Moving Progress

Dave just took off with Clifford the Big Red Truck, hauling off our living room and a 8 totes of our kitchen stuff (which is to say only maybe 20%).  

My dad loaned us his pickup and cargo trailer so moving should go much faster now.  The only thing we're missing is a garage in which to move all the workshop stuff and time.  Sigh.

This was the state of the living room this afternoon. The entropy of this house was reaching my maximum threshold and I was about to explode in frustration.  So, I ate some Mint Milano cookies, took a deep breath, and went back to work loading the trailer.

And this is what we're left with now.

It's so empty!  These pictures were taken many minutes apart...yet you'll notice that Taters is still in position.

Next weekend we'll load up the garden shed contents, some of the kitchen/housewares stuff from the garage, and maybe Eddie's furniture (since really, that's all that remains of furniture in the house). Slowly, slowly we make progress.

I am terrified that I'll have a stroke when I walk into the Coast House when we next visit.  Dave is in charge of unloading the stuff he hauls up there...and that of course means he just sort of dumps it wherever.  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!  I can't stand that this Davis house is a nightmare of disorganization, but to think what the Coast House must look like right now seriously makes me go into a minor tachycardia rhythm.

AND Dave reports that he can hardly see the veggies we planted among the smothering weeds.  Even without that damn dissertation, there's so, so much work to be done.  Just thinking about all this makes me want to curl up and take a nap to escape reality...which is what I did on Sunday afternoon after taking Eddie on a walk in the 90F weather and realizing that I was way, way too exhausted to do any packing.

Eddie and I were playing with his dollies and then I fell asleep. Taters' rump was an okay pillow but my jaw hurt when I woke up in a puddle of drool in his fur. Ew.

I repositioned myself to use the dollie as a pillow, which was much more comfortable.  THIS is why I have a dog--he's the best snuggler ever. He could stay snuggled up with me (or any person, really) for hours and hours.

Wish us luck next weekend!  Dave takes his water exam on Saturday afternoon and then we'll busy ourselves packing the truck and/or tiling the bathroom and/or prepping the living room window for replacement.  Ready, set, go.

Oh, Davis

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I will (or will not?) miss living in Davis.

Things I anticipate missing:

1. Our relatively kid-safe cul-de-sac where Eddie can play without much worry of being hit by a car
2. The neighbor kids and the countless hours Eddie spends playing with them outside
3. The variety of grocery stores within walking/biking distance (the International market, stocked with Indian items; the Asian market; the food co-op; Trader Joe's with it's healthy convenience food; regular run-of-the-mill stores)
4. Biking commuting to daycare and work/school
5. Limitless internet bandwidth (at least seemingly limitless)
6. Long growing season and fertile soil
7. Antenna TV
8. The tank top wearing weather
9. Sidewalks
10. (Relatively) short drive to my folks' house
11. Seeing my friends and coworkers every day
12. Not having to set aside time to exercise
13. The park next door
14. Talking about soils, chemistry, ag, and stats every day
15. Cassie and Miss Amanda
16. Lack of immediate judgement from random people who learn that my last name is Bower
17. Being the only adult in the house (there's soooooooooo much to do and I could really use some help with all the chores and child rearing)
18. Stores open past 8 pm
19. Sushi
20. Going to the movies (which, admittedly, we don't do often but knowing that we can go on a whim will be missed)
21. Relatively plentiful college age baby sitters
22. Unpaved, horizontal land right outside my door
23. Home Depot, Costco, and Target being only 10 minutes away
24. Constant cell phone service
25. Twenty four hour medical care (ain't no urgent care or ER in Gualala)
26. Chatting with random people who pass our house 

Things I anticipate not missing:

1. The 100 F weather in the summer
2. The hot, dry wind
3. The dusty air
4. Flies
5. Having to keep the dogs on leash 
6. Cleaning up dog poop
7. Having to find appropriate places on our property where Eddie can dig in the dirt and make HUGE MESSES of mud and plant debris without making our suburban house look gross and unkempt
8. Lack of trees for tire swings, tree houses, elaborate forts, etc.
9. Buying fruit
10. Single-handedly juggling Eddie, school, the dogs, and the house
11. Gross, disgusting tap water (even after going through a Brita filter)
12. Hauling fruit 3 hours by car to process it (apples, plums, cherries, tomatoes, blackberries, huckleberries, mushrooms)
13. Being the only adult in the house (I want the chores and child rearing to be done my way, darnit!  And I want some privacy!)
14. Being too hot while sleeping (hello cold sea breeze!)
15. Cooking for two--it's so much harder than cooking for a larger group
16. Having to close the curtains so passersby and neighbors can't see in our windows--at the Coast House this will not be a problem since there are no passersby and none/few of the neighbor's windows face our house
17. Limited communication with Dave--Eddie and I sometimes only speak to him once a week via video chat, depending on his work/meeting schedule
18. The nervousness I feel every time Dave is commuting on the curvy roads, which is always at night)
19. High cost of childcare
20. Not seeing Dave every day
21. Having to count off the days until we next see Dadda to Eddie every.single.day

Things that go through my head on a daily basis:

1. Holy crap...are we really moving?
2. Yay!  We're moving!
3. HOW AM I NOT DONE WITH MY DEGREE YET?!
4. OMG we will NEVER be able to move out of this house in time!  We have soooooo much stuff and moving is going soooooooo slowly!
5. I'm so proud of how much progress we've made moving using only the minivan and a small trailer so far!  Two rooms done in only...wait, 6 weeks?  Ug.
6. Are we making a mistake by moving to the boonies?  Will Eddie suffer from the relative isolation? Would it be better for us as a family to force Dave to find a job near Davis so Eddie can grow up here? But then what job would I have to find in order to stay in suburbia, too?  If us parents are happier and more fulfilled, won't that translate into a happier childhood for Eddie?  Or won't it?
7. I can't wait to move to where the air is dust free, where I'll never have to use AC again, and where it rains more than 10 times a year!!!!
8. I don't want to move to a place where there's fog all summer and rain all winter, where it's too cold to wear tank tops or shorts, where I have to drive so much.  
9. I can't believe I agreed to live in that monstrous, outdated, ridiculous Coast House...which I swore I would never, ever do.
10. Eddie's gonna love it!  All the space to explore, dig, build, and camp! 
11. Eddie's gonna hate it!  No neighbors next door to play with, all the driving on the coast roads,  living in a new house.
12. We'll get to see Dave every.single.day. Every single day!  Multiple times a day!

Things I am thankful exist, because they will ease the feeling of isolation:

1. The internet
2. Amazon Prime
3. NPR

********************

Dave and I were engaged during my last semester of college.  I remember sitting in my environmental econ class, waiting for the professor to begin lecturing and I glanced down at my (horrendous) emerald engagement ring on my hand. It was left to Dave by his late grandmother "Tutu" and was such an old lady ring.  I mean it: it even had a hinge to enlarge the band diameter to fit over an arthritic knuckle.  While I love(d) Dave, I didn't like the ring because it wasn't me or mine. It was a hand-me-down and we didn't have the money to replace or restyle it to something that reflected me.  As I contemplated the ring I thought, "What if being married to Dave is boring like this ring and nothing interesting happens for us?"  OH BOY.  Isn't that funny?  How boring my life was back then.  If only I knew what was in store for us. 

Uggle's Birfday!

May 3 was Edward's birthday.  Now he's 29!

I've found that Groupon is the best for gifts (for everyone except my husband and dad--they like tools).  Last year Edward got to fly a plane for his birthday and this year...well, this year is even more fun:

I think he's gonna have fun with this gift!

Gchat this morning.  Glad to know he's such a romantic guy.

Happy birthday, Uncle Edward!

Jump Rope Challenge

A friend posted something on Facebook about this May Jump Rope Challenge.  You are to jump rope 1 minute for each day of the month, starting at 1 minute for 5/1 and ending with 31 minutes by 5/31.

I just did my first minute.  HOLY CRAP.  I don't remember jumping rope as being so much work! A mere 25 years ago it was a snap!

