So its been a week and one day officially in the new place.
Things I like:
its like double the size of the old place, which means we;ve unpacked boxes we’ve not seen in 3 years since we owned a house.
the kids adore their bunkbeds and ollie is THRILLED to be sharing a room with “yily” and Bruuusss. It generally helps him to go to sleep quicker at bedtime. naptime-not so much.
I’m ever so glad there is laundry in the basement. One shared washer but we each get our own dryer (this being a 2 family and all). So far there hasn’t been a build up of baskets by the washer. I have only even seen the downstairs neighbor once and heard the kids like twice. Someday maybe we’ll meet.
there is a cool playground in walkable distance. The kids love it. There is a great mix of diverse families that hang out there, which is also cool. The kids actually played with OTHER children the other day, engaging in some funny make believe games as they ran around like crazy. delightful.
there is no need for parking permits here, so we had a great pulled pork bbq monday and people could park wherever and I never once had to worry they would get a ticket. our last town we had 2 visitor parking passes we had paid for not to mention a yearly parking fee.
Things I am working out:
we are not even close to being unpacked. ugh
its been unbelieveably hot. so very very hot the last few days. We own one very ancient ac and quite frankly its barely managing the livingroom. because the apartment is all chopped up there is not really any way to cool more than one room at a time.
to complicate matters you can blow a fuse here by using the toaster at the same time the fridge is on and the ac is on. note: the fridge is ALWAYS on. go figure.
today I popped a fuse by vacuuming while the ac was on (to be fair also a computer was plugged in 3 rooms away and the router, and of course the oven) this presents a bit of a problem as we have a metric ton of things that plug in. we’re hoping that perhaps investing in more energy efficient ac’s will help. The behemoth in the window now can not be helping. apparently the apt is divided in half, one side of the hall is on one line and the other side is on another line. the downside of this is that 3 of the 4 bedrooms are on one side of the hall and um, there are like 3 plugs on the other side. not exaggerating. this is going to be interesting.
perhaps all that reading I do on simplicity will come in handy now.
The sewing/hobby/office room is awesome. it is also the place that most sadly displays our ridicoulous amount of stuff. or maybe that is the guest room where there are 2 bookshelves overflowing with books and a closet we’re hiding stuff we’re not ready to cope with. or maybe its the kids room where there are toys EVERYWHERE all the time.
we own A LOT OF STUFF.
the last few years stuff has been either in storage or in large basement storage areas. here we have one closet in the basement for storage. one. and its not entirely huge. all the sudden I am aware of how much I own. its alot. I mean alot. oh dear.
so this will be the year of having a bit of a chat with Jesus about what we really need.
as I say this my husband is off procuring at least 1 but likely 2 ac’s. clearly we have a ways to go.
but I mean other stuff, stuff like 400 billion pictures from years past that I never scrapbooked or even put in a photo album ever.
things like boxes of teaching supplies. seriously I taught for 2.5 years, where is all this stuff from? Boxes of it. boxes.
notes and cds/dvds from our VLI class. taxes from 2001, random bits of stuff everywhere. scrapbooking things that have been in boxes for 3 years, and boxes of decorations which have barely ever seen the light of day because we move so very often.
I’m worried I may have a bon fire I regret. I am also worried I will never be able to part with anything. I mean seriously I read a lot of national geographic lately and people in other parts of the world cook with yak dung, walk 8 hours to get water everyday and live in tents. I think I should be able to live comfortably in a 3 bedroom with an office. I will keep reading the national geographic for inspiration.
and make some serious use of freecycle.
oh this is a long post.
also I am hugely pregnant. and its been hot, like really awfully hot. I actually slept on the couch last night in the only room with an ac because I couldn’t sleep in our hot room. Lily was on the floor sleeping twice during the night, I think she moves around so much she falls out of her bottom bunk- but also the fan was probably better on the floor. poor kid.
and I do not like being pregnant in the heat. I am working on not being so much of a whiner about it, forgive me, its the first week of for real summer here. I’ll get it together. but my poor poor ankles, they are not so bad in the morning but by evening, they are huge. sigh. summer pregnancy, yuck.
and I could go on but I will spare you. Currently I have all my kids on the couch or the floor int he living room and am typing in the dark while listening to the red sox on radio while Luke procures at least one free ac and maybe buys another. I don’t dare leave this room except to pee lest I melt (see still whining, sorry) and so there is not much else I can do right now, which is why this is so long 