Settling In, Freaking Out

Well, things are moving - slowly - along. I am sick as a dog, flu or something, and had to call off work today. But it worked out well, because in between swooning and having to rest, I have been very slowly unpacking a few boxes. Yeah, I know I shouldn't be - I'm really sick, not just faking it to get the day off to stay home (as my boss probably thinks), so I should be resting and getting better, not working here.

But I'm only doing a very little bit, slowly and carefully. And so at least some small progress is being made. And I'm only doing that because if I don't get something done pretty soon, I'm going to have a bit of a melt-down. Yesterday was rough, rougher even than Saturday. Greg and I went back to the old house with the moving truck, and got as much more stuff as we had time to get, by ourselves. But I am extremely, extremely disconcerted about how much stuff is left there.

Then we had to bring it home, unload it all, and get the truck back to the rental place, stop at the grocery store for a few staples, and come home and eat - which we got to do finally about 9:00 at night.

Greg was determined to eat his first meal at the new house in his pub, at one of his pub tables, so before diving into dinner, he put one together, and got his wish.


This morning he spent a little time fixing up the pub, and it's coming along quite nicely.



The lounge area outside the pub is starting to shape up, too, although it has a little ways to go yet.


Because we had to get the truck unloaded last night to return it, but had no place to put the stuff (and very little energy) we dumped it all in the living room, which is a complete disaster area. That's why I've been forcing myself to do at least a little bit between resting, because if I don't get some of that cleaned up soon, well ... I was serious about the meltdown. The stress is starting to get to me. It's just a timing issue - there are so many different things to do, and no time to get them all done. I've missed a bunch of work now, which I need to make up. Yet I can't work over during the week, because now that I can't come home to let my dog out at lunchtime, I have to come straight home from work, because he'll already have been left alone for over 8 hours, more than he's ever had to endure in his life.

And next weekend we have to go back to the house and try to finish cleaning it out, for which we've already decided we're going to have rent a truck - again. There's just too much still to fit in our own trucks. And Sunday I am really going to need to spend some time working on this place, so don't know if I can go in to work extra then.

This place is, as I said, a disaster. Our bedroom isn't set up, I don't even know where all my clothes are, there's no food in the house. Some time that stuff has to be taken care of too.

I'm not expecting to get the place in perfect order in a couple days, but there are a few necessities that have to be taken care of - like food and clothing. And I have to find time to make up this time I'm missing from work. So ... imminent meltdown understandable.

Oh, and the furnace is acting funny, and one of the things I hoped to get done today while I was home sick was have someone out to look at it. The previous owners provided a home warranty, but I wasn't given the information on it, so I can't call in a service request without my contract number, which I don't have. And, they told me even if I had it, they only guarantee to send someone out in 48 hours, but you can't schedule it, and they don't do Saturdays. I can't take another 2 days off work just to sit here waiting for a furnace repair person. So I have no clue what I'm going to do about that, unless I give up on the home warranty and just call someone myself, and pay for it. Which I will probably have to do.

It'll all get done eventually, I know - it's just very, very hard right now. I wish I had done several things differently, but I didn't, so I'll just have to muddle for awhile. I'm sure this is why I got so suddenly, badly sick - just running myself ragged over the weekend with next to nothing to eat. I could definitely write a book - "The Complete Idiot's Guide to How Not To Move."

But don't get me wrong - it's all going to be well worth it. I really love this place. It already feels like "home", and I know that doesn't always happen ... when I moved into my last house, I felt like I was in a motel for weeks. It wasn't homey at all. I feel like I've been hanging out in this pub my whole life already. It's a beautiful thing. :o)

The Adventure (?!) Of Moving In

Well, it's been quite a 24-hours. I woke up yesterday about 5:45 a.m., and it's now 6:30 a.m. the following morning. Or, this morning. Sunday morning - it's getting hard to keep track. I've only had a few hours sleep because despite exhaustion and going to bed late, I woke up at 5:45 again, unable to go back to sleep - partly from excitement, and partly from panic.

We had a bunch of people show up to help us move, for which I am extremely grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you Matt, Rhys, Allison, and John! I honestly don't know what we'd have done without you all. I, for one, would probably have sat down some place and cried a lot.

