Texty

One year ago today, we signed the lease on the apartment, thus officially kicking off The Great Uprooting Project.

Amazed at the sheer amount of stuff that's happened since then. And also feel ridiculously accomplished.

Starting next week, I get to actually enjoy the fruits of all that labor. My contract for this gig ends on Friday, and I'll have ~4 months to enjoy my house, and my writing and my friends and all the other stuff I've been too busy to do. I'll start looking for another contract in the fall, but for now? It's time to relax.

Yay. :)

Spent a little time this afternoon (in between work stuff) going through and clearing out old uprooting-related docs from our server.

Um. Wow?

Looking over all that, I'm actually pretty gobsmacked at the sheer scope of the project we took on. On the back end of it, now, somehow it seems like I shouldn't be as exhausted and... post-partum-y... as I am. But looking at all the giant to-do lists and logistics docs and schematics and spreadsheets and... Yeah. We gave birth to a pretty damned big baby.

I know people move all the time, of course. I've certainly done it plenty of times before myself. But this was a whole different thing, IMHO: Two big moves and big remodeling projects in two houses in the space of six months, and then me trying to work full-time on the back half of it, too. There was more work involved in this than in the previous half-dozen moves put together. My entire life has been completely consumed by this since March. When I look back at 2009 in the future, only two things are going to come to mind: Otter and endless stacks of cardboard boxes.

The good part, of course, is that I'm so utterly delighted with the house that I'm not going to feel the need to move again anytime soon, barring Rainier barfing all over it or something. I'll be very glad when the last little bits are done so we can just kick back and be slothfully indulgent in the place.

And I'm sore and exhausted, but in the very happy and satisfied sort of way.

All the work and cash drain getting here has been so worth it. Still a bit more to do, but it's just gravy now.

More than anything, I feel we made the right choice on location, since we're a lot closer now to so many folks we'd missed while we were in BFE. A bit further away from a few, but not so much that it's a burden.

I'll be back to my usual cantankerous self soon, but for now? Life is good, and I'm happier than I've been in a long time. :)

Every room in the house is now officially functional! Still cluttered to varying degrees with boxes and such, and still needing a considerable amount of finishing touches (shelves and display cases loaded; artwork hung; a bit of spit and polish), but it all works, and that is a sweet relief. We can even finally park our cars in the garage! Woot!

The theater was the big project of the past couple of days (well, really, it's been the big project for several weeks, since it was being totally gutted and refitted), and I got to experience its functional glory for the first time tonight. WOW! M and rackham have really done amazing things in there. Once that room is finished, it's going to be beyond awesome. Between that and my tub and kitchen, I may never leave the house again. Well, except to go to work to help pay for all of this... ;)

Still, sadly, there is much left to do at the apartment, and only a few more days to get it done before we have to turn in keys.

I went up there briefly after work tonight and threw some more random garage stuff in my car and took out two huge bags of trash, but we haven't even started the actual cleaning, yet. I'm not entirely sure I want to, to be honest. I may well just get the junk and trash gone, and not worry about vacuuming or scrubbing the shower. We're unlikely to get our cleaning deposit back anyway (that seems more and more rare these days) so I may as well save myself the extra headache.

I'll probably do a little more tomorrow afternoon, since I have to be up there anyway for the furniture rental people to pick stuff up, and then throw myself into it Thursday since I have the day off and my parents won't be here until 6. It'll suck to do it alone, though. Ah, well.

For now, however, sleep is the first order of business. *yawn*

Our stuff is at the house! Mostly. Still a few carloads at the apt. Boxes and debris everywhere, but it's starting to feel like mine! Desperately needed nap, then dinner and another trip north for cats and another load. Sleep at the house tonight! Gleeeee!

Pausing for a few between tasks. Tired already.

( Boring running total of today's apartment packing )

There is now carpet in the house! And it looks terrific!

Housekeepers coming tomorrow afternoon, and after that? We can start loading in! The big stuff won't be coming until Sunday, but we can start moving in boxes and such from the apartment, at least.

There is still hacking left to do--we've had some... ehm... issues with paint. And there's still a lot of work to be done in the theater. But we're getting there!

I succumbed to the pressure and decided to take tomorrow off from work (in addition to the half day I'd already planned for Monday) so come morning, I'm diving in head first. I'm going to feel like ass next week, but I'll have a house to come home to! Granted that it will be a house full of boxes and clutter, but it'll be a place to rest my head. MY place. :)

Having a difficult few days as we're getting down to the wire on the big move: Pod gets dropped off at the house Saturday, movers show up at the apartment Sunday, and we're still in quite major disarray.

M's feeling some pressure to get all the hacking done before furniture shows up, and I'm feeling pressure to get the apartment all packed up (and relatively clean) before the movers show up and before I put in the move-out notice. I don't want management to show the place in the horrible state it's in right now. And it is really quite horrible. The kitchen and the garage look like Superfund sites and the place smells like cat ass because neither of us has had the time/energy to properly clean the catboxes.

Christ, I'm lousy at all this female stuff.

I mean, really: I'm distinctly unattractive and don't bother trying to change that, I have the fashion sense of a 13-year-old boy, I'm a horrible housekeeper with tacky decorating taste and I'm 38 and don't have kids, yet. I'm married to a guy with a good career, but, well, he's not exactly an alpha male. If it weren't for being a halfway decent cook (when I bother), I'd probably be on the shortlist for being sent off to some sort of Art of Womanhood reeducation camp.

(And I'm not exactly a good man, either, what with being short and crappy at sports and apparently unable to keep a job. Bleh.)

If I can just get through the next few weeks, I'll be golden. But it's beyond insane right now. Even when I was trying to maintain three households (during my internship a few summers ago), it wasn't this crazy.

I know we'll get through it. It's just sort of panic-inducing right now.

M's on his way to get the keys now.

*bouncebouncebounce*

Holy crap, the next 2 1/2 hours I'm stuck here at work are going to feel like eons.

The flag dropped today! We sign closing paperwork tomorrow!

This means that we now spend the next 10 days in a mad scramble of making phone calls and setting up appointments and getting ducks in rows and such so we can start hacking right away as soon as we get keys next Friday.

Depending on how quickly we get done with the hacking, we may actually start sleeping there in just a few weeks. We already bought a mattress this weekend, and that'll be delivered on the 10th, so if it really came down to it, we could pass out there as soon as that's on the floor. It's more likely, though, that we'll be moving in the weekend of the 17th (with ongoing box unloading and nest feathering to follow.)

The rest of tonight will be spent making lists of all the stuff we need to do, though most of that is fairly squared away.

Also! There's another big thing in the works that makes me ridiculously happy. More about that once we get the details nailed down.

Gah! This is almost real! The Great Uprooting Project is about to put down roots again!

I'm so ridiculously excited I could pee!