And for the record, I used a real rope.  As in, I went into the garage and rummaged around on the side of Dave's shop bench until I found a suitable rope.  If I stick with this, I might need to get a proper jumping rope because the thing I'm using doesn't have much weight to it and seemed to get a bit floppy in the air.

Check it out for yourself and consider joining in the sweaty fun: https://www.facebook.com/events/113677782134491/

Just make sure you wear a sports bra.

Wind

It's been soooooooooooooo windy here lately.  

Every week for the last month we've had 1-3 days of intense winds.  I know it's been a whole month because it always seems to happen on Tuesdays, which has been my afternoon to go for a run for the last four weeks.  Running sucks.  Wind sucks.  Running in the wind super sucks.  Like, super duper sucks.  Lucky for me, I don't have allergies too badly.  Dave (and many, many other people here in Davis) have extremely bad allergies.  There's something about Davis that makes it particularly dusty and windy and allergen-filled.  Ug.

This dry wind makes me cranky.  Being outside in it for more than an hour exhausts me--just having the wind slap across my face really takes it out of me (not to mention the drying of my skin).  

Biking in it is near impossible.  There have been a few times when I've considered hopping off and just walking because I'm hardly moving.  

It's a battle to keep the plants watered in the garden.  Many of our apricots have fallen off the tree over the last month.  

And while I can't blame the wind directly, Eddie's nosebleed incidents have increased over the last month.  I've opted to drive the 3 miles to school instead of bike in this wind, just as a preventative measure against his nosebleeds.  But of course, we are stuck with Dave's no-AC Saturn so the windows have to be down when we drive.  So...I'm not sure it makes much of a difference if we drive or bike at this point (besides the intense workout of my leg muscles).

Gawd, just look at these weather reports:

I drove Eddie to daycare this morning and then went to find parking on campus.  There was NONE on my side of campus except for meters.  I don't want to have to move the car after 2 hours, especially since I'm just grading today and don't really need to be on campus.  So I came back home.  Hopefully the wind will have died down enough to bike by 3 when I head back to campus to teach.  

I HATE YOU, WIND. IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE HERE, AT LEAST BE KIND ENOUGH TO BRING SOME PRECIPITATION WITH YOU!  Now, go the eff away.  No one likes you.

The Slowest Way to Move

You know those folks who pay movers to not only move their stuff to a new location, but also to pack their stuff?  I can't imagine the cost associated with something like that, but sometimes I sure wish we were going that route.

But of course we're not.

When you combine a cheap guy like Dave with the daughter of the Frugal Levie family, you always move the same way: by your own sweat, little-by-little, and cheaply.

Heaven help us if we didn't have a trailer and a minivan.  That's right: we're moving a load at a time each weekend.

It might not seem like a lot, but having done this for a few weekends straight we're really making a dent in the house's contents.  (But trust me, most weekends it doesn't seem like we're making any progress at all!)

I'm still dreading the garage though--not only do we have a lot of stuff in there, but we also lack a garage at the Coast House in which to put all of it.  Dave still needs to get a garage door installed on the carport and weather-proof the other openings before we can even think about packing and moving the workshop. Oy.  OY I SAY!

We have only 20 purchased moving boxes (size medium, from Home Depot) plus random boxes from Costco.  The majority of the things are packed into Rubbermaid totes that I pack up each weekend and Dave unloads each week so we can reuse them endlessly.  I'm SURE Dave isn't putting things in quite the right places (if anywhere but on the floor in the upstairs living room...) so I'll be making a trip up there in May sometime to put things away properly.  Otherwise I'll go completely insane walking into a disaster zone of my own belongings come summer when we're permanently there.

Here are some progress pictures:

Office before. Well, sorta before. Once the bathroom renovation started across the hall, this room became a staging area for the cement board and random things.

Office now. The futon belongs to Edward and I'll be taking it to him next week when I'm at his place for Dyani's baby shower.

Master closet before.

Master closet now. Mostly Dave's stuff has been packed. Plus all my shoes--you know, those shoes that I can't give up but don't wear much.

