I really should have done Nablopomo. I know I should have. And last month would have been a banner month to do it. So much random crap happened. And by "random crap happened" I mostly mean "shit went wrong". There are about a dozen stories I should have told you. And now I will distill it all into one post of bullet points.

I'm thinking about writing every day this month. Don't hold me to it, but I need to kickstart my impulse to blog. And what better way than to force it? I should probably "save" up these stories if I truly mean to do this...but I have a hunch a ton of random crap is going to happen again.

• My basement was finished. Stuff was moved in. It's becoming a two floor home.
• Since we've been down there more, we realized it smelled like gas in the gear room *the bedroom will henceforth be the gear room*. Gas company was called. They replaced some apparatus that held the meter in place.
• Next day, couldn't find the cat. The feral mama cat. Boku. Boku, seeing the open door to the meter closet, jumped up to a ledge (2-3 feet off teh ground) and climbed inside the wall. Probably about 7 feet inside the wall. And we only found her because I'm a crazy cat lady and just knew she was in there. She didn't make any noise. We poked her with a tape measure (it was the only thing long enough). No noise. We tapped on the wall. No noise. In our eyes, she had climbed into a dark, quiet spot to die. Boku died. So we had to get her out. Loml was the calm eye stuck in the middle of my emotional storm. He got a saw and proceeded to cut a hole in the wall. And opened it up to Boku staring at him. THAT BITCH WASN'T DEAD. Sorry, just needed to rage there for second. She is alive, well and coaxed out of the hole with some tuna. Ever since the sawing episode, though, she is deathly afraid of Loml. Tides turned? No longer the favorite?
• And then it still smelled like gas. We called again a week later. SURPRISE, the gas is at blow up levels. And since the leak is "on our side" of the piping, they turned off the gas and left. At 2pm on Black Friday. So I called a plumbing company and had to pay emergency rates to get some dudes out to fix it. The gas company comes back (2 hours later. No gas, I was told, is not an emergency). This gas-man (cue taxman by beatles) picked my basement apart; there is a lot wrong in the boiler room. Anyway, he kindly fixed one of the leaks (by tightening a cap) himself and turned our gas on. So far, we haven't smelled gas again.
• My contractor dinged me with an assortment of extra costs. That made me ill for a few days. I bitched it up to him though and cut those extra costs in half. Though I still have extra costs. Sigh.
• Of course, as you know, I got the IUD. And my body is reacting to it in all kinds of ways including, but not limited to, teenage pimple face, crazy mood swings and weird junk I don't want to share. I know my body is getting used to not being on the pill but I'd really like it to cut me a break. Though, bigger picture, I think (as long as it's in the right place still) my reaction has been mild. I'm not in pain or anything (some people have cramps for months). I will say (TMI ahead) that I cannot reach or feel any strings that I'm supposed to be checking. Hopefully my next check up will show that everything is in the right place and I'm set to not have babies.
• I woke up a few nights ago having chest pain. Not sure why I woke up, but it was hurting with every breath. I got a litany of tests today that will hopefully show that I am super healthy and had a random asthma-y thing. No results yet though. As an aside, my general doc asked if i was still on birth control, I explained about the IUD and she just sort of briskly said, oh even better. All doctors love this thing, eh?

I'm sure I'm forgetting things.  For another day...

This post is about my lady parts, detailed tidbits, so consider yourself warned.  

I shouted an expletive at the doctor's office today.  It slipped out with a couple of ouches and noises of pain.  Because today I got an IUD.  There's a devilish part of me that wants to put a medical drawing here of an IUD in a uterus, but I'll restrain myself.  The copper paragard T is in my womb.

And let me just say that it was painful.  And my body was confused afterwards (still is).  So here's the run down.  If you don't want details, stop reading.

Basically it was 4 stages of painfulness.  I'm on the table, speculum'd up.  I get cleaned out with iodine.  She warns me that my cervix is closed tight.  So, in order to dilate it, she pokes it.  That's right.  She poked it.  Didn't feel all that great, but it didn't necessarily hurt.  That's level 1 pain there.  Then she clamps something on to it (I believe her explanation was "I'm going to clamp something now".)  I don't know why.  Maybe she needed to keep it open.  I forgot to clarify at that point.  The clamping burned a little, so pain level 2.  Not the worst, though my doc, at this point, was astounded that I didn't even flinch.  Then she needed to measure my uterus to get the IUD sized correctly.  And this my friends, is what I'll call pain level 4.  I guess I wasn't expecting the pain, but I did say (in a very low shout voice) "oh shit ow ow ow ow" as it was happening.  It felt like the end of the world in my womb.  Like she was stabbing it with a knife.  Incidentally, my uterus is size 7cm.  Pain level 3 happened with the actual insertion of the IUD, which she claims should have hurt the worst.  Maybe I was ready for it at that point, but while it hurt a lot, I grimaced and breathed evenly and didn't feel the need to shout.

The immediate aftermath was intense.  I think my body went into a mild version of shock (maybe the surprising level of pain did it) so I started shaking, I got insanely hot and I felt like I might puke all over.  I also felt a little off-kilter.  Some of those things lasted only 10 minutes.  Some came with me on the train home.

Right now I'm having waves of weirdness.  I just feel like there's something off in the lady parts.  For chunks of time it's hard to get comfortable.  Sometimes I feel completely fine and just feel a bit full in that area, like a normal menstrual thing.  I'm having some cramping off and on too, though it's not nearly as bad as some of my worst period cramps.

I went with an IUD, and specifically with the copper one, because I just got really tired of the hormonal side effects of the pill.  I tried switching pills to see if maybe that would help, but then it's just a new handful of side effects.  I'm super hopeful that this is going to be easy, crazy effective birth control.  Something I never have to think about.  From everything I've read, it sounds like the first six months can be interesting.  So I plan on sharing here.  Part of the reason I started researching IUD's is because of Lena Chen's experience, so I feel like I should behave in kind and write about mine.  Only with more gory details.

This doesn't fit here at all, but the deck is going up and it's going to be awesome.  Getting rid of the janky enclosed porch was definitely the right decision.

Phew, I've been meaning to write pretty much every day since the last time I wrote.  One of those posts was going to be about how I am broke, one about how I'm having some issues with some extra poundage around the old belly but the house is making it impossible to go to the gym regularly, one about how contractors are idiots, one wondering how one goes about selling a hot tub, and so on and so on.


Apparently being a homeowner is taking all of my brainpower right now.  But I feel lighter lately because it's almost over.  Loml and I will have a house - right now loml, I and five random men have a house.  


And the reason for finally writing this post is to say - we're moving in to the basement this weekend.  Or some of our stuff finally will.  I cannot wait.  And here is your final tour.


Our jelly jar stairwell.

Looking into the basement (I'm standing on the bottom stair).  Yes, I am in the process of doing 80 loads of laundry that have been overflowing the hamper.  Basically you're looking into the second family room here.

The bathroom, sans vanity top.  I ordered the vanity top yesterday, it's the basic "generic" top from the vanity company.  So.  Same company.  Pretty sure it's not going to fit.  The sinks are not going to fit in the holes correctly.

The toilet nook.  The nook is to the left in the picture above.  That is a fancy japanese toilet.  It has a button flush on top, you can chose between a small flush and a serious flush.  Saving the environment...

This is taken standing in the toilet nook.  That is my lovely shower.  There is a little seat to the right in the shower that you cannot see.

The bottom of the stairs is right to the right there.  Looking back, the "stripey" door used to go on a cedar closet, so that's cedar you're seeing.  That door goes to a bedroom/loml's gear room.  The nook on the left is going to be shelving.  Except, we need perfectly fitting shelves.  Good idea construction foreman, lackluster follow through.  Door on the right is storage.

The family room/loml's room basically look like blank rooms with this same flooring.  It's pretty lovely.  And also really dusty.  There's the laundry buzzer, gotta go grab those sheets and make the bed.


After this weekend, open invitation to you all to come over.  The back porch has been ripped off the house and the deck is going up quickly, so here's hoping we'll be planning an open house housewarming sometime in the next few weeks.  

Things I know now that I didn't two months ago:

1. Built in microwaves are not meant for short people.  It really looks nice and saves space, but I can't see the food as it cooks.  The kitchen is going to become an obstacle course of step-stools at some point.  
2. There might be something to this whole robe thing.  I think I need a waffle robe or something similar for my mornings.  All the windows have no blinds and most of my morning routine involves states of partial undress.  
3. Sometimes we live under a flight path.  Either that or sometimes the flights all sound like they're about to crash out of the sky.  It only happens occasionally that they're super loud and I think it may have a correlation with inclement weather - but man, 20 planes sounded like they were going to fall out of the sky tonight (loml once described it as sounding like the Lost airplane).
4. Sleeping with a boy for a month can suddenly make it hard to not sleep with a boy and that offends me.

