Category Archives: home improvement

So it goes

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All four showers in the house are jacked up and need repair. That’s pissing me off. The boiler system needs to be replaced. Most of the sinks are draining slow and need to be snaked. So basically, all the plumbing is shit.

Slowly fixing all the electrical shit that’s fucked up.

I’m pretty annoyed about just how much needs to be fixed. And how expensive it is.

Don’t know the results of the biopsy on the melanoma. Results are being snail mailed from the US.

We are working on our diet to be more centered on general cancer prevention though. That’s going to matter if I want to be here for decades.

Working on the book already. Why bother waiting for November? I’m not shooting for 50,000 anyway. I think this will be over 100,000. I have a lot to say to the kids. It hurts.

Fuck cheap shitty doors.

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I tried putting a latch lock on my bedroom door. Like, a super sturdy metal contraption that should have been utterly beyond the strength of a toddler.

(I’m feeling super cranky about having to sit in my room to guard all of my possessions full time because I have a toddler.)

Guess what happened when I leaned on the door to test the strength of the lock? All the fucking screws ripped out of the cheap, flimsy ass door.

I am in a really bad mood now.

I swear I am trying.

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But sleep deprivation is a bitch to catch up on. I went back through my activity tracker (I know it is not perfectly accurate for stuff like sleep) but between travel and anxiety and overworking I am down about 8 full nights of sleep over the past month. This is why I am currently struggling with paranoia, negative thoughts about myself, irritability, and frustration. I also hurt really badly.

But I am trying to reverse the flow. The past three nights I’ve gotten nine hours of sleep. Yesterday while walking home from the community center I just about fell down from exhaustion and dizziness. Trying to catch up is showing me just how deep the reservoir of sleep deprivation goes. I need to try to spend all of this school holiday sleeping as much as I possibly can; my health requires it.

A full night of sleep for me is ~7.5 hours. I’m down over 64 hours of sleep over the past month. That’s a lot.

This move is the hardest of my life and I have moved waaaaaay more than average. Folks in the military are usually dumbfounded by how much I have moved because they feel a lack of stability in their lives and I’ve moved many multiples of times more than them. Not so much recently, but over the long run. This is my first international move and I can’t understand people who do this repeatedly. This is so hard.

We moved into a house that was more than twice the size of our old house with no furniture coming with us. We have had to acquire everything from scratch and mostly build it because we can’t really afford to buy nice stuff, we are buying flat pack. Which means I have spent multiple full days just on building furniture. Noah has helped with this way more than he usually does with building furniture and for this I am deeply grateful. Noah has spent at least six, maybe up to eight solid days building furniture if you add up all the hours. I’ve done at least as much maybe more. It’s all getting fuzzy.

We finally have consistent, good wifi thanks to Noah’s continual efforts at handling the bureaucratic mess. It is still a mess with regards to electricity. All of the advice “Just do A, B, C” has failed entirely. I think Noah is handling the stress of people lying and being deceitful far better than I could. (The main electricity company keeps saying they have done what they need to do for us to move on with the process. When the other company we want to work with checks… nope hasn’t happened. It takes eight weeks before we are allowed to complain. We seriously suspect the first company is going to drag their feet for seven weeks and five days.)  Noah has been on the phone and filling out paperwork just about daily trying to handle the electricity/internet/bank/credit card situation. Now that we have internet and we found out we literally can’t get a credit card until we’ve been here six months and we have a (JOINT) checking account and three savings accounts (grown ups + kids who are redepositing their stuff from the states) we can chill on figuring out financial stuff for a few months.

Oh, also we had an appointment with a couple of truly lovely accountants and that’s going to be a whole messy process that will take many hours of labor over many weeks. The UK tax year doesn’t run their cycle from January-December, they run April-March so we will be trying to sort out tax stuff for like six months straight. Hopefully after the first year it will get a little more clear? At least our California accountant used to work at the IRS handling international taxes?

Trying to acquire stuff for the house has been endless frustration. Between not having a car, not having reliable internet, and our US credit cards getting constantly denied for fraud… everything is taking two, three, four, five times as long to get done and the hand strain is absolutely unbelievable.

And I keep hearing my fucking mother’s voice in my head saying that you don’t go out and socialize until your house is company ready. Thus long working days and not sleeping.

Last night I made a list on the whiteboard of the chores the kids hadn’t gotten to this week. I told them they need to finish by bed time. They got it done. I supervised and didn’t help. I’m trying to reduce my arm strain.

They did a great job and they are currently playing with Her Sweetness so Noah and I can each have some quiet down time in our separate rooms.

We have a house phone number and an actual physical phone will be delivered in a few days. I have a sim card in the house for a UK phone number for my mobile and I will be setting it up once I can put the UK house phone number down on forms. I will be going through and replacing my US phone number on all of my accounts. I will be shutting down my US phone number in December after 19 years of service.

I am having so many feelings about that.

The plan with the accountants is to start moving our money out of the US. I don’t feel super ethical investing in a country that moved its slavery from the cotton fields to the prison industrial complex and is currently running concentration camps. Where freedom means the freedom to get shot at school. Where freedom means that thousands of people can be homeless so the uberwealthy can hoard a little more. Where freedom means ruining your entire future if you get sick. Where freedom means eternal debt if you want an education.

I know getting out isn’t an option for everyone. I know it is cowardly to run instead of fighting to change the system. I know.

My children are already walking to school and home from school alone sometimes. It’s so safe here. I spoke to a mom who is terrified of her kids being alone and that’s why she pays for them to have cell phones from really young so they have to text her all the time to prove where they are and she tracks them on her phone.

