Last Saturday

We are doing well. The kitchen, office, living room, and master bedroom are all unpacked. Our basement is a big huge mess - a dumping ground for all the boxes and other junk that dooesn't yet have a home. Our dining room table is piled in garbage. The second bedroom is a maze. I'll put some move-in day pictures up soon, if I can. It's difficult, because we don't have internet at home yet, and I can't really blog at work...

Move in day for me was the easiest one ever. I woke up early and finished packing up random kitchen items, then sat down at the computer to post. Just as I finished up, Pam came to the back door, bringing with her, much to my surprise, my mother and sister. They had bought Krispy Kremes, bless them, which I don't think I'd had in about four months. And so the three of us started loading up cars. By the time David came home and picked up the U-haul, there was only furniture left to pack.

My mother and I planned on going to the house ahead of time and getting food for all our movers, but when we got to the car, we realized that I had a very flat tire. And when Frank so graciously replaced the tire with the spare, we realized that was extremely flat, too. Long story short - after some time on the phone with AAA, a tire store, and a towing company, I ended up in the waiting room of Discount Tire, waiting as they replaced the flat.

About an hour into the wait, one of the workmen came out rolling some of my car's tires with him. It turned out that the walls of my tires were cracking and wearing away. (He circled all the big holes and showed me, saying, "I've never seen anything like this. Goodyear insures their customers for this kind of wear, but I've never seen it this bad.") Tire Guy told me that all my tires really ought to be replaced in the next few months. He also told me that Goodyear could give me a credit towards the new ones. So, half an hour later and $250 poorer, I walked out of the store with not one, but four new tires.

When I got back to the new house, all the stuff had been unloaded from the truck, and they had arranged the living room just the way I wanted it. And there were M&Ms, chips and salsa, and Cokes sitting out on the dining room table. Nice.

Biscuits & Gravy and Gringotts Bank

Those were our ducklings. They're all gone now. Even the little loner. It's kind of sad.


Why biscuits, gravy, and Gringotts, you ask? They're inside my brain. I'm not sure if this happens to other people, but I personally feel like my brain fixates on things. Especially when I am driving to work. Wherever I let my mind wander is where it stays that day. So, for example, yesterday as I drove to work, I passed a Holiday Inn billboard advertising free breakfasts. Three plates heaped with yummy breakfast foods. One of those plates was piled with biscuits and gravy. I know it's awful, unhealthy, fattening, etc, etc. but I love biscuits and gravy. Food makes me happy. I look forward to a good meal more than I sometimes look forward to... oh, vacation, maybe. And man, a morning with biscuits and gravy is a good morning.

I'm still thinking about them.

As for Gringotts... well, I've been packing. And packing. And packing. Every time I open a cabinet, I find something else to pack. Every time I turn around I see one more thing on the counter that needs to go in a box. I open a drawer and voila! more stuff. Stuff I swear wasn't there a minute before. I began feeling like Harry Potter. You know, when he, Hermione, and Ron break into the goblin bank Gringotts in order to take back the sword. The vault is enchanted against potential thieves. Every time they touch treasure, it multiplies hundredfold and turns burning hot. They almost get buried inside the vault. I almost got buried in my kitchen yesterday.

You know what else I'm fixated on lately? CraigsList. It's a little vouyeristic on my part. I love seeing what people are chucking for free. Some of it's so much junk... and some of it is just so weird. I keep hoping, though, that I'll find some kind of treasure. Not that I'm very skilled at the wow-look-at-that-cool-thing-thrift-store kinds of finds, but I can try.

It's moving day. It's drizzling, but not storming. Yay.

Boxes Boxes Everywhere...

And not a box that fits. I.e. we have boxes. Tons of boxes. We filled fifteen of them with books and then found two more crates in our storage space. But now what's left isn't working. The boxes are too big for things we need to pack. I still have some kitchen stuff left over - I don't know where that's going. I'm hoping that the plastic bags I used to wrap our glasses (We forgot to collect newspaper. We didn't want to spend money on packing paper.) will actually work. I don't want to arrive at the house with boxes full of broken glass.