The bathroom downstairs look amazing.  And the basement is getting close.  Loml wandered around down there a bit last night and besides his being certain the house is going to fall down around us, we're both looking forward to having it as actual living space.  Two weeks from today?

The bathroom tile looks amazing.  I'm annoyed with the construction but also excited.  I think the tension of that is exhausting me.  Work has been kind of exhausting as well.  I'm just tired.  That is all.

From the doorway.  You can see the pipes for the double sinks/vanity on the left.  I bought the vanity today, online.  Fingers crossed it actually looks like the picture.  On top of that black edging, the wall will be painted green.  Romaine to be specific.

Thought I should get a close up.  The tile for this bathroom was expensive.  Glass on the walls, marble on the floors.  There is no grout just yet...

Journal swap round 4: librarian

I like to think that she was feeling wild, free ranging like a zebra.  

Journal swap round 4: me.

I made this quite a while ago and I believe this was during some crazy times with the house purchasing process.

Bits and pieces today.

***

Currently I have three space heaters running; this place will be a bearable temperature tomorrow.  I will continue to run up the electricity bill until it happens.

***

I have a few journal swap posts in the works, rounds 4 and 5.  Or round 4 and half of 5.  The posts are about to become even farther apart as my swapping companion is about to move states.  So we're going to embark on a mission to save the post office with our journal swap mailings.  We have welllll over half of each journal left.  It may be years at this point.

***

Last night I was at a friend's house and came home later than usual.  I came home to Boku staring at me out the front door.  Apparently she's taken on the role of guard-cat.

And one last crazy cat-lady picture to share.  This makes me happy.  We all love the house (though will be happier when the construction is over).

I haven't been feeling all that well lately.  Just tired and headachey, chesty and dribbly.  It's been a while, and at first I think it was allergies.  Then it was allergies compounded by my terrible handling of move stress.  Then it was that compounded by a different schedule because there's a boy in my bed every night.  Next, mix in the smell of paint and stain that has been heavy in the house for the past week.  So now, it is allergies?  Am I sick?  Or is my body just angry at me?  Apologies for the blank blog and stares, for the missing me for the past two weeks.  The contractor keeps promising two weeks.  So let's say that by Halloween, I should be 100%.  If not before.


Living with another person, after 6 years of solitary....it's been hilarious and fun and maddening and exhausting.  Loml and I are having a good time.  I do worry that he's bored a lot, a lot of his stuff was left in the basement at his house.  But I'm trying not to hover or worry or nag like a 60 year old wife.


Gotta go scrape some windowpanes and clean a square of grout on the floor in the bathroom...

Please forgive me for being terrible at taking pictures.  Basement pictures below.  Good luck figuring out how the basement is set up from the photos you're about to see.  Over the fact that it's not my strong suit?  Good, now we can all move on.

Being a homeowner is really odd.  Sometimes I pause and think 'We live here.'  Kind of incredulously.  And then it immediately follows 'I own this house.'  And then I scratch my head, say 'huh' to myself, smile a little and continue on with whatever I'm doing.

I will say, I have a lot of new respect for homeowners.  And very little respect for the homeowner who owned this house before me.  It appeared to my mom on move in weekend that she never cleaned.  It also appears she didn't take much pride in the house.  The french doors featured yesterday have glue on every single windowpane.  It takes a little time and a razor blade to get the glue off.  And then they look like new.  From what we have learned about the house, those doors have been there since 2004.  Six years of dirty looking french doors?  I'm not even a very clean person and I find that impossible.

Basement picture extravaganza!  Try to remember the last picture show.  I managed to fail at taking that same perspective shot and am too lazy to go downstairs and fix it (no access from inside the house, have to get a key, unlock the door, etc, etc).

From the bottom of the stairs looking west.  That rough bit of floor is where the stairs used to come down.  The bookshelf is an add on from the foreman, a way to hide a jumble of ceiling pipes that turn in to the utility room at that point.



From the bottom of the stairs looking south.  Door on the left is the bathroom.  On the right is utility room.  Notice the height different of those doors and then weep a little inside for loml's head and any tall friends of his.

From the bottom of the stairs looking east.  Loml makes his first very sinister actual appearance on this blog, if you don't count his feet from the first picture.  In the picture it looks like he's walking in to the laundry closet (to his left).  To his right is the "rec room" where the TV/couch will be.

From the bottom of the stairs looking north.  Floor drain!  That rough floor is where the shower closet was.  You know, the closet with a wooden door that you opened to a surprise shower.  Complete with drain that has no plumbing.

