First an update to the countdown: 2 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

 

There's not much left to do in a practical way besides wait, but I feel like my brain is starting to really get wrapped around the notion of 1. living in Falls Church (SO excited!) 2. OWNING a house (SOOOOOO excited!). Life is about to change in a big way, and I cannot wait.

 

We've enrolled Kate in daycare in Rockville, and she starts there next Tuesday. It was a hard decision of where to put her. At first it seemed obvious that she should be in Falls Church or nearby, but maybe partly because there aren't many centers in that area and I was struggling with the inspection reports of the licensed in home care, I started to consider bringing her to Rockville with me. The downside, obviously, is that Kate has to spend all that time in the car everyday (I expect ~75 min round trip). The other downside is that I have to be responsible for drop off and pick up; it's basically impossible for Jay to be involved because of where he works. This will be an issue on those rare occasions where I have to travel out of town for work, but otherwise I think it will be fine. In actuality, I  think the decision has better upsides:

We had our homeowner orientation with the builder this morning, and it went really well. The house looks great! We only found a handful of pretty small things that need to be addressed, so that was a relief. The guy who was with us clearly had a schedule to keep to, so at the end Jay and I ran around quickly and did some of the testing (mostly of the plumbing) that we'd wanted to. We learned all about our furnaces, the fireplace, our appliances, random maintenance issues, our warranties, etc., etc. It was useful and educational, and I guess that's the point. The pile of manuals on the kitchen counter was daunting! Being that we pretty much bought our dream house as our first home, the whole thing is a tad overwhelming I guess we're just going to have to get up to speed on home maintenance very quickly. Luckily, since it is a new home, we won't have to worry about replacing anything anytime soon - it's just going to be a matter of staying on top of all the periodic maintenance. I'm considering making a generic maintenance calendar so that year after year we'd say, ok, it's March, so we know that we need to do this, this, and this. I suppose eventually it will all just be part of normal life, but it's going to be a while before that really is the case.

 

Jay and I are SO excited to move in. It's starting to feel very real, especially considering that the house hasn't changed much in the last 2 or 3 weeks - it just feels like, ok, it's done already, let's go! A week from now we'll be spending our first night there...can you believe it?!? We really are totally in love with this house. I swear it has one of the best floor plans I've ever seen, and having had the opportunity to customize it and see the results...it's fabulous. I honestly don't think there's anything we don't like about the house. That probably sounds like an exaggeration but we are so happy with how it turned out, I can't really imagine how it could be better. Can you tell I'm happy?

 

Oh, and an update on the fridge situation. It took almost 2 weeks, but last weekend we got the word that the builder doesn't feel like there is a problem with the standard fridge because there is a way to position it such that the door swings past the island. What? That only works if there's a 10in gap between the fridge and the counter! Yes, that's functional but so ugly in a beautiful kitchen. Anyway, because their position is that there is no problem, they only offered to upgrade the fridge at cost. So, that's what we did, and now we're going to have (it will be delivered tomorrow hopefully) a french door fridge. Woo-hoo! We saved ~$400 by upgrading this way vs. upgrading when we picked the appliances, so it all worked out well for us; this is the fridge we were planning on getting in a short while anyway, we just didn't want to pay the builder's premium on it when we picked out everything. That extra money has to be added to the closing costs, but that's ok. The fridge is the one thing that isn't quite done...6 days and it's ours!

 

 

The whole experience of staying at Nikki and Steve's house has turned out to be surprisingly easy and fun. It's like being in college again in some ways - there are so many people around all the time, there's always a lot of activity and a lot of fun. In addtiion to us, Nikki, and Steve, another co-worker of Jay and Steve's stays here during the week, so it's really a constant party. Nikki is a serious cook, so the evening activities always center on the kitchen between the cooking, eating dinner, cleaning up (the boys are good about helping), and me prepping lunches for the next day (Kate's and mine). Again, the generosity of Nikki and Steve is incredible, and very much appreciated. It's just been an added bonus to make new friends!

