Marking the calendar in many ways

While driving home from work, I realized that today would have been my tenth wedding anniversary with Jeremy had we not divorced in 2002. Today is also my husband's birthday and I was heading home with his birthday present (a new compressed air tank for his paintball gun) so that we could pick up supplies to move into our new home this weekend. It's funny how life stacks things up like that. I thought about it again when I almost took the wrong turn to go to our new house and had to keep going that extra 3/4 mile to our old house for the moment. I realized I would have to get used to a new section of beach that's two blocks east of where we've been hanging out for the last few years. The last time I'd spent any time down there was when I was living in one of my parents' properties after leaving Jeremy. I had some bitter lonely walks on that beach six years ago and it will be nice to have some fresh memories made on that patch of sand.

Last night Rich and I walked around the block at our new house leaving Nosy Neighbor Open House flyers on everyone's doors. I waffle between excitement about this weekend of home tours and moving and stomach-knotting nervousness. No one is going to come to our open house. Everyone is going to think we're insane for inviting them to snoop through our empty house. It's silly to waste a day we could be moving with this frivolity.

But dammit, we've gone through a lot to get here - more than just the last three months of construction. This upcoming weekend has been years in the making and I'd like a few hours to revel in it before we get all dirty and tired from moving boxes. I'm excited about this weekend like it's Christmas Eve. We just happen to be the elves who have to pack up all our furniture toys in the pickup truck sleigh before we can open them.

I'm looking forward to our new home, baby. I'll be there with bells on.

Movers wanted - will pay in Splenda packets

I posted some more pictures from our adventures in Texas earlier this week. I totally need one of those writing chairs. I promise it would allow me to post only the best electronic prose to this forum. I would have added more pictures I not so sneakily took from my iPhone but the upgrade to 2.0.2 trashed my phone so I lost all my notes and photos from a corrupt backup file. No more running Christmas list and no more pictures of 16th century globes or Edgar Allan Poe's writing desk. This has been an incredibly long week, one that I'm not even sure when it started. I spent nearly all of Saturday working only to get on a plane for Texas on Sunday. Wednesday started at 3:30am local time in order to make our 5:30am flight back home. That whacked out my entire sleep schedule. Given the timeline of this week the house has gone completely to seed and is littered with dirty cereal bowls, tumbleweeds of dog hair and boxes of books. I'm hiding in the office in front of the computer because if I look around the house at all that needs packing/cleaning/sorting I may just sit in the floor wringing my hands.

We would hire someone to pack our home for us except that a) it costs approximately $856,742 and b) I don't want other people "messing in my goodies." My mother is perhaps the queen of shooing others away from her goodies and has remarked that someone throwing away her belongings was the only unforgivable act in her eyes. As my mother's daughter, I can't imagine someone coming into our house and packing the nine Splenda packets in front of my keyboard to carry to our new home nor can I imagine someone else deciding they were disposable. Perhaps I should get my mother to pack my medicine cabinet, dishes and piles of knick-knacks since she is the one I can trust the most with all these treasures amongst trash.

The new house is basically done except that we have to put the bath fixtures back after the vinyl flooring was installed and call about two transition strips from the hardwood to vinyl downstairs. Our tentative plan is to move next week over Labor Day weekend. To be optimistic about it, I suppose moving gives an opportunity to take stock of one's life and decide what is really important or not, Splenda packets and all.

Oh, and it's not just you. Rich snickers every time my mother or I talk about messing in our goodies.

From a geological perspective this project has been really fast

Things that take less time than our 10+ week home renovation project.

• Tidewater Community College's Summer Session (5/19-7/29/2008)
• My parents' engagement (10/31-11/26/1967)
• Growing a new fingernail
• Sailing around the world (~50 days at fastest pace)
• Growing tomatoes from seedling to fruit 
• The Neapolitan War (3/15-5/20/1815)
• Typical American maternity leave
• The Summer 2008 Olympic Games (8/6-8/24/2008)
• The D-Day battles of World War II (6/6-8/25/1944)
• The 2008 Tour de France (7/5-7/27/2008)

No, they're still not done.  I e-mailed the contractor a three page "punch list" of items left to be done on Sunday night.  He claims they will be done on Thursday but we don't believe him (they did absolutely no work on Monday).  We signed the paperwork (and paid our 30% deposit) on the evening of May 27, 2008 and the contract was supposed to be completed by July 25, 2008.

There were many things I thought I wouldn't be doing until after the house was finished.  First it was ALA (June 28), then BlogHer (July 18-19), then the conference I'm attending in New York this week.  Every time I've gone for a hair cut, doctor's appointment or to get my nails done I've thought, "the next time I'm here we'll be in the new house."  My hair is getting embarrassingly multi-colored, partially because I hoped I could report that our house is done for those two hours Joseph is coloring and cutting my coif.  

I try to not script things in my life.  I don't want to paint a picture of what my August or September will be like, because if for some reason it's not like that I'll be disappointed. My father has quipped several times that "Rome wasn't built in a day" in an attempt to be positive about this huge project we've taken on. And I admit in my research for the list above, I found a few things that took quite a while to finish. Michelangelo's statue of David took three years to complete. It takes five to seven months to hike the entire Appalachian Trail (which only about 25% of those who attempt finish). And Rich and my relationship has blossomed over ten years to where we are now (he and his ex were guests at my wedding to Jeremy, ironically).

So perhaps instead of trying to guess where I will be in X number of days I should just be happy with where I am now.