Greetings from Pittsburgh
It’s been a week. After our emotional goodbye on Saturday, we drove to Pennsylvania and got ready to launch our new life. On Monday, we had a final walk-through of the house and signed the documents to make it ours. Is there any stranger feeling than being alone for the first time in a new house that you OWN? Once the realtors and title guy left, we looked around in amazement and glee. “Glee” wasn’t guaranteed. After all, we hadn’t seen the house since July and had been scared silly by the inspection report (TL/DR: “This is an old house. Hope you like projects. Good luck.”). The length and detail of this report nearly made us SELECT ALL / DELETE the whole new-life endeavor. But standing there, keys in hand, we loved it just as much as we had back when we made the offer in the first place. Whew.
We met with a plumber on Monday, and on Wednesday I met with an environmental remediation guy we’d hired to remove the cat-toxic carpet in the (finished) basement and remediate the cat-toxic smell. (Can you tell I’m not a cat person?) Underneath the carpet were asbestos tiles, and on one of those asbestos tiles was a horrifying image of a clown. Unsettling, yes, but I guess this is why I love old houses. You’d never get surprises like this with new construction. (That exact sentence could also be used by people who wouldn’t touch an old house with a ten-foot pole, ha ha.)
On Tuesday, the kids both had an in-person meetup at their new school, where they met their teachers and cohort-classmates and were given materials and devices to start off the year. Their sessions didn’t overlap, so my parents and I hung out at the house while we waited each time. And the kids came with me on Wednesday and got to run all over the house. They like it. Lucia drew a floor plan for her future bedroom layout. They’d brought their dolls with them and hid them in fun new hiding places for hide-and-seek. We ordered noodles and dumplings for lunch--our first food delivery in the new house.
Both girls have had remote learning for the past two days, before their in-person classes begin next week. It’s gone well. Both are getting the hang of the applications they’ll likely need off and on during this crazy year. Their teachers seem super nice and both girls seem comfortable participating and engaging with the Zoom format. There were some frustrating moments at first, when the other kids seemed to understand the apps better than them since they’d used them all spring, but it got sorted out.
Tomorrow our POD will arrive in Pittsburgh and we’ll move into the house. Our moving truck won’t arrive until the 16th. And so begins the hardest part of this for me: the stage of mass disorganization. Right now our things are in three places: my parents’ house, our new house, and our old house. Where’s the book I was reading, my jeans shorts, the t-shirt I wanted to wear, my Advil? It’s anyone’s guess. And in our scattered state in Maplewood last week, we didn’t think clearly about this time period when we’d be at the house but our moving truck with all our furniture wouldn’t be, and we didn’t put any furniture into the POD except the beds from the attic. We have no chairs, no couch, no table, no lamps. Our POD, however, does contain plenty of American Girl clothes, trash bags of stuffed animals, large piles of firewood, AND THREE POTS OF DEAD PEONIES.
I’m excited to move in tomorrow, excited to unload the POD, excited to start settling. It’ll be a chaotic, multi-step process. I would say that I hope there will be no more clown-face-caliber surprises, but there surely will be, and the truth is I’ll welcome them. This is a beautiful old house we’re just starting to get to know.
We met with a plumber on Monday, and on Wednesday I met with an environmental remediation guy we’d hired to remove the cat-toxic carpet in the (finished) basement and remediate the cat-toxic smell. (Can you tell I’m not a cat person?) Underneath the carpet were asbestos tiles, and on one of those asbestos tiles was a horrifying image of a clown. Unsettling, yes, but I guess this is why I love old houses. You’d never get surprises like this with new construction. (That exact sentence could also be used by people who wouldn’t touch an old house with a ten-foot pole, ha ha.)
On Tuesday, the kids both had an in-person meetup at their new school, where they met their teachers and cohort-classmates and were given materials and devices to start off the year. Their sessions didn’t overlap, so my parents and I hung out at the house while we waited each time. And the kids came with me on Wednesday and got to run all over the house. They like it. Lucia drew a floor plan for her future bedroom layout. They’d brought their dolls with them and hid them in fun new hiding places for hide-and-seek. We ordered noodles and dumplings for lunch--our first food delivery in the new house.
Both girls have had remote learning for the past two days, before their in-person classes begin next week. It’s gone well. Both are getting the hang of the applications they’ll likely need off and on during this crazy year. Their teachers seem super nice and both girls seem comfortable participating and engaging with the Zoom format. There were some frustrating moments at first, when the other kids seemed to understand the apps better than them since they’d used them all spring, but it got sorted out.
Tomorrow our POD will arrive in Pittsburgh and we’ll move into the house. Our moving truck won’t arrive until the 16th. And so begins the hardest part of this for me: the stage of mass disorganization. Right now our things are in three places: my parents’ house, our new house, and our old house. Where’s the book I was reading, my jeans shorts, the t-shirt I wanted to wear, my Advil? It’s anyone’s guess. And in our scattered state in Maplewood last week, we didn’t think clearly about this time period when we’d be at the house but our moving truck with all our furniture wouldn’t be, and we didn’t put any furniture into the POD except the beds from the attic. We have no chairs, no couch, no table, no lamps. Our POD, however, does contain plenty of American Girl clothes, trash bags of stuffed animals, large piles of firewood, AND THREE POTS OF DEAD PEONIES.
I’m excited to move in tomorrow, excited to unload the POD, excited to start settling. It’ll be a chaotic, multi-step process. I would say that I hope there will be no more clown-face-caliber surprises, but there surely will be, and the truth is I’ll welcome them. This is a beautiful old house we’re just starting to get to know.
Comments
đŸ˜™ Marion