We will have a house phone. I’m giving up full service internet on my phone and downgrading to a pay as you go plan that I don’t want to use much. I will be deleting most apps so I’m not tempted to be idle on my phone out in the world.

My kids will be fine here. I am not worried about their safety. We have an agreement: you ask before you take off and you are given a time to be home. You have a watch (without the ability to receive phone calls on) and if you are late, for every minute you are late you owe me a push up.

That’s as much enforcement as I want. That’s as much control as I want. They are big kids. They are responsible. I trust them. The neighbors aren’t going to call the police if they are out walking to the park. I have anxiety about stuff. I am overly controlling in some ways, but I’m trying hard to back off. They will be ok. And frankly the push ups won’t hurt them.

EC forgot her school computer at home one day this week. Noah asked if we should bring it to her at school. Nope. She can accept the consequences for her behavior like a big girl.

It will be good for her.

I went to a couple of activities with Her Sweetness this week aimed at her peer group; these are the kids she will know in school. These are the kids in our neighborhood. It’s good to start getting to know them. She will make friends over time and I will get to know the mothers.

This move is the hardest of my life. Let me write down just how painful this is so that hopefully I remember and never want to do this again. Some day as an empty nester I might want to move to the downstairs apartment with Noah and rent out the big house, but that’s different.

Solstice is going to be interesting. EC has a bunch of needs still. MC has a bunch of wants. YC (I should shift to this at some point soon here because goodness Youngest Child is more fair than just always referring to her as the sweet one–not to mention that she is sassier by the day) has few needs and can’t speak any wants. I am going to start wrapping presents soon just because we don’t have many good stash spots in the house where unwrapped presents won’t be seen.

Oh, and to put the cherry on top of the moving process, we are all learning how to ride bikes as our mode of transportation. This has resulted in at least one, often three or more major crashes per person. We are all sore and wincing and moving slowly. My knee still hasn’t healed from my crash and every time I get up or down to help YC with something I hiss because it forking hurts.

At least MCs lip has healed and they no longer look like an abused child.

It’s a process…

Hardest fucking move of my life. But the house is basically company ready. I want another couch for the down stairs apartment before guests come. I want a real kitchen table for the main dining room with actual chairs we don’t fall off of on a regular basis. EC still needs a bed frame. Then we are done acquiring stuff.

Mostly because I found a tutorial on Pinterest for making bookshelves out of uniform moving boxes and that’s what I’m doing with the books that arrive. I’m not buying bookshelves any time soon. I want artistic fancy-pants book shelves and I don’t want to pay for them now. So I won’t really get all of the boxes out of the house by the end of November, but the stuff in boxes will be out and in use and the boxes will be semi-permanent (until they give out) furniture.

I am struggling with the fact that I need to give myself approval for how hard this move has been because I won’t get it from anyone else. No one but Noah can see what I’m doing and I’m an asshole about not accepting his approval as much as I should. He will give me approval whether it takes me a month or five years. He isn’t judging me based on what I care about. His priorities are different. (He wishes I would slow the fuck down and rest more.)

I have a ridiculous drive to get this done. This is important to me. I need to see this progress so I can sit in the mostly finished house and dream about the art I want to add. I can’t start painting until after my next birthday, but I can make sketches. I can figure out what kind of mosaic backsplash I’d like to make for the kitchen wall where we keep splattering the shit out of it with food. (Did the previous owners cook?! How in the fuck did they keep the wall so white?!) What would I like to do in the upstairs bathtub bathroom?

Art will come, but not until all of the other pieces are in place and I can dream around them.

We still have a few entirely empty cupboards in the laundry room and main kitchen and the downstairs kitchen is basically empty. But we have the stuff we need finally. Those bits will fill in over time as we figure out what other things we want or need.

Realistically it is going to take me many years to finish this house. But I feel moved in now. The art will come. The guest kitchen will come. It’s ok that it isn’t all instant.

I needed to feel settled. Those bits are extra. And I have my name on a bank account so that I can build my own credit. That’s a big deal. Being dependent is hard enough without also being vulnerable.

And proper locks are on the way for every door in the house.

Now I feel like we’ve arrived.

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Today is our first day of being on a normal-for-us schedule instead of a frantic work schedule. We get up and do our morning hygiene, get dressed, have breakfast, do chores, then academics until lunch. Afternoons are free. Ok, Noah has his own schedule slightly separate from the kids and I.

Of course Her Sweetness thinks this sucks because during chore time she pretty much has to play independently. I keep telling her that play is her work and this is her independent work time… She does not yet believe me. She will. I have trained up several children in this manner already.

I am feeling so happy today. I didn’t get the last piece of furniture put together yesterday because my elbow hurts like fire. It’ll get done before Middle Child’s dresser arrives from Ikea. Then those pieces will get put together and I will start haunting the charity shops looking for a dining room table and chairs that will fully meet our needs. Maybe a big chair for the dining room that will hold 2-3 butts if we stack.

We don’t need anything else. At this point we don’t want anything else.

Ok, we still haven’t even opened the garden studio or seriously thought about what we will want out there… but we have time. So much time. That’s not urgent.

Y’all. WE HAVE A WHOLE BUILDING OUTSIDE WE HAVEN’T OPENED YET. Ok so it’s the size of a large room, but still.

We are not going to run out of room here any year soon.

I had a really lovely conversation with our neighbors over the weekend. They agree with my reading of the catchment maps, the fence across the street is the dividing line between the schools I want us to go to (primary and secondary) and the ones I don’t really want to go to. Excellent. All of our neighbors have gone to the schools I would prefer. Excellent. That conversation was friendly and fun and I have more hope than I had after we were less than ideal customers for their vehicle renting company. I don’t think they are holding a grudge. Our eagerness to pay for our mess ups hopefully helps. Also: no more renting vans.

Last night we renegotiated chores with the kids. I am pushing Noah to not look for a remote Silicon Valley job that will expect 60-80 hours a week of work. Our passive income is already in the $20,000-$30,000 range. If he writes another book, if he teaches some classes, if he does some consulting… I think we will be more than fine. The average income in this city is under £30,000/year. I want us to be normal here. I am not shooting for being one of the wealthiest families in the town. I think he will have a lot more fun if he cobbles together income from stuff he is interested in rather than forcing him to work for a big company that will expect him to just about turn over his soul for an obscene amount of money.

So we renegotiated with the kids. We are paying them for a lot less. We also put all of the chores into four separate buckets. Some of the buckets are fairly intense (dishes 3x’s a day) and some are not (vacuum the house and clean the common bathrooms once a week) so each of us have some weeks with a bunch of chores and some weeks with not so many. We have planned that rotation out through the end of October when we will talk about how we are each doing with the schedule.

I am fairly excited that the kids are responsible for their own rooms and laundry and I don’t need to police it because they are not shared areas and I don’t have to look at the work if it doesn’t get done. Sounds like heaven.

If something terrible happened and we couldn’t acquire food from a store we can last a good month on what we have in the freezer/pantry. My prepper heart is at peace.

We blocked the holes at the bottom of the fence. No children will fall into the burn. (A burn is a small stream.) This is good and brings me a lot of peace.

The big kids are still asking to sleep in the same room as us. Right now we have the air mattresses in the lounge and we are all in there together. That feels very ok as we are settling in. They have been through so much in the last year. MC was telling me that they have big feelings because they feel like they “shouldn’t” need to sleep near me at this age because most of their peers are sleeping independently already. I said that just because most parents will not permit cosleeping doesn’t mean the kids are always happy about it. Our family is doing what works for us and it really doesn’t matter what anyone else is ok with. My kids will outgrow needing me this way. I don’t know when, but I have great faith it will happen. Until then I see no reason to force the separation.

Last night I slept better. Being near the end of the chore cycle feels so good. I still can’t wait to get my dreamy mattress.

Today for work I am sweeping all the hard floors and mopping. I cleaned up the table and high chair and I am going to tidy up the counters. I’m feeling pretty happy about being the one to establish the baseline of what a “clean kitchen” looks like.

Our pantry is full, but isn’t bursting. There is still a little bit of room and the downstairs kitchen isn’t full. That feels like a good place to be right now as we figure out what other things we would like to acquire going forward. We have room but we aren’t in need.

Today I think the house will be tidy enough to walk around and take pictures of it to share with friends. I am a neurotic person and I don’t share pictures of the explosions of mess.

I am happy we have a desk for the computers to live on so that screens don’t go in bedrooms. I want us to change our relationship to how we use screens. We have done a lot of “feeling trapped so I will distract myself with the screen” stuff over the past few years and given all the lovely opportunities to go outside and make art and have quiet space around our bodies… I want to change that. We are so very lucky.

I have been noticing a lot of holes and cracks in the walls. Someone else might feel cranky about them. I feel relief. At first I was worried the house was a little too perfect and anything I might do might mess it up and then I am bad. Instead I feel like the house is perfectly imperfect. I can do things. I can improve things. If I make a mistake, well it clearly isn’t the first one and the house is still breathtakingly wonderful.

I haven’t started trimming the garden back for autumn yet. The former owner told me October/November is best for that. We still have beautiful bright flowers all over.

I am so very happy.

Work continues.

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Settling in is a lot of work. I am done with the van rental. I scraped the paint on the drivers door BECAUSE THE OWNER OF THE VAN RENTAL COMPANY DOES NOT TRIM BACK THE TREE FROM OUR SHARED DRIVEWAY. So that sucks. We have now damaged two of his vans and I will never ever rent from him again and we have made the worst first impression possible. Cheers.

The fridge that wasn’t supposed to arrive until October came today. But we can’t get it through the door until we find someone with better tools to help us take the door off the hinges so the box can slide through. Cheers.

I still have a mountain of laundry and goods to sort through and many pieces of furniture to assemble, but it is feeling like an end is in sight. I suspect that by the end of this weekend I will have a normal day-to-day level of cleaning ahead of me. That’s pretty good news.

The beds won’t be here until October though. Every joint in my body is flaming hot and awful and cranky. My back is killing me. My head is killing me. My feet hurt. My legs are really sore. My hands are killing me. My uterus waited until the rental van frantic shopping was done to release the blood bath. (Thank you uterus, I consider that an extreme kindness.) But now my entire lower body is contorting with cramps. Cheers!

I continue to struggle with moderating my cranky level. I keep trying to be nice. It’s a struggle at the moment.

I have a respectable Brexit pantry and a fairly full deep freeze. Adding a couple of things here and there over the next few weeks will fill everything out nicely and we will be ready to weather the storm of political upset to come. Even if supply lines get cut, we will be able to eat ok for a couple of weeks. Thank you prepper background.

My kids are upstairs working on academics. Noah is doing… I don’t know what but it counts as work.

I am almost to the point where I can just chill out. Not many more days on this work cycle. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and for once… it doesn’t look like a train.

Tapping toes

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In 4 days my middle child turns 9.

In 6 days we leave the country; Noah has plans to come back for work… the rest of us don’t. Hello Bangkok!

In 9 days we legally own a house in Scotland and my wonderful, sweet, helpful friend will be collecting keys from our solicitor so there is no delay!

In 16 days we arrive in Inverness and the fun truly begins.

Jenny really wants us there. I can tell. She has offered to let us borrow (possibly keep) a very large number of items, including: dishes, a kid bed, an adult mattress, duvets, a crock pot, sheets… It’s like this woman wants me to stay and feel comfortable!

She’s got a 10 year head start on me, but we get to learn how to be Scottish together. This’ll be grand.

I slept meh last night. If I hadn’t missed the night before it would have been plenty, instead I’m still tired.

Ikea then a housewarming. Wake up, Little Susie.

Noah sent out a goodbye email to pretty much everyone we have ever sent an email to. Now folks are coming out of the woodwork wanting to say goodbye. Uh, we left the state already. You missed your window. Where were you all those years we lived there? Busy? Ok. We will take one more possible obligation off your plate.

I want chill. I want green. WHERE IS ALL THE DANG WATER FROM THE SKY!? My body hates this heat wave so much.

Noah and I are making plans. We are going to be living on a much reduced income so we can’t spend money the way we have learned to in the valley. Our food budget is getting cut in half. Really… a bit further than that. It means cakes, cookies, candy, and drinks are going to be very rare treats. Bath stuff and random things can no longer “sneak” into the grocery budget. It’s going to take us a bit to start properly having a tiny savings so that we can make more interesting purchases.

Fitness stuff is going to be a lot of what we do. We are definitely people who like to spend time on our computer but we are also keen walkers. And our house has lots of space for the exercise equipment we favor. I have a TRX set up (it’s a strap system) that helps me through all of my PT and Noah heavily favors kettle bells. We can set these things up in the lounge as a permanent installation and then we won’t have the excuse of “there is no where to do the work”. I’m up a good 25 lbs since we started on this journey and I’d like my clothes to be more comfortable again. Given that I do not intend to waste money on a scale that means I want to start exercising so that I fit my clothes better and I have no idea where I will end up.

Health at every size. Right now I can’t do my exercises (both logistical reasons and strength reasons) and that’s bothering me.

Besides we have more fun fucking each other when we are in better shape. We both hope that with all of the increased access to privacy our sex life might reemerge as a fun hobby we share.

Sex has come a long way. Right now we don’t have sex very often. Like, once or twice a month has been our average for a while. We have no privacy and that’s a big barrier for me. But I’m thinking about sex more than I have for a while. I am not sure it will take a full five years postpartum this time for me to be really interested.

I am 99% certain that my next period will be in my own house. That sounds really wonderful. If it is not too freakishly cold (we’ll see!) I sort of intend to spend several hours on my “Oh my god is that a period or a hemorrhage” day sitting outside with no pants (or trousers!) on. I’m going to bond with the earth, yo. I hope it will be the most relaxing cycle of my life. And less laundry. Bonus.

I am going to get family cloth and a little bucket for every single bathroom in the house. Septic systems are no joke, yo. (With some supplemental paper for getting poop.)

Her Sweetness is absolutely talking up a storm. She tells us “no!” and “stop!” when she doesn’t want something. She says, “Help!” and “please” and “mine”. It’s so funny. She is starting to get colors. She can talk about her getting dressed and clean process in a combination of words and signs. She is super keen to communicate and be part of the pod. She likes carrying a bag when the rest of us are doing so. She loves to laugh.

I am so very grateful I got to have a third child despite the challenges. She is a really wonderful person. It’s so lovely to break the “my kid/your kid” assignation of behaviors and traits and personality bits. She’s like all four of us. She’s completely herself. We all have to work on our petty jealousies and pissiness because she’s a baby and we chose to bring her into this world. We need to be nice about it.

Middle Child has confessed they didn’t know what they were getting into and sometimes it is hard to not be the baby anymore. That makes a lot of sense. They are still so wonderful with their sister. They try hard to be gentle and helpful. They play together. Kiddo is trying so hard and I am so full of love and respect for the efforts.

My kids are growing up and it’s pretty amazing.

The kids are in a funny place with money and chores. They are still doing chores but they keep forgetting to write it down. I tell them that they can work for free or they can get paid for keeping track of their work. Lately I’ve been getting a ton of free work. So they are sad that they are not accumulating more money. Dude! WRITE DOWN YOUR STUFF ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS AND I’LL BLOODY PAY YOU! We sat down yesterday and priced out a basic back-to-school-kit and uniform selection. Now they feel nervous. They kind of slacked off over the last month. They would have been in a great place for all of these purchases but… they stopped writing anything down. Whoops.

It’s a learning experience.

School won’t give you credit for doing your homework if you bring the math worksheet home, do all the work on the separate piece of scratch paper then throw away the scratch sheet and try to turn in the blank worksheet. “But I did the work!” Yeah… that’s not how it works. If you have a job and you neglect to clock in… you can’t just go back at the end of the week and say, “Yeah I was totally ontime every day; you should pay me all the monies!” “But surely I did all of my hygiene this week, pay me.” “I clearly remember you skipping it on day A, B, C, I had to yell at you 7 times on day D…”

Write it down on the day you do it. That’s why you have a day planner. Are you choosing to skip that step? Then you are choosing to make the work free. Cheers and thank you so much for all your hard work. You are definitely working.

It’s a process! Follow through is hard for a bunch of unstable ADHD folk.

Thus Eldest Child is on Pinterest trying to learn about organization systems so she can get one started right when we arrive. It’s glorious.

I am tired and the day is just beginning. That’s ok. I don’t have a lot of proper work to do. I’m day dreaming lists of stuff I will want in the house. Here is a possible list. (We will not show up and buy all of these things instantly, I expect we are going to be Good Customers at the charity shops and we will buy things new as we have to.)

Obviously we have a long way to go.

Kitchen Dining room Family bedroom Bathrooms Noah office Krissy bedroom Shanna bedroom Orion bedroom Lounge Jennabeth bedroom Laundry room Miscellaneous Hall Garden Studio Kitchen stuff
Refrigerator Table and chairs mattresses toilet paper Kettlebells Bed Bed tumbling mats Detergents and soaps Kid school uniforms baby gate Seating? 2 large frying pans
Cleaning tools (sponges, mop, broom) Additional silverware/dishes Blankets soap Monitor clock alarm clock alarm clock couch Shoe rack Lunch boxes Shoe rack Grill 1 small frying pan
Dish soap, dishwasher soap, hand soap Pillows Printer coat rack bars for the wall. chest of drawers chest of drawers Personal water bottles Coat hooks? nanny cam 1 wok
Food storage devices Clock Plungers Caffeine brick Bed Tables and chairs Vacuum Replace fence along burn drafting table 1 large stock pot
child safety locks Sheets Toilet brushes Standing desk Desk w/ ergonoic setup Desk w/ ergonomic setup Desk w/ ergonomic setup Projector bed Replace driveway gate easel 1 medium stock pot
Knives whiteboard for calendar Toilet paper holders? Monitor stand or swing arm WiFi Router etc. paper 1 small sauce pan
tea pot, sugar bowl, milk pitcher Towels whiteboard dresser electric drill art supplies 1 large roasting pan
Clock black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains 4 cookie sheets
shampoo/conditioner 2 bread pans
rice maker?
insta pot?
eggcarton and curtain soundproofing cutting boards
Crock pot Lighting for video potato masher
Big soup/stock pot grater
Roasting pan for turkey veggie peeler
collander
KitchenAid Mixer mixing bowls
Ice cream machine measuring spoons/cups/pitchers
Deep-dish pizza pan

Obviously I have not accounted for everything. It is going to take many years to accumulate this stuff at the rate we plan to spend money.

It’ll be ok. We have time and patience. In my experience it is a lot easier to do without if you are living with joy in the meantime.

Holy Crisco

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Today is the day.

We start getting offers in the house. I babbled a little on Twitter but I think I can’t help myself. This will get a proper story.

There was a couple who showed up when they shouldn’t last night. They came after the open house. But I was home and everyone was dressed and I really want to sell my house so I showed it to them. I was a little melodramatic as I said, “But really the best part is the bathroom….” I’m getting show offy. It’s silly. I am super proud of how much effort I put into this house. I worked and the results are glorious.

I’m really hoping people include letters. I think I’m going to find what I’m looking for in a buyer. Like the couple last night was young and newly married and they hope to have children. They want two. They agree that this set up would be really perfect for two.

When someone leans out the backyard and gets quivery with excitement because they can imagine their child getting to go play in the fun yard…

That’s what I want. They asked me if it had ever been a school; I said near enough.

How could you leave this? That’s the right attitude folks. You want to know why you feel like that and I can walk away? You can’t make this. I can. I could do it again over and over. And I will learn from my mistakes and get better and faster each time I do it. You will buy someone else’s effort and have to take care of it and not let it degrade. Because you can’t replace it.

I’m glad you see the value though.

I think this is the first time I have ever seriously sold art. Because holy tomato on cheesetoast am I doing that. I’m selling art. And a house. And I’m waiting for bids.

Oh wow. That’s intense. GAH!

And I have to drive in the middle of the day so I can’t medicate much. Oh boy. I think a long walk will happen when the kids wake up.

I’m really tired. I hurt a lot. I feel slow and achey. I should take a bath. So should my kids. Maybe we will take a bath with our breakfast and then we can go for a walk. That would be really fun. Then a bit of academics before a car ride to see the orthodontist and a therapist. Because it’s a Monday. I am going to try and negotiate the orthodontist visits until the end of the year (she is loathe to do so… she prefers her calendar set only 3 months in advance but I’ll get my way so I can plan travel) and this is the last kiddo therapy session. There will be an adult check in with this therapist next week because I have questions about school stuff and I’d like advice and feedback. This seems like an important time to ask for such feedback.

Eldest Child has already had her last therapy session for a while. Indefinitely. There is nothing on the books. Middle Child has his last therapy session today. We are flying blind for a while. Parenting like normal unsupervised people.

This is terrifying.

Frankly their therapists have been trying to get my kids off the roster for a bit here. They mostly waited until we moved to be polite. Their words are approximately, “As much as I love hanging out with your child they don’t have any real issues and I have a waiting list of children who do….”

So on we go. That makes sense.

I’m told I am doing well. I need to believe all these people I pay lots of money and I need to just get on with it. Stop asking to be judged and just live.

I feel like this is a leftover from school. Where is my A? Have I done the assignment well enough?

The lady last night was super excited when I talked about how if you take a bath at night with a few candles the light makes the walls glitter. There are silver and sparkly and glittery tiles all through the walls and the light plays off the ceiling and it looks like clouds rolling through the sky.

It’s beautiful.

And this could all be yours! For the low low price of…. make me an offer that beats the other 90 something groups that came through this weekend. Cheers. Market rate, people!

If someone mentions being LGBTQI+ in their letter they move to the top of the pile. Because tribalism is real.

Not that I’m saying we are a tribe. I know better. Gosh the nasty things I heard about tribe.net as I traveled…. phew.

We all live within our own little bubbles.

My shoulder is feeling very jacked up again. I haven’t even done anything bad recently! What the heck! I’m being good! Sorta. That is one fat baby. She’s glorious.

I have over three hours until I need to drive. That’s awesome. Time to rest my arms again. Maybe.

