an evening’s musings, from up the hill

August 15, 2009 at 6:27 am (moving!, projects & products, random musings, this writer's life)

I finished a paid gig and decided to reward myself by painting the living room, foyer, and hall.  Eight hours later, I’m somewhat disconcerted by the fact that my “new”paint doesn’t feel that much different, or warmer, or more Biscotti-like than the handprint-grease stained crap that was up on the walls.  

And yet. I’m pleased to note some subtle, and not-so-subtle changes of the last two weeks (as The Man and I discussed this evening over sunset beers on the deck while The Kid cooed over her new American Girl doll)

1.  We have plumbing; hot water, new hot water heater, and new fixtures thanks to kid of good friend, roto-rooter dude, and The Man.

2. We have hooked up washer and dryer

3. We have a functional bedroom, with fresh paint, as does The Kid (though hers still has some boxes about, and some American Girl housing issues to sort out)

4. We have many, many boxes unpacked.

5. We have a painted kitchen, minus ceilings (need paint, stat.) –and it is functional, despite missing doors and drawers (need to paint them, even more stat.)

6. We have new carpet in the living/dining room, new vinyl in the kitchen, and new appliances, mostly working (excepting icemaker.)

7.We have tools put away, thanks to The Man.

8. We have front and side yards nicely pruned (thanks to septuagenarian mom and nearly octogenarian friend of mom) and yard waste nearly hauled off (thanks to bro-in-law and truck of ma-in-law’s bnoyfriend, formerly truck of pa-in-law prior to his death; truck did a sad little death attempt prior to dump of last load….hrrmmmphhh…)

9. I have a few cabinets organized with puzzles and kid activities for various ages.  *Very* organized.

10.  I have cleaning supplies somewhat organized; I have three formerly disgusting toilets and five formerly disgusting sinks cleaned, as well as the same to be said of more than that number of floors.

11. I have a broom closet of cleaning implements organized.

12. I have two bathrooms very nearly organized. 

13. I have a hall closet of cleaning rags, shopping bags, and shoes neatly organized.

14. I have a scary office nearly ready for Kilz-ing and painting, complete with DSL connection that affords me teh ability to write this stuff,

and last-but-not-least:

15. We have a view, visible through cleaned windows and sizable deck, that makes all the listing of things left to-do worthwhile…

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and then we were “home”

August 14, 2009 at 3:53 am (Closure, closing, and keys, moving!, projects & products)

The first few nights were dismal — sleeping in the living room on chaise lounges from the yard, unable to bathe or wash with hot water due to severe plumbing issues, living on fast food and gas-station crap-food due to lack of refrigeration or any other appliances, choked out by the never-ending cat-pee fumes– and then, with much citrus Pine-Sol and new carpet and new vinyl and delivery of fridge, cooktop and dishwasher, and a few applications of paint… the space became (or, has become) more livable.  

Trouble is, it’s still not “home.”  I’ve painted the kitchen itself, but the drawers and doors wait patiently in the basement for the paint that will enable them to blend with the rest of the cabinetry.  I still have loads of boxes to either unpack or house in proper places.  My kid’s room is still not at 100%. My own clothes are only about 1/2 put away.  I still have a hall to paint, a main bath to paint, an office to paint, and I am possessing of a right hand– my painting hand– that keeps me awake long hours, intermittently throbbing and tingling and aching in pain that I’m told is “acute carpal tunnel syndrome.” Rest is supposed to do me good, or that right hand may only be helped by surgery…  

Fuck rest, I want a workable house.  Rest is for those with painted walls and clean windows and rooms lacking in poetry about cross-dressing fathers (apparently the patriarch of this house’s family history has a secret or two past the Alzheimers.)  Rest is not for me, an anal-retentive, slightly OCD interior-design-degreed individual who wants to have, needs to have a space to live in that makes sense, flows, works…

And on the topic of that word: “work”–  I need to work.  I need to make money to help us afford this house with its killer view.  I need to find a job.  I need, I need, I need…. So.  Much.  

Right now, sleep is paramount…

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Have key, and sweat glands.

July 30, 2009 at 12:10 am (Closure, closing, and keys, moving!)
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So.

Well.

Here we are .  

 

I got the key this afternoon, after a frantic and furious last-minute rush and push.  And after a morning sweating copiously in the basement while painting.  

Temp in the hallway, shady, with cross-breeze, is a balmy 94 degrees.  Temp here, by the afternoon sun and back slider, is about a gazillion.  Computer may fry and die, soon, as may I.  

Nevertheless, we.  Have. Keys.  We are now the proud owners of the house up the hill, as well as this one, at least til we off-load it to tenants who will love it as much as we did.

