Seven Quick Takes -- About "Being Moved"

Seven Quick Takes is hosted at Conversion Diary.

As of this coming Monday we will have been living in our "new" house for four months. In recognition of that fact, today's Quick Takes are themed around "being moved."

1. Our old house no longer exists. Roger posted here about not missing it as much as he thought he would and here about the irrational reaction he had when the demolition was in progress. I found myself bursting into tears last week when I realized it was truly gone. This was precipitated by "Oh, no, I never looked in the carpet where my dresser was for that missing earring!" ( Fortunately the earring in question was part of a multi-pack from Claire's and not something from Bryan's family's jewelry store.) Obviously it wasn't really about the earring.

2. At one point I told Roger that I figured I'd really feel settled in when I could unload the dishwasher and put things away without having to consciously think about where they should go. I'm almost to that point. Everyday items are easy, but odds and ends that I don't use all the time are trickier. I don't have any trouble finding them to use, but I can't put them away while thinking about something else.

3. Having all the books on the bookcases is wonderful. It will be even more wonderful when we get the unassembled one that is in the basement set up and I can relocate the books that are on top of the shorter bookcases (and a couple of random dressers) down there. They are sorted and neatly set up, but they look untidy because I don't have enough bookends. The last bookcase solves all! Until we buy more books. Which we will. If "bookaholic" were a word, our whole family would be poster children.

4. I still don't "own" the yard and things outside the house. That's reasonable since it's been mostly winter, but I am not a garden-y person, and there are some things I'm going to need to spend some time on, like the big raised (brick sided) flower bed under the picture window. Right now it's full of dandelions. Fortunately Kelson's class is selling potted flowers as a fund-raiser, so I may tell the kids to kill three birds with one stone and buy me some pots for Mother's Day. Then I can dig out the dandelions (already started) and just set the pots under the window. After that I'd only have to remember to water them!

5. Another good reason for flowers in pots is that we are going to need to paint the outside of the house this summer. (If the flowers are in pots I can move them out of the way when we are painting in that area.) Roger is only waiting for me to settle on a color before he goes and buys the paint. The problem is that I can't make up my mind. Blue? Or tan? Or white like it is now? Lighter or darker shade? (Not of white, obviously!) I have been playing with an online program where you upload a picture of your house and try out the colors, and I still can't decide. I don't know what my deadline is, but I'm pretty sure that if I don't decide soon we will default to white. And maybe that's OK? Aaaargh!!

6. Despite the dishwasher definition of "Moved In", there are times when I still don't feel quite at home. In the first few days I claimed a particular corner of the new couch as mine, and I sit there when I read the Bible and pray in the morning, and also at lots of other times. And yet what I see from that seat still isn't fully familiar. I suppose that's not surprising, since the couch and chairs are new. So are some of the bookcases, and the older ones were never all in the same room before. I would use the excuse that almost 25 years in the old house is a long time in one place, but we did remodel the kitchen, and move things around periodically, so I guess it just means I'm an old fogey, and set in my ways. If I still feel this way in a year I'll go see a counselor.

7. Actually, of course, I LOVE this house. It's convenient (except for a couple of things in the kitchen), and pretty, and closer to a lot of things. It has flowers that I didn't have to plant, and room for everything, and lots of wonderful natural light. And my family is/comes here. We had an Easter egg hunt for the grandchildren in the back yard, and the barbecue is set up on the deck, and I have enough room to seat everyone for dinner. I know where all my books are, and most of Roger's, and all my clothes fit in the same closet. So despite my moments of wistfulness-or-nostalgia-or-whatever-it-is, the "new" house is now "the house", and HOME. Thanks be to God!

If I Keep Delaying You'll Think I've Been Kidnapped by Aliens...

I got my computer back* last Thursday. Miriel and I had been out doing major grocery shopping, and we pulled up to the house to see a FedEx truck blocking the driveway. The driver was on our front porch, somewhere in the process of writing the "sorry I missed you but I need a signature" note. Since Roger's replacement hard drive (also a casualty of the move) was part of the shipment, we were doubly glad we made it home in the nick of time.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any time that day to enjoy it, because by the time the groceries were put away I needed to be on my way to Kelson's Quiz Bowl meet. And after that I dropped him off at home and went straight to choir practice. And by the time I got home from that, bedtime was an awfully good idea.

Friday I managed to get several things set up, including installing Open Office. I spent a fair amount of time catching up on the blogs of family and close friends, but at that point I still believed I would be getting my Firefox bookmarks back from the old hard disk. They may very well still be recoverable--and I have a lot of informational sites I hope I don't need to track down again--but doing it is beyond my competency level, and it's not anywhere near the top of Roger's priority list.

