November meant the last month in our house of almost twelve years. We saw Will very little, and I was single-handedly packing up the house while Will was getting our next house livable. The photos below in clockwise order from top left: Will caught in a rare moment relaxing with Emma, Violet and Opal eating with a box as a table (perfectly normal these days!), and Opal, riding a cart at Home Depot (also perfectly normal these days).
This month I was still being affected by that estate sale dresser that took an hour ride in my car. Here I am below arriving at a doctor appointment with a red, itchy eye and feeling self-conscious that they will think I have pink eye. I am happy to report as I type this four months later that my car no longer affects my allergies. The below, right hand photo shows a wreath that I made at a barn craft class with my friend Krista. I was hoping to hang this on the new front door, but unfortunately, it got lost in the move and by the time I found it, the needles had all dropped off of the wreath. A moving causality.
Opal continued to live her life in the moment, as any three year old does and was probably the least concerned about the impending move. Here she is below in clockwise order from top left: waking up too early and so needing some snuggles with Emma on the couch before she gets dressed for the day, tending to Lucy who doesn't feel good, setting up a picnic to enjoy with me, hosting a drawing shop, and finally, one of her pieces of art which are looking more and more detailed. She seems to be taking the family trend with a talent for art.
The girls and I had lots of time together this past month as all of the running around I did the month prior to line up contractors and tile, paint, fabric, furniture and such for the house were in place and just waiting their turn to be installed. In clockwise order from top left below: Violet made head sets out of pipe cleaner for Opal, me and Opal's black kitty cat, the girls completing a mermaid craft that a friend of mine made for them on her Circuit, me taking a selfie that I don't remember the purpose of, and finally, Emma holding up a sign that said, "Go Mom" when I was standing up for myself on a phone call. It's funny that you don't really realize that your kids are listening to you all the time (for better or for worse) and that made me smile to know that Emma was rooting for me.
There is a new playground that opened up at our house after years of anticipation. Every time we tried to go there though, it was crawling with too many people. So we decided one day to pick a very early time and just go - it was totally worth it. It is a really cool playground, so I don't see the crowds dissipating any time soon. At least now we know it's not as crowded super early in the morning.
We found Charlie one morning in his new heated cat house, and it wasn't even plugged in yet. This made me so happy and brought my anxiety about him moving from a 6 to a 5. The girls also trained him to walk on a leash, something that I never thought would be possible. Lots of treats and love and patience and he handled it like a champ. This brought my anxiety from a 5 to a 3. So now the plan was for us to lock Charlie in the new garage for 6 weeks but during that time, we could still take him outside with the leash. According to my sister in law who is a vet, and lots of Google searching, 6 weeks is the time it takes to reorient a cat so it doesn't try to go back to it's original home. I had to laugh at the below, right hand photo - this might have been Charlie's first experience with a full length mirror and he was definitely curious, especially since he is the kind of cat who doesn't like other cats. I'm pretty sure he knew it was an image of himself. And yes, that is the lovely mirror to the dresser I am allergic to - I resold it on Facebook marketplace and was clear that it gave me allergies, so hopefully the new buyer is enjoying it as I type this, allergy-free.
I was super proud of myself and the girls when we tackled the entire fall season of leaves without Will's help. It was a workout, and sometimes the girls drove me crazy with their whining and half-willing effort, but we did it and I kept telling them, "Girl Power!" The red Japanese Maple next to our porch will be missed. We received it as a house warming gift from our realtor when we bought our house, as she remembered that her and I shared a common love of Japanese Maples. We looked into having a nursery move the tree for us, but at the end of the day, I was worried that it could kill the tree. Better to leave it in all it's red glory where it was thriving. I absolutely will miss the way the sunset illuminated the red of it's leaves in the month of November, and the ritual of sending a photo of it's beauty each November to our retired realtor. I didn't realize how much she appreciated the photo each year until she told me she will miss it after we move.
This month I started cooking like crazy in bulk to help us through the move and not having a kitchen when we moved in. We still hadn't decided on cabinets yet, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Every cabinet company we went to, something fell through. Not to mention that cabinets everywhere were about a six month backorder. So, I started filling the freezer to help with when we were in between kitchens. Emma was a big help in the kitchen the entire time that Will was gone. I couldn't have done it without her, and it was nice to have the company too.
I pulled into the driveway of our new house one day to see several different crews working. It was a joyous sight to see, and amazing to me that Will and I had orchestrated all of this. Wood floors were going in, bathroom tile, chimney repair, drywall, and whatever project Will and his dad were currently working on. In clockwise order from top left: the chimney repair crew, Will and his dad pausing for a photo in what is our dining room, Will installing electrical in the upstairs bathroom, Will and his dad taking a break outside with us after we brought them donuts and cider, and finally, Will's dad scraping up yet another layer of flooring we found in the kitchen. This house was like an onion for sure, and besides the stress of the bathrooms and learning that the four foot high wall tile was on with concrete and not grout and needed a jack hammer to demo, the floors were our next biggest nightmare. We already knew there was asbestos tile that needed to be remediated, but imagine our joy at removing the carpet in the dining room and finding more asbestos tile that we hadn't budgeted for. Plus, once the 65 years of floor layered upon floor was removed, none of the subfloors were level for the whole house wood floors we were planning on putting in.
It was a work out and maybe two thirds of the way through, someone got the good idea to load up a pick up truck and drive it up the hill to then unload directly into the front door.
The weather couldn't have been better, and I will be forever grateful to every single person who helped us get this house ready for us. I think all of the love and energy of the contractors (we worked with some amazing people) and our family and friends definitely added to the light surrounding this house that was to become our new home.