Dining room before. (The hutch and china was the first stuff to be moved.)

Dining room now. We've moved half the patio furniture inside.

Living room before.

Living room now.  All the pictures and knick knacks from the walls have been hauled away.  It's weird, the house seems much smaller having taken down the pictures.  Visually, the walls seem longer/wider when there are pictures to break them up.

Where Mama Works

Goodness, it's the end of April.  And we're moving (by) the end of June.  Yikes.  I have a lot to do.  Even if we weren't moving I'd still be able say that I have a lot to do.  Not too much.  Just a lot.

It just occurred to me yesterday that I also have to pack up and move my school office stuff.  I'm planning on coming back 1-2 nights a week fall and maybe winter quarters (even though I'll be 'on leave').  I'll be couch surfing rather than living here in Davis--and I guess I'll also have to desk-surf in my building, too.  As is always the case there are more students than desks and I've been very lucky and grateful to have always had my own work space.  

Before we starting renovations on the Coast House and before we started packing anything at the Davis House, I took pictures of everything (inside cupboards and closets...everything).It's one way of documenting our life.  Hopefully Eddie and his future siblings will like looking at the photobook I'll (someday) make of each location.  

And for posterity, here's my work space as it stands now.  I've been at this desk since January 2010, when I returned to school from a quarter off of 'maternity leave.'  There are other pictures from January 2012 of my office in this post.

My desk area.  After I passed my quals in August 2011, I bought myself a new book bag (better than the hot pink backpack I used to use!).  Except it's really a diaper bag.  But the lady at the baby store said most of them she's sold are used as laptop bags by working mamas.

My wall of Eddie, crooked as it might be.  I actually hate it when pictures hand lopsided, but this wall jiggles every time someone enters/exits the adjacent men's restroom so keeping them straight is impossible. Plus, while sitting at the desk I can't see them anyway.

There's a table behind me that Hannah and I share.  Here you can see the booklet of tattoos she bought for Eddie, my mason jar lunch, and a stack of quals study materials.  I find that I return to this stuff again and again--this week to remind myself of clay-organic matter interactions and clay elemental structure so I can (try) to explain my isotope results in the manuscript I'm currently working on.

This is the crap in my desk-height filing cabinet drawer.  This is a piece of office furniture that has mostly been replaced by cloud and hard drive storage.  I have very few papers filed away in this five-drawer monstrosity.  One draw is old and stuck closed (no idea what's inside), one contains actual files, one contains snacks and canned food for emergency lunches, one contains crap (see above pic), and one contains scrap paper.

I make a to do list on a Post It note nearly every day. These are today's.

Crap under my desk.  That cracked Tupperware canister is my footrest; rain boots and leather shoes for lab work; a stack of journals from last quarter's class that I can probably throw away because the students never came to pick them up; a blue bin used for class assignments.

More notes and my much-used stack of Post Its next to the desk. I bought coffee yesterday but since Eddie was with me I didn't have enough hands to actually get any coffee.  So I'll use it today maybe.

That reminds me...yesterday was Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day--a tradition started in 1993.  I picked Eddie up after his nap time and we walked the two blocks back to campus.  We met my friends for a snack in the Coffee House and then went to the discussion section for my class.  This year (thankfully!) the other TA and I are sharing discussion teaching responsibilities.  Other years I taught all 3 sections each week; this arrangement is much nicer.  It was her week to teach but since the topic was insects of the forest I took Eddie so he could see the trays of mounted insects and the live Malaysian walking stick bugs that we borrowed from the Bohart Museum of Entomology.

Eddie wanted to wear a skirt because I was wearing a skirt.  It was perfect for the insect class he attended, too, since it had butterflies all over it.

He rode on the lab cart on the way to class because the other TA asked me to bring it.

After the class, Eddie and I went back to my office.  He and my friends spent a while choosing and applying tattoos.  Two labmates happened to walk by and came into say to Eddie.  And of course they were game for getting tattooed, too.  

Jennifer, Jordon, Toby, and Hannah showing off their tattooes.  At this point Eddie was being shy and was out in the hallway.