TEN

It's fitting that as we celebrate a decade of marriage our daughter has a love of counting to ten- as in waaahn, twooo, treeee, foorrr, fiiibe, siix, seben, aaate, niiine, ten... seben, eight, nine, TEN! (clap, clap, clap) As we say in the elementary math world, ten is a friendly number, and for a while there it was healthy for us too, because whenever she would start to count she would simultaneously want one of us to get down on the floor and do sit-ups. Our little drill sergeant!

Ten is also a number that demands reflection, as well as suggests a look ahead. We know we've done a lot in the past ten years (or 14! since we met). As part of Anthony's anniversary card to me he unknowingly wrote this part of the blog:

10 Things We've Done in the Past 10 Years:

1. Moved across the country twice.
2. Visited at least 31 states and 6 countries.
3. Had a Natalie.
4. Demolished a house and built a house.
5. Flown to Hawaii 3 times...what's your favorite island?
6. Blogged about a part of our lives...we are SO American.
7. Gotten a dog that we were never able to stop from barking.
8. Never bought our own plates.
9. Shared at least 520 pizzas.
10. Continued to be very much in love.

Through it all we have learned that predicting what the next ten years will be like is an exercise in futility, so here's to just hoping that they are happy and healthy (and that maybe the dog will stop barking).

- J (& A)

Realizations

We haven't felt the need to blog lately because, well, the house building is pretty uneventful right now. We're mostly just getting settled and waiting for some key professional landscaping ingredients. However, inside we have realized a couple of things:

a. Despite being 20 feet wide, there's a lot of open space in the house. Or maybe it's just that we don't have very much furniture. This is proving to be a positive in Natalie's book- especially as she learns to walk with her little car back and forth and back and forth and back and forth (and back and forth). Plus we have plenty of room for a tent and tunnel in our living room- and isn't that just every child's dream? Twenty feet wide is proving to be plenty big so far.

...and back and forth

b. Our shiny new house makes the furniture we do have look ugly.

Like maybe it came from the streets of Boston on "big trash day" or the "as is" section of Ikea or something. We've been taking what we have and all the little things we saved and trying to give it all a place in our new life. We certainly don't *need* new stuff, we're living comfortably and fine with what we have. Paint can do wonders. Fabric can be reused. Hardware is available on something your husband called trash three days ago.

No, I'm not going to show you a picture of our ugly furniture.

I'm going with these cute window treatments instead.

My mother was intrigued by the challenge of creating roman shades for Natalie's room by taking apart old venetian blinds from our last house to use as parts.

c. We're too afraid to commit to hanging pictures and other things that require holes in our pretty new walls. Heck, we're too afraid to commit to buying floor mats for the front door and that certainly doesn't require holes. I think this drove my parents crazy last week during their visit. How many times did we hear, "You know, you should really put something to hang towels on in the bathroom." or "You really should get a mat for the front door." After rushing to commit and decide so much in the past year we have now slowed down considerably. Yes we know things like this can be changed, but knowing us, once we've committed $12.99 to a floor mat, it's not going to be changed until it literally falls apart. Therein lies the fear of commitment.

Note the artwork resting on the repainted shelf in the background.

Feel free to come over and vote where you think it should be hung.

-J

Anxiously Awaiting The End

We are currently living out of suitcases as we await the final inspection for our occupancy permit. It was supposed to happen today, but upon stopping by this afternoon it didn't look like it had been done. Shocking.

Even once we can officially occupy our dwelling there are still a lot of little things to finish up. We may stay with our suitcases a little bit longer so as to give people room to work without the benefit of Zippy supervising.

Our current schedule is to let the workers have the house during daytime working hours. We then appear like little elves and do what we can each evening. Natalie gets to go to bed in her own room and then when we're tired enough we pick her up and head to sleep at the house of a friend who, conveniently, is exploring Italy this summer.

"Living" in two places in the same town means that stuff is constantly being transferred back and forth. What this means for you as blog readers is that tonight there will be no pictures because the cord for the camera is back at our house. Next time...

-J

Homeless, again

Once again, we have found ourselves pseudo-homeless. This seems to happen to us a lot when planning to move. The timing just never quite lines up exactly. Of course, this time we get to be "between homes" with a very active 11 month-old and an over-anxious dog. In the past, it always worked out...eventually, so I have faith that this one will too.

This time we had to be out of our rental by the end of June, so throughout the week, before and after work each day, we incrementally moved all of our belongings into the bedrooms of our own house - the parts the were fully complete. July 1st rolled around and our house was not finished and livable, so we headed to New York to visit the fam for a while and hopefully give the workers a bit more time to pull it all together.

