It is a mystery

my parents are Making Progress

thank all the gods

it does help that the farm is basically asleep and I am working on those things but really only get 4-6 hours of work done each day on outdoor tasks, so everything is taking a lot of days there. so now all my dad's free time is on house stuff plus he absolutely loves deadlines to work to and my mom is only stressing about moving instead of about everything including the farm. 

so yesterday before I hit the road, I helped my mom load and move three large bins and two small boxes over to the fun house and she thanked me so much for helping and how it was so difficult and she couldn't have done it without me!!!!

in my mind I am thinking "dear god moving isn't this difficult, it truly isn't that hard, this was so little stuff and so easy" but I am trying to remind myself that I have moved six times in eleven years and I have practice moving. They moved twice in 33 years. Wildly different experiences. It is a skill that needs to be developed. My mom is very good at losing her mind about things. She also is pretty clearly procrastinating on actual important moving tasks by having me help her with other stuff (we forked two cabinets from the front porch where they have sat in their boxes for literal years, which they may actually set up for use in the garage) or suggesting I fix unimportant things (the upstairs hallway light doesn't have a fixture and she wanted me to work on it). I am going to have to kick her out when it comes time to actually set the house up for guests because our ideas of housekeeping are very very different and I will lose my mind if she comes over here to clean more before guests come over. The front porch is an example, she wanted to start cleaning the front porch off because the cardboard boxes look terrible but I won't be able to host guests at all if the fucking guest bedrooms aren't empty of their stuff. We come into the house via the back porch, the front porch steps don't even work. PRIORITIES

I just got back after 24 hours away (drove to MD for continuing education credits for sidejob) and my dad has almost fully emptied his work desk of things, plus the giant shelf next to his work desk (they are leaving me the giant shelf, I am SO EXCITED about it for crafting supplies, it is HUGE. It is floor to ceiling, four feet wide, 2 or 2 1/2 feet deep with four shelves. It will be the perfect shelf for roving and fleeces). Now it's all piled on the couch, but it has been sorted at least. 

The order of operations currently is: finish laying new flooring in the rental (currently around half done), do all other repairs in rental (new renter is moving in Jan 1st), then sand and finish flooring in fun house office so all office supplies can be moved directly in (due to computer/server/network things I know nothing about, it is easier to move offices only once), their bedroom moves to fun house, (once those two rooms are emptied, I can move a bunch of my stuff from shed to here, and set up guest bedrooms for christmas and I can start cleaning and organizing the house to my liking), they move either to the fun house or to the rental temporarily, I don't really care which, they do the rest of the flooring in the fun house and all the other renovation things. They may have to move back into the guest bedroom here temporarily while they seal and finish the hallway floor but if we get to that point, it will be a minor miracle. They would also still be using the kitchen here to cook. I just suggested to my mom that she use the church which would be closer but she didn't seem thrilled. Can't imagine why. 

The couch will remain until after christmas which is fine by me, it's a very nice and comfortable couch, so I don't mind borrowing it. I will probably rearrange things so we have more space and can fit things. I did send around the christmas gift list but my asks were help moving things after christmas day and not much in the way of physical gifts because I need help with tasks, not stuff. 

I did get the indoor woodstove working, I did not clean the chimney out, I got up there and started the attempt and gave up but! the actual up/down part of the chimney was mostly smoke and the pipes to the stove were full of creosote, so I cleaned the pipes and top of the stove out, plus the basement cleanout and started that bad boy up. it's so so so nice to have the woodstove to warm up next to after working outside, I warm up so much faster. 

anyway, so many parentheses and I'm very tired after my drive home, thank you to the moon for being so bright for the drive.

more thoughts occurred since I was very tired this morning

thank you for all the comments you left on posts in the past month, I was too tired to respond to most but I appreciated them! 

I found out last night that my parents have come up with a more convoluted scheme for the move but seems more likely to get them out of the farm house sooner? they have a second farm down in town that has a house attached, they got the farm for the land directly from the previous owners and the house was unavoidably attached and honestly the only thing of value. The farmland is very nice though. the barn could burn down and we wouldn't be sad. I climbed into the upstairs the other week and wasn't actually sure I climbed up the way I was supposed to, but hey any hole in the ceiling will do. The people who have rented the house from them for six? seven? years moved out. The insurance company doesn't like that it's unoccupied and they have a person who is known through someone else that wants to rent it but due to potential surgery things, might not be able to move in for several months. My parents would rather have someone move in that they like and think would be a good renter for years than hit and miss shorter term people who might not be good tenants. Okay sure. 

so the plan as explained to me yesterday: my parents move into the rental, taking only essential things down there, everything else going in the basement at the fun house (their "new" house), to free up room here in the farm house for me and potential December guests. Then they can work on the fun house while not breathing in wood finishing and paint fumes and it takes the pressure off them. Or something. The main problem being that their nice hardwood floors take a while to lay, sand, seal, finish with like a week curing time or something. 