Everyone worked their tails off, but for all that, we didn't get anywhere near all the stuff. It was discouraging. It wasn't anyone's fault but ours (mine and Greg's) - we just had too damned much stuff, and not enough of it packed up ready to move.

Well, that's only half true. In some cases we simply couldn't do any more in the house, because of it's frequently mentioned tiny size. After we'd packed up a bunch of boxes and filled the living room and the only free space upstairs, there quite literally wasn't anyplace else to put any boxes had we packed them, or to move things around to get to other things we could have dealt with early.

Consequently, exhausted and on no sleep, Greg and I have to go back to the house today while we still have the truck (today's the last day, has to go back by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow) and try to get as much of the rest of the stuff as we can. Once we turn in the truck, we can still move smaller items in our own trucks, but it will go much more slowly, so I want to make sure we get everything we can today. Fortunately our moving crew did get all the large, heavy stuff that we needed help moving. All that's left is stuff he and I can get by ourselves.

We had several adventures, of course. The first was the Big Ass Truck. Greg told them we wanted the 'biggest truck they had' - always a slightly dangerous thing to say. We ended up with this ...



... which may not look that huge in this picture, but it was. We couldn't back it into the driveway at the old house because the street's so narrow, he'd of ended up driving the front end through the yard across the street. So we decided to park it on the street and load it that way. Then it occurred to me - at the new house we're not allowed to park on the street, and I didn't believe that truck would fit in the new house driveway - the cab would be sticking out in the street. So I talked Greg into going back and trading it for a smaller, more manageable model.

In the good news department, I can get my truck in the garage!

And we pulled up the carpet in our bedroom to reveal a beautiful hardwood floor. Of course, the crew had to spend some time pulling up staples (in the padding) and Rhys single-handedly took out all the tacking strips along the walls.


Since we forgot to bring garbage bags, I didn't get this completely cleaned up yet, but it's going to look pretty great when I do.

So after we've moved everything we had the energy for this day, it was time for another adventure. Our plan was to have a fire in the fireplace in the pub while the band had band practice. Here's Greg lighting our first fire in the new home ...


And here's the fire ...


... and immediately thereafter the entire basement filled up with smoke. At first we thought it was just because the fireplace hadn't been used in a long time (yes, we made sure flue was open). But it kept getting worse and worse, and finally we checked outside and realized not a wisp of smoke was coming out of the chimney. Ooopsy.

So they hurriedly put the fire out (by pouring water on it - what a mess; but it had to go out), we ran fans and opened doors and windows, and in a little while had the smoke cleared out. None too soon, I think we were about to asphyxiate ourselves.

I guess I'd better get that chimney inspection I thought I could skip.

So I'm off to make some coffee (I do know where that stuff is, if little else) and get geared up for another day of moving. Oh, joy. I know - it'll be great once it's all here and put away - five years from now. (smile)

W. O. W.

It occurs to me that it's kind of odd, the way we buy houses. We go and see a place once, maybe twice, for probably, usually, less than an hour each time, and base our decision to spend thousands of dollars and the next thirty years of our life on those brief moments. It's really not much time to get to know much about a place.

It'd be kind of like agreeing to marry someone after one brief blind date.

I was having some mild angst about the new house over the last week or two, concern about a few issues, things I thought I wasn't going to like or were going to be a pain.

Well. We got the keys yesterday afternoon, and spent several hours in the house, just hanging out, exploring. And it was totally amazing. I had forgotten how big the place was, because it doesn't look that big from the outside. We just kept walking around from room to room, amazed. (Although I admit we spent most of our time in the pub, where we went first to have a celebratory drink).

Things I'd been concerned about seemed not to be an issue at all. One biggie - I was concerned my truck wasn't going to fit in the garage (it's a tiny garage, and my truck is not unlarge). Good news - my truck fits in the garage. It's snug, but then it always was here as well, and it does fit - that's the important part.

There were a couple of other things, but once in the house walking around for a period of time, they didn't seem to be any concern at all. I wondered what I'd been thinking.