Looking at numbers

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Since the beginning of my time on Mint I have spent $671,557.96 on my house. That’s all spending.

I started using Mint in September of 2009. So 9 years of tracking. Noah and I were married for three years before that and he bought the house in December of 2002 I think. Let’s call it 16 years of paying on the mortgage. I’m away one year from being done with it.

Obviously the home equity line of credit would own my ass for a few years if I stayed.

If I look at just the bathroom remodel let’s say I put in 9 months of labor (I put in over 2 years) and that I worked 10 hours a day 5 days a week. (In reality I often worked 12-16 hours/day and 6 or 7 days per week.) But just to make the number not seem inflated.

Very conservatively that’s 1,950 hours. I’ll call it 2,000 just to make it easier. I mean… really.

Then there’s the garage. That was not as laborious, but it took quite a bit of work. And the yards.

I understand that a lot of the painting in my house (bedrooms, living room, kitchen) are on the chopping block.

So let’s say that I have put an absolute minimum of 3,000 hours of work on my house.

In between principal and interest and other major home remodeling stuff I’m going to guess that Noah paid $150,000 before I started tracking on mint.

So we’ve paid out of pocket probably at least $800,000 for this house and yard and arbor and play set and and and.

How much is my time worth?

How much is my creativity worth?

Now, paying a lot of money for something doesn’t mean you can get that money back. Sometimes you can’t. That’s a fact and I get that.

Houses in my neighborhood are selling in under a month for over a million dollars.

How much do I value myself and the future I can have with Noah and my kids?

Questions.

If I make the house neutral enough but leave some symbolic art pieces (most of the garage, the hallway, the bathroom) I can probably find someone who is genuinely excited to own this house with the art.

I won’t get to visit the art again, but such is life.

I wanted to sell to a friend. I wanted to be able to visit the art. But if life isn’t going to grant me that serendipity it isn’t. I can cope.

This is going to be complicated.

Everyone has a price.

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I’m pretty sure that everyone who reads this knows I have issues with control. Selling the house is hard on a number of levels. I have put so much physical and emotional labor into this space. It’s complicated because I never wanted to live here… but I grew where I was planted.

I was willing to accept half a million dollars below market value so that I could visit my art in the future and I could feel appreciated for having made these cool things.

My friend came over yesterday and told me that their intention is to paint over the whole house. I think they will keep the tile in the bathroom, but I got the impression that even the trees might be painted over.

I felt like I was punched in the gut.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

I can’t devalue how much of my body and life went into this house. I can’t fuck my family financially so you can erase me.

They are going to paint over it with a nice cream.

A nice cream.

I mean, that’s a lovely thing to want. But you can pay market value for wanting that. Market value in my neighborhood starts at $1.2 million, not $750,000. Shitty condos in my area are selling for more than $750,000.

I am cannot subsidize your dreams at the expense of all of my own. Accepting that much less money means Noah will have to wait longer to retire and one of our biggest stated reasons for selling the house is so that Noah can retire earlier.

No.

I can’t accept that offer. I will hate myself until the day I die for accepting that my work here was worth so little money in the scheme of what things are worth in this valley.

The house was a nice cream when I moved in. (Not really. It was a crappy white. But what-fucking-ever.)

No.

I can’t subsidize that. I can’t. It would be violent erasure of myself for me to accept that. It would be accepting that I only deserve to get the actual money I’ve already paid back and my improvements are worthless.

No.

That’s… no.

Apparently my price to be erased is higher than that.

Inch by inch

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We passed final inspection with three notes. (The inspector asked me if I trust the company enough to finish after he leaves. I said yes–they’ve been great by me.) They had to attach the gutter downspouts to the house and they needed to change the messed up spout for the front yard hose. Everything else is golden.

They sealed the rest of my bedroom and replaced the moldy board. They are done in that room. I just have to paint.

Because the downspouts weren’t done I ran to Home Depot and got rain barrels. I’m so excited. I’ve wanted them for years.

Definitely feeling better without Lamictal.

Hurry, hurry

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This week might be the end of construction workers in my house. We’ll see. I’m hopeful. In the bathroom there are two towel bars left to hang, a piece or two of baseboard that have been cut perfectly and just need to be nailed to the wall, and then the whole damn bathroom needs to be sealed.

I think that’s one day of work left…

The we get to go in my bedroom and knock out the drywall and replace it with new drywall and insulation. Because my bedroom has mold problems from the lack of insulation. Fixing the stucco will help… but the lack of insulation is always going to create a pocket of wet over there. We have to fix it. I don’t know why the other two remaining uninsulated walls don’t mold in the same way but they don’t.

Then we pick up garbage from the yard. Then we are done.

Except for all the painting I haven’t completely finished yet. I’m really far!

I need to touch up the ceiling in the hallway. I need to touch up the green through the house. I need to fix the flower on the hallway mural. I need to repaint my bedroom. I have a day or two of painting left in the kitchen. I need to paint all the door frames and doors.

That’s the end of the list, I think? The door frames are going to be proscenium arches and every door will lead you somewhere different. I’m looking forward to that part. Each door will probably be a day of painting. I’d like to paint five doors.

I think I have a solid 10 days of painting left. I don’t mind doing that after the guys leave.

Hurry hurry hurry… almost done.

My main assistant/lead guy is gone now. Yesterday was his last day. So I had him sign the wall and I slipped him a large cash bonus. Thank you for all of your hard, dedicated work. Your attention to detail is going to be making me happy for years to come. I’m so grateful I got to work with you. The assistant who is left is a very can-do sort of guy. This will be a good few days.

Phew.

Almost done, almost done, almost done.

Then I’m going to collapse and not do much for a few months. Oh god.

I have all the stuff to donate in the back of the van. I think I will have that emptied out on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday I plan to go to Ikea for the few remaining things I need (a cabinet for right next to the bathtub so I can put bathing supplies within reach, hopefully more of the plastic drawers) and then I’m down to collecting plants.

PLANTS

I will have plants in my bathroom. I’m so excited. I want the air purification, desperately. I think it’ll help.

Ok, so lets call it three more weeks of work for me. But a semi-relaxed three weeks. It doesn’t have to be 12 hour work days or anything.

And I’m already sneaking outside to weed and garden. This year will be glorious.

Ok, time to get dressed and get started on today. Lots to do. Only a little ways to go. I can do this.

Almost done.

Ow.

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My hands are very pissed off about life. Such will be the constant chorus for the next month or more. 5 days in. Lots of progress made. We are like more than 2′ up the shower wall. Woo. Well, on two out of three sides at least.

It’s coming. Today I get to do more grid making for him. If I make grids of tiles then he can put up a bunch at once instead of one at a time.

The work continues.

And miles to go before I sleep.

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I’d say that my friends added about 7 hours of painting to the walls. (Thanks, y’all. I appreciate it.) I’ve done about 20 hours of painting so far.

I think it’s going to be 100-250ish hours of painting on the whole damn project. Do you know how much that sucks to think right this minute?

Because I also need to clean the mold and repaint my bedroom. Cause mold treatment. Hi, breathing problems.

And the hallway is jacked up and needs to be fixed. And they damaged the walls in the garage and I want to fix that.

No rest for the driven. Whyyyyyyyyyy do I care so much? I don’t know. But I’m going to get dressed in painting clothes right now and get started because I’ve got shit to do.

Today I’m going to finish the ceiling in the playroom, then move back to the bathroom. Oh the bathroom needs to be finished before I finish all the rest of the house. Maybe I’ll carefully lay out some drop cloth and work on the willow tree. That would be lovely.

The floor will either be finished today or tomorrow, as I predicted. The boss wanted it done by Wednesday. Ha. Not even. Actually… if I go look at the floor… definitely not finishing today. He might finish laying the tiles today but then he has to grout and do additional steps. He’ll finish the floor and do permanent toilet installations tomorrow, I hope.

I hope. I hope. I hope.

With luck on Tuesday he will start the wall tiles and that’ll be all that there is left to do. The death march of tile laying. Dum dum de dum dum de dum de dum de dum.

It’s going to be brutal. And boring. And take fucking forever.

Yesterday I think we offended him. I was talking to him about child rearing. He doesn’t believe  young children should have to do anything for themselves. He thinks that little kids should be cosseted like the precious jewels that they are and helped at all times because soon enough they will have to make their own money and support themselves.

I can’t disagree with him. But I asked him how many adults are around to provide that kind of care. Quite a few. They live with family. There is always an adult free to help kids.

We… we don’t have that available in our life. We just don’t. Our kids have to be independent in a way that other children may not have to be. My kids have two parents who work a lot and… not really other people around. My kids have to be able to do for themselves. I get why that might bother someone on an emotional level because it feels overly harsh and unfair…

I do get it.

But I don’t know how to explain that my kids have significantly more support than I ever had and I’m not physically capable of providing more support. It doesn’t matter if I can explain that. If your culture says it is monstrous to not dote on children and I don’t dote on my children… There is no justifying that.

I come from the kind of culture where if you can’t do something for yourself you aren’t going to get to do it. Sorrynotsorry.

I suppose that makes us really mean. Just add it to the list of reasons that I’m a monster. I am not willing to spend my whole day assisting a child in playing. If you want to color, there are crayons available. I’m not going to sit next to you uncapping each marker as you want to use it. Errr, no. That’s not my job.

Which means we are mean. Ok.

If I do that work who is going to do the painting and the dishes and the picking up and the laundry and and and and and and.

If I do that for one child, I am not really available to serve the other three children in the same capacity. How is that really more fair?

Nope. I’m not a mobile entertainment device. You will have to figure it out. If that frustrates you… welcome to life, kid. It is frustrating as shit.

I say I think I offended him because after this conversation he put on very loud Christian music. It seemed like a message. I… I listened to the music and felt irritated. I did not feel a lot of patience in my soul for the message of Christianity yesterday. Even though I in general support religion for folks.

I was thinking about it. I wonder if Christianity/Islam/Judaism make sense to me because they seem to me to be forms of group magic. We believe in a thing so we will work to make it so because that’s how you make a thing.

I get magic. That’s just… that’s just how the world is altered over and over and over again. I believe in magic and most religions just seem to me to be a way to try and use magic in the world.

But yesterday I was feeling pissy about the message of submission. It’s ok to suffer because God wants you to.

Oh the feelings.

So tired.

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I should have gotten up and started painting. I didn’t.

I should have gotten up and did a bunch of work on the end-of-year-financial-post. I didn’t.

I should have gotten up and folded laundry. I didn’t.

I should have gotten up and cleaned the living room. I didn’t.

Instead I read about peoples lives on the internet.

My body hurts so much. I’m at the point where I’m probably damaging myself again. I’m working long past “acceptable load” for my body.

I want this remodel over with and the only way to get to that point is to do a fantastic amount of work. But I hurt. I’m taking Ibuprofen at a fantastic rate. Usually I suffer through not taking it. I can’t right now.

But the remodel work is on top of home schooling. And washing god damn dishes all fucking night and day. And my Bonus Kids are here for a few days. Lemmetellya having kids around… is work. Even if you get nothing done. Mediating arguments and fights. Helping them divvy up spoils of war. It’s work.