Saturday we went out of town to celebrate Blaise's first birthday, and a grand time was had by all. (The computer stayed home and had a nice nap.) Sunday I realized that I was never going to catch up if I didn't put some work into it, especially after I found out through Arwen's paying site that the daughter of a blogger I read regularly but had not yet caught up on made it to the Hollywood stage of American Idol. Obviously I needed to be more on top of things.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday rebuilding my bookmarks (yes, I know there are such things as RSS feeds, but I like my way better, usually) and the rest of the day playing catch-up in between assorted chores and tossing three contractor bags of junk from the basement. Today I'm pretty much totally caught up, and so here I am. Finally!

*For those of you who don't know me on Facebook and Twitter, I got my new laptop on the fourth, and on the fifth we had to send it back for a replacement mother-board. Sigh!

She's Back! (Sort of...)

Well, the last two weeks have been interesting. It took four days instead of the 24 hours promised to get our internet back up. Our home phone number changed three times!! (I am not currently a fan of AT&T :-/ ) We moved. Our three-month-old grandniece in Maine died of SIDS, which cast a pall over Christmas festivities. Nevertheless we decorated, went to Christmas mass, and shared breakfast and presents with our kids and grandkids.

And oh, yeah, my computer did not make the move in functioning condition, so that I am currently using Arwen's Macbook while she and her family are visiting friends and having dinner with Bryan's parents. However, my very own laptop is now on order, so maybe you'll be hearing more from me here.... Have a Happy New Year celebration, and I hope to see you soon!

Internet Silence

Sometime tonight or tomorrow our internet at this house will be cut off. At some point (shortly, we hope) thereafter, internet service will begin at the new house. But anyway, I'm going to be kind of busy this weekend... See you on the other side!

House Update

The painting is done. It took three days to strip the kitchen wallpaper and wash the walls. It turns out there was primer under there; also at least two coats of paint and the remains of yet another kind of wallpaper (only the tiniest scrap in the edge of the electrical plate behind the refrigerator.) The hardest part was scrubbing off the sizing from the professional wallpaper job. I vow never to inflict that on any future owner of this house!

Yesterday the guys (Roger, Kelson, and sons-in-law Larry and Bryan) put in 800 square feet of pre-finished hardwood and 200 of vinyl plank. Today they did the trim, and tomorrow the carpet installers come to do all four bedrooms. I will be scrubbing down the kitchen, pantry, and bathrooms, so that we can begin shuttling things over before the big push on Friday afternoon and Saturday. Whew!

I hope to be back here before Christmas, but if I don't make it, have a Merry one!

Seven Quick Takes -- Once-Again-Homeowners Edition

Seven Quick Takes are hosted here.

1. So we finally closed on our new house. But because we bought a HUD foreclosure, we had the bank closing here in town -- we took out a small mortgage to cover repairs and updates -- and then had to drive an hour each way to nearby-medium-city where there is a HUD office for their closing. It took five minutes. And a HUD agent was doing other closings in our town today, but "couldn't work us into his schedule". We would have had to wait ten days longer to get on his list. At least we had a nice lunch.

2. Who knew that new houses came with "goodie bags" from the realtor? Ours gave us gift cards to Lowe's and some gift certificates to The Raven, which is only my favorite coffee shop within a hundred miles. If houses weren't so expensive, I might buy one more often! ;-D (NOT!!)

3. I am beyond excited to get into the new kitchen and start stripping wallpaper. The wallpaper is not exactly ugly, but it is torn, and anyway I just like to strip wallpaper. Which reminds me, I think we need to buy more primer, because I think this is the original 1964 wallpaper, and there's nothing under it but naked drywall. I'm doing the kitchen in two shades of (aqua-ish) blue, and I'm also going to paint a couple of our older, cheaper bookcases in the darker (accent) color. The part of the kitchen that is designed for a breakfast table is going to become my office, and I want to preserve all the counter space for actual appliances and food. Until I packed them, my cookbooks took up almost 10% of our current counter.

4. Our bedroom is also going to be in the coordinating blues (Behr 510C-1 and 510D-4, if you want to Google them ; I can't figure out how to link it) and I get to choose coordinating fabric for curtains and to cover our current comforter. I expect that the actual sewing project will have to wait for January, along with the decorative shower curtain and bathroom window treatment. We decided to go with plain white paint for the bathrooms, and I found a mostly-green fabric that works with the pink I mentioned here. I'm optimistically hoping that this will turn the pink tile into an accent color. Wish me luck!

5. We did go with the local shop for flooring. They came in at almost 20% below Home Depot for essentially the same product. And we have been very satisfied with the job they did for us 10 years ago. So that's a win-win! Carpet in all the bedrooms (and the office, which is really a bedroom), industrial carpet in the basement, hardwood in the living and dining areas and hallway, and vinyl plank in the kitchen and half bath. The full bath and the entryway already have acceptable tile, so we're not going to worry about them.