The trouble is…  Heck,  There’s lots of troubles.  Number one, we need to get out of here.  That means moving all this stuff, from here to there.  Then we need to secure that place, because the key’s fairly useless.  Well, no… First, secure, then move.  THEN, complete cleaning here which means, for me, tomorrow, steam cleaning carpets.  Right now sweat is dripping down my back from the mere effort of writing this –or maybe, the thought of the steam cleaner?  –so, no, not relishing the cleaning, or trim painting here, OR the ungodly amount of work it’ll take to make things ready for carpeting to go in, for cabinets to become filled, for for rooms to become occupied…  

And we’re having a heat wave.

(really, mostly, I’m super excited, I just can’t think right now. I’m too busy losing brain cells to high temps and sweat.  Wish I had a scale right now– it’d probably tell me I lost about 20 pounds…)

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Put away the shitbiscuits and gimme a WHEEE!

July 29, 2009 at 5:29 pm (Closure, closing, and keys, moving!)

…well, soon.

Heard from agent St Rita, who heard from escrow person (or title person?) who heard from seller bank, who SIGNED DOCUMENTS!!!  Now our lender has to sign off, then the whole shebang has to get recorded (a mysterious escrow/title term) and then…

drumroll please…

KEYS!!!

 

for now, I need to paint fast&furiously in the basement and pretend it’s not bloody hot and sweltering.  And while I’m doing so, will do a happy little, “keys soon, let’s party!” dance.

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A Mont Blanc, dropped gut, and Hell at signing

July 28, 2009 at 5:30 am (Closure, closing, and keys, Jon and Kate (minus seven), moving!, this writer's life)
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Yep, signed today.

Shoulda’ been a great day, only Agent St Rita warned me early in the day that the selling bank might not sign/close til Monday a week from today –a day after we’re totally, officially homeless.  Because selling bank won’t sign the last two days of the month.  Nevermind, we were supposed to have had all this shit in line to have happened by mid-month, realistic or un- as it might have been. –Don’t worry about that, for now, just remember you’re signing a ream of pages and your Mont Blanc pen stained the hands of the escrow agent, and don’t think about the looming volcano that is the Fine Print at signing, or implications of close-dates…  

So let’s recap the week-end.  We boxed furiously, I cleaned at the appliances and under appliances with everything from Magic Erasers to baby toothbrushes, we sweated in heatwave temperatures, we hung out with family in town from Arizona, Everett, and Orange County, we acquired the 26 foot UHaul, and we had help from family from OC and Everett in filling said UHaul.  We ate KFC, sweated, and smelled worse than plucked KFC chickens prior to boiling, ass-sticking grease.  We saw The House up the hill, one of us (me) painfully aware of how close it was, and how far it was.

7/8 of the UHaul is now filled.  We have the better part of a second truck still waiting go to a truck, in our garage, and then to shuttle all that crapsicle into Our New House Up The Hill.  We’re living in the kitchen (ten feet by twenty, with counters of work-space, gerbil-living space, and sink and 30 inch wide counter separating it from the table upon with I write) and master bedroom (twelve feet by 10 feet.)  

I know we’ve been in tighter quarters, I know we will survive, I know this too shall pass… and yet… I Am Grumpy.

Today for catharsis I went to look for, and finalize kitchen appliances, to become aware of any KaPOW! delivery surprises we need to think about.  Then we had our appointment to sign, only to be told therein that while origianlly we were expecting that closer (the bank) would pay costs, we owed nearly $700, cashier’s check, no warning.  GUH??  

The Man was a bit argumentative about those costs, and then became non-compliant with any finalization thoughts (for appliances and carpeting), and  I became surly.  For fuck’s sake, dude, throw me a bone.  Let me get some ideas of what will be where, when we have a space to have something somewhere.  More arguments ensued as we discussed his space-planning (poor) in the UHaul, and mostly, I just needed less heat, more closure, and CERTAINLY NOT the knowledge that the new house’s front door doesn’t actually, in point of fact, lock (along with a couple of slider doors with questionable locks) –I was not a happy, happy, wheeee! giggle-giggle girl. 

I feel displaced, homeless while owning –more or less- two homes, and just plain fed-the-fuck-up.

This time next week, I anticipate things will be better…  

I fervently hope…

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She Broke Down…

July 23, 2009 at 5:55 pm (moving!, Musically musing, projects & products, random musings)
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…Where no one could see her/ broke down/ on the side of the road…

 

Okay, so actually, unlike the Wes Cunningham song quoted above, I broke down in the kitchen, not yesterday but the day before.  Yep, news of Yet Another Delay.  The Man was encouraging in his trademark mellow-ly-peppy way, “dude.  This isn’t Iraq, it’s fine.”