 

 

 

 

Get this: we take possession of our new house in 8, yes that's 8!!!, days. Holy moly!!! Jay and I are busy getting final details wrapped up, but the pace of things has slowed dramatically in the last couple of weeks. We have our homeowner orientation Thursday morning; it's part orientation to all of the house's features and part us looking for anything that needs to be fixed. Next Wednesday we settle! Next Thursday we've scheduled a ton of vendors to come to the house - service installations as well as delivery of goods (washer/dryer, king bed, and installation of garage door openers). It's also the day that the movers will transport Jay's tvs from their storage place at a friend's house in Ashburn out to Falls Church. It's going to be CRAZY at the house that day. Friday we'll move in with my parents' help; they're both making the drive down on Thursday and after the physical move we're putting them to work. We are so inexperienced in the whole homeowner arena, and they're pretty much perfect at home maintenance, so why not take advantage?

 

I can't even express how excited Jay and I are. We were able to go see the house with the sales manager on Saturday - it was the first time we'd seen the floors uncovered, and it's really gorgeous. We are SO pysched to live there, and our minds are going a mile a minute making plans and dreaming. Just a little over a week to go. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This entry was written off-line on Friday, August 1^st, so all references are from that day.

 

Jeez, it’s been so long that I don’t know where to start. I’ve been really wanting to post an update but things have been so nuts that it just hasn’t happened. I guess I’ll break things down by topic.

 

The move

 

We officially moved out of our house last weekend. Jay was in Anaheim for a conference for almost a week (including last weekend), so we actually did the physical move of our stuff two weeks ago. My mom and a friend came down and were an enormous help. Unfortunately we had to move our stuff into storage because our house isn’t going to be ready until the end of August and our landlords wouldn’t extend our lease for a month…so storage was necessary. Regarding the move itself – everyone knows how miserable moving is. By the end of last weekend I was pretty fed up with the whole process, but with extra help from Claire we were able to get it done. It would have been nice if Jay could have been around for the last big push, but it wasn’t an option. Kate wasn’t too much of an impediment during the process, but it’s not easy to be super productive when a toddler is running around, no matter how agreeable the toddler is.

 

The current living situation

 

Since we have this gap in housing we’re staying at Jay’s boss’s house. Steve and Nikki (his GF) have a huge, beautiful house and were extremely generous in offering us two of their bedrooms (we were planning to stay in an extended stay hotel). Jay and I are in a room that has an attached bathroom, so our family has its own space. Steve and Nikki were out of town with Jay and are now somewhere else, so it’s been kind of nice/strange to settle in without worrying about stepping on their toes right away. For example, our stuff isn’t completely organized yet, and we have time to get it all straightened out before they return on Sunday. I’m intent on minimizing our impact on their lives, although anyone with half a brain knows that adding another family that includes a toddler to a household isn’t painless. We’ll be in their house for 5 weeks, so that’s another benefit to having them be out of town this week – one week is almost over and we haven’t imposed on them in any practical way yet. We are clearly very indebted to Nikki and Steve. I’ve got to think of a nice gift for them…

 

Our house

 

OK, this is the most fun topic. Our house has come so far! We’re settling on August 27, and when we got that date ~2 weeks ago we were ecstatic to just have a date. Although we won’t take possession until the 27^th, the house will be done on the 12^th. The builder does a “quality walk” on that day where someone from their quality department walks through and looks for problems that need to be addressed. They have one week to fix those issues, and then our homeowner orientation is on the 21^st. Any issues we find will be fixed in the next week, and then we settle! Very exciting. Anyway, my point is that our house is going to be done in 11 days! The cabinets were installed two weeks ago; the granite counters were installed last week; hardwood floors were laid last Saturday; the driveway was laid Wednesday; carpets went in yesterday; appliances went in today. Serious progress! Ever since the drywall went up it’s been so much fun to see things progress. The paint, the crown moulding, the fireplace and mantel, the tile, it just goes on and on. Building a house has been really fun but a lot of work. We had some issues with our foundation that required us to hire an inspector (all is well), and every time we visit we find something that we have an issue with/question about. I wonder what it’ll be this weekend? Since our appliances have been installed the house will now be locked up (appliances are too easy to steal), so we have to schedule visits over the weekend with the sales manager. We’re hoping for Sunday morning. Monday they'll be planting our landscaping and then on Tuesday the sod will be put down - wow! Sunday update: We were only able to see the house yesterday, so we went out for a visit in the afternoon. Across the board we are absolutely thrilled with how everything looks and just cannot wait to live there. This weekend’s problem is a big one: we chose to get the standard refrigerator, and the door is too big for the space. It hits the island…not ok. We’ll see how they handle this one.