I dunno. this sounds like my dad's offer to move my loom into the fun house so I could use it where it's warm. unnecessary, a lot more work but nice to offer. I wish they would just crank out the fun house, but they do also have to run the wood burner at the rental to heat it and that would be easier to do with them living there. all in all, this is getting absurd. why are they like this. I had no idea them being picky about vinyl plank flooring would lead to something that is a full year of nonsense before they move in. see also: the upstairs bathroom here in the farm house only having a shower and nothing else done. I'm going to start tackling that soon I think. 

but also they are being almost as picky with the flooring they plan to replace in the rental which is a house they won't even really live in! my mom was appalled that I just ordered the LVP for the NY house without getting samples or checking that I liked the pattern or whatever. like, I don't know how to tell her that her standards are too high. Because this is a reoccurring problem of: high standards -> agonizing over decisions -> delaying the work while more research occurs -> delay work because it isn't perfect -> project never gets done

there's a hole in the downstairs bathroom ceiling! the upstairs bathroom is bare drywall! and plywood! the basement stairs only has a support on one side and so sags alarmingly when you walk down it! (on my list to fix literally this week) perfect is the enemy of done! I don't understand this! they don't even half ass it, they 100% or 0%! I would take 80% of perfect because that's pretty good! 

like this is a good problem to have: owning multiple properties, a thing I will only accomplish due to their achievements, but execution of tasks to make things happen is just like pulling teeth. anyway, I think I'm hungry, gonna run to the grocery store and buy snacks or something. 

Wednesday night, I took the big truck and myself and a fuckload of tarps and ratchet straps up to NY. I was determined. I was Getting Everything.

lol no

But I got up there Wed night and chatted with F about what the plan was, all the stuff I was taking and what was going to happen. During this conversation, she said "oh I wasn't sure if you were taking the fencing, so I figured I could give it to Farm BIL". me: wtf. I absolutely said multiple times that I was taking the fencing. I understand she's stressed. She didn't contemplate much of how the mortgage thing was going to work until like, beginning of March, but she said she was going to handle it, so I am letting her handle it. So she's finally scheduled her refinancing which will be June 2. And the bear came by and rummaged through many things and also pulled down a light fixture because it thought it was a bird feeder. But also, whatever.

I got up in the morning and ran over to the uhaul place and picked up a trailer. It's one of the 5x9's with a ramp and it's a nice solid little high sided trailer. I took it back and unhitched it in the driveway and started loading my truck. I laid a tarp down in the bed and then tucked another one just under the front of that one and flopped it over the top of the cab while I packed. I had a couple bins and boxes but the main thing was all of my spinning wheels and my skein reel. They are large, hard to stack and delicate antiques.

So I used the bins and boxes as my base and then set the great wheel laid down first, padded with dog beds. Then I put blankets on top of it and the boxes and foam and laid the two CPW wheels on top of those plus B's tiny wheel. My flax wheel rode shotgun in the cab. Then I took the bases of the wheels and put some on top of the extra foam and then added some more flat bins and set them on there.

I paused packing and went to my doctors appointment. F offered to let me use her car, which I did borrow and it was very helpful, so I didn't need to strap down the truck mid packing and drive around with it more than necessary. This was another teach appointment for my testosterone shots. I successfully did do the thing! Hated it so much omg. Took me three tries. I am apparently facing many things I fear (stabbing myself, ladders). I got my prescriptions renewed and some supplies yay! This appointment did start 20 mins late and also ran pretty long. I then dropped the spare shearing clippers J had lent me at a farm he'll be shearing at soon (with their permission) and headed home.

Then I tried to get my reel and desk chair up in the back of the truck. And accidentally knocked the base of my reel off the tailgate of the truck and it hit a small table on the way down and broke. The table has split straight down the middle clean, so I should be able to glue it back together pretty easily. This is also around the time I got angry, hungry and dehydrated probably so I was not having a good time. I packed more stuff in the bed of the truck, as much as I could manage, with the desk chair laying facedown on the boxes and the reel laying on it's side on the back of the chair since it was soft and that was the best I could do. I flipped the top tarp down over the whole load of stuff, strapped everything down, jammed the tarp edges down between the stuff and the bed and tied down the back.

