No Regrets

This personalized luggage was our gift to the kids during the big move. It made a huge difference for them to be able to pick the PJs and outfits and special toys and items that would be with them during limbo.

It's been a year since we packed all of our worldly goods into suitcases, boxes, tubs, crates, PODs, trucks, boats and busses and moved out of Annapolis.  At that time, we had sold our old new house, but we had not yet convinced the owners of our new old house (TOPH) to accept our very reasonable offer.  So, there we were in limbo.

We are very lucky to have family with summer rental properties in Wellfleet that were as-yet unoccupied for the season. So, we "camped" there.  Hubby had an internet connection, so he was working.  I was able to get the kids into school there for the few short weeks that remained until summer vacation.  And I earned our keep doing odd jobs painting and gardening and cleaning and generally sprucing things up around there.

The view from the Lodge out over the Herring River, Great Island and Cape Cod Bay to the West.  It's one of the few places on the Eastern seaboard where you can watch spectacular sunsets over water every day.

As places to "be" go, we really weren't hurting.  It's really quite beautiful there.  And there is something about the combination of changing tides and manual labor that clear the mind.  We made some pretty big decisions in those few weeks and truly have no regrets. In short, it was a pretty amazing place to be rootless.  (Rentals available May-October at Friendship Cottages & Lodge.)

It wasn't all staring at the sea and rearranging heirloom perennials, though.  We spent countless hours online on Realtor and Zillow looking for our new home. (Although, we had already found it. The previous owners just didn't know it yet.)  And I made quite a few whirlwind round trips to the Seacoast of NH to check out houses and neighborhoods and the lay of the land.

When our patience and perseverance finally paid off and we landed a contract on TOPH, we were well into June.  We had been displaced from the Lodge when the rental season started and had been hopping between vacant cottages.  With the summer season entering its prime weeks, we were again headed into limbo.  My mom was good enough to "take a vacation" from her house in Harwich and let us get organized there before closing -- about two weeks.  (If she only knew how many loads of laundry we did there! Well, I guess she knows now.)  And then hubby left for Europe on business, leaving me to camp in the new house with the kids a couple of mattresses on the floor, a patio set and some kitchen basics until the PODs and moving trucks arrived -- almost a month before everything had finally caught up with us.

Looking back now, it really was hectic and chaotic and stressful, but it was all for a purpose and we knew it, so that made it OK.

So, now we've been at TOPH for ten months.  We have completed some significant physical plant upgrades (boiler, water heater, some wiring, some plumbing, etc.)  And done some planned livability projects (a place to put a couch and TV in the same room, etc.), but, in general, we have stayed pretty true to our plan.  Live in it.  Don't make any major changes or decisions for a year.  Stare at it and get to know it.  Don't plant anything permanent for two years.  Be still and breathe.  Don't spend any major money (aside from the initial, planned and pending physical plant stuff) for three years.

So far, so good.  I promise not to take so long to post my next... Installation of small (moveable) herb garden and blow-by-blow of our attack on the resident invasive plant species are coming soon.

Hyper-variable Marionettes + Applied Campaign Strategy = ?

It's almost the end of February and I have almost nothing to report vis a vis progress at TOPH.  The truth is we have a massive, steaming pile of stuff to do.  We are way past the "to-do" list phase.  We have arrived at a point where all things left to do impact some or all of the other things that need doing.  And they all need money -- some a little, some a lot.  So, here we stand on the precipice of a domino-effect adventure.  And it's VERY hard to take that first step, however little, because the chain reaction may just be out of our league.  For now.  So we haven't.

We inhabitants of TOPH are marionettes with too many joints, plus the constriction of natural and unforeseen entanglements.  Sigh.

And then there's that marriage thing.  The hubby is a impulsive projecter with big picture deficit disorder and I am compulsive planner with eyes-bigger-than-stomach project completion disorder. There are those rare occasions when his technical talents intersect with my plans...  And those unforeseeable sweet spots most frequently occur exactly six and two thirds minutes before one or both children are tired, hungry and/or bored.  So, yeah, we're not getting much done.

In an effort to increase the number, frequency and predictability of these instances of promising team effort, I am now on a mission of variable reduction -- essentially I am planning, which is my "fairy talent" as my daughter would put it.  This is a tact both hubby and I have employed in taming chaotic political campaigns.  If you can get a strategy on paper and get buy-in from all the stakeholders, you are essentially eliminating noisy variables from the equation.  And you are creating a trajectory for future tactical planning, a framework for decision-making and a means to plan time, money and people effectively.

So, I am trying to get a plan on paper, with a little help from my friends, perhaps.  If we know what it's all going to look like when we're done, then maybe we'll see the best way to start.  I must say that this process is WAY simpler to apply to other people's stuff.  I am certainly seeing for the first time why candidates paid us the not-so-big-bucks to do this for them.

There is probably some witticism about doing things for yourself or knowing when to hire a professional I should be applying here...

Just Don't Look Up

We were marginally successful in creating actual living space for the holidays.  I can't tell you how amazing it was to have our comfy couch and chairs out of storage (sunroom) and arrayed in proximity to a fireplace and a TV.  It was like our own personal family decompression chamber.  For the first couple of days we were delirious and oblivious, which was nice.

The ceiling is still wide open to the upstairs joists and subfloor, which is fine.  It's a tall "ceiling" -- 10+ feet -- so it's not as obvious   And we're planning to put in some radiant heating (Ultra-Fin) for the bunkroom (later to be our Master), move some plumbing around and play with the positioning of a whole bunch of recessed lighting.  I also want to play with some gel-stain products to lighten up the super-dark, creosote-tone beams (and not have to mask while I'm doing it.)  Essentially, the room looks great, as long as you don't look up.  Or down.  I havent' finshed the floor yet.  But I am going to need a week of kid-free, well-ventilated time to do that.  Maybe this summer sometime?  No biggie.  See, I can picture what it's going to look like in my head.  The color of the floor.  The tone of the light once there is a ceiling and a floor in place...  The reat of y'all will just have to... not look up... or down.