To me, fine is a four letter word that begins with F.  It’s a non-word that fills space, an adjective that could be anything and nothing at all, a word one uses when one is trying to be positive without anything good to say.

So he tried another tactic: “why don’t you clean tomorrow.  You’ll feel better.”

Frightening thing is, this isn’t a condescending, him-being-chauvanistic thing to say; he knows me well.  Cleaning is my catharsis; cleaning is my happy place.  And aside from more trim that I had to paint, and blinds to finish cleaning, and some phone calls, and leading around the new tenant and her mom and dad (mortifying, as hellish as the house is) –I did clean.

Today, I want to clean more.  I want to scrub the fridge and freezer, scour the grout, pack away unnecessary things, put Kid clothes into a suitcase and pack the rest, stack boxes neatly, and create some semblance of Order from Chaos.  I want to banish this feeling of utter fatigue and hopelessness, to feel like I’m progressing, somewhere, in some direction.

That’s my kind of emotional overhaul.

 

in the meantime, random things that make me happy:

>My Moleskine notebook and Mont Blanc pen (the latter, an item I carry with me everywhere, except when I’ve forgotten it some place, the former, a fortieth birthday gift that I believe defines me as a person more completely than potentially anything else I own) and list-writing, brainstorming, and sketching.

>My kid.  When she sings along to songs from the Indigo Girls with me; when she sings Queen’s “We Will Rock You”  with the words, “waving your batter all over the place; when she creates her own music in her own fantasy language…she reminds me to Let Go.

>Music.  Yesterday, KT Tunstall, Kate Nash, and Lily Allen hit the spot, as did Alison Moyet,Peter Gabriel (except for Sledgehammer and In Your Eyes) and Led Zeppelin…  Those seemed to be good working songs though S seemed to think it was some terrible sort of aural torture (excepting Led Zeppelin).  My aural torture, yesterday: Kid Rock (I am neither 16 year old enough, or male enough, to find any charm in that crap) Amy Winehouse (sometimes, love it.  Others, notsomuch.  Yesterday was a notsomuch day) and Rage Against the Machine– great, fantastic “So angry I want to dig a hole” music, but for painting trim, it leaves something to be desired.

>Sweat.  Gross as it is, it makes me feel powerful, alive, and RAWR to know that I am working hard enough to sweat through a sportsbra and T Shirt.  

>Shiny things, things that smell good.  Preferably  things I’ve shined up from dingy, and preferably things I’ve made smell better through some form of labor.

 

(and so now, to go sweat and make something shiny while singing happy songs with my kid, after I drink more coffee while writing to-do lists into my Moleskine with my Mont Blanc.)

 

(subtract hairballs, add furniture.)

(subtract hairballs, add furniture, and voila! the Master Bedroom of the Future.)

 

 

(insert mess, and you have the current home)

(insert more mess and boxes, and you have the current home)

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S. S., D.D.

July 21, 2009 at 3:43 pm (Closure, closing, and keys, moving!, random musings)
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I’m noticing there’s a sense of thematic unity in my posts.  There’s the “bitch and moan about The Man”  post.  There’s the “Bitch and moan about being “So. Tired.” post.  Then there’s the “sweet story about kid and/or pet” post.

I’d like to say this will be a vastly different post from the rest of ‘em, but who’m I kidding.  Because, in point of fact, the kid did say sweet/funny/almost-a-teenager things, the dogs did act sweet and clingy in a “What’s happening” sort of way, and the man and I…well Hell.  That’s different… we cooperated admirably yesterday.

Except, there was that other thing that leads to the thing that’s more or less the topic of this post:  

In Case You Didn’t Know, we’re moving.  In case you didn’t know, it’s a process not without copious quantities of work.  In case you didn’t know, we’re having a hell of a time closing, with delays, delays, delays, and a couple more delays, and occasionally progress, and then another delay.  AND THEN, there’s me being tired (and bitching and moaning about it) –just in case I was too subtle in all the previous posts, and you didn’t catch that.

Well chalk me up for something legit to cheesey-whine about: Overuse injuries.  Sure, I’ve mentioned my arm occasionally cramping and throwing out the odd spasm.  But here’s a new one, that asked for my initial attention in Westport:  My knee freakin’ hurts. Walking to the beach, I started gimping and whining. (at the beach, I shut up, except when I was talking, drinking, or falling.) –I discovered that stairs hurt almightily, and I discovered that I didn’t know why.  I blamed old age. 