The move is on Saturday from 12-7, we think. D scheduled movers a week ago. I celebrated. I hate moving day. Packing a van up with boxes is a gigantic real life spatial puzzle and I stink at it.

Then suddenly he decided to send out a mass email to all our friends to ask for their help. He received, I think, about five responses. So he cancelled the movers and rented us a van. He emailed me to let me know just as I was checking Saturday's weather. It's supposed to storm.

No movers. A 15 ft. U-haul and two or three cars. Thunder and lightning. Should be fun.

And Then There Was One

The Loch Ness Monster lives in our apartment pond.

It's really rather distressing. We have this lovely little retention pond behind our apartment that exists as this miniature ecosystem. The water is murky and dark, thick with reeds. The workmen here stock the pond with goldfish, and somehow, other animals are drawn here.

We've seen blue and white herons, turtles, bullfrogs, bunnies, and of course, ducks. Recently a mallard pair laid some eggs (seven, I think) in the reeds. We waited around, wondering when they'd be born, until one day. David was working from home. I suddenly got a one-line email on my work computer: "We have ducklings!"

He took pictures. Lots. And then he told me they were no good and I needed to get a telephoto lens for my camera. I know this.

Last night, we decided to eat our dinner out on the back porch. (Yay, summertime!) As I set down my plate, I caught my first sight of a duckling. He was bigger now. Excitedly, I jumped down to the side of the pond to search out his brothers and sisters... but there were none. Patito was solo.

I watched our patito truck across the water. It was a gusty day. His little body waved back and forth with the effort required to move against the wind. He was headed straight for something splashing and flopping in the water. It wasn't a goldfish. It was big. I worried that perhaps it was a wounded duckling, one of his brothers. 

Then suddenly, our little duck startled and started swimming in the other direction. Whatever had been splashing suddenly disappeared. I think perhaps that patito was so focuses on swimming and searching for food, he hadn't actually seen this other animal. When he finally did, he fled.

Moments later Vid came out the door with his plate. "What was that?" he shouted, pointing out at the pond. He was looking off to the left, and I turned just in time to see a large furry dark shape flip its long slick tail into the water and disappear. Vid turned and looked at me, "What was that?"

We went down by the pond again to investigate, but to no avail. We have some theories, though.

1. We think we have a muskrat living here, entering through a pipe that is half submerged in the eastern wall of the pond. At first we thought maybe it was an otter. But after doing some research with highly reliable Wikipedia, we found they don't choose to live in retention ponds. And weasels, as far as we know, don't swim.

2. As for our pobre patito, at first we thought the muskrat was attacking the babies and had left only this lone duckling and his parents. But muskrats don't eat birds. At least, not according to Wikipedia. Plus, the grown mallards currently in the pond are mean to our little duck. So, we don't think they are his parents. Patito doesn't seem old enough to be on his own yet.

3. Vid now thinks that perhaps the family fled the muskrat, and our little duck was a straggler who missed the boat (train? flight?). The other two mallard ducks living here just live here. We're not sure if patito is trying to connect with them, but don't seem to be letting him. Poor little orphan.

We leave for MA soon. I hope when we come back, our little duck is still there. I also want to catch another glimpse of Nessie.

There's This Chair...

There it is.

It's a comfy little chair, perfect for our library/office. (The little yellow room is my room. I wanted a place to sit and enjoy reading all our books.)

It was practically free. Our neighbors, K & Ed, were having a garage sale on Saturday. When they found out we had nephews, they dumped some toys on us. And then I looked at that chair. I suddenly wanted it. It had a good shape. It was a good size. It was an ugly color, but I had this wonderful vision of it recovered in some funky fabric. I asked K how much she wanted for it, and she said, "Oh, maybe $5? Really, you could just take it."

So I did. I was suddenly enthralled with the idea of recovering this chair with a fun, bright tapestry-type fabric. I carted the thing over to our house and plopped it in a corner of the yellow room. I stared at it fondly. I heard the voices of my friends ringing in my ears, complimenting me on my creativity, my style, my domestic-goddess sewing skills.

Sewing skills?

In all my excitement, I somehow forgot that desiring to recover the chair doesn't actually endow me with the skills to do it. Sigh.

I'm on the lookout now, to find a friend who can help with this little domestic dream. And until then, maybe my dear sister can teach me to crochet a really large, comfy blanket to throw over my comfy chair and cover up all that nasty sea-foam green?

Hallelujah

It finally feels like summer! Hot, sticky, heavy, slow-down-to-a-crawl, summer. Barefoot, black-bottomed feet, fire-up-the-grill summer.

Today was the kind of humid that makes every paper in the house feel like Kleenex, and turns all your cookies turn to mush in 30 seconds. A tantrum of a thunderstorm marched its way through town this morning after church and blew away, leaving behind an 85 degree, mercilessly sunny day. It's eight o'clock and still 80 degrees. Kids are playing Marco-Polo in the pool across the street. Dragonflies are zipping over the pond. The bullfrogs are arguing. The sun is moseying in the west, turning the sky a burning orange. I just sat on my back porch and ate a cold avocado sprinkled with salt and lime, and drank a beer. Even in the shade, I was sweating.

I couldn't be happier.

Anyway.

June 21st. That's the day. That's the move-in day, Lord willing. D and I sat down a few nights ago and eked out the most important jobs to finish before moving in, and we realized when push came to shove that there wasn't much more we needed to do. So on Friday and Saturday we finished up two big jobs (cleaning the floors and painting all the trim in the house) and we called it quits. For now.

I'm itching to put things in boxes and get moving. I have a feeling the process will look a little nuts - a lot of back-and-forth. I'm sure we'll take car loads of junk over this week, simply because now that we've deemed the house livable, we want to live in it. We will also box up and wait for the actual move weekend. We haven't decided yet whether we will get movers or not. It's a busy weekend for many, and our friends have already helped us so much... it's hard to think of asking for more. We'll see.


On another note entirely, Friday was my last full day of school. What a funny mixture of feelings I dealt with that day. The kids come on Monday to pick up their report cards, but are only with me for five minutes. So, for all intents and purposes, I'm done. Done being an elementary school teacher. I start my new job on Tuesday morning.

I'm terrified.

Friday was awful. I cried a lot (in private, where no one could see me). Yes, I have often hated my job over the past four years. But at least now I'm familiar with that enemy. And in spite of all the difficulties, I have made friends, and I have loved some of my students. I know my weaknesses and faults in my job, but I know how to work in spite of them.

This is the unknown. The unknown has always frightened me more than anything. (I don't know how I ever had the courage to go overseas to Turkey or even to Spain. Really.) What if I don't connect with junior high and high school kids? What if my language skills fail me? What if my job description is beyond me? What if my new colleagues and I don't connect? What if I get lost every time I have to visit a new school? These are the questions that ran through my head on Friday, causing the tears, I suppose.

Today is better. I know that the transition may be rough, but that's okay. Because I know that God is in control, that He is good, and that He had this plan in mind for a long time. (Please don't anyone email me to remind me of that. I know that.) I do believe. If you want to encourage me, pray for my unbelief.

Oddities of a Teacher's Mind

I would just like to state for the record that I am fully aware that last blog needed more paragraphs. For some unknown reason, Gmail wouldn't let me format them. I can hardly look at that last entry because it annoys me.

Anger Management?

Right now our apartment is carpeted. Yes, it's comfortable, but I grew up in a home with lots of hardwood. I prefer it. David prefers comfy feet.

When D and I first began looking at houses, we had a (friendly) little debate about hardwood vs. carpeting. When we bought this place, I had a little niggling sense of guilt. There was a lot of bare floor in the house, and I knew we would have to tear up carpeting, too.