"loml's room".  Will have a bed in that nook and lots of gear in the rest of the room.  Today he actually purchased a $4 prize to hang on a few walls in there.  You should ask him about it.

The bathroom.  First left will have a vanity.  Second left is a toilet nook.  Up to the right, to the right of the window is our custom shower.

This is what it looks like when you have a wall that doesn't say "family a journey to forever":

And this is what it looks like to have a front entry way with stuff in it (including cat):

Still settling in.  Probably will be for the next month.  I promise I will get pictures of the basement again, hopefully tomorrow.  Slight hitch to that plan is that the contractor is coming tomorrow and we are going to have to argue a bit about the bathroom door - so I may be in a tizzy and full of hate for the basement.  But soon, I swear.

Not to make this all about the cats, but WOW yesterday was a doozy. Boku needed antibiotics, like I said yesterday. I tried on my own to grab her and give them to her and received quite a few hideous scratches on my arms and hand (keep in mind she only has back nails, this was some acrobatic freaking out).

Then, later in the day, loml's dad donned protective gear and loml and I followed him around with syringes. She freaked out, cornered herself in the litter box and became FERAL CAT FROM HELL. Hissing, spitting, growling, doing cat acrobatics to avoid being grabbed, etc. He only got ahold of her once and when I put that syringe in her mouth she went mental. So. Boku has had no antibiotics or painkillers.  Hopefully her missing tooth will not get infected.  But at this point, I don't feel like I'd blame myself even if it did.  We tried.  Really, really hard.

Cut to last night. For a few hours, she sporadically came into our bedroom meowing loudly, angrily, needily. I don't know what was wrong. At one point loml got up to see what she needed. Came back and she was quiet for a bit. Then she started up again.  I went out to see what I could do for her (I showed her food and water in case that was what she couldn't locate). Got back in bed. She was quiet again, for a bit, then came back.

Me: It's like having a baby.
Loml: A fat, toothless baby.

Eventually she stopped wandering around meowing. I think it was around 5:30. Somehow though, last night I got the best sleep I've had here yet. Getting used to the new bed/new house has taken a bit. And now I have to return to work tomorrow, unhappily.

Next time, hopefully no more about the cats.

I live here now. Here as in, the house I purchased. 

***

I'm currently preparing to grab Boku and force antibiotics down her throat. She's finally come out from hiding in the following places:

1. The litterbox
2. The very back of the closet
3. Under the couch

She's taking antibiotics because she has very few teeth these day, specifically one less than before her trip to the vet and three less than the last time I saw in her mouth.  The canines fell out somewhere in the apartment.  I already missed my chance to grab her - she's wandering around now, curious, finally.  She just found the front door, where she can see nature.  It's a whole new world here.  I think nature scared her, I cannot find her again and antibiotics are still in a syringe on the coffee table. 

Mona did fine, came out yesterday to get some loving and then hid behind the bed in the guestroom all night.  Baby steps.

Someone found the food/water and someone used the litter box, so all in all, cat acclimation is going OK.

***

The move went really well.  Nothing got broken, everything found it's place and there was only one fight.  Miscommunication between myself and loml caused Drama with a capital D when it came time to pay the movers.  But, that fight lasted only a very short time.  Then we were busy fighting about the cats.  Kidding, kidding.

I still have quite a bit to do around here.  When the basement is done, then it will fall into place.  And suddenly we won't have nearly enough stuff to fill this house.  But right now?  There's enough stuff.  I have to continue to put it on shelves and ferret it into corners.

I'll try to get some pictures and update on the construction in the next few days.  Now though, I have stuff to dust and windowpanes to clean.

As I'm packing up the piles of junk, I found my "scrapbook" for senior year of college.  And by scrapbook I mean, an empty scrapbook and piles of pictures.  Only three pages had pictures selected for them (individual piles of pictures stuck between pages).  The rest was just a pile of the year.  And wow.  Looking through all my crap (and I still feel like there are one too many piles of crap sitting around) has been illuminating.  And scary.

Senior year of college I look so...young.  I was heavier then, but my body doled that weight out differently than it does now, so my stomach isn't so bad, but my cheeks!  Wow.

Then there are the pictures of dancing on poles.  Katie drunk face everywhere (this just means I have my mouth open wide in wild, drunken laughter).  And then there's the incriminating picture of me with a stripper all up in my lap.  I'm laughing, clearly mortified and I look like I might be about to poke his chest like "is this real?".

Lessons