we’ve move in! i fear that our lives may never be free of plaster and drywall dust again. i’ve already mopped more times than i probably did in the year and a half we lived in our last apartment.* the cats don’t yet respect the territorial boundaries, which means that every time we leave the gate open one of them invades the other half of the house (dubbed East Germany and West Germany based on the cardinal layout of the house). snarling and hissing ensues until one of us chases the cats back to their respective Germanies. the other night we woke up to such an incident taking place on our bed. i cowered under the covers while ben yelled sleepily over the sound of their caterwauling, “wrong cat! wrong cat!” the double move has been a stressful transition for the cats, made worse by a parade of movers, electricians, inspectors, and in-laws tromping through during the first week of residence.

the really good news is that the house finally, on the 4th try, passed the city’s electrical inspection. the politics of this issue are complicated and not very interesting, but suffice to say that our house’s electrical system is reeeeeeeally safe now. the only item left on the contractor’s punch list is the water pipe seeping in the basement, and then he is out of our lives for good, fingers crossed. but to fix the pipe, the water has to be shut off at the street. to turn that off, a faulty valve must be replaced. to get to the valve, the city deemed it necessary to cut down the ginko tree in the front yard so they can backhoe the whole front yard (it’s a VERY small front yard). in another situation i might have fought to keep the tree, but this news arrived in the midst of move, tech, frantic unpacking, painting and carpentry. so i just rolled over and accepted the loss. once all is said and done we’ll pick out a new tree to plant out there. maybe another ginko, as they are supposed to be a sign of good fortune and prosperity, and I think the shape of their leaves is neat.

the rule i established in the last post continues to ring true: our dishwasher washed exactly 1.5 loads of dishes before giving up the ghost, and the next day the garage door jammed shut (thankfully with the car stuck outside, not inside). back to hand washing dishes and parking on the street. which frustrating, but we’ve both lived many years without either of these modern conveniences, so they go on the bottom of the list while we concentrate on preparing the rental unit instead. once there’s an income stream coming from the rental unit well be in a much better position to tackle repairs that require service calls.

there was a deadline for getting the rented moving boxes unpacked and returned; after that we’ve tried to turn our attention away from our apartment and focus on getting the rental unit ready. ben’s father and step-mother came to visit last weekend; while i was in tech and working 10am – 1am shifts every day, Ben and John put up half the moulding in the rental unit and Michele cooked meals and unpacked all of our kitchen and books. for which i am eternally grateful, as “unpacking” would otherwise have literally been dumping the boxes out on the floor in heaps an hour before the box company came to pick them up. with Michele’s help there is a functional sense of order to the apartment that will carry us through the remaining weeks of work on the rental unit.

books on shelves and dishes in cupboards go a long way, but our space still looks raw – there’s no window or door casing or baseboards, so you can sort of look into the guts of the house. i suspect the danger is that we’ll quickly grow used to it and stop noticing how unfinished it looks. the fact that we have to get the house reappraised and refinanced within a year will provide a useful deadline; otherwise there’s the risk that 5 years from now we still wouldn’t have any moulding up. there are no window coverings, so we just try not to walk too close to the windows while naked (no sense in offending the neighbors before we even meet them). none of the closets have shelves or clothing rods in them so stuff sits in boxes and suitcases and heaps on the floors.

and those pesky jobs, which pay for us to have this nice new project house, they want our attention, too. Ben left for California last week for work, and I’ve logged three 70-hour work weeks in a row.

to say we’re stretched thin is an understatement.

but at the time of writing, i’m on a flight to California for a much-needed, long-anticipated 4 day vacation from all things house and work. i will dress like a viking and run across san francisco with my husband, brother and sister-in-law. i will meet my 8-week-old nephew for the first time. i will go to Maker Faire and be inspired by all the cool creative things on display, i will hike in marin county, go for a run across the stanford campus, eat tofu tostatas in Mill Valley, admire the fog rolling across the bay, and maybe, just once, sleep the ef in. we’ll be back to house and work reality on Wednesday. till then.

* cleaning is really really not our forte