We're going to keep with the fish/river blog titles for a while yet. I'm quirky!
It's been another doozy of a week. I expect the doozies of weeks to continue for another month, at least. Moving is just doozy after doozy. This month feels a lot like when we took hit after hit when we first moved to Grenada. At least this time I have family nearby and we're not in a developing country. You guys. I hope I never take for granted not living in a third-world country. That was way harder than this, and this is pretty stinkin hard. Although in all seriousness, having kids this time around makes the playing field pretty equal to moving to a third-world-country sans kids. At least I was well rested then.
I tried to get us moved into our rental house this week. My parents live about 25 minutes away from the school Jack has started attending, while the rental house is a 5 minute walk from the school. So in my head it seemed like a no-brainer to move into the rental. But it was a brainer, and I did not have the brains to make it work. The first strike against moving into the rental house was when I loaded Alice up to get Jack after school one day, in hopes of staying at the rental all afternoon and night. It turns out that an afternoon in an empty house with two young kids, no other adults, no furniture, and no other belongings or toys is . . . a bit depressing. No duh, Laur. It was novel and fun for half an hour and then I started wanting to cry.
Strike two against moving into the rental house was when I realized there was still a large quantity of cat hair in all the carpets from the previous tenants. I am allergic to cat hair. It was not a good time. This is the point at which we bailed from attempting a night at the rental and drove back to my parents'. The next day I went back to the rental house, hoping to at the very least get Alice's crib set up for when we felt ready for another attempt. Unfortunately, the smoke alarm was chirping every minute or two. I adulted up, grabbed some fresh batteries, and did in fact change the batteries in my rental home's smoke detector. Very demure. Until it did nothing. Tried another set of fresh batteries. Nope again. Had my dad come see if he could fix it. Still no. Strike 3, and back to my parents' home. I texted our landlord, feeling kind of dumb. "Hey I don't like cat hair. Also I can't figure out how to turn off a smoke alarm lol!" (that's a paraphrase, not the actual text)
The next morning after I dropped Jack off for school, I once again stopped by the rental. It was frigid. The thermostat read 54 degrees. I tinkered with the thermostat, got some unpacking done for an hour or so, and the heat never turned on. The next day I returned to find the house at 46 degrees. I did not want to feel EXTRA dumb and have to send my landlord another text. "Plz help, I might not know how to use a thermostat and yes I am in my 30s." But I also didn't want the pipes in his house to start freezing and exploding, so after spending some time in the furnace room reading the owner's manual to the furnace with no luck, I let the landlord know that the furnace might be broken and he sent a furnace repair guy over.
This is where it becomes a really *fun* (embarrassing) story. Our landlord is really chill. I cleared the house back out, and he sent over a team of cleaners to scrub the place of all cat hair. He got the smoke alarm replaced and a furnace guy came and took a look. I get a call late Friday evening from my landlord. "Hey, everything looks good at the house. The HVAC guy came and took a look at the furnace. It looks like you just haven't set up your natural gas or power yet." 😳 I was dumbfounded. WHO LET ME TRY AND SET UP AND MOVE INTO A HOME BY MYSELF. WHERE IS THE ADULT HERE. I'm just a little girl. Anyway that was a little awkward. I think I was like, "Hee hee oopsie, sorry!" And then hung up real fast.
Luckily this gave me something to call and cry for Jared do because homeboy needs some homework assignments. He is straight CHILLIN in Washington with his free times and his naps and his gym bro seshes, and his teeny-tiny 18-hours-a-week work schedule, and his staying at a resort with his parents all weekend while I am over here actually physically dying. No sleeps. Illnesses. A presidential election. Too much adulting. Feral children. Can you tell I am bitter. Yes everyone can tell that. Jared will have his work cut out for him when it comes time to pack the moving truck though, and when he gets here I am taking several days to get away and sleep and sleep and sleep. All by myself. Speaking to no one. Doing little to no adulting. It's more exciting than Christmas to me. By far.
Ok that was a lot of writing. Turns out there's a lot to report during a stressful move! I have way more to say but should probably keep it to myself. Me and Alice are still sick. Alice is mostly better but I still feel pretty awful, especially in the evenings. I told Jared that it feels like an emergency situation that I need to get away to catch up on sleep when he gets here. It feels like my body is sending me messages that really bad things are around the corner if I don't start taking care of myself. So. One more doozy of a week, plus a couple days, then Jared gets here and then it's my turn to go take care of myself for a bit. Oh! Can't forget the big news--we got an offer on our home! It is contingent on the buyer's sale of their own home, which is pretty sketchy in the current housing market but it's still something, and they offered full asking price. Good selling juju over to our buyers, please and thank you.
That's all. I am unwell. But I won't be forever! You'll see! And now for some pictures from our week:
