Sunrises and sunsets

We are now in the thick of the remodeling of Miss Magnolia. For some pictures of the demo and our progress, check out our Picasa site. This has included repairing the foundation, ripping out the old sidewalk and concrete slab, refinishing the floors in the front half of the house, gutting the back half of the house to the studs and subflooring (part of the master bedroom, the whole masterbath and spare room, part of the guest bath, and all of the kitchen), and redoing the floors in the attic (my office). This has meant that our house has been a hive of activity while our contractors give Miss Magnolia an updating. We've moved some of our things into the house, but are painting some of the front rooms and attic so we're shuffling furniture around as we paint. To pull off getting everything done (buying our plumbing and light fixtures, buying paint, picking cabinets and countertops, picking doors, making the 10th run to Lowes, meeting with other contractors to answer questions, painting, etc) we've been spending long days in St Pete so we can stay after work to paint and run errands (I work on the couch in the house while Wade's in his office).

This was a decent arrangement until 2 weeks ago when we discovered that Carmel's lymphoma (cancer) returned. After beating all the odds and living through lymphoma back in 2005, we're back to chemotherapy and fighting to see if we can buy him a few more years (the normal odds are that they never make it a year, so the fact he's been in remission for 5 years is unheard of, literally). Our first day of chemo had us leaving the house before sunrise to get to the specialist and returning after sunset - that's when it hit me that we weren't "burning the candle at both ends", but we'd taken the candle and chucked it in the fire. Between the house, work, Carmel's chemo, and trying to live at two different houses it's become a little difficult to even remember what day it is anymore.

(What a lovely... sunrise? Ugh, I usually make it a habit not to witness sunrise except from behind closed eyelids)

So far so good with the chemo, but we clearly cann't leave Carmel at home all day given that his side effects last time included losing control of most bodily functions and almost dying from the chemo. So, to keep an eye on him, he has started riding up and staying in the house all day with me. For the last week, Amelie has joined us too so we can stay late at night to paint the house. (This has meant the cats are alone a lot which they are not thrilled with)

The plaster walls went up in the back today and this weekend we'll finish painting the floor in the attic and paint the entire back half of the house before the tile floor goes in next week. My goal is to set up my home office before I head to Texas next week for a work meeting. We're also looking forward to our new front walkway and fence going in this weekend. We had tried to contract those on our own (and were less than thrilled with the results), but have been pleasantly surprised to find that paying a quality contractor like ours to do everything not only saves your sanity, but it actually saves money!

We have discovered that when people ask us if we're "handy" they don't mean "can you build your own field equipment for research, handle and navigate a boat in rough seas, not get sea sick, or plan a diving research trip in a foreign country" - all things we used to consider the definition of "handy" in our profession. No, we have discovered we are completely useless when people ask if we're handy because we've never owned a house and don't have the time to learn to do things ourselves right now. Oh, and we like our work to pass the city inspections which requires a professional, so no, we aren't handy - unless painting counts?! We can do that. :)

Jet Lagged?

Right after our move, I hopped a plane to DC for some meetings. While there I interviewed a new person for our coalition who will be based at Defenders of Wildlife (hooray - I won't be the only full-time person any more!) and we had a meeting of all the coalition partners. The exact minute the meeting ended on Friday I booked it for the airport to hop a flight to Miami. On my way there I repaid some of the kindness we were blessed with during our move by helping a woman figure out how to get to her destination on the metro. I even walked her to the right interchange to catch another metro line to make sure she caught the right train. She was grateful and I told her I was happy to do it because I remember my early days of wondering where the heck I was going in the metro...

Friday night I flew into Miami to join Marilyn and others for Rachel's bridal shower/bachelorette party combo. However, upon landing late at the Miami airport all kindness I had was immediately sucked out of me into the black hole that is Miami. After being confronted with some really helpful and friendly people (yes, that is sarcasm) while trying to find the rental car, I had to call Wade and declare loudly that indeed, I did not miss a damn thing about that city (aside from friends of course!). I finally made it to Jason and Rachel's and managed to get into bed by 1am for some snuggling with their cat Mac.

Saturday morning Marilyn and I teamed up to do some shopping for the party while the other ladies cooked. We were particularly excited to find a pink fedora hat that we added a veil to and declared it the bridal fedora. Seriously, I think we're going to start a new trend b/c Rach looked awesome in it. We finally convened on Kristie's house to decorate and prep. Around dinner time, I picked up Rach (I was the designated driver for the evening) and the fun commenced. There were games, presents of lacy unmentionables, and fabulous food and drinks. Eventually we headed out to the Sandbar in Coconut Grove to let the bride strut her stuff. ;) We danced the night away and the bridal fedora was quite the hit - especially with the guys! Below, the Bachelorette in her full glory, me, and Marilyn lettin' it all hang out at the Sandbar.

