One week ago yesterday we arrived in CT, and one week ago today we closed on our house in the morning and spent the rest of the day moving into it.
There's so much to say, so much to document, that I don't even really know where to start. I'm in another library, except it's 1200 miles from the one I was writing in last week. It's a nice library, but I find I'm struggling to accept it as it is and not zero in on all the things I'd change if I could get my hands on it. (What would I change, you ask? More new middle readers. Less staff just milling around, looking bored. Library stuff.) I feel gross as I sit here, not because I'm actually dirty- we have a functioning shower now, hurray!- but because my skin is covered in light pink patches of dried calamine lotion. It turns out we have quite the crop of poison oak in our new yard, and although I have spent a large portion of the last week helping to clear it out, I don't really remember rolling around in it like a pig in mud. Or a dog in mud.
Given that I did not make any crowns of poison oak to rest charmingly upon my brow, I'm wondering just how I ended up with a rash behind my ears, of all places. And my back. And my shoulders. The rash on my hands and forearms, I understand.
Oh, wait, I know! See, if you're allergic to urushiol oil, as I am, then you know that after exposure to poison ivy, poison oak, etc, you have to wash aaaallll the fabrics you even thought about touching. Clothing, sheets, towels, etc, or you'll keep re-exposing yourself. But our washer is still broken. Something in my possession has that oil on it, so it just keeps spreading. Awesome.
The possibly-good news is that the repairman is scheduled to pay us a visit tomorrow; the washer needed a new pump. But we really really need that pump to arrive today, or he'd just be coming over to have tea and cookies. Except that I'm not a big tea drinker, so I guess we'd just be having cookies. Cookies and calamine lotion. Sounds like the name of a scented candle.
Many other things have happened, too, both good and bad. Derek and his dad hooked up the dryer, which included cutting through the side of the house to vent it, as we chose a new location for the washer and dryer. Well, I'll put "new" in quotation marks, because it was likely the original location, before the Flippers From Hell got their hands on this house and did nearly everything wrong, including moving the washer and dryer to the second floor and kitting out a laundry room around it the size of a bedroom. We wanted that fourth bedroom, so back down the washer and dryer needed to go. I'll finish this riveting paragraph by saying that they had to cut 8.5" through that exterior wall for the dryer vent, and 7.5 of those inches were solid wood. So... maybe the house is well-insulated?
When we haven't been working on the house (which is almost never), we've been exploring this new-to-us area. There are plenty of things here to recommend our location, but one of my favorites is the abundance of trails- at least compared to where we were- in this section of New England. I picked one of the closest ones and packed the kids up two days ago while Derek was at work in the evening. Now, hiking isn't one of their favorite things, but I can usually get them to go along at least half-cheerfully for a solid mile or two, so when we studied the map at the trail head I chose the blue trail. 1.5 miles is very doable for our kids! No problem! Piece of cake!
Except, whoopsy daisy, we instead set out on the blue/red trail, and while my suspicions were mounting about my mistake almost from the beginning, I didn't say anything until we were over 1 1/2 miles in. Then I looked it up on my AllTrails app, and sure enough, we were on the 5.5 mile loop. To their credit, the kids took the news with relative aplomb (or maybe it was just exhaustion?), and we turned around to hike back. It was very hilly, especially for newly-arrived flatlanders, and extremely rocky.
Of course, we knew that was coming, given that one of the trail runners we saw at the trail head held up a shredded shoe and told her companion, "This is what Ragged Mountain does to shoes." But it was beautiful, and I was so pleased with how the kids handled the challenge.
Tomorrow (or whenever I get to it): Reunions! Flowers! A weeping house!