I'm totally enamored with the place, and it was so hard to leave last night! I just wanted to stay, but we hadn't planned to do that, because there's still so much to do at the old house to get ready for the move today. But today I get to go back, to stay. Tonight will be our first night there, and the band is having practice, so we'll be hanging out in the pub, with our first fire in the fireplace. (And yes, there will be pictures!).

And since all new house experiences have to have their amusing moments, here's ours - we had to break out of our own house at one point.

The back door had a door knob (obviously) with a very old-fashioned lock, a skeleton-key type. There was also a deadbolt which was keyed on both sides - so once locked, you needed the key to unlock it even from the inside.

The previous owners showed up shortly after we'd gotten the keys, just to answer any questions we might have and explain a few quirks of the home to us (which I thought was enormously decent of them!). They told us that one of the prior real estate agents had misplaced the key to the back door deadbolt, so they didn't have one for it.

We knew we needed to get the backdoor unlocked and open, because we were going to need to use it to move things down to the basement. So Greg removed the deadbolt cover with a screwdriver (since we were inside breaking out, we could do that), and he was then able to turn the mechanism from the inside to unlock it. But it still wouldn't open. We thought it was stuck, so Greg was going to go outside and push it from that direction.

Then we discovered that the storm door was locked - which we couldn't get to unless we could get the inside door open. Greg hunted around and found a wire coat hanger, which we ran through the lock to try to unfasten the storm door. After a bit of trying, we managed that trick, and got the storm door open. But the door still wouldn't open.

We finally discovered that the lower knob had in fact been locked when we thought it hadn't, but we found the key for it, openened it, and succeeded in breaking out of our own house. Situation solved.

Okay - it's 6:45 a.m. and I have got to get cracking - I have 15 years worth of accumulated life to transfer to a new home today!

Scheduled Panic: T Minus 7.5 Hours

Well, here we are. We're getting the keys to the new house today!! I'm pretty excited.

And I'm also getting mildly panicked. Last night I finally dived into some of the more serious packing and readying to move, and - oh -we have a lot to do. No. A lot.

You see, we rented a moving truck, and due to the place being closed on Sunday, we have it all weekend. But we only have people to help move on Saturday. Which means we have to make sure and get all the biggest stuff that we need the serious help with on Saturday. And a lot of that stuff still needs something done before it can be moved.

The fridge needs cleaned out. Three dressers need cleaned out. Another large corner computer desk upstairs is buried behind a bunch of stuff that I haven't even dealt with yet, which means it all has to be moved somewhere, so the desk can be gotten to. (Yet in this tiny place, there's no where to move it to - that's why it is where it is right now). Some of the furniture downstairs still needs cleaned off or out. I was trying to do up all my laundry before I moved, so I'd only have clean clothes to move, but after I thought I was done last night, I found another pile of laundry in the bedroom closet.

But all this stuff needs done tonight, because there won't be that much time tomorrow. Our first help is getting here around 10:00 a.m., but I have to be at the new house by noon and hang out there because the gas company and the cable company are coming. So I can't be at the old house doing this stuff while they're loading the truck.

It wouldn't be so bad if I could have taken some time off work, but that just hasn't seemed like an option. Always, always, we're so far behind, and everything is either an emergency or has an imminent deadline. I can't take time off work without making it up hour for hour ... and since I need the next couple weekends free to finish moving what we don't get this weekend, and to begin putting the new house into some kind of liveable order, there won't be time to make up any hours I miss at work, so - stuff won't get done, deadlines will get blown. That's the one real down side to my job, that I can't just take time off work for something without still being solely responsible for still getting the work done. Time off during the week doesn't really help when I have to go in on the weekend to make it up.

The line about "scheduled panic" was supposed to be a joke. But in reality, I do think this is going to kind of be a disaster. We didn't do nearly as much as we should have ahead of time for this move, and it's going to be rough over the next week. We really should have bit the bullet and hired movers. The only catch there would have been, I'd have still had to have everything packed up and ready, and that's the dilemma - I don't. Although I think if we'd hired movers, I'd have been more motivated to get it done, knowing I had to have it ready by Saturday morning.