We ended up having a stressful setback with the wood floors. Everything was on track for us to move in on December 4th when our lease expired at our old house. Our flooring contractor (who we love and did an amazing job) told us after two days on the job that the wood floors were defective and not workable. The tongue of the tongue and groove kept snapping off. So, we called the big box store we bought them from, and dealt with a kind but very disappointed manager. My heart went out to him as he kept telling me this had never happened before, and that they use an outside contractor to deliver the wood and could not use them to return the wood. I was firm in telling him that the outside contractor had refused to carry the wood up the hill, and so it took a crew of five people and over an hour to load it into the house and that because the produce was defective, he was going to have to figure out how to get it out of our house. He ended up renting a truck and brought some employees and they took away the defective flooring. What a waste on all accounts and this set back our timeline considerably, especially since this wood floor (and wood floor everywhere is backordered at least several weeks if not several months). BUT, I started shopping around like crazy, and would you believe that I found the exact amount of wood flooring that we needed in a warehouse near us, that was being held for another job that had a delay on it. This company was willing to sell us the wood and reorder for the original job, since the delay on that job was longer than it would take for the next round of wood floors to come in. I couldn't believe our luck. Who knows why we had to go through this, but the new floors were delivered by this company, and two guys who were football players in their youth, carried the boxes of wood flooring up our hill and into our house like they were nothing. Will has never been more in awe of someone's strength. He kept telling me how they lowered the boxes onto the floor of our house like they were putting a swaddled newborn baby into their crib to sleep. So gently, and with such finesse. And, these floors were top quality and although it was now looking like we would have to find temporary housing, at least things were still moving in the right direction. In clockwise order from top left below: all four girls sitting on a pile of wood flooring, the start of the wood flooring in our living room, me following a trailer full of my garage office to the new house, a small example of what the first round of flooring looked like before it had to be pulled back up, and finally, the most exciting part of this past month - my garage office finally indoors. We had wanted to wait until the flooring was in before we moved our stuff inside, but due to the delayed timeline, we had to start moving boxes in and setting it on the subfloors. Not ideal, as we knew everything was going to have to be shuffled around as the floors were done, but we didn't have any other choice. It was now mid to late November, and I finally had an office with heat again.
There was one point at the beginning of this month (before the wood floor fiasco) that Will almost gave up. He was prying off a piece of wood and it smacked him in the face. The good news was he was wearing his respirator so that the wood hit his mask and not his face. But the bad news is the respirator then jammed on the bridge of his nose and broke it. Not long after this, he stepped on a nail and it went through his work boot and into his foot. He also injured a knuckle on his hand and it was swollen three times it's normal size. He was a limping mess. He came home from work one day and didn't go to the house. He said his nose was hurting so bad that it was giving him a colossal headache and he was starting to get a sinus infection. We think his nose was jammed into his skull. The next day he went to the chiropractor who worked his magic and unjammed Will's nose. It took several more weeks for the swelling to go down though, and he hasn't been able to wear the respirator since. Even wearing a regular face mask at work hurt. He was seriously starting to doubt the project that we had taken on. This was a strange turn of events for our relationship, as usually Will is the most optimistic (and in denial, in my opinion) kind of guy you will ever meet. I on the other hand picture the worst case scenario that could possibly happen, and then imagine it in great detail. It was time for me to step up and be the cheerleader for Will. Seeing him mentally broken was one of the hardest things I've had to deal with - but good for both of us. What an amazing journey this has been for our relationship. Not easy, but the strength and understanding it has built between us cannot be lost. The photos below in clockwise order from top left: Will, driving to the new house and sending me a pic when I asked how his nose was (hardly noticeable!), the garage at the new house cleared out and ready for our possessions to be moved in while we wait for the floors to be finished, the first floor bathroom floor tile finished, and finally, our new fireplace. I will save the fiasco with the fireplace for next month's post. To say that not a single step went easy with this house would be an exaggeration, but at times it sure felt that way. We worked with some amazing contractors though, and their kindness through this made a big difference.
The second to last weekend in our old house, I had two main things on the moving to do list. One was move the swing set, which I had wanted to keep up as long as possible since the kids use it daily, and the other was deconstruct our old piano as the piano movers were coming to deliver our new piano to the new house and then coming to our old house to dispose of the old piano. The timing on finding the piano I had been searching for years was amazing - when you buy a piano from a store, delivery is included. It is hundreds of dollars to move a piano, and so we saved this money by buying the piano in time for it to arrive at our new house. The piano store was patient with us too, in waiting to deliver it until AFTER the new flooring was in. When I called about the flooring set back, they moved the date back for us too. In clockwise order from top left below: the swing set moved by myself, my brother and my dad and my brother's pick up truck, set up in our new backyard, Will striping off the pieces of wood that we want to save from our old piano, Opal playing the new to us piano at our new house, the piano movers bringing in our new piano, and finally, the piano movers, taking away our old piano to the piano graveyard. It was very nerve wracking to watch the new piano go up the hill in our front yard, and put to shame that first wood floor company who refused to carry our floors up that hill. Um, the piano was moved with no complaint by guys much older than the original floor delivery guys!
Now the kids practiced the piano every day at the new house, since our old piano at the old house was gone. We also started playing in the yard at the new house instead of the old house, with our swing set and other outdoor toys there now too. The kids got to enjoy the first snow of the season at the new house with our lovely hill and there was a point where Will and I looked at the kids playing in our expansive new yard, and then locked eyes with each other and knew that every moment of this struggle has led us to this point, and it has all been worth it. Our kids were going to continue growing up no matter where we lived, but in this lovely and huge yard, they would have so much more space and freedom to do so.
Will's mom played with the girls in the first snow while Will, his dad and I worked in the house, and they built snowmen and took sled rides down the hill. Memories were made and it really did seem like that first snow really made the house feel like ours. There is something to be said about snowmen in your yard, built by your own children, to make a house feel like home.
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