Then yesterday, I was masking and painting and getting up and down from my dear friend Step Stool and I went, EUREKA!!!  –the pain was exacerbated by my ups and downs, and the pained knee is my lead knee up AND down. By the time S came home, I was in serious, can’t-hardly-walk-and-need-to-whimper-a-lot,-and-loudly pain, and had to sit with an ice pack on the knee, and a hunk o’ Ibuprofen in my gut.

So what can we surmise from all of this?  1. That I need to stop getting older.  2. That we need to be done working on this house, and into the next one, 3. That we need to quickly finish work on the house up the hill, and 4. That Ibu is my friend, and I heart it.

(I promise to be more interesting in my next post.  I dunno, maybe I’ll throw out painting fashion, playlists, and photos??)

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mental health days

July 20, 2009 at 3:25 pm (moving!, projects & products, T-Town Society, this writer's life)

The Man and I got some good answers from VA underwriter-man (packet was on his desk, he’s going to be done with it some time today, which means that we should be in the house by the end of the week) and so we were feeling celebratory on Friday night.  Nevermind Zoobilee, the annual Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium drink-and-food fest where everyone else in Tacoma was hanging, for us  Mai Tais, Harry Potter movie, and family time seemed a good plan.  

The next day I did a little clean-up, we went to check out the park by my dad’s house and the park-like garden behind it (if I could garden like he does, my yard would be a wonder land… then again, if I gardened like him, I might run the risk of being the same sort of parent?) and then I headed out with a good friend to hang out with more good friends at Westport.

Cartwheels on the beach, a little bit of boob-exposure (mine, regrettably), and copious quantities of alcohol, a little bit of campfire, some awesomely fresh seafood…  Perfection, sheer perfection.

Until the next day, when I realized I could do with a systemic overhaul, caffeine overdose, and a bit more sleep.  Which didn’t amuse S.  He was in manic work-mode, putting furniture and boxes downstairs to consolidate them so when we have movers help –for, like, 3 hours we says, to which I’m like, WHY??– they’ll have less to do, quickly.  Then he was pissed that I was listless.  Which then irritated me, b/c I don’t rest, as a rule.  I am a pretty  ”get ‘r done” kind of gal, left to my own devices.  Hence, the house is mostly painted, hence, there’s a lot done and packed already… etc.  

So today is a “get it done” kind of day.  Painting big room and bedroom, which includes some furniture moving, laundering, and more packing will round out my day, along with taking kid to camp, cleaning the kitchen, masking, and getting dressed and/or brushing teeth (because really, if my breath is fresh, who cares if I’m bra-less in my PJ-s?)

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Thunder rolls…

July 12, 2009 at 5:03 pm (Closure, closing, and keys, moving!)

…but not in an ominous way, right?

We signed our extension (’til next Friday, see if we can’t light some fires and get some movement next week), The Man packed a few bags and boxes last night even after a long day of work, acknowledging how much I’ve had to do (this was, unfortunately, after he seemed disdainful of my lack of work yesterday) and really, there’s nothing ominous in looming-clouds-and crashing-thunder metaphor.  Right?

Except the weather.  Mother Nature seems to be bipolar this summer, at least with Tacoma weather matters…

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To Day

July 11, 2009 at 6:09 pm (moving!, non-human family, random musings, T-Town Society)

I love to-do lists, I really do.  I derive a certain satisfaction in checking things off, one by one…  some days it’s fun to write, “wake up.  get out of bed. brush teeth. eat.” just so I have, automatically, four things to check off (oh, wait, today that’d be three, haven’t brushed the teeth yet. Gross.)

But today, list-writing seems like a hollow pursuit.  Still don’t know when we close.  So there are certain things I can’t pack, and there are certain things I shouldn’t paint and get ready because I know the dogs and/or furniture-moving will just undo whatever we’ve done.  And since The Man has Reserves drill this weekend, there’s no real compulsion to keep up with his pursuits.  And the sun is shining, it looks to be the start of a glorious day. 

And still, there are some things I should do.

The List

brush teeth.

strip beds.

launder, launder, launder.

straighten up and clean the house/kitchen with sub-lists: consolidate piles. consolidate boxes. do dishes. vacuum and sweep.

dress in real clothes (to include underwear).

hang out with friends (Out in the Park, Art on the Ave, Elysian tasting at Azarra Salon, and the Painkillers at the Tacoma Public Library– a tiny sampling of worthy outings).

 go through reams of past Kid-art, piles of magazines, and consolidate favorites.

go through cans of paint, figure what’s usable (repaint mirror and The Kid’s closet boxes)

walk the hounds? ride a bike? move my body? when The Man comes home.

make food.  cut up a watermelon.  eat well.

 

I’m sure there’s more, but for now, I guess I’ll leave it at that…

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