For me, it was particularly entertaining because I haven't been to that bar in quite a few years, and I could remember my undergrad days of sneaking in with a fake ID. We were all laughing at the fact that most of the UM students there looked to be about 10 years (or more) younger than us and we played the "fake ID" game guessing at who was likely there on a fake ID and who wasn't. After dancing the night away we packed it in and headed back to the house for leftovers. After another round of "dinner" we finally headed home and crawled into bed around 4am.

Sunday morning we slept-in and headed to brunch before I packed up the rental car and made the trek back home to return the car at the Tampa airport. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Miami, it really was wonderful to see old friends, celebrate Rachel, and have some girl time.

Monday morning we got up to head to the house to get some work done and it struck me that I was jet lagged?! Too many late nights and flying in and out of different airports then driving home apparently was just enough to throw me out of whack. I had to laugh - I was jet lagged and hadn't even left my time zone!

Kindness

We have survived the big move - and we did it entirely bythe grace of God and the kindness of family, friends, and strangers. The last few weeks leading up to the move have been physically, emotionally, financially, and mentally draining. Work, packing, selecting contractors, budgeting... it's all been coming to a head and this past weekend we found our breaking point. We were though quite literally saved by the kindness of those around us and for that I felt like it was worth giving thanks.

Friday we discovered the true value of a good contractor when the guy ripping out our concrete decided to do things the easy way rather than the right way and now our yard looks like a bomb went off. However, the sense of overwhelming despair over our yard was buffeted by the wonderful house warming gifts we found on our door step that same day from (my boss) Amanda and Eric, Annette and Mark, and Sarah and Evan.

In my rush to get the house prepped to receive all of our stuff the next day, I cracked my head on the spiral staircase which resulted in a bleeding gash and a huge yellow-colored egg on my forehead. It also meant that every box I bent over to pick up resulted in a blinding headache. That night we moved our furry kids to my Mom and Larry's house and we tried to get some sleep before the big day.

Saturday we woke up feeling pretty stiff and sore and went to get the moving truck. To our horror, we discovered it was a LOT bigger than we could have imagined and the deck was really high so we couldn't simply shove things right in - we had to use the steep, narrow ramp for everything. Uh oh. We were also dreading moving a few pieces of the larger furniture that we knew we just couldn't do alone (hello - 10 seater picnic table?!), but couldn't afford movers this time around. However, our guardian angel was looking out for us because my co worker Michelle offered to help, and out of the blue a neighbor we've only waved to for 2 years introduced himself and proceeded to help us move the entire house! Kindest. Person. EVER. Once we hauled the load up to St. Pete (with Michelle's car looking like a greenhouse on wheels), Katie and Dustin also took a few hours to help us unload. Had it not been for the kindness of our friends and a total stranger we never would have survived.

Sunday we picked up some furniture we had repainted, dropped it off at the new house, returned the gigantor diesel moving truck, and then headed to the old house for a clean-a-thon. By the time we got home at 11pm on Sunday night, the furry kids had no idea we'd even moved. This was due to the kindness and generosity my Mom and Larry are showing us by letting us live in their house until our place is done in a few weeks. As far as our furry kids are concerned they're on permanent vacation and their transition has been seamless and painless, again thanks to our family's kindness.

Monday we rewarded our hard work by lazing around the house reading, eating, and snoozing and it was wonderful. We were also very sore, so there wasn't much we could have done anyway!

Kindness is a beautiful thing and I'm going to go out of my way this week on my travels to pay it forward to other folks in need.

We heart IKEA

The first IKEA we ever went to was the new one in Miami just a few weeks after it opened. Big mistake. We had to park a mile away and were bused in only to wait in line to even enter the store. It was complete insanity, and given that neither of us really like crowds, we were not fans of the whole experience and found IKEA pretty overrated.

Fast forward three years and you'll find us staring at our budget for the remodeling work in our house and feeling... overwhelmed and like a spec of dust. After some creative thinking and talking to a new contractor we finally felt like we had a decent handle on the situation - sort of. We've broken things into phases and are doing the essentials for now (kitchen and master bath), but still the essentials don't come cheap. On a whim, we decided to check out IKEA to see what they had. My boss had recently just redone her entire kitchen with IKEA, so we thought it would be worth a look. What we found was the perfect sink, vanity, and medicine cabinet for the master bath that saved us $600. We also found a healthy lunch for two for cheap and friendly people - which was the complete opposite of our experience in Miami.

So, we are now official fans of IKEA and will go back to get stuff for the master closet and some storage for my office in a few weeks. For now, we're getting ready to take down a wall, demo the master bath and kitchen and figure out where to store our stuff until we fully move in in October.

Tomorrow, I move my home office, wait for the internet/phone guy to show (so I can work at the new house when we need to be there to supervise), meet with the builder to notarize our work permit (hooray!), and get the refinishing started on half of our wood floors.

It feels official now that things are starting to happen in the house. We're currently surrounded by fruit boxes and Uhaul moving boxes we've been hoarding, and the cats are in heaven while the dogs look thoroughly confused. Now we're just praying it doesn't rain on Saturday...