Three blessings
I'm still here. I'm still reading. But I'm a little shocked it's been nearly a month since I've posted.
I've kept up three things since my doctor's appointment last month: I've been taking high doses of Vitamin D (as he prescribed), I've continued eating mostly gluten free (with no concern for cross contamination) and I've been taking a bloody expensive, but comprehensive probiotic supplement. Which one is helping? I don't think it matters at this point. I'm feeling better. Not miraculously overnight better like when I first went off the gluten, but slowly, small gains everyday sort of better.
Eating has been complicated by the disaster the kitchen is in, but we're making progress on that.
Part of the reason for the long silence was that I decided enough was enough and it was time to get our storage crates out of storage and unpack them into the house. So I called the company and the nice man with the forklift brought five huge crates to us. We only had a week (over Thanksgiving weekend) to unpack them. (And before that I was busting my tail trying to finish painting upstairs... I failed, but made a lot of good progress.)
Now we are shuffling boxes from room to room, trying to figure out what is going to live where and how to store it all. Yesterday I exploded the kitchen into the dining area and Chris assembled some of the shelving that used to live in our garage. Today I'm unpacking boxes of kitchen stuff onto these shelves. Hooray for honking huge kitchens! We also ordered some specialty bookcases for the toy room. Those are going to take 6-ish weeks to arrive, so we have a little time, but we'll need to clear out the toy room before the delivery date.
We also have a bunch of furniture (unassembled) hiding out in inconvenient corners of the house, waiting for the painting (and aftermath cleaning) to be done so we can move them upstairs and settle in to our new bedrooms properly. That'll free up some more downstairs space, making the toy room exodus easier. Right now, the toy room is just a path between boxes.
Maybe it's materialistic of me, but unpacking our storage crates was a great relief. It was like a mental weight had been lifted from me. Having it done meant I felt one less distraction pulling at my brain while I plotted other projects. Chris seemed to appreciate it too. Teo just knew that suddenly he had all these toys and books he hadn't seen since spring suddenly available to him. When we packed, he wasn't reading. Now he is. So these books are almost all "new" to him. When we opened the first box of his books, he sat by himself for hours, going through the box, reading things, and shelving them. That let me get a whole lot of work done without interruption: victory for all.
Now that we know what sort of house we have, we know how rigorous we need to be with purging stuff. Also, I have the unpressured time to unpack things thoughtfully. I discovered an old drip coffee maker in a box while unpacking and thought, "We have a coffee maker?" And then "I guess I should clean it out." However, it proved to be a broken coffee maker so I was able to deep six that sucker without regret.
No longer do I have to think tentatively. "As soon as we sell the house..." became, "As soon as we move..." became, "As soon as we get our storage back..." became, "As soon as we unpack properly..." becomes, "Now, let's do this thing." Finally. This is what we've been waiting for. No more waiting. Now is doing. Finally. What a happy relief.
I've kept up three things since my doctor's appointment last month: I've been taking high doses of Vitamin D (as he prescribed), I've continued eating mostly gluten free (with no concern for cross contamination) and I've been taking a bloody expensive, but comprehensive probiotic supplement. Which one is helping? I don't think it matters at this point. I'm feeling better. Not miraculously overnight better like when I first went off the gluten, but slowly, small gains everyday sort of better.
Eating has been complicated by the disaster the kitchen is in, but we're making progress on that.
Part of the reason for the long silence was that I decided enough was enough and it was time to get our storage crates out of storage and unpack them into the house. So I called the company and the nice man with the forklift brought five huge crates to us. We only had a week (over Thanksgiving weekend) to unpack them. (And before that I was busting my tail trying to finish painting upstairs... I failed, but made a lot of good progress.)
Now we are shuffling boxes from room to room, trying to figure out what is going to live where and how to store it all. Yesterday I exploded the kitchen into the dining area and Chris assembled some of the shelving that used to live in our garage. Today I'm unpacking boxes of kitchen stuff onto these shelves. Hooray for honking huge kitchens! We also ordered some specialty bookcases for the toy room. Those are going to take 6-ish weeks to arrive, so we have a little time, but we'll need to clear out the toy room before the delivery date.
We also have a bunch of furniture (unassembled) hiding out in inconvenient corners of the house, waiting for the painting (and aftermath cleaning) to be done so we can move them upstairs and settle in to our new bedrooms properly. That'll free up some more downstairs space, making the toy room exodus easier. Right now, the toy room is just a path between boxes.
Maybe it's materialistic of me, but unpacking our storage crates was a great relief. It was like a mental weight had been lifted from me. Having it done meant I felt one less distraction pulling at my brain while I plotted other projects. Chris seemed to appreciate it too. Teo just knew that suddenly he had all these toys and books he hadn't seen since spring suddenly available to him. When we packed, he wasn't reading. Now he is. So these books are almost all "new" to him. When we opened the first box of his books, he sat by himself for hours, going through the box, reading things, and shelving them. That let me get a whole lot of work done without interruption: victory for all.
Now that we know what sort of house we have, we know how rigorous we need to be with purging stuff. Also, I have the unpressured time to unpack things thoughtfully. I discovered an old drip coffee maker in a box while unpacking and thought, "We have a coffee maker?" And then "I guess I should clean it out." However, it proved to be a broken coffee maker so I was able to deep six that sucker without regret.
No longer do I have to think tentatively. "As soon as we sell the house..." became, "As soon as we move..." became, "As soon as we get our storage back..." became, "As soon as we unpack properly..." becomes, "Now, let's do this thing." Finally. This is what we've been waiting for. No more waiting. Now is doing. Finally. What a happy relief.