My mom and stepdad liked the house, but were reluctant to move due to all that moving entailed.

After a month or so of waffling, they decided to move and I fell in along with them. It was a major blunder that cost us a lot of time, effort, and money (luckily I was there to get us pulled out before it cost us more time, effort and money).

Unfortunately I didn't see the house for the first time until after we went through all the trouble of moving and selling our home, so I couldn't nip the idea in the bud from the start.

It's an old house, the house my stepdad grew up in, and larger than the house we were previously living in. Based on the picture that was painted to me by my mom and stepdad, it seemed like a step up for us. However it was in Sterling, Illinois (forty minutes east of Iowa, two hours west of Chicago). Sterling is about six hours north of where we were currently living, and I didn't wanna leave all my family and friends behind.

Somehow we convinced ourselves it was a good decision. Maybe we were blinded by the idea of what it could be, not seeing the forest for the trees. Not stopping to consider what we were leaving behind.

Foolish as it was, we sold our house which we had been living in for 24 years and moved.

Once we got there and I got to look around, I realized it was a huge mistake. This "new" house wasn't even close to the picture my mom and stepdad had painted for me. It was nice if you were an 84 year old man living there, sure, and it had a cool history to it (it's like 100 years old), but it was not gonna work for me. I immediately started making plans to move back. It was a mistake and despite how fond I was of the area and the people I couldn't see myself being there, away from all my friends and home turf.

Homesickness wasn't the only issue. The house was not up to code. The electrical system was bad (my mom got shocked twice while trying to dry her hair), and there was black mold in the basement.

Sterling is a place I'd want to visit, for sure, but living there was not for me. Especially not in that antique house, where we couldn't even hook up a flatscreen and a DVD player without blowing a fuse.

I'm thinking had I made a visit up to the house before we went through the trouble and expense of moving I would've noticed all these problems and put my foot down about moving.

The cost of getting the house up to snuff and finalizing the inheritance mumbo-jumbo would've drained our savings. It was more cost effective to put the place up for auction and for my stepdad to take his 1/6th share of what it sold for (he's one of six siblings).

My mom and stepdad realized they had made a mistake too (I swear I'm the only one with sense in this household), and after about a week we loaded what we could in our cars and drove back to good ol' Southern Illinois. I threw away a lot of things and donated many books to the library in order to free up as much space as possible. We stayed at my aunt's sister's house for a night and then at a friend-of-the-family's house for a few weeks while we tried finding a place to live. I got really used to sleeping on couches.

Eventually we found a new place, and 3:30am one Friday morning my mom and I made another six-hour trip to Sterling to get as much of our remaining stuff as we could (my stepdad couldn't go for a legit medical reason).

A bunch of things went wrong during this trip (including my mom losing the key to the U-Haul after we had finished loading it up the first time).

But we managed to make it back in about two days thanks to my administration and physical endurance (and a helpful locksmith in Clinton, Iowa). Not sure how, but I manged to load a 22 foot U-Haul 1.5 times** pretty much on my own with only about three hours of sleep and no sustenance outside of a power-ade and a six-inch sub.

A week later we're in our new house. It's pretty nice. It's in the same town as our old house, and the dude we're renting it from is cool. I believe this is the "step up" we were hoping the Sterling home to be.


*I say "inherited" for the sake of expediency. There was a lot more to it than that, but I'm not gonna get into details about the conditions with my stepdad's siblings and stuff.

** We (mostly me) loaded the U-Haul once, then when we realized mom had misplaced the key, we unloaded about half of it looking for the key, then I loaded it up again once I had made some calls and found us a locksmith.

[Overcast]

Well that wasn't very boring, you lied to me.

That being said, hard luck mate. Even with most of everything going back to casual it is hard to think that you guys have to shift from a home you owned to one you rent, getting out from under something like that is one of the big achievements one can have financially. Still at least things are stabilizing.

[MSperoni]

Well it's a rent with an option to own or something. I dunno.

My plan is to start earning money and start saving so I can get out on my own and not have to worry about it :P

However since it's been over a month since I did any art-work I kinda need to get my skills back up to snuff before I go looking for commissions.

[pochercoaster]

Damn Matt, that's a lot of BS to go through. I'm glad you guys are settled down now, and that you can return to some normalcy.

[MSperoni]

I didn't point it out but before we moved up to Sterling I had just moved a lot of stuff out of my Dad's place since he retired.

EDIT: Oh wait, yeah I did. I referenced it in my first post :P Whoops!

So I spend like a week moving things out of his house into my mom's house, only to have to pack it all up again and move up north a few months later.

ALSO back in May, the day of my stepdad's dad's funeral, was when I broke my arm (I was home while my mom and stepdad were attending the services).

So it's been a crazy five months for me!

[Arhra]

Oh wow, hope things are looking up for you now, Matt.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Good to see you back! yay!