The risky part about this is that without us there checking up on daily progress (ahem, micromanaging... and yes, we feel it helps), things just might not happen. Or, of course, they might happen, but in a not-the-way-we-intended way.

So what has happened and what remains? The stair guy has been working at pace that Anthony politely describes as 'quite un-feverish' for the past few weeks to complete was has become (according to the stair guy) a very unique set of steps. This has resulted in piles of debris, saws, tools, compressors, cords, and cups that have covered the entire main floor.

The large amount of tools, saws, etc. required to complete the stair trim.

The side entryway was also done. Of course, in typical construction fashion the decking material we used on the front porch four months ago is now no longer made and was not to be found anywhere so we had to settle for a slightly different product (sigh).

The new side/mudroom entry deck.

The rest of the electrical work was finished. The faucets and tub/shower trim were all connected, and the earlier water leak resolved without much issue.

The glitch that did occur was that the wrong bath/shower trim was still installed, despite our efforts back in March to correct our trim order from an earlier mistake! We're beginning to wonder if they're just trying to wear us down. While I realize this is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, as we'd been here before with the builder, it made it all the more frustrating to have to ask once again to have the mistake fixed.

Towards the end of the week, the stair guy(s) finally wrapped up their work and cleaned up their mess, leaving a nice clean set of stairs and clear floor. It was great to see the 'almost' finished product.

The stairs to the basement, finally!

View of the stairs and kitchen from the living-room area.

We realized our refrigerator is pretty small. Plenty of room to grow...

Natalie enjoying the clean, clear main floor for the first time.

So, now we're ready for the floor guy to come back and finish up the connecting areas. All the doorknobs are in the house ready to be installed. Some trim work needs to be finished and a few things, like some uneven dry wall work in the upstairs bathroom, need to be fixed.

The big hold-up however seems to be that the plumber cannot get the boiler to work. The current plan is to have the company rep. come out on Wednesday to take a look at it. Hopefully then we can check that off.

The boiler, mixing valve, and indirect water heater complex, currently at rest as the boiler will not start. Who really needs hot water?

-J

The Good, the Bad, and the Crapper

Evidence of the plumber's work on Friday

A trip to the house on Friday revealed water in the toilets. Pretty exciting, I know. However, Friday night also revealed water coming through the kitchen ceiling (bathtub above). Not so joyous. We marked the spot and it doesn't seem to be spreading, so we hope it's not anything serious. I did stop packing things in the nearby cabinets in case they have to come down to fix the issue.

Stairs to basement- shelf along back wall finished

Other evidence of work showed that Rob and co. also worked on the stairs, balusters, railings, and the trim around the stairs, and John sealed part of the floor during the day. John was also over Saturday morning setting the footings for the side entryway. Plenty of happenings, but I kept feeling like it was all things that should've been happening last week, or perhaps Thursday at the very least.

No more worries about falling off the upstairs landing

side entry footings

I have to say, my master carpenter, Anthony, has been doing stellar work in the middle of the night. He cut a beautiful hole for our new sink and secured all the counter tops. I think he likes the fact that the new sink has such right angles- easier to cut the top for it!

Kitchen sink in and ready for the plumber

We've also started moving things over as much as possible. As I previously mentioned, we have to move out of our rental by the end of the month. We may not be ready, but at least our stuff can live in the new house in the rooms that are done (like the upstairs bedrooms).

Anthony and Kevin moving our stuff.

Kevin is a major trooper to help us move out in December and then back in again now.

He even brought his own beer this time.

After moving the washer/dryer out in December, Anthony and Kevin decided it was pretty heavy and called in a third helper, Dave.

It's a little extra work on both ends with this move because we have to be careful to keep our stuff at the new house out of the way of any workers, we have to restore the rental house to its exact previous glory, and we have to keep out a set of items for us to live off of wherever we end up until we can really move in. Fortunately this will be our final move!

Kevin has his own dolly.

I think that pretty much pegs you to help people move.

We're very grateful for this.

-J

Including the Kitchen Sink

The house is being emptied. Pieces are filling the basement of our current home and some things are being sold.

Kevin helping to take up the floor.

First we moved all of our stuff. Then we started moving things that came with the house. Then we started moving actual parts of the house. And just when I thought there was nothing else I wanted from the house, the neighbor got involved and started salvaging whatever was left.

Seeing someone else discern value from your belongings makes them so much more attractive. Suddenly every hinge and screw looked *very* important to me.

Apparently pipes are worth more than pink sinks.

