Year of the House

Well.

So much for "the year of the house".

That well-conceived plan to start construction in the spring, complete by the fall, and celebrate New Year's Eve in the new addition? Right out the window. The proximate cause was a combination of a lazy surveyor and bad spring weather: the surveyor was supposed to have back in March, but had bigger fish to fry, apparently, and weeks of wet weather gave them a convenient excuse to show up three months after their original promised date. Now, we're going to be lucky if we can get the slab poured before the weather turns nasty, and guess what? The self-same surveyor is dragging their feet on putting together the site plan (something that, by most accounts, should be done within the span of a single day, seems to be taking these guys a week). So, I'm not exactly holding my breath.

If the slab gets poured before year's end, then construction should start around the beginning of April (weather permitting, ha ha ha) and we should be living in the addition by midsummer. Maybe.

In the meantime, we're living in a five-pound house with ten pounds of shit in it, trying to find a place for everything to go, getting rid of what we really don't need, reorganizing the rest, and trying not to go insane.

Still, there have been small victories. The kitchen's a different place thanks to a new dishwasher, range hood, and (new this week) a gas range. There still isn't enough room to swing a cat (a state of affairs about which Reggie has decidedly mixed feelings), but the gear we have now works better than what used to be there. (The new faucet still sits in its box, taunting me. Laugh it up, faucet; your time will come.)

The basement, previously a wreck of moldy old things, has been cleaned up, reorganized, and filled with boxes of new things ready to become moldy old things. (There's a dehumidifier to help slow the process.) Room has been made in the finished part for my working set, so I don't always have to be working on the sofa. (There's a lot more to be done: we gotta make room for all the thread in the world.) A gigabit backbone now connects downstairs and upstairs. The front door and storm door have been replaced to keep the elements out. (The entry floor needs to be redone. Oddly, the builders don't want to touch it; apparently the job is "too small". Go figure.)

Then there are the big victories: K and I got married. Our family more than doubled in size, thanks to the addition of a cat, two little birds, and a big bird. None of these are disposable pets, though the big bird is unique in that it will outlive us, and more than anything else, having her in the house has been like bringing home a little sister for Spud. It's been an interesting adjustment for all of us. And then there's the friends: I've started new friendships and evolved old ones. I like my friends. Thank goodness. :-)

So, as busy and and stressful as 2006 has been, and as much as parts of it haven't really gone according to our best-laid plans and desires, it's really hard to write it off as a failure. That wouldn't be fair. But I'm really kinda glad it's over, because now I can brace myself for 2007. And maybe it'll be the actual year of the house...