Then I hooked the trailer back up and loaded that. First in was the small chest freezer full of frozen things. I brought a dolly with me and it was remarkably easy to get it into the trailer, way easier than I thought it would be by myself. Then I put the snowblower behind it and some cabinets. I got F's help to load up my workbench, which I decided I was going to take because it's a nice workbench. This was another object that F was like, oh I wasn't sure if you were taking that. I packed things under the bench and behind the bench. I absolutely could have packed more things on the trailer if I had more time, but it was getting to 3:30pm with last leave time of 4pm and I still had to tarp and strap and talk to F.

The tarping and strapping went quickly and easily, the talking to F because incredibly annoying very quickly. The things I left in the house were: a lamp, weights and one display board. I left some more stuff outside and in the shed and she pointed at everything I left asking if I was taking all of those things. After the fifth or sixth thing, I snapped that I was taking all of the things that I hadn't explicitly said I was leaving behind and I would be back for them in May or June. I deliberately prioritized getting the stuff out of the house so she could have that space to use, but apparently she just was going to try and keep more of my stuff or give it away???? I was pissed at her and me at this point and thinking about the weather and sunset and the long fucking drive I had. I just told her I'd be back for my stuff and feel free to move it around, but I'd get it out of her hair.

Then I hit the road. I headed to the pharmacy 20 mins away and got my prescriptions (except for the actual needles, so I need to figure out how I'm going to pick those up. I have four that the RN gave me, so I have some starting point but idek), checked all my straps and tightened them down and adjusted the mirror that was out of wack and hit the actual road. Leave time 5pm with a 4 hour drive. I stopped once to add more straps to the trailer because the tarp was flapping too much.

There was a hairy 45 minutes around 8:00pm where the sun had set and it was pouring rain and I had just gotten off the highway and the road they laid in the last two years as very shiny in the rain and I couldn't see shit including if the trailer was still okay behind me. And then it started snowing. I stopped in a tiny town to refuel and update my parents, stretch my legs and after that it was smooth sailing. Five minutes down the road, the snow pretty much stopped, there was very little traffic and I got home around 9:15. Dad helped me find a place to park everything under cover and then I went inside and tried to relax. It was pretty chilly, so I wasn't worried about the frozen stuff, so I literally brought in my backpack and the bag of food that ended up on the trailer and went to bed.

This morning I got up, ravenous because I didn't actually eat dinner, just driving snacks. Ate, showered, felt like a real person again. Then I had to unload everything. I had only put a few things behind the chest freezer, so it was pretty simple to get it out and into the house along with my bulk food bin. Then everything else from the trailer went into the barn (workbench which I just dragged out, snowblower, lawnmower, AC unit (might go to shed), some cabinets), and I dropped the trailer. Then took the truck over to the shed and unloaded almost everything else. A few things went back to the house once I uncovered them. There's still space open in the shed, but that's because I'm great at packing.

The spinning wheels all made it intact thankfully and the tarps on the truck kept everything nice and dry. The tarp on the trailer did less good of a job but I didn't put anything back there that couldn't take a little wet or I didn't care much about.

I got the trailer to the rental place around 10am.

And then I worked on raspberry pruning all afternoon. I'm tired and sore today and grumpy about how the trip went. I knew that was a possibility that I'd run short on time, so I know better for next time I guess.

they're very good at the chaos and subsequent wrangling!

They got the call this morning that their flooring is all done and can be picked up! The lumber place is five minutes around the corner from me and it's now up to 70% chance of rain saturday through monday.

So my parents will be driving up friday to get lumber and then we'll load their truck as full as we can, plus my truck and take it all down. I'm sure I'm going to leave things behind but hopefully it will be all outdoor or shed things which will be easy to pick up when I come up in april for a doctors appointment.

now I really need to get the last few things packed up and get cleaning

eta: the leftovers will be too much for just my truck I suspect, so I will plan to bring the big truck and maybe my uncle's little trailer up or just the big truck next week when it isn't raining and get the rest of it. the two trucks friday will have the largest stuff and the most important stuff

There is currently 25mph constant wind with 50mph gusts. it just started snowing briefly. I was supposed to go to my parents this weekend. I decided not to since I despise driving in this kind of wind and highway driving with such high winds sucks so much and would suck more with a truck bed full of belongings. I did not sleep well, the wind kept pressing on the house and making it shift slightly and I woke up a lot. This weekend is for cranking through side job work and getting farm website moved over to new hosting service and *secret thing* website up and running. I took today off work for travel, but side job work mostly today.