Teaching children how to be civilized human beings instead of feral animals is work.

I’m tired. I feel like no amount of work is enough and I’m drowning. And I’m too fucking cold to take my pajamas off to put fucking painting clothes on. My bones hurt. So I sit here and cry because I feel lazy and pathetic because I’m whining about why I’m not working instead of just getting some god damn work done when the kids are asleep and distracted.

I want my pain levels under a 3. Right now things are banging between 5 & 7 and it’s going to get worse before this project ends.

I’m having a hard morning and no one else is awake yet. That’s not a great sign. I should medicate. Now. Then…. I don’t know. Probably more crying.

 

Ok, I did almost two hours of work on the end of year review. I’m not a complete waste of oxygen. Now to deal with children who are whining because they don’t get to be first every time.

Looking forward

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Goodness. I feel kind of like a bastard because 2016 has had some serious high points for me. It’s been a dumpster fire of a year, don’t get me wrong… but I had more good than many. I feel pretty good about where 2016 is ending on a variety of levels.

I would say that my marriage needed the strain it experienced this year. I think we both learned a number of things we weren’t really on our way to learning. We decided to have more kids. We decided to stop waiting on M/s stuff. (That’s going. And going pretty well so far… we are going slow.)

Things with the kids are…. well… I’d say that I couldn’t expect better. In pretty much every way I feel like things are going better as a parent than I expected they would. I thought we would have way more problems. Our relationships are pretty good and improving. We are getting better with every year at talking to one another about what we need. They are really excited about the prospect of more kids.

The house remodel… is absolutely driving me bonkers. But every person who walks into my bathroom gasps. It is worth it. Just keep plugging along. Art. Moar Art. I guess at this moment that I have somewhere between 100 and 200 hours of painting ahead of me between now and the finish line. Fuck.

I’m a painter. It’s a thing I do. I do a lot of it. I’m an artist. How will this play into my future?

No clue yet.

We watched Rogue One today. It… it’s a heavy movie. I feel kinda stunned. I think this is the only Star Wars movie I’ve ever really liked. Of course I like the hit-you-in-the-head one.

I’ve said for a long time that I suspect I will live to see some kind of revolution. Then we elected Trump. You know what?

The next four years need to be full of active resistance. The next four years need to involve making concrete actions in the direction of living in the kind of world I want to live in.

It’s kind of funny that I started out vehemently hating the idea of the American Dream. When I studied it in college and grad school I felt so much anger. I did not think it was attainable for me or anyone like me.

Then I arrived.

Holy shit. How do I share this shit.

How can more people have this kind of safety and security? What can I do to help other people have more access to education and choices and medical care?

Revolutions are made by the people who show up. What does showing up mean? It means different things to every person because you can’t make a revolution out of people who are exactly the same. That’s how you create an empire. By wanting people to be all the same so you can use them interchangeably as spokes on a wheel.

I don’t want a well mechanized empire.

I know what that means.

Even if I would be considered one of the “winners”… no. No. No. No. No.

Fuck that. No. But when and where are different levels of aggression worth countering with other levels of aggression?

How do you have a revolution without having a war? How many people have to die to call it a war?

How do we even know what a war means anymore?

There were 10,000 casualties of the war with Kuwait. In the last one hundred years, how many black people has the US government killed when they weren’t doing a damn thing wrong?

What is a war?

I spent my childhood reading books about the Resistance in WWII.

I need to spend a lot more time thinking about what I’m going to do with my life. I know what i want to do with my life in the very long-term. But what am I going to do while I’m growing up? What will I do to shape the person I need to be someday?

Fuck. This will be a lot of work.

Lots of people do lots of things to shape history. Where do I want to stand?

Feeling wired.

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Ok, I’ve been working for almost 10 hours now. I’m on my second break. (At 4:45am) Time to scarf some protein. I have the base tree in summer done. I need to get some leaves on it quick. Today they are installing the vanities and I need to finish the painting that wants to be behind them. Ack. HURRY. Dudes arrive in only 3 hours! Do work!

Nutty. Working like this on no sleep is nutty.

Oh hey, I think I just celebrated Solstice by staying up all night. That’s a little bit cool.

I’m vibrating.

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I took caffeine. Lots of it. I’ve been working for 5 hours so far. This is my first break. It seems wise to take a break because whoa paint fumes. But things are coming along! I did the magnetic primer on the one small part of the wall in the hallway. I did a bunch of wall prep for painting in the play room. And I’m working on a tree in spring! It’s going to be a cherry tree so I can make beautiful pink blooms once I’m ready to stand up again.

Progress! Like, serious progress! Tomorrow they install the floor tiles! I figured out how to use the green tile without injuring anyone! I’m proud of myself!

DID I MENTION THAT I HAD A FUCK TON OF CAFFEINE? HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

The vanities will be in place tomorrow. Once the vanities and the flooring are in place and the lights are installed (they are here and everything) then the playroom is empty of all but the tools the construction workers are actively using! It’ll be time to paint!

So the week between Christmas and New Years will be a Minecraft painting extravaganza. Hellz yeah.

DID I MENTION THAT IT WAS A LOT OF CAFFEINE? OH MY GOD.

One Vivarin. One pot of tea. 32 oz of soda. THAT’S A REALLY LOT COMPARED TO THE FACT THAT NORMALLY I HAVE MAYBE TWO CUPS OF TEA IN THE MORNING. HOLY SHIT.

Ok. That was a 15 minute break. I should go work again.

GET SHIT DONE. WITH NO CHILDREN NAGGING ME. MUAHAHAHAHAHA

I will pay for this later.