 

Tomorrow we’re going to go buy our washer and dryer and hopefully a bed as well (a king for us, our queen will move to the guest room). Sunday update: we bought a washer and dryer yesterday! Jay and I decided to take the last three days of August off; Wednesday the 27^th we’re busy all day with settlement, and then Thursday we’re hoping to have installations/deliveries taken care of. Potentially we’ll move our stuff in on Friday, but that will depend on whether my dad can come down in time; if not we’ll move our stuff in on Saturday. We’re planning to start sleeping in the house on the 28^th – Kate will be the only one with a real bed, but that’s ok, we just want to get in (the 27^th is so busy that we figure adding the move out of Steve’s is too much to do in one day). So Wed-Fri that week we’ll be at our home and then we have the 3 day Labor Day weekend right after that, so we’ll have a nice chunk of time to get at least somewhat situated. My mom and dad are coming down to help us get moved in and hopefully to tackle a few little projects; I know we’re going to grateful for the help.

 

 

Kate

 

She’s doing great. She’s definitely a toddler – lots of ‘no, no, no’ and some tantrums – but she’s a pretty sweet kid, all told. I’ve been pretty pleased with how well she’s handled the move into Steve and Nikki’s. Sunday and Monday nights she woke up and was frantically calling ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!’ Kind of sweet but I felt bad for her; she was just scared. Monday night she slept with me all night, but since then she’s slept great. Well, except for Wednesday morning when she woke up a few min after 5 and didn’t go back to sleep until 6 – only to have me wake her for the day at 6:30.

 

We pulled Kate out of KinderCare on July 3. My mom stayed with us from the 6^th until last Sunday (the 27^th), so Kate was able to stay home with her. Claire was laid off from her job, and her last day was the 11^th, so now she’s watching Kate for the 5 weeks that we’re at Steve and Nikki’s. Their house is in South Riding, about 20min from Ashburn, so for Mon-Wed this week (while Jay was in CA) this was the routine: I’d get up and get ready for work, wake Kate ~7, drive to Claire’s 25min, leave Kate there, and then drive the nearly one hour to work. On the way home, reverse and repeat. 3 hours of driving a day SUCKED. On top of that I had an extremely busy three days at work at the same time. Talk about absolutely exhausting. Jay got home Wednesday night from his trip and I went to bed 10min after Kate, I just couldn’t function anymore. Happily I am now only responsible for picking Kate up in the evening, so that’s a half hour savings in my day.

 

Me

 

I’m doing ok. I could really use some true relaxation time as I’ve gotten to this point that happens with me when I’m continually stressed – I’m just incapable of relaxing and being pleasant. I desperately need a massage – I finally had a keyboard tray installed at my desk two weeks ago, but the 3 months of crunched shoulders really did a number on them. The whole house thing is just stressful, and the financial aspect of all of it is pretty consuming as well. It doesn’t help that Jay has been running at 150% capacity for this entire time as well – between the two of us we’re definitely handling way more than most people’s normal lives. We’re almost through it, but I think these last 5 weeks might do me in. Living with people I don’t know, all of this godforsaken driving, the final push to the end of the house…it’s just a lot.

 

So, that’s it from this end for now. We’re happy but very busy, hence the utter lack of blogging. It’s not that I don’t want to write, it’s just a matter of time.