Anthony came at it all with a very logical, "If you haven't needed it in the past three years, you're not going to need it ever."

My frugality kicked in with, "Think of how we'll save that 20 cents down the line because we won't have to buy a new screw..."

Salvaging the storm window frames

Bottomline was that time (and energy) was not on our side though. After months of waiting and planning for this, it turns out it's happening at an incredibly busy and stressful time for us: proposals, trips, returning to work plans, Natalie deciding it's more fun NOT to sleep at night, etc. We did our realistic best and got what we could, which of course included the kitchen sink, but we let the neighbor take the gutters. Perhaps he'll make a big ice cream sundae bar in one.

- J

It's All Starting to Happen

We cleared out our house in preparation for the big re-do. It took a lot longer than anticipated. Maybe having a four month old had something to do with that? Only one of us (read: Anthony) could really do much at one time. We had some help with the big stuff (help that doesn't mind too much being squashed by our washer/dryer- thanks Kevin!), and we ended up selling off our stove.

We worked through the night on Tuesday, and the house is pretty much ready- we just need to salvage a few more things from the inside.

We took one final picture of the little shack as we knew it.

Asbestos removal day was Wednesday.

So the siding is now gone, and if the house didn't look bad enough before, now it's just plain pathetic. But hopefully pathetic in a people-are-trying-to-do-something-here kind of way. You know, something with a little promise.

Wow- this is really happening. Here we go!

- J

Tiny Wrapped Up In A Whole Lot of Stuff

We like to think of ourselves as simple. I definitely wouldn't call us minimalists, but with all the moves we've made, we've managed to prioritize what we really need (or enjoy having). We have noticed that each time we move it seems to require a little more as we acquire a little more. We try to cost-effectively weed out the unnecessaries, but then there's alway the essentials and the "might be useful somedays" that come along. (For example, those XL sweaters I saved from when big and baggy was in during the 90s? Useful now, as I begin to get big and baggy.) This time I'm not sure what it's all going to look like. Our "stuff" is changing forms as we change directions.

Looking back, we didn't bring over much when we moved to Macedonia in the Peace Corps, and not much came back either (especially walking across the border while being evacuated).

Anthony and Tom- heading toward the Greek border

When I moved from New York to California in 1999 I went on a plane with everything I thought I needed. Granted that included my bike in a bike box stuffed with all my clothes around it. My parents and little brother came too, and I allowed them only minimal personal items for themselves so that I could take a few more things.

Moving to Boston from California meant that my mom and I put all of my possessions in my VW GTI for the trip (the bike rode on top this time, there was underwear stuffed in the toaster oven, and we read 4th grade chapter books out of my teaching boxes for entertainment.)

California to Boston move

Boston to Rhode Island was such a little move, that even though I now had a second bike and a kayak- everything was still quite simple.

Rhode Island to Oregon was eye-opening in how much stuff we had amassed, but by this time it was the two of us moving together. We rented a 6x12 trailer to tow behind our truck because of the queen size mattress (which later became a mouse home in storage, causing us to ditch it anyway- but that's another story).

Rhode Island to Oregon move

I have no idea what extra stuff we must have acquired while in Oregon, but this time we rented a portion of a truck to move us back east to Cape Cod. (I will admit that in every move, a lot of what has grown has been my teaching stuff...)

Oregon to Cape Cod move

I bring all this up because, with our current situation of having a baby and tearing down our house simultaneously, I'm experiencing mixed messages and mixed emotions. My body is telling me to nest, and my brain is telling me to "un-nest". I won't be able to help move us out into wherever we're going to live while the real house is being built, so I feel like I have to get ready now by getting rid of stuff that I'm not sure we need and packing up stuff that's not vital for a while.

And then there's the issue of amassing and arranging all that will keep our tiny human alive and happy... While Flip may not need a very big home, per se,- he/she sure does require a whole lot of stuff! What's really necessary and how do we know?

-J

"To Do" List

(In no particular order, although I'm numbering them for my own love of structure.)

1. Build house (sub-categories: choose architect, builder, go through committees, move out, tear down pre-existing, non-conforming (PENC) structure, build a new one that might be slightly less non-conforming but at least will have insulation, move back in.)
2. Buy a car.
3. Find out if I still have a job next year. (Would greatly help with #s 1 and 2)
4. Have a baby!!
5. Get my dog to stop barking randomly.
6. Figure out all the sub-categories for #s 2-5.
7. Start blog to help organize the chaos that is rapidly descending on our lives. (check on #7)

Timeline ticking...

-J