July 25, 2018

Home security and that time I locked myself out

Short of breaking a window, our house is pretty secure.

I know this because I pulled the door shut behind me, locking it, and then realized that what I had in my hand was a wad of tissues, not my keys. !$(#*$&)#!

It was one of those crappy confluences: I had 30 minutes to go pick up JB before daycare closed. PiC had JUST managed to get to the gym for a rare 30 minute session, and now I was sitting outside the house asking the dogs to unlock the door for me.

Really.

Rather than ask PiC to leave the gym, first, I desperately tried to teach Sera to be a velociraptor. “Just jump up and hit the lock, Sera, you can do it!” She was so confused. Both dogs were both so confused, they started barking at me. Long story short: It did not work at all.

The front door was securely locked. All the doors and windows are double paned and securely locked, we don’t leave anything open anymore, and there are extra bars along each window and door’s slide path to block them from being opened even if someone managed to pick the lock. Unless I was willing to break an expensive-to-replace-and-install-window (HECK NO), those were not feasible entry points. (more…)

October 30, 2017

New house, no problem! (?)

[Part 11]

Let the nesting and relaxation begin!!

Well, not quite.

For one thing, If You Give A Mouse a Cookie …..

We chose not to do work on the exterior or much of the interior – nothing that wasn’t critical to function was updated. I can learn to live with anything, after all! Which is plain truth but it turns out I underestimated how badly it would stand out like a sore thumb.

Never mind that, though. I can ignore the sore thumb(s).

You would think that all the new stuff would be amazing to use but if you’re a pessimist or a realist, you’d know that another way to describe new stuff is “things that haven’t broken you yet”.

(more…)

October 9, 2017

Moving day! And week 1 in our new place 

The worst of the renovations are DONE!

The numbers

• This is Part 10 of an 11 part series
• I’ve written 50 checks over the course of this project.
• We made a huge mistake going with an amateur for a relatively minor garage maintenance detail that turned into complete pain. Wasted cost: $932
• We went over schedule by 10 days as a result of the numerous work orders we added. There was a new one each week, though we intended not to have any at all.
• The final costs are still trickling in but we went over budget around 3%.

Highlights from Moving Day

• We thought we’d forego professional movers. That was a (very very very) stupid idea. Thankfully we recovered our senses in time and scheduled movers. We forgot to notify the HOA. Thankfully it doesn’t seem like anyone noticed. (I think.)
• Guess which dingbat packed the car keys in one of twenty identical unlabeled boxes?
  Me. It was me.
  Thankfully I had kept four of the twenty boxes corralled away from the others, those were my “money and immediate need” boxes so the hunt was limited to those four in the end but STILL.
• The dryer is GAS?? We have no gas line for the current location of the dryer! DAMMIT. ($250 to install a gas line. Laundry is critical.)
• Seamus, they’re not stealing all our things, we’re just moving it. Don’t look so sad!
• We planned to move 10 pieces of furniture, including mattresses, but we ended up filling an enormous moving van. Where did all this stuff come from and can I sell most of it, please?
• My priorities according to my bag for the day with professional movers: internet router, Roku, checkbook and all the wallets with cash and credit cards, laptop, laptop charger, cell phone charger, the wrong car keys, home keys.
• The first thing I did at the new place: set up the router. Internet is life.
• I scheduled my first delivery to arrive at the new place on Moving Day. Naturally, they were more boxes.

Night 1: It’s a horribly late night. The adults are tired, the dog is tired, the toddler is keyed up to vomit-level excitement. By the time ze has had one book and the last of my patience has trickled out of the hourglass, it’s past ten. I throw the quilt over zir head like hooding a falcon, turn my back, and pat zir butt. Against all reason, it works and ze falls asleep without a fight.

Me? I keep waking up. Is it because I’m in a strange place? Is it because Seamus is sleeping at the foot of the bed instead of by my side? Is it because I’m half convinced that my nightmares are real? Is it because there isn’t all that racket outside that we normally hear from the nearby parking lot where drunks come to howl and young adults come to tussle?

Day 2: JuggerBaby doesn’t want to leave the house at ALL. Ze has full access to the huge tubs of toys and books we had in storage and there isn’t enough time to play with them. We spend HOURS indoors building massive towers, linking plastic people, laying out colorful accessories in patterns. Only twenty minutes was spent watching Moana.

A couple friends come over for brunch and to lend capable hands with unpacking. JuggerBaby gleefully nabs a new adult for more playtime.

Going outside to play is a non-starter, “I don’t want to go wif mama!” but Seamus desperately needs a walk and PiC is stuck with Bob going over some fine details so out come the big guns. That’s fine but I am going outside to walk Seamus and eat chips. The tears and rolling on the ground limply to avoid being hauled outside stopped immediately: “I want to eat schips too!”

