More frenetics at Bantam Hill

We (Mr Renn and I) are trying so hard to mold our still-new-to-us home into a place with some grace built in.  Entropy is rising up to battle us at most every turn, but now that I'm not forced to spend every iota of energy on a thesis, and I'm at least halfway through the most intense phase of infant-dom, I'm beginning to feel like maybe entropy doesn't always have to win.

Last week was not my favorite thing.  Circumstances combined to make too many things happen at once.  For a week my basement was being drywalled, and we had to find temporary homes for lots of things, for that same week, it was Spring Break and my kids were home all day every day and there was no spare money or adult supervision to leave the house we had only half-access to.  Plus, for kicks, the Duke's baby blessing was the following Sunday, so the house needed to be cleaner than usual, and lots of food prepared, despite the extra messes of drywall dust and too many bored bodies in too little space.  I worked hard last week, and by the time the blessing arrived and my house was full of company, I was too tired to be the kind of hostess I'd like to be.  But, I was relieved to have made it to that point.  I hadn't totally beaten back my to-do list, (The fingerprints on the sliding glass door are still there, for one.) but everything was good-enough, and done and that busy-crazy week was behind me.

So now, we can turn around and focus our energy on the next thing.  Luckily our next things are gaining momentum and scale.  This month we hope to get trees planted around our house.  There were 3 total trees when we bought the house, and we cut the only substantial one down the first week we lived here.  The bit of Pennsylvanian still living inside of me has felt terribly bereft, and so kickstarting our mini-arboretum is an energy-filled prospect.  Plus my basement is being taped, mudded, and sanded this week, so I need to pick out paint for it.  Paint always feels like a gratuitous decision.  If you're ready for paint you've really accomplished something. We're done working on invisible skeletons and we're ready for the really visual elements that reward your eyes with instant gratification when they're installed.  Momentum! Momentum!

Fuzzy brain cocoon

There is a biblical ideal that in one's household things should be done in wisdom and in order, be reasonably easy to navigate and generally make sense.  I totally understand this theoretically, but in practice we are a train wreck over here.

When we moved in almost 2 years ago, we were in a frantic and unorganized state.  I was falling desperately behind in my last semester of classwork for my MA, and my goal was just "good enough for now" in order that I might keep my head above water and not have to drop out of school.  Thus, we have never established good systems for household operation here, and have now had plenty of time to get into bad habits.

This messy state of affairs has been triply muddled by the unfinished state of our house, and our fits-and-starts approach to finishing its spaces.  The pay-as-you-go method of remodeling is not conducive to orderly living.

So we have found ourselves, less than a week before we are supposed to host company for the Duke's Baby blessing, with a basement full (no really, full) of drywall, and heaps of things all over the house that have never really had a home in our home.  The overall effect is ever-so-demoralizing.



On the bright side I've got enough morale to keep pushing through, and to try to figure out how to break large projects into smaller ones that can be accomplished in short, uncertain periods of baby-napping. But the going is slow, and the kids are less-than-onboard with the whole "let's not live in squalor" thing.

Picking up the pieces of our family organization is always kind of an ugly part of my postpartum experience.  Things fall apart so extensively while I gestate.  And now, here I am in the tired, tired throes of late newborn-hood, pulling myself up by my bootstraps every single day.  I am getting too old for this kind of exhaustion.

I might share some before and afters, just to cheer myself on. (with totally un-styled, SOOC camera-phone pics, because that's what I've got. And yes, the lamp cord is now burning my eyes.) At the moment I can only tell you that the maroon wall is finally not maroon.  (We beefed up the baseboards, and did a Ralph-Lauren paint that goes on like plaster, so there's a texture thing going on there that isn't showing up with great fidelity in the photo, but the reflective quality of this wall has been nice in our dark, cavelike living space.)  I have yet to decide what else will hang on that wall though, I'm waiting on a new clock to base the whole layout around. .

