Holy Crow, we are Homeowners!

Oh, the mayhem.  Oh, the humanity. Things have been a flavor of hectic the last while, here, as we are now officially homeowners and all of the logistical insanity that it means (hence missing my normal post date last week--sorry about that!).

After all of the packing and all of the prep, my day started two Fridays ago at 0330, rolling out of bed at Wendy and Jason's pad in Austin, Texas.  I had a lovely time connecting with family that I hadn't had much of a chance to really get to know until that trip, and Wendy had graciously offered to cart my butt to the airport at 0400--I had returned the rental car the night before to have one less thing to do that morning.  Remembering the adage that "Travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo," I was definitely feeling it as I rolled into Bloomington airport at around 1100.  We immediately went to sign the last of the paperwork, then I went to the office to fill out the last of my work paperwork, and we went to unload the kinds of items we didn't want the movers to move (stemware, the TVs, fragile artwork, etc.) into our new place.

Does it look any different after we've signed the papers, put our car in the

garage, and set a unicorn in the window?

Andy had since that morning already moved a few boxes into the garage of our new home, but we walked through the front door together for that first "official" trip.  ...and I felt nothing except the weight of the work we needed to do that weekend.  But I can't say I'm surprised--act first, feel later is my pattern (whether "later" is ever well-defined is another story).  We made movements from our old townhouse to our new house a couple times over, stopping for an early dinner eventually:  we can walk to Destihl from our house in about ten minutes.  My request at that point was to have something that had both coffee and alcohol, because I could already feel the punchiness setting in.  I did, after all, laugh for about twenty minutes solid when I said "Vitamin D batteries" instead of "D Cell batteries."  We slept on an air mattress in our new home the first night, on principle and happily cocooned in our own blanket.

Movers started at around 0715 the next morning and made swift, cheerful work of it.  Thankfully the rain held off until the end.  My folks came up and the four of us set to cleaning up the last of the dregs and things we wanted to move ourselves while the movers were managing all of the heavy lifting.  We managed to clear EVERYTHING out of the townhouse by the beginning of the afternoon.  My folks left; Andy's folks came in and took us on a Lowe's run for all those weird things like rakes, paint samples, and other goodies to get us started.  That night, we plopped into our own bed in its new space.

Tulips out our bedroom window!

Day three, Andy and I woke up and started managing the remainder of the pieces we needed to make waffles and prep for the unpacking party.  Filling our home with friends made it feel more like home than almost anything else had to that point.  We had a lot of hardworking help, which included two dedicated bodies cleaning the entire kitchen and unpacking it, assemblers, organizers, painters, sleuths of the great cord mystery, and all-around schleppers of things.  Thank you all for helping us tackle a number of projects and speed up so much of the unpacking progress.  We appreciate all of you for being present and for those that were present in spirit.

Kick-ass claw-foot recliner

Monday and Tuesday, I had all kinds of ideas for what I wanted to tackle and get done--ultimately, my body gave me a firm "you need to sit down before I make you" at a couple of intervals, which led to more than one nap under protest.  At least on Monday we were able to let in Merry Maids to do the final cleaning of the townhouse for us--very glad we budgeted in that expense, for sure. It definitely helped not to have to worry about that one more step.

Feelings so far include first and foremost gratitude for all of the support we've received.  I cannot thank you all enough for your presence, your hands, and your kindness.  Other than that, I'm finding weariness from the work we've done, a bit of relief in checking things off of the list, an itchy feeling surrounding the components left to do, some excitement over a small piece here or there (those glimpses of "what will be" shining out), and an acknowledgement that a lot of this is going to hit hard later, once there has been enough time to process what the hell has happened and what it actually means.

ThunderPix says "...hi"