Someday ze will realize I play on zir food motivation like a fiddle.

But today is not that day.

Night 2: Ze is in bed and back to the usual antics. I want water! I want mama stay ‘ere! I need potty. I want lamby!

I put my foot down and threaten a walkout if I hear one more word. I hear no more words. I crawl back to my bed, PiC stays up many more hours working on who knows what. Half our house still looks like the Monster of Storage exploded in it so it could be anything.

I feel dislocated.

Day 3: I still feel dislocated this morning. It’s not a fun feeling. Boxes boxes everywhere … We’ve been unpacking 3-6 boxes a day and we’re making progress but there are definitely chokepoints in that progress.  To make the best use of our closets, we have to spend a bunch on shelving that’s me-friendly, and that whole organization scheme takes brainpower.

Night 3: They were not kidding about these WhisperSense fans. You can hardly hear them but so powerful.

We eat take out again for dinner because I can’t find my kitchen for all the boxes. It’s somewhere over there. By the door. Honest.

Day 4: My love for unfilled drawers is slowing down progress. The promise of an empty set of drawers, the luxury of not having to cram all cabinets chock full is distracting.

Seamus is urging me to the door. I think he thinks we forgot to go home. He’s extra confused when I take him back “home” with me for a walk and to pick up more things.  He eagerly sniffs everything and marks his favorite spots, outside but inside the place echoes, and we leave again. I can almost hear him: why do we keep leaving? This is where we stay! He’s still pretty sure we’ve made a mistake. Especially because our neighbor is his favorite buddy to play with.

Night 4: A thunderstorm hits us right when I start reheating leftovers for dinner. Spooked by the startlingly nearby lightning strikes, I turn off our appliances but was in the middle of a 3 hour roasting session so I risk leaving that on. Convection ovens are weird and I’m trying to get used to it.

Day 5: Seamus and I explore the neighborhood properly today, ranging far and wide in search of a park. Google Maps lied. There’s a stand of trees up that one street, not a park! We are miffed.

I note on my way back that of the surrounding streets, our street is the most depressing to walk. It’s rundown, unkempt, and feels unfriendly. The people are surly, no friendly or acknowledging nods from anyone, the idiot across the street backed into my car and acted like I was the jerk.

People walk through here with their kids and dogs often but they’re just passing through. Now I get what Bob meant when he commented that we’d have to work to build new community. In our previous place, we didn’t socialize much with the neighbors but still naturally had brief hellos with people who were out walking their dogs. I’m not one to want to stop and chat every afternoon with people anyway, but I’m not sure how I feel about this right now.

Night 5: That pork shoulder roast was inspired. Served with sautéed Chinese broccoli and asparagus and rice, we ate very well tonight. I haven’t totally lost my touch! Whew.

Day 6: Oh crap, I forgot to set up our Skybell. This is my attempt at being fancy and techy but I’m not sure if this was a big mistake. A 2-minute setup turned into 15, then 20, then just as despair set in, it finally detected my home wifi network. SUCCESS.

My office is a shambles, I’m keeping the door shut because each of those boxes requires more brainpower than we have right now. My plan: take out the easy boxes first – those solutions are obvious. Books on bookshelves, clothes in closet. After we knock down those easy wins, then tackle those more difficult boxes that require some thinking, one at a time. Also it’s clear that I’m about to run out of shelf space already. Too many books and comics, crap.

Night 6: I still have no idea how to work this thermostat. HELP. Also WHY does the showerhead keep rotating to the right? Stay put, darn you!

Day 7: Another day, another thing that needs fixing. The seal on the shower fell off so it’s leaking onto the floor. To cope with my feelings, I start doing laundry and don’t stop for days.

Night 7: JuggerBaby remains confused, “May I take this toy home?” You are home, darlin’. It’s an adjustment for all of us. But I do love my kitchen. It’s tailored to my workflow even though it was pretty speculative at the time we designed it, and they doubted me but I stood firm. Now that I’m in there, my assumptions were validated!

So far, so good?

An unforeseen problem with being in a bigger space is that JB no longer wants to go outside.  Ze used to LOVE going outside but now that there aren’t any restrictions on running or jumping, and the hallway doubles as a fantastic runway for a toddler’s trample, outside has no allure.

Even though we have so many things to fix, still, having only one residence to worry about is a major relief. We’re still learning our way around the neighborhood and settling in but I appreciate not having to be on guard against sadistic jerks who would make threats against dogs and children.

:: What do you do to feel at home in a new place? How long does it take you to get settled?

Before: Background, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

Next on our Home Buying Adventure: Part 11