Timeline for next few weeks:

• March 10: give 3 weeks notice at work
• March 14: load truck with stuff (the piles of boxes in my room and some small furniture items) and head to parents. goals for the weekend: move heavy stuff, unload my stuff into a random location (I think shed behind church for ease of getting stuff in and out rather than going up and down terrible stairs twice with all my shit), help with farm stuff
• March 16: come back from parents
• all the packing, everything packed and in convenient locations for moving
• March 28: last day at work
• March 28 or 29: load sensitive or delicate items (spinning wheels, plants, food, important documents, electronics, glass stuff, lamps) into my truck, head to parents, pick up their truck and their big trailer, drive back to NY, maybe my dad comes with me
• March 29 or 30: B comes over and we load all my stuff onto truck and trailer - mostly big items (bed, dresser, loom, big squashy chair, desk), outdoor stuff (grandma's rocking chairs, porch chairs, mower, snowblower, generator), tools (everything from the shed, wood that I have in the shed) and furniture plus anything else I haven't taken down yet (shelving, coffee tables?)

I have two doctors appts in the next three weeks, both transition related. I spent some time yesterday gathering all of the work supplies I have laying around the house and shed and putting them in one spot. My parents will also be coming up at some point to pick up the flooring from the place around the corner but that depends on when they get the call that it's done. So I could put some stuff on the truck at that point, but not too much since they'll have a lot of 16ft boards in the trailer. 

The flooring requires two weeks of acclimation to the house, so as I anticipated, I will be living with my parents for a bit, but I'll be around to help with the flooring, so that's very good. My dad is paying extra money for special nails because he's a nerd. My belongings will be stuffed into random places, but I figured that would happen, so eh whatever. I can put some of the large things on the front porch of the farm house and cover with tarps. There's tons of storage space in the basement of the church and the parsonage basement but the church basement is stairs only, two small sets of narrow stairs and the parsonage basement is a bilco door. Although I could get stuff into the basement more easily if I pulled into the garage and through those two doors, but it would be a full set of stairs.

I'm sure I'll be back up this way at least once in April for various things, seeing friends, picking up yarn or wool from a weavers guild member who is giving things away, so it will be easy enough to pick up anything that gets left behind.

Weeeeeeeeee

 Yesterday was busy! I wrote a post and then more things happened. I had my dentist appointment at 2:50 (just a cleaning) and I drove to the apartment early to get some stuff picked up and maybe do some cleaning. 

Since I had driven through all the snow/salt on Sat and Sun, I decided I would run through the car wash because my truck was absolutely covered in salt. Had to get fuel too. Mistake. There was a line for the car wash and it took probably 20 mins of sitting before I finally got through. I did pay the extra $2 for the undercarriage wash though. Gotta get it clean. 

Went to the apartment and loaded my truck up with my spinning wheel and some other things that had been left. Not much. I did end up bringing the final kitchen box back to here with me because I like my pots and pans and C had three very sad ones here. I also loaded up the rest of the things going to storage, with the most annoying one being the desk chair. Briefly considered tossing it (I had picked it up on the side of the road at the beginning of the pandemic) but decided to store it anyway. The point where I move into a house, I probably won't want to buy a new desk chair and it will do. 

I also got my seed order from the mailbox. Yay!

As I was loading, I got a call that my dentist appointment was delayed until 3. Okay. No big deal. 

I went over to the storage unit and I did end up pulling three boxes from storage to come back with me. One had my stand mixer, which I want for baking and the misc baking supplies shoved in with it which should be my hand tools and possibly my thermometer so I can make yogurt. Second box was baking dishes including my cake pans. To be fair, those two boxes were weirdly sized and heavy and therefore weren't in the big stacks so it was easy to get them out. The final box was a fiber box on the top of the outermost pile. I couldn't resist. I want some of my fiber :)

I shoved all the stuff in that needed to go in (two boxes, my sleeping bag, s small shelf, a small side table, misc) and headed over to the dentist. Got a text that it was delayed to 3:10. Sat in the parking lot and stared at my seeds. Appointment ran long but was good, no new cavities yay! I left there at 4:20 and it was an hour drive home, so I got in around dusk. My girl scout cookie shipping experiment was a success and I now have many GF toffee cookies and one box of thin mints in the freezer that I will eat sparingly for the next 6 months. 

I walked Mara and then left her leashed outside while I carried most of the stuff in and out because she was just standing and staring since C had arrived home from the airport. We waved but didn't actually talk. 

I did a bunch of organizing this morning and got the printer set up at the table, put away the misc electronics and swept since I accidently dumped some dirt on the floor. Since the printer is now living on the kitchen table, I will use the little square table for fiber stuff. The extra shelf will hold baking stuff. I might even get around to cooking something soon. Am considering making brownies although I don't have eggs because I forgot to check the fridge at the old apartment and I think I left them there....oops. 

I'll probably go back again saturday or sunday and actually get everything cleaned and all the extra boxes and cleaning supplies out of the apartment and then I will bring my vacuum here because the vacuum C has here is bad. 

We are currently supposed to get 4-10 inches of snow in the next two days. I don't need to go anywhere and could probably borrow eggs from C as long as I give them brownies so that might be my project while we're snowed in. 

Mostly.

I decided I didn't really care what the neighbors thought and started loading stuff up around 8:30. The next door neighbors were making an unholy racket around 8 last night including what sounded like someone falling down the stairs. So there was that.

I put Mara on the balcony with a new marrow bone and started loaded. Got almost everything loaded that I wanted to bring pretty quickly. I ended up not having room for my milk in the cooler so I hope it didn't freeze too much in a not-insulated bag. Oh well.

The only stuff I didn't fit were my spinning wheel, my camp chair that I use with the spinning wheel, the emergency water 48 pack and the misc bag that was mostly reusable grocery bags and maybe one or two other things. I may also bring the square side table.

Mara was very good and extremely worried about it all but she loaded up fine and drove fine. I made it back up the hill and left her in the truck cab while I unloaded everything as fast as possible. Then I took the truck back down the hill and parked it and we walked back up so she could use the bathroom.

I shoved the fridge/freezer stuff away, ate a granola bar and set up the tv, my laptop and Mara's bed in front of the couch and sat down. Mara paced around for a while and finally drank some water and I convinced her to lay down on her bed and she's snoozling now while I have a twitch stream on for noise. Definitely different noises.

I can't quite figure out the thermostat, I poked at it and looked up a manual but it isn't heating past 50F so I need to email C about that.

I haven't unpacked anything else but my sweatpants and my heated blanket and I probably won't until later.

But I'm basically done! And I'll wrap up the rest on tuesday. I need to make a quick grocery run tomorrow morning but otherwise, it will be a quiet day off work.

nor'easter is heading easter so we might get an inch of snow over the whole day saturday

I'm now aiming for saturday for load 1, sunday for load 2 because wednesday it is supposed to rain now.

I'm grading sweet potatoes tomorrow so I got most of my stuff packed up and staged this afternoon, ready to go. I've got one or two more boxes to seal up and I need to take down my plant table but that's about it. I'm ordering food sat night because I'm eating a lasagna right now.

whew. stuff is happening now.

Jade rolled in very early this morning.

She got started cleaning her stuff, picking it up and packing it all. I ran over to the uhaul place and picked up my truck. Had a minor detour when I realized I wouldn't be able to clear the old railroad bridge that is now a rail trail.

Once I got back, I sat around in my room and futzed around on the internet until Jade was ready. I backed the uhaul in, we loaded my stuff in (chest freezer, squashy red chair, two 6 foot tall book shelves, my desk, and my bed. I loaded into the truck in reverse order as listed here because the chest freezer needed to go into the storage unit first.

And we did it! It was the most glorious space puzzle and everything fit in perfectly. I was able to leave a very tiny space for me to get to the back and it worked out well. I drove the uhaul back to the store and dropped it off immediately.

Then headed back, ordered delivery mexican food for lunch and sat around and ate.

After lunch, we loaded the three couches and one broken dresser into the back of my truck one by one and took them over to the dumpster and dropped them over there. I'll go to city hall on monday and drop off the bulk item pickup form and the payment. Either they'll pick them up or the apartment will remove them, I don't really care which.

The big couch was awkward and heavy enough that we just let it slide down the stairs. Since it was too wide, we had to flip it on it's back to carry and there was no good handhold since the corners curved. Sliding. Many thanks to gravity.

After that, Jade hit the road with the last of her stuff, I cleaned the floors of the salt and dirt and cat hair found under the couches. She left a tall square coffee table and a shelf behind because she ran out of room in her car. Good news for me because I can use the coffee table for my computer desk since I didn't take my desk chair over to storage yet. I should be able to squeeze them in somewhere when the time comes.

I've got a bunch more cleaning to do but Jade did do some scrubbing in the bathroom and cleaned her bedroom well enough.

Mara spent basically the whole day on the balcony and she was quite happy about that.

storage unit

Jade is coming Saturday (would she have told me if I hadn't texted and asked? who knows) and I just arranged the uhaul. ended up with a 15' because this late there weren't any 10'. oh well.

everything is ready to go other than my bed, which I will be sleeping in tonight and tomorrow night.