Well ... it is what it is. We'll deal with it as best we can. The good thing is that I don't have to be out of the old house by any certain date. I know my buyer will be on my ass big time in a couple days, wanting to know when I will be out - but we never settled on a date, and legally I have thirty days, so there's nothing they can do about it. And if my boss (who is eyeball deep in this deal, you know) gives me too hard a time about getting our stuff out, I'll just tell him, "Look- I can either come to work, OR move ... but I can't do both at once. So if you want me out sooner, you're going to have to give me some time off."

I know one thing: anyone thinking you can move an entire household in a weekend when you've lived in a place for 15 years is kind of silly. Me included.

Wow - It's Real

The whole moving thing is finally sinking in. After a day of absolute and total frustration yesterday, things should - should - begin to really ramp up today.

I was calling to have the utilities switched into my name at the new house yesterday. Wow, what a cluster-you-know-what. The water and gas people said someone had to come out and do a final meter reading before they could transfer the utilities. Problem is, I don't have the keys yet, so I couldn't schedule the reading, because I didn't know when the sellers (who do have the keys) would be available and willing to meet them there. But neither place was willing to let me have the sellers call and schedule the reading, then transfer it into my name. Somehow, they wanted me to be the one to let them in for the final reading - the person into whose name the utilities were being transferred - and any other potential scenario just eluded them both completely. They didn't seem to understand at all why I didn't have the keys yet. The snotty woman at the gas company even told me, "You're the one who wants the gas in your name, you have to make the arrangements." Well ... that's what I'm trying to do, Ms. Bitch.

The reason I didn't have the keys is that everyone (agent, loan officer, etc.) told me that I needed to have the utilities transfer on the date of closing (today) but I couldn't get the keys till the day following closing.

We eventually worked it out that I get the keys tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., and I've arranged the necessary meter readings for that same date, after 3:00 p.m.

I haven't arranged the electric transfer yet ... it took me, literally, all day just to get that sorted out with the water and gas company (the local water company people were quite nice, if initially a little dense about the situation; and the second time I called the gas company, I got someone much nicer). I ended up having to call the gas company about four times before I got that all sorted out. I tried calling the electric company; the first two times, halfway through the voice response system, I had to hang up due to interruptions; the third time I finally got them on the phone, they put me on hold, then we got cut off.

My patience was shot, so I'm saving calling them back for today.

But anyway - I'm supposed to close today, and then get the keys tomorrow at 3:00!!! So tomorrow afternoon I'll be at the new house.

Amazing. It's all so fuzzy, like a weird dream. I mentioned before that I hadn't yet entirely wrapped my head around the fact that we're actually moving. Up till now it's all just kind of seemed like an exercise in fantasy, thinking 'what would it be like if we were going to move,' but not actually believing we're doing it. Now it's finally starting to feel real, knowing that we'll be there ... tomorrow.

Moving ... oh my. I'm thinking it's going to be a bit of a disaster. I'm not fretting about it, it is what it is. But I think what it is, is going to be a disaster. We don't have nearly as much packed as we should have. We have tons of stuff outside that we never got packed because the weather's been atrocious, cold and snowy, for weeks. There was about a 2-day break where it was in the 50s or maybe 60s, but alas, I didn't run outside and pack up a bunch of stuff while it was like that, and missed my window of opportunity. Today it's cold, windy, and snowy, and not predicted to improve much over the coming days.

We have a bit of a plan though. I took so much crap from the person buying my house that one thing I did get carved in stone is that I have no set date to be out, and they will NOT bother me or come around the place until I am out. If I wanted to, I could take a month to move. I don't plan to take that long (I'm sure I'd get grief for that regardless of what the contract says), but I can have at least a week, and probably two.

We have a truck rented for this weekend. We will move all the biggest stuff that we really need the truck for on Saturday and Sunday, plus all the smaller stuff and boxes we can manage in that time frame. Then, what's left, we'll pick up slowly over the next week, and maybe even get the remainder of it next weekend.

It'll all work out - it'll be busy and hectic and exhausting and exciting and frenzied and maybe even, at some points, fun, but it'll all get done. Eventually.

And in a little over two days I'll be sitting in our pub with a fire in our fireplace and a drink in my hand, listening to the band practice, marveling at my new home. Sad? A little, leaving the old home. Excited? Quite a bit.