And, it's spring break.  Of course it is.  The entropy is poised to swallow me whole, but I'm determined to at least not lose my temper.  We'll see how I do. 

stick a fork in me

More and always more of hanging in there, but only just.  Pretty much my status quo.  The confounded move got me behind on my thesis prospectus deadlines, and my stress levels have been high enough to make my behavior ugly and my memory poor.

In my brain, I've given myself this halfway-imaginary deadline.  I just have to make it through my comprehensive exams in December, and then I will do a giant New-Years priority shuffle and try to start thinking more than a week ahead.  Right now I can only think from one assignment/test/paper to the next.  I've gotten infinitely better over the last year at learning how to not try to do homework all day long with kids underfoot, and to just be as present with them as I can be while double-timing the housework so that my evenings are free.  Then I head to class or the library, or lock myself in my room while little fingers slip under the door and plead with me to read them a bedtime story. I am so popular....

Our snug Bantam Hill is coming along, we are doing lots of settling - both kinds.  I can't make paint decisions while I'm working on my thesis, (brain..can't) so the mid- 90's color scheme and cows are staying for a while.  The crumbly rock facade on the fireplace, the tired carpet, all of it is just going to sit tight for a bit.  We have a lot of work to do on the house that is neither fun nor glamorous before any designing can begin in earnest.  The only decent-sized tree on the property (cottonwood) is coming down tomorrow (because... cottonwood), and if we want to finish the basement we need to first dig a french drain along the back of the house (which... we are scratching our heads over why that wasn't done when the house was built).  Mr Renn has to finish building shelves in our storage room so we can clear boxes and bins out of our garage... that kind of thing.

But hey - I think we did a decent job at minimizing the period of super-tumult involved in the move.  We transitioned from a quasi-normal to a quasi-normal pretty quickly.  The kids are all still acting out (coloring on walls and furniture, regression with potty training), but I have to (need to) believe we did something right.  Kind of like how I have to believe that life will somehow feel more manageable after my comps.  It's the "don't tell me if I'm wrong" kind of floundering belief.

So... the moral of the story: don't move while in the middle of grad school, if it can be helped.  Which, why would any sane person even need that advice?  Regardless, soldiering on....

Bantam Hill

Our first home-of-our-own has been named and moving is underway.  My emotions are all over the map.  Moving + Grad School = stressballs.



"Bantam Hill" has been adopted as the nom de guerre for this little residence; using the "diminutive" definition of "bantam" and applying it to the way the lot has been built up to allow for a walk-out basement.  "Diminuitive hill" feels about appropriate.  Not only that, but the "chicken" overtones of "bantam" can hang out with the current cow-wallpaper in the kitchen.



Speaking of cow wallpaper - there is so.much.work.to.do.  There is not a single interior surface of this house that we don't have plans for.  Which is exciting as planning and designing goes, but it also means that the house as it is, as we are moving into it, is sort of like an awkward teenager.  It doesn't quite fit us... yet.

So I'm working my Pollyanna muscle and finding things to be excited about.  Our first fireplace (gas, assuming it works once we get the pilot light lit), more than 2 drawers in the kitchen, a jetted tub in the master bath, and a master closet with a LIGHT in it!  (Hooray for being able to see my clothes!)

The project front is already well underway.  We absolutely require a way to keep our kids locked out of our food storage.  Non-negotiable.  So we had to frame-in the storage area in the basement of this house so there could be a door with a lock.  We had the floor epoxied, most of the walls framed, insulated, and sheet rocked within a week of getting our keys.  Mr Renn has been staying up late to mud and tape and sand and paint, and re-install shelves, and the food-room part of our storage is ready for use.  We'll return to the non-food storage room construction (more drywall and shelf-building) once we finish moving in.  We're pretty determined to keep our momentum going and live in perpetual project mode for at least the next 2 years.  So.many.plans.

But for now, let's just try to finish getting everything we own from here to there.  It's a short drive.  Really short.  But it's still everything we own, so it's still untold hours of work for the adults around here.

But, friends, we bought a house.  We get to do whatever we want to it.  I feel almost lost in the adult-ness of it.  This first time home-owner is getting her water-legs and it's weird, and kind of fun!