6. My nose is recovering. I felt MUCH better after all the scabs finally fell off. Now it only hurts if I touch it the wrong way, or when a pressure front is going through. But I've always had sinus pain with a pressure front, so I'm not sure if this is really different. we nee to take a still-red-but-not-scabby picture soon.

7. I need to finish this and get out the door. We are eating out again in celebration. Buffalo Wild Wings by teenager request! See ya!

First Sunday of Advent

Our choir sang at 5:00 mass yesterday evening, so all of the family who were in town for "house work" went to that mass. Because of this I got out the Advent wreath and we lit the first candle last night at dinner. As a decoration, it looks a little forlorn in the middle of a kitchen where the bulletin board of pictures has been taken down, the cookbooks have been packed away -- because I'm not doing any cooking I can't do from memory until after the move -- and the walls are getting grubby because they're just going to be knocked down in a month or so anyway.

But as a symbol, I'm finding it movingly inspirational. We are moving forward, we are looking forward, and and when the time it symbolizes is fulfilled, something wonderful will have happened! As I was mulling over what I wanted to say in this post, I happened to think about Mary, who in the year we are commemorating was eight months pregnant* and about to set out on a long trip on donkey-back. I can picture me in that situation, having the same thoughts I'm having now: "I can't do this." "It's too hard." "It will never work out the way I want it to."

Since Mary was far more in tune with God's will than I'll ever be, I don't dare picture her giving in to the temptations inherent in these thoughts. She knew that she was living in/obeying the Father's perfect will, so despair or mental paralysis was not even an option. But I'm pretty sure there were mornings when the thought of heaving herself back onto that donkey required conscious submission and acceptance! So I'm going to strive to let the Advent wreath remind me to surrender my irritations and impatiences, so that I can eventually arrive at the joy of Christmas.

* Elisa and Christy, I'm thinking about you! [Two of Arwen's HS friends are expecting their first babies ANY DAY!]

Cleaning.......

I don't mind painting, really. Stripping wallpaper I find surprisingly enjoyable. Laying vinyl plank flooring I expect to find interesting, if tiring. Pulling dirty contact paper out of cupboards and off of shelves was startlingly satisfying. But washing walls and cleaning windows -- Ugh!

And that is all for the end of a very tiring day. Goodnight!

Random Update

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. Ours was great! Arwen and Branwen shared the cooking, with help from parents and siblings. I was very happy not to have the full responsibility, but I forgot that this would mean that I didn't get the leftovers! Some of the pies are here (we had seven pies for 11 adults and four kids...) but I am not going to get even ONE turkey sandwich. :-/

"Here" is back in our hometown. Although Arwen and her family stayed at their home to recover from all of the traveling Bryan has been doing recently, Branwen and Larry and their kids, plus Tirienne and Miriel, all returned here today -- so that we could work on the new house!!! We got a lot of cleaning done today and will do more tomorrow. Next weekend will be painting, the weekend after that the hardwood floor. During the next week, the carpet will be installed, and then we'll move the weekend after that.

And yes, if you do the math, that means we will be moving the weekend before Christmas!! I would in NO way have planned it like that, but we did pray for "the right house at the right price at the right time", so I guess I have to assume that this is the right time. Anyway, the big girls have volunteered to do stocking-stuffers, and the other kids have been delegated to cut and put up and decorate the tree -- which we never put up before the third Sunday in Advent at the earliest, because we leave it up until Epiphany. So I guess I will survive. (And for any of my friends who are reading this -- the traditional New Year's Eve party is ON! Even if I have to buy all the food at Sam's Club.)

I expect that over the next few weeks I will have more than one moment of temptation to melt down. Please pray for me, that I will be able to rely on God's strength, because I am certain that mine is going to get pretty well drained. For somebody with a history of anxiety and panic like mine, that's a big trigger for losing it. Please pray that I won't!

Finally -- my nose is better! All of the giant scabs have fallen off, and although there are still blotchy pink areas. I look pretty normal. And unless I touch my nose in the wrong spot, it no longer hurts at all. The only real pain I've had lately was yesterday, when I asked Blaise to "give Grandma a kiss" and he banged his hard little forehead into my nose. But that was my own fault for forgetting that babies do that!

And now I'm off to find another piece of pumpkin pie...

Whatcha Readin' Wednesday

For anybody who cares, the gory pictures of me and my nose are here. I would love to post a disclaimer about how he takes them in the morning before I'm showered, blah, blah, blah, but I expect that that's just how I look right now. Fortunately it's not how I feel! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....

I finished Blackwork, and can recommend it with reservations. The mystery is fine, but I believe that Ferris is trying so hard to be relevant that she goes overboard. One continuing character is homosexual, which I can ignore because he's such a stereotype that he doesn't ever become real, but in this volume she gives equal attention and countenance to a Wiccan cleansing ritual and a Christian wedding ceremony. Furthermore, the "Wiccan ritual" includes the Prayer to Saint Michael in a version that manages to not mention God. Apparently devotees of Wicca believe in Saint Michael, but not in God. Who knew??!!

I am having an interesting time balancing my reading right now, because there is so much to be done for the move. On the one hand, I'm afraid if I check more books out of the library I'll just wind up moving them, which is silly considering how many books we already need to move. On the other hand, if I'm going to maintain my sanity throughout the move, I need to be reading something, and I hate pulling books out of boxes I've already packed. (Don't tell Kelson, but this is the first argument for getting a Kindle I can give any credence to.) I'll let you know how this balancing act works out!

Right now I'm going to go get the pizzas ready for dinner and read a little bit of the new First Things that came today while they bake. See ya!

Box 'em Up!

We are approaching having a closing date on the house! There is one more hoop to jump through, a visit from the bank's appraiser, and that is happening even as I type. It would have happened sooner except that a communication got messed up somewhere -- the appraiser kept trying to get the key from the law firm which is the "seller of record" when in fact our agent has the keys, and so do we. But now that that is straightened out we are hoping for a closing date this week.

Once we close we will shift into overdrive; cleaning, painting, doing various repairs, and installing carpet and hardwood. Meanwhile, I am packing a few boxes every day or so. Today it was four more boxes of books. This means that three of our eight bookcases are empty. Of course they're the smallest three...

I also acquired some more packing boxes today. We were walking the dog through our emptying neighborhood discussing which houses we know to be empty and which ones were going next, when we saw a big pile of junk -- it's trash day today -- in front of one. Now we have had big piles of trash in front of our house twice already, so this could have meant just cleaning out, but when we go to the pile we saw that it contained 20 or so boxes in good condition. They must have moved already, or they wouldn't be throwing their boxes away. So when I got home I hopped in the van and drove back, and collected about half of the boxes. (The rest were very large boxes, of which we already have more than enough.)

My goal is to have all our boxes packed before moving day, so that I can spend my energy unpacking necessary things. I get a pass on the heavy lifting -- that's what sons and sons-in-law are for! And a bunch of Kelson's friends have been promised copious quantities of pizza and pop to assist. Right now my most-likely bet for moving day is December 12th, but we shall see.

A Purchase

We went to the furniture store this morning. I had been through several stores a couple of weeks ago, "idea shopping" as I told all the ever-so-helpful salespeople. After mulling those ideas for a while, we went back to the first store I checked out. It's locally owned, and much of our current furniture came from there.

We bought a couch, and ordered a recliner in a coordinating fabric. They actually had a recliner in stock in the fabric I liked ("The country's most popular" apparently -- I'm boring!) but the back was low enough that when Roger fully reclined his head was almost dangling. So we ordered one with a higher back.

I said that we bought a "couch", but what we actually bought was a sectional with matching wedge ottoman. I think in a pinch our whole extended family could sit on it, if the babies sat on laps and people perched on the arms. Technically it's two love seats with a recliner on one end of each, plus a corner seat. But since we can seat four friendly people on each of our current couches, I'm thinking three on each loveseat, one in the corner, two on the arms, two babies on laps, and an adult plus two preschoolers on the ottoman. I would almost like to try it!

It's a chocolate brown chenille, and the recliner will be a similar color of marled pseudo-leather. If you're thinking "three recliners??" the answer is YES. All of us like to have our feet up!

Although I am not looking forward to the actual moving (and for those who have asked, we don't have a closing date yet but are hoping for mid-November) I AM looking forward to being moved. The little niggling things wrong with out current house keep piling up, and there is no incentive to fix them, although we did replace the florescent bulbs in the kitchen fixture finally, after three of the four died.

So another step in the move has occurred, and tomorrow the state-required inspection happens. And maybe then we'll be able to close and start making changes. I'll keep you posted! (A little NaBloPoMo humor ;-D)

"New" Neighbor!

Today we were able to get the keys to the new house for a couple of hours. We can't make any changes until we actually close -- and that date is yet to be determined -- but we can go in, make lists (four sets of doorknobs are missing!??!) and measure for carpeting, curtains, and so forth. We spent about an hour and a half there today.

Toward the end of that time, Roger heard somebody mowing the lawn at the house next door and decided to go over and introduce himself. He walked around behind the neighboring house, and thought "Gee, that lady looks familiar." She ought to! She's lived two doors down from us for the last 20 years or so, and was bought out a little ahead of us. We knew that she had bought a house somewhere in the same general area, but we thought it was about a mile away. Nope! Our "new" next door neighbor is Lisa!

Man, You Guys Are Amazing!

So my last post wasn't even up 12 hours before we got a call that HUD finally accepted our (lowball) bid. We have a house! And moving, but that will unfold here as it happens. Gotta run -- grocery shopping. THANK YOU for your prayers!