The Green, Renewable, Sustainable, Eco-Friendly Drinking Game

So me and the Dread Reverend were kinda bored last night, and decided to play a drinking game.

We sometimes like to watch the "Planet Green" channel (or whatever it's called), particularly a show called Greenovation, where people do allegedly environmentally friendly renovations to their home. This show was just coming on when we decided to embark on this impromptu gaming, so the rules went like this.

Anytime during the show someone said any of the words renewable, sustainable, green, or eco-anything, we had to take a drink. If anyone used the phrase 'global warming,' we had to take two drinks. And if anyone dared say the phrase "greenhouse gases" while standing in a bathroom, you had to down your whole drink, and make a new one.

Well. Who knew environmentalism could be so intoxicating! It's only a half hour show, and we barely made it through.

Viva la rumovation!

The Difference Between A House And A Home

I alluded to this the other day, but haven't yet gotten into it. I'm a little concerned that I'm going to have some major issues right around the time I'm officially moved out of the old house, probably when I leave it for the last time and have to give up the keys.

No matter how badly I wanted a bigger house, no matter how badly this place has been getting on my nerves over the last few years, there's one serious issue about it that makes it really hard. My dad did so much around this house for me. As I told the Dread Reverend, I can't look at any part of this house or yard without seeing my dad's fingerprints all over it.

He painted my living room. He had new carpet put in the two bedrooms. He had the kitchen floor put in. Though I designed and paid for the bathroom remodel, it was someone he knew who did the work, and he was here while the guy did the job (because I had to be at work).

He had my upstairs fixed up, having carpet put down, the ceiling fixed and fluorescent lights put in. He had new stairs built to the upstairs.

Outside is even worse. He did everything out there for many years after I moved in. He had my beautiful deck built. He planted most everything that's planted around the place, the shrubs and ground covers and ivy. He built and put up the fence down one side of the yard. He built the lattice 'wall' on the side of the porch, and the gate.

That is difficult to leave. I know the new house is the right thing to do ... it's a better house for us, more room, more things we really wanted and needed (a basement, fireplaces, etc.). I can't stay in the same little house my whole life just because my dad did things to it to fix it up for me. And, maybe most important of all, my dad didn't want me to stay here. He told me many, many times that he wanted me to have a better house, that this place "really wasn't very nice" - he wasn't being critical, he just meant he wanted me to have a better place to live. That's why he wanted me to take his house, although I opted not to, because it wasn't really the house we wanted, and there were too many things about it I didn't like or didn't suit our needs. But the point was, he wanted me to have a better place, and I'm sure he'd like the new house.

My boss was very critical when we had that go-around about the house that week, when they showed up with a real estate agent the same day I finally got the buyer to keep his word and agree to buy it. I felt as if I was being evicted, and I wigged out about it. Initially he was not sympathetic, saying he'd lived in so many different places that to him a house was just sticks and wood. Later he finally understood what I meant ... it's more than that. At least he understood that's how I felt, even if he'd never had the same experience. When you've lived in some place for 14 1/2 years (the only place in my life I've lived in longer was the house I grew up in, and that was only about 15 1/2 years), when you have roots and history there, it's different. It's not just sticks and wood anymore. It's sticks and wood with a rich patina of history, of happenings, of ... to borrow an over-used cliche, the very fabric of my life has been woven through the sticks and wood of this house for a very long time. You can't be ripped forcibly from that without doing serious damage.

But it can be done, as long as it's done gently, and I am sure it'll all work out great in the end. It just has to take some time.

And the good news is, there's plenty about the new house to love, so I don't think it's going to be an unbearable transition. It is a trade-off, but it's also a trade up. I get some of the things that were most important to me, that I couldn't get here ... fireplaces (yes, that really was that big a deal to me! I rejected perfectly good houses because they didn't have fireplaces), plenty of space for our hobbies (I can get creative again!), plenty of room (we can get rid of the storage unit and have valuable things I own out where I can see and enjoy them instead of an unheated garage someplace), and not feel like we're living in an efficiency apartment, but a house for a change.

It'll all be good. It'll take some time to adjust, but it'll all be good.