Perpetual Ruminations

Getting Close, And Then?

It's been a while since I've done much in WdC or in here, so this seems like a good place to start, then off to the Newsfeed, and then off to get some work done.

So, what's been happening with me? It's been crazy; let me tell you...

We reside in a duplex, one apartment up front, and we live in the back. Well, we did until just recently. Our neighbor in front decided to move at the start of the year, so we talked to our landlord about opening a doorway between the two apartments and renting the entire house. He said yes, and that he would work on it as soon as Lisa moved out on February first.

She started moving in January and it was looking good for us to be in shortly after the first, but she didn't move much at a time and only one or two days per week, so it was pushed back to March first for us to officially move in, and the landlord would have things ready about mid-month so we could start moving some things around.

There are four of us, two teens and two adults, ad our apartment is only two bedrooms and is rather small. Our bedroom is pretty big, so we divided it into two rooms, so each teen has a room, there is a kitchen-dining area and a decent-sized living room. The front apartment is about the same size but has a bigger and new kitchen, so we wanted to move our stove and fridge over here, put one teen in the larger bedroom river here, and get our entire bedroom back. The extra bedroom in the front is a bit small, so it became my office/writing haven.

The front finally opened up the last week in February and the doorway was installed the last day of the month, so we finally could start moving (I despise moving) our stuff over, after a good cleaning. The woman who rented the front didn't clean anything, and it turns out, she was not a very clean person, so it took a week to deep clean everything. Finally, after a thorough cleaning, we could move. On'y, my wife works and the teens have school, so a lot of the heavy moving was done on the weekends and I did the lighter work on weekdays. We finally have things pretty well moved and set up, but still a lot of little things to do, My office is a mess, with stuff stacked and piled since it was the last room to set up.

I thought it would go faster since we were moving within the same house, but moving is moving and it sucks, takes a crap-load of time, and with trying to keep up with cooking and getting kids off to school, I just have not had time for much of anything else. We also had our youngest teen in a school play this last weekend, so there was driving her back and forth for practice. Our older teen is in robotics right after school, so she also needed a ride home, and of course, these extra activities could not coincide at the same time.

Our heating system has been acting up a lot this year and it's been a weekly, sometimes bi-weekly, call to get someone out to fix it. No matter what they do or replace, something else messes up (I reset the damned thing at least twice a day, sometimes more) so we don't freeze up. On top of this, the weather hasn't cooperated in the least, it's been cold (sub-zero) until a week ago, and now that it's getting up to thawing during the day, we are getting snow every other day (like I really have had time for shoveling and chipping at ice). Oh, and I know most of you already know we got a Huskie puppy in December, so I have a great deal of time taken up with training and spending with him.

As you can imagine, I have had little time for anything, including sleep, since the end of February when this all started. But, now that we have the biggest chunk of the work complete, I can finally get a full night's sleep and have some time during the day to spend here and with my writing; well, once I get my office set up (I'm currently on my laptop at the dining room table).

But wait, I still have my training to do with Max and taking care of Bella. Who's Bella? My wife thought and convinced me, that having a companion for Max would free up more time for me. I mean, he needs a lot of interactions, playtime, and training, so it makes sense. She saw an ad for Australian Shepards and went to look at them on Tuesday. She returned home with Bella, who just turned seven. I'm talking weeks, not years.

So, Max weighs about 45 pounds now and will be five months old on Saturday. Bella weighs 4.5 pounds and will be two months old in another week; she's about as big as his head. I don't know how long it will take for Max and her to get used to each other, but hopefully will just be a few days. He does pretty well with her, but he's so big and she's so small that it takes constant supervision whenever they are together. So much for my extra time!

On the bright side, they are both napping right now...