It's coming together

So even the best laid plans get off track and I find this very frustrating. It's not something I'm immediately okay with. Like I need a minute.



















Off track this week: 

• The electricians, initially scheduled for Thursday, rescheduled for next week Wednesday. Grrr, but okay. I guess many of their staff were out sick so they were reshuffling appointments.

• The table and chairs due to be delivered on Thursday had to be cancelled all together. Apparently, the table was so badly damaged going from the warehouse to the truck that it became undeliverable. Um, WTF, mate? Did y'all drop it from the loading dock of a four story building? This set back peeved me out because the table is no longer in stock and we're looking at early to mid-January now. This one took me longer to work through and calm down about, but whatever. I'M BREEZY.

Other than that, things are crack a lackin'. 

The painters? Are amazing. Picture the squirreliest contractor you have ever dealt with. These painters are the exact OPPOSITE of this. I am at the house puttering around the during the day and so we chat. They are nice. And funny. One of them swept the garage. They're cool with taking their shoes off because of muddy yard and driveway. And their painting skills are no joke. I bought them lunch on Friday and it wasn't weird. 

The IKEA delivery/assembly people were kinda weird, however, but they hauled so much ass putting together a king bed, two nightstands, a day bed with three drawers, a desk, a hutch and an office chair together (IN THREE HOURS!) that I didn't even care. Be zany. Just put together my cheap Swedish goods, ya nut jobs.

Other than that, I have been using my new Shark steam mop and puttering about cleaning things and putting things away. It is heaven.

For cookie cutters.

Pantry of gloriousness.
Remember my old pantry that
looked murder-y? This is an
upgrade.

Lovely, if slightly off-kilter rug.
Just like its owner.

For cocktails on the go. Soon.

Ugly builder faucet: OUT.
New kitchen faucet: IN.

Coming up this week we have me attempting to scrub and clean the basement stairs. I had the basement floor cleaned and sealed (it's cement), but the stairs are still a dirty mess and tracking that onto either the clean main floor or the new basement floor won't do.

Also, the electrician(s) are coming. Mr. Handyman is coming to put our bed and nightstands together. The painters are making their way to the second floor for painting. T is going to replace four bathroom faucets tomorrow while the kids and I are at church. I shall pray for him. The closet people are coming out on Friday to do our closet and Iris' closet--I'm kinda jazzed about that. I hope to move our clothes on Saturday and Sunday. It feels like an easy thing to move and organize in advance rather than have them boxed up and then me spending time unboxing them. 

I am enjoying taking our time through all of this for lots of reasons. One: it's letting me enjoy and troubleshoot things without feeling like our living arrangements have been upended. I don't like that. It's also allowing me to settle in and move and unpack things without the kids in tow as they're still in school for another week before Christmas vacation. And I like that our storage items are coming one day allowing me to do some unpacking before another load of items from the apartment come and compound it all making all seem like a bit of a circus.

Also, for me, the most ridiculous parts of moving are: a) having no food in the house and b) no sheets on the bed because, hey!, your bed just arrived. But this time I can grocery shop in advance! There will be food! And because our bed and Iris' bed are new, I can have them made up before we sleep there. I can be dead tired after our moving day and then just crawl into sheets without feeling like crying because dealing with a fitted sheet at 10:00pm after moving all day is enough to make a gal snap.

I am trying to my hardest to also preserve the Christmas-y goodness of this great month. I adore Christmas. And while I feel slightly preoccupied, we've been listening to Christmas music since about early November (that's Iris' fault) and decorated our apartment and have two separate countdowns to Christmas.

If I let myself, though, I feel really, really sad about the traditions were just starting to build in Old Town. Traditions like going to the botanical gardens to see trees from around the world, driving to the ballpark where you could slow-drive through it and look at the lights and I always made us popcorn to eat in the car. Or making our tenement gingerbread houses. I don't know. Leaving those things behind and having to start from scratch here bums me out a lot. 

I think we will still make our super hoopty gingerbread houses and try to visit Santa at the mall. And while the kids don't seem to notice one way or the other and that makes me feel a bit better, I notice. And I miss those things. Hopefully a year from now and we'll feel a bit more settled and celebratory.

Homeowners once again!

Well, it was a good run being mortgage-free but The Man owns us once again. Yesterday we closed on our new house and that means we officially own it and no contractors or tradespeople will be walking through it. It means I wired an obscene amount of money to the title company last week and hoped it didn't get lost in the ether. It also means that I went horizontal on our new carpet yesterday afternoon and the kids went ape upstairs and it felt good because they weren't within arms reach of me.

The apartment has been cozy, but with the advent of winter and closed windows and less time outside--it's been feeling even cozier.

COZIER, I TELL YOU.




At any rate, with us officially owning the home--the rubber meets the road in terms of me getting things done before we sleepover.

Today: 

I met the painters at the house after taking the kids to school. This painting company is one I found on Yelp and after reading that they were meticulous and supa tidy--I knew I'd found my guy. I mean, my middle name is practically Tidy.

And! He was quick and responsive with his quote and emails. And! Grammar and punctuation were utilized. It's like finding a unicorn.

So a team of four will be painting pretty much damn near every surface in the house between now and next week Friday.

Today I also hired a mirror company to remove the boring bathroom mirrors.

Also, I hired a local moving company to bring their van over to the apartment and load up everything for the new house that is crowding us in and making T need a paper bag to breathe into.



(Never Google "hoarder's home" as you will never be able to unsee the Image search results. Horror show.)

I initially was going to make multiple trips in my VW, but, uh, some things are too big. See: the bed Target delivered early and still gets me het up when I think about it, and the two 9x12 rugs. Oh, and the bar cart. My Golf is miraculous nine times out of ten, but even it has limits. 

Then I thought, "Hey! I'll just rent maybe a Uhaul kidnap van or maybe a Tahoe for the day and make one mega trip and be done with it!" But figuring out the timing and logistics with the kids school times and car seats and making sure I could get it done in one day made it all feel too ridiculous.

Then T said, "Um, hire someone?" OKAY. Again Yelp turned up this local company and they were more than willing to do it and charge me about the same price as Enterprise would charge me for an SUV and within two hours my apartment will be empty of new stuff and the new stuff will be at the house where I can put it away.

Stuff is happening and it feels good.

Unfortunately, I'm also dealing with some sort of low level cold action for over a week now. Intermittant runny nose. Intermittant sore throat. Lost my voice, but it came back along with Chills! Aches! Hurty ears! Not bad enough to put a fork in it and want to go to bed, but not minimal enough for me to just shake it off. 


             I'm not entirely sure what's happening here.

Maybe let's not end on that weird horse head. Here are some small fries instead: