Did someone say five things?
1. I won't say the pod packing went without a hitch, but it went off, at any rate. All thanks to mouseman, ruarri and wstockall in particular, who was there to help every night, the masochist. The local company who handles the PODS dealership was full of awesome, on time and helpful. (Note to self: stop buying books! They are heavy to pack and it took two orders of magnitude longer to do that than anything else.)
2. The power, water and gas are finally turned off and the meters collected, after a somewhat more prolonged struggle with the bureaucracy that I'd planned for. Still, all done, and without too much loss of temper. There is now a large hole in the alley where the gas people came in to clamp things off at the main.
3. In the time between having plans drawn up, and having the house built, the city decided that they needed us to have less window space on the side facing the house next door. After some reflection and a call to our designer, the plans have been revised. One main floor window has been re-sized to a smaller, higher "piano" window, as has one in the main bedroom. This allows us to retain some natural light and frankly I'm fine with having a bit less window space looking onto another house less than 10 feet away.
4. We're still trying to find someone to make a tree that needs to be removed into lumber, but we may finally have a lead on that. Maybe.
5. My sister-in-law asked me a few weeks ago how the house thing was going and I said that right now I was trying to decide if alcohol alone was going to be enough to numb the pain of this year or whether I should move to something more potent. In not unrelated news, I have a bottle of port waiting for the day that the teardown is happening.
6. In less happy news, my mother has developed a bad case of shingles, mostly on her face and in her eyes. It's possible she may lose some of her sight, although the opthamologist is optimistic.
7. It would appear that I'm about to inherit the web mastery role for the local weavers/spinners guild. Somehow, I knew it was just a matter of time, so I'm quite resigned to my fate.
2. The power, water and gas are finally turned off and the meters collected, after a somewhat more prolonged struggle with the bureaucracy that I'd planned for. Still, all done, and without too much loss of temper. There is now a large hole in the alley where the gas people came in to clamp things off at the main.
3. In the time between having plans drawn up, and having the house built, the city decided that they needed us to have less window space on the side facing the house next door. After some reflection and a call to our designer, the plans have been revised. One main floor window has been re-sized to a smaller, higher "piano" window, as has one in the main bedroom. This allows us to retain some natural light and frankly I'm fine with having a bit less window space looking onto another house less than 10 feet away.
4. We're still trying to find someone to make a tree that needs to be removed into lumber, but we may finally have a lead on that. Maybe.
5. My sister-in-law asked me a few weeks ago how the house thing was going and I said that right now I was trying to decide if alcohol alone was going to be enough to numb the pain of this year or whether I should move to something more potent. In not unrelated news, I have a bottle of port waiting for the day that the teardown is happening.
6. In less happy news, my mother has developed a bad case of shingles, mostly on her face and in her eyes. It's possible she may lose some of her sight, although the opthamologist is optimistic.
7. It would appear that I'm about to inherit the web mastery role for the local weavers/spinners guild. Somehow, I knew it was just a matter of time, so I'm quite resigned to my fate.