Moving In Blues

...or maybe the Oranges. Isn't orange opposite blue on the color wheel? So when you're happy you should have a case of the Oranges.

So we're all in the new house, and all out of the old one. Saturday's Big Move took over six hours when all was said and done, and really killed my knee and my hips. As a sort of post-move "screw you," I now have a red, itchy rash on my left leg where my knee brace was. But all our stuff is in our new home, albeit largely in boxes or the wrong room.

Some highlights:

While cleaning all the ancient junk out of the detached shed, I was sweeping leaves to uncover some white shapes. "Please let them not be ribs," I said out loud. They were. A complete opossum skeleton was lying in the very back of the shed. After scooping it carefully into a garbage bag, I turned around to find another opossum skeleton a few feet away from it, curled up and untouched. That was too much for me in the half-light of the shed. We're donating the skeleton to the education room at Maymont. With any luck, it will have a little plaque reading "Gift of Andrew and Karen Hamm."

DSL is the last utility to be attached. Phone came a half-hour later than the 8:00-12:00 window they scheduled, so when Cable called Monday morning, there was no answer, so they didn't come when they were scheduled. They came back Tuesday morning, and we bought 10o0 gallons of propane Wednesday morning. Now I just need to figure out how to turn the furnace on. DSL takes at least 72 hours after the phone line has started up to work. I'm checking emails at Crossroads about once every two days. It's like swimming through spam.

There's more room than we thought in the house. Seriously, once the kitchen is all set up, the dining room is going to look like a rehearsal room with one small table and two chairs in the middle. And I think we're going to be able to get my mother's chair fixed and set up in the living room.

The movers made one big gouge in the downstairs hallway--where we had just painted. I'm calling the fact that there's only one gouge a huge success.

The cable guy very kindly removed the yards and yards of excess cable that seemed to be in every room, even though it wasn't his job.

The house doesn't appear to be haunted, which is seriously one of my big fears.

It's been cold enough to have to use a space heater and electric blanket, what with no heat propane.

I feel like quite the handyman after installing lock latches and connecting the washer and drier.

The master closet is the size of a small room.

More later. Once some more boxes are emptied, I'll take pictures and post them. Phil and Joehammy are coming for a few hours to play this weekend, so I need to focus on studio readiness by Saturday morning.