Friday was the big moving day, and by big I mean we moved five miles from our rental to our actual house. It's so strange to have a house again that I'm not renting. I'm still a little nervous about tying up equity in a house, but at least for now it seems to make sense.
First though, the financial hilarities continue, even though we've closed on the house. The first lender that the builder had us apply with, you may recall, wouldn't loan us money. But guess what, they bought the loan within days of closing. It is nice from a cash flow standpoint to be spending hundreds of dollars less on where we live, that is for sure.
The movers were, as I've come to expect now, total asshats. They scratched stuff up, lost parts of lamps, threw the mattress of our guest bed on the frame without actually assembling it. Diana has the fun task of trying to get some money back from them. But at least the whole thing was done, start to finish, in four hours. We've had car loads of stuff that we moved ourselves before and after, and honestly Diana did most of that.
The only real drama we had started after the movers left. The gas guy got here late in the afternoon, making us kind of nervous. The cable guy was on time, but was completely useless when my cable modem wouldn't connect. He made the excuse that he couldn't support it because it wasn't the cable company's which is bullshit, and I wonder if there aren't actually FCC rules that prohibit that as an excuse. I talked to someone on the phone who got me half way, but no connection. I called the next morning, and the person I talked to got us up and running. Strangely, the neighbors have a big box on the side of the house covering the connections, we don't. Going to have to call about that.
We made an Ikea run to try to cover some loose ends... curtains for Simon's room, hand towel hooks, etc., but were shocked to find most stuff we really wanted was not in stock. That's unusual for Ikea. We did get some new shelves to house the DVD collection, which seems weird to unbox after having it be essentially hidden the last eight months. We got out for a nice lunch, too.
Diana had the kitchen operational almost immediately, as well as Simon's room. I got my office ("The Lab") mostly functional by late Saturday night. The living room TV stuff didn't see setup time until Sunday morning. Diana has a ways to go in her sewing room. Our bedroom is functional, but we're making a painting detour. The secondary color looks too baby blue, so we're going to eat the cost of the paint (like we have a choice) and go with the darker blue we already have on the one wall (and two of the walls in my office).
Probably the biggest thing to make the place feel like a home is all of the photos and stuff, which have also been in boxes since the move to Florida. We're planning to get all kinds of additional photos printed and framed as well. I want to have a wider variety of photos in my office.
I dug in and got the irrigation system set right, because the installers had it running every night, and without regard to the rain sensor. That could have been expensive, and there's a restriction to one day a week anyway. I adjusted a few sprinkler heads that were pointing in suboptimal directions (including my office window). It's so strange to have sprinklers.
Last night we did a family walk to the somewhat disjointed area that is the house models and some recreation areas, including the pool and clubhouse. They just installed a zip line over there, and let me tell you, it's the most awesome thing ever. Simon likes it, but when it hits the end, for some reason he kind of just lets go with his noodle arms and falls off. We'll need to practice.
We already have guests, as my in-laws are here doing a Florida tour. Fortunately the guest room is good enough for guests. It's nice to have some people around, even if they have to dodge some boxes here and there.
I'm still thinking a lot about what it means to have a home, which may sound kind of weird, but it has been awhile since I've felt that I was somewhere not transient. I hope we're here for a good many years, but I honestly don't know what the future looks like. A part of me might even be hesitant to commit to the idea of committing to a place to live. I'm not sure why. Still working that out.
I need to buy a grill now.
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