Well, hey there, good lookin’. It’s been a sweet forever. But I’m back from the longest of months. Right at the top of the list of “things that
I’ve learned along the way in ye olde educational profession”: August and February are the LONGEST months of
the school year. The days may even have
more hours in them during these months than in any other (I’m trying to
verify). This is my first year working
with the more balanced school calendar that is quite popular around here, which
subsequently extends the first month of the school year by an additional 10 or
so days. But, I got that first paycheck
for the full-time gig, so let’s check that one of the list of “things to
accomplish this summer.” There’s a
certain kind of validation that a legit paycheck brings, one that I can’t
shake. It’s time.
UPDATE TIME: The House
We officially moved and
officially sold (sometimes seemingly on a wing and a prayer). On the hottest 2 days of the entire year thus
far. But shortly after, I started stress
eating big time and probably gained
back all of that how-much-can-one-person-sweat-in-a-day weight that I like to
think I lost.
I also officially and subsequently sent 3 packages to our
old address. One was box springs for our
kid’s bed (not a surreptitious box on the front porch). She ended up sleeping on a mattress on the
floor for about 2 weeks while we sorted that one out. The other 2 involved some covert maneuvering
by our former neighbor and me (nicely) harassing the new owner. And then I gave up on changing our address on
pretty much everything but Amazon and Target.com (because what else is there in
life?). Perhaps between now and when
W-2s come out from my FOUR employers that I’m currently on the books with, I’ll
get all of those changed. Or not. It’s annoying.
The new house is pretty much everything that I imagined it
would be: bigger and somehow largely the same as the old digs. We did rip off a big old, glued-to-the-wall mirror from the girls’ bathroom yesterday. So we have that look going for us as you can
imagine what the underside on the wall looked like. But that’s progress since we’ve had a new
mirror ready to hang for four weeks now.
We move at a lightning speed around here. Another newbie that we’ve had brand new and
waiting to be installed for weeks now: a
new faucet for the sink in the kitchen.
We quickly (in about 2 seconds of having possession) learned that the
faucet leaks unless you have the handle just
so, which means that I spend a good amount of my day making sure that
things are just so, which also means
that I want to rip it out of the sink and throw it in the street like the
scumster that it is. But, the boy is
waiting to unpack his plumber’s putty first before replacing it. Except the boy is looking through zero boxes
a day in search of that magic goo. Ergo,
leaky faucet = still intact. This is
riveting stuff, so I’ll keep you posted.
Something that we can’t just update on a whim: light
switches. They will do me in yet. They make virtually no sense, and there’s
just about nothing more annoying than a switch that has the sole purpose of
turning an outlet on. Gag. Plus they’re the wide, flatter switches
rather than the littlerones that stick out farther. Blerg.
All of that aside, much of the problems in this
establishment stem from the fact that we don’t have a shed as we did with the
former place. Our garage continues to be
all of the piles and all of the boxes that are lingering like parasites that
moving boxes are. And it turns out that
yard sheds are pricey and don’t always come with such niceties as floors and roofs. Plus, we’re all of us
full-timing it in addition to add-on activities for the adults, so the goal is
to pony up the dough for a we-have-to-abide-by-HOA-covenances-now yard shed by
frost-on-my-window season. We did slip a
new composter in beside the trash bins and no one from the neighborhood has
banged on our door yet.
(Sidenote: I’m still
adjuncting on the side because I have issues, and I think that I’ll be in charge of 9 classes for a couple of weeks
right around Fall Break. That was
unintentional planning – “add-on activities,” folks.)
We also have an extra washer/dryer set languishing in the
garage. As one would have. Some people keep an extra fridge/freezer in
the garage. We abide by the “you can’t
have too many washers & dryers that aren’t hooked up” motto, it seems. Sometimes, you have the will to tackle a job
(like unhooking current washer/dryer and reconnecting other washer/dryer). And sometimes, you just lose the will to
start yet another job that will undoubtedly have some issue pop up. One can only make so many trips to Lowe’s
before you just abandon the current house and start over in your parents’
basement. We’re about 2 trips shy of
that right now.
The lawn mower is still in the garage, too. Which we sometimes use. But we switched from a yard with 2 trees
(total) to a yard that has around a dozen and a raised bed and these odd,
staggered trellis things. The first time we mowed, we tag-teamed the yard, and
just from my half, I very much wanted to BURN IT ALL DOWN. It’s a whole bunch of piddly little cuts and
maneuvers and blasted circling circling circling. So that’s a job that I’m going to turn back
over to the boy, at least mostly.
Otherwise, this mama may have to coin the term “lawnmower rage.”
But, the biggest issue isn’t actually the house but our
favorite tabby, the Toby-est with the most-est.
The one who was prescribed chamomile tea when I wasn’t ready to commit
to Prozac for her. The one who needs to
CHILL OUT a lot bit. She acts all
dewy-eyed and lovey-dovey, but then she turns around and continues to be a
beasty-hearted little fuzz-bum when we’re not looking, and her time is short if
she cannot pull her act together. So, I’ll
pause on that story line because I’m in what you might call caught between denial and pulling-my-hair-out-frustration.
But this little 8-lb. ball of fun times and shenanigans is my girl – the
one who yawns stinkily in my face at night and doesn’t let me grade any
student’s writing without her body squarely on my lap. She’s purring her way with me through this
post right now, in fact.
Life does not only include furry beasties now, though. Our house does have quite a healthy supply of
adorbs-ably sweet little toads/frogs.
(We’ve debated which they are and are still flummoxed.) We also have some biggies hopping around
occasionally, and even though this happens about every other day, it’s still
delightful to look out a window and see a tiny toadie the size of a quarter
staring back at you while suction-cupped to the window (mostly on the outside,
but the boy did let one in on accident a few days ago). In fact, the first night that the boy was
here, he walked out onto the front porch and thought there was a squirrel sneaking
up on him. Nope…frog. (I know.
I get them confused all of the time, too.)
We’re also apparently in the flight path of a local-ish hot
air balloon company. Last night, there
were four of them floating around up there.
They’re often low enough for us to hear the whooshing sound and see the
people moving around in the basket. So
that’s pretty great.
I do have a strong inclination to continue looking for
a(nother) new house, however. The left
turn out of the subdivision is a rough one.
There are going to be years of this.
I’m not sure we’re that strong to endure it. The boy isn’t yet ready to buy into this
notion of moving because leaving the subdivision is a burden on my life. If I start now, I’ll wear him down someday.
The rest will have to wait and hopefully sooner than another
month from now. Also, my glasses are
broken and I’ve been wearing them now with only 1 of the legs holding them on
my face. Only 1 student has noticed. So there’s that, too. (That’s livin’ the dream.)
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