After church and a leisurely lunch this Sunday, D and I made a run to Home Depot to buy some work gloves. Then we set to work tearing up the carpeting in the 3 bedrooms and hallway. We had no idea what to expect. We knew the carpet had been down for a very long time. The question was, why? What was hiding beneath all that woolly, dusty mess? We weren't sure how easily it would come up, either. We assumed it would be quite a chore, because it seemed as though almost every other project we'd tried just revealed our ignorance and ineptitude.

The carpets were old. Some of them had been there before the previous owners. Clouds of dust (and who knows what else) flew into our eyes, noses, and mouths until we finally thought maybe it'd be wise to use masks. The padding literally crumbled in our hands. We created a little moldy mountain outside, and then lugged the mound of ick into the equally icky garage. (I really, really need to pick up some garbage stickers. Soon.)

But - look at how pretty the floors are! We really lucked out. The third bedroom's floors were actually refinished once, 15 years ago. The other two bedrooms were not, as far as we can tell, but they've been covered by carpeting for the past 18+ years, so they still look good.

Personally, I thought the carpet project the most fun so far. Sort of cathartic, really. When we threw the last load out onto the front lawn (I'm sure our neighbors were cringing for a bit), David looked around and said, "They're so pretty. Just look at our house. It's finally starting to look like a place where I want to hang out."

"It'll be colder on your feet in the winter," I warned him.

He glanced at me, then back at the floors. "Enh, you can buy me those fuzzy-on-the-inside slippers."

Victory.

No, That's Not the Primer

We're moving slowly, but here are some of the after pictures. This is the master bedroom. It's RED! Yay!

For the keen of eye, we chose to only paint the trim on the windows, since we were replacing them in just a few months. I figure window coverings will help hide the contrast. And if they don't, and I can't stand looking at the old paint, I'll do the insides.







I don't know how well you can see if from the picture, but that big window was in sad shape. Vid spent several hours sanding and scraping it yesterday so we could paint it. We want to replace most of the windows at the end of the summer - but that one stays a while. Vid sanded down to bare wood in some places because it was so bad.

Yellow! Let's sing a little song about yellow!

I love this color. Love it. I have no idea if it will actually go with any of the stuff in my kitchen, but I don't really care. John (a friend from church) came over yesterday and painted almost the whole kitchen for us. He's about 6'4", so he didn't even have to use a ladder. Well, hardly. He stepped on the bottom rung and reached over the cabinets that way. We found out yesterday that John is a talker. Every time one of us walked into the kitchen, he'd stop and tell a funny story about something - his house, his wife, his kids, whatever. I was afraid he was lonely while the rest of us worked in other parts of the house.

So there it is, folks. It's finally coming together. We might actually be able to pack this week.

I think one of the best things about this time has been getting to know people. Yes, our old friends came and helped. But so many people from our church - people we hardly knew - came and pitched in. It was sort of incredible to see the church behave that way. I don't know that I have ever been in a situation like that before. Like Ed. Yesterday Ed knocked on our door, introduced himself, and told us Paul had sent him. He handed us a pipe bender/cutter thing (Yes, dads, I'm sure there's a word for it - I just don't know what it is.), told us we might need it. Then he tipped his hat (literally) and left.

Dan, a guy who is our age and went to Wheaton when David did, was over for ten hours yesterday. Among other things, he offered to cut the lawn. At one point, I ran out the front door (I needed a drop cloth from the garage). I arrived just in time to see Dan rev the lawnmower and run it right over the large ant farm in the front yard, forwards, then back, spraying the dirt up around the lawnmower tires like sand in a monster struck rally. He had this little Calvin-like smirk on his face.

I wonder what those ants were thinking. Invasion? Earthquake? Apocalypse?

Probably it was the wrong thing to do, and it will just spread them around. But I was proud of Dan. It looked like fun. I was a little jealous that I hadn't offered to mow the lawn.