new house

Real Estate Adventure complete!

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Dawnrigger

The final boss battle wasn’t so bad at all.

A bunch of papers signed ahead of time
A communication from our most excellent lawyer
An email from the bank

…and just like that, we’re a one-house household again. The deal closed around noon today, 21 years and 5 months to the date from closing on our “starter home.”

Farewell, little old house. May you be as good to your new owners as you were to Spouseman & me, whatever future transformations & transitions await you & them.

Meanwhile, in the new little house…<cue celebratory music and dancing>

fullsizeoutput_1ffa — Instead, I expect to take many pics of this little home in the coming years

WOOHOO, the life-draining distractions are back to normal levels! Only one trash pickup to remember. One set of utility bills to track. One set of to-do lists. ALL THE SHOUTYCAPS AND HAPPY EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!

I am giddy with anticipation and basking in possibilities. At last, I have a true room of my own, with time and air to breathe. (and a figurative raised middle finger to the specter of Charles Bukowski and his repeated dismissals of any creativity too fragile to survive without quiet, patient nurturing.)

That attitude just chafes me sometimes, especially when I am being one of those people who “can’t find time” and every post and article I read talks about “making time” like its mac & cheese from a box.

Not all artists have the kind of creativity that can be wielded like a hammer of raw elemental emotion, not all of us have molten passions that pour from our veins and pores in unstoppable torrents. Some of us coax beautiful creations from silence and soft, slippery emotions too delicate to survive in the hurly-burly environment of a busy life.

When it comes to art, I’m a blower of soap bubbles, and I dare anyone to blow good soap bubbles in a hurricane.

And, hey, look! I’m writing again already. Take that, “make-time” advice people.

Until later, all.

We now return to My Favorite Topic: The New House.

Posted on September 5, 2019 by Dawnrigger

Dragon Con is over. I apologize for not doing much post-con networking & communication, but I can’t seem to squeeze in time and brainpower at once. New House Stuff has taken over my life.

Brain inertia issues are partly to blame. Once my mind is set on a project–in this case, “nesting into the new space”– it’s nigh-impossible for me to switch mental gears to work on anything else.

Things have improved immensely since the Early Post-College Years, when I would forget to eat or drink when I was working. But it’s still hard to tear myself away from all things House Related to do anything else (like, say, blog about the house, or write anything else…)

Also, life is just HECTIC.

During the frenzied house–filled weeks between closing-then-GenCon & Dragon Con, my calming litany was, “Things will quiet down once Dragon Con is over.” Yeah…no. NOPE. No sign of quiet.

Every day, I work on things until I am exhausted, eat supper, read until I fall asleep, get up, rinse & repeat.

The day Spouseman & I flew home, we dropped off luggage and went right back out to buy furniture to construct. (IKEA is perfect for those of us who have houses with tiny doorways & steep stairs) Also, grocery shopping. And laundry round 1.

Yesterday, Laundry part 2 got done between shopping for other new home necessities & finishing work on the Old House. Unboxing, furniture placement & bookcase filling took us well into the night.

Today I was all over the place. Felt like nothing got finished, but…
Outdoors: organized the garage & did tons of yard work. Indoors: rolled out rugs, put up paintings, learned to operate a new carpet cleaner & steam-cleaned a BIG room.

Tomorrow I do return/exchanges, oversee the Old House real estate pics, take care of the Old House yard, & back at New House, I ned to move stuff into the room with the cleaned carpets.
And maybe…just MAYbe…get a little quiet time.

I hope.

Until later!

Achievement unlocked: house to home

Posted on August 26, 2019August 26, 2019 by Dawnrigger

Tl;dr version: if you just want pictures, scroll down.

Today was THE day. The magic water box. (a Zojirushi hot water dispenser) came to rest in its new kitchen home and sang us its happy little “water is hot & ready” song. This makes our move-in officially complete.

Bringing over the tea maker and our everyday clothes was the culmination of the long and hectic week. It started with the movers hauling over all the Big Things & Many Boxes on Monday and that wasn’t enough, so we arranged to have MOAR THINGS arrive on Wednesday. 33 new things, in fact.

Now it’s Sunday night, the old house is empty of all but the non-essential flotsam & jetsam of daily life, all the moving boxes have been unboxed (or stored, as appropriate) our new mattress has done its unfoldy-expandy-floofy thing, and food is in the fridge.

The move-out won’t be done until the old house gets sold & the remaining “staging” furniture comes over, but this space is now ready for all our Home Things to happen.

Things like making a morning cup of tea after snoozing all night at home in bed

At home.

This is our home now.

I feel like that idea should take longer to sink in, and I’m sure it will in some practical ways. But at the same time…it’s a done deal.

There’s a strange kind of magic in the moving of one’s life from one location to another. The process is messy and complicated and a lot like camping in bad weather — much more fun to reminisce about than to live through.

Things get lost. Lost things return from limbo. Discoveries are made. Mysteries arise. Old issues re-surface, and new problems pop up at every turn. Surprises of the pleasant and unpleasant variety appear at predictably unpredictable intervals.

I’ve moved a lot in my life, enough times I would have o think hard to count them all. The first one happened when I was younger than 5. Every time, somewhere in the middle of all the upheaval, something simply changed. Home stopped being one place, and became another.

This time, for me, it was hearing the tea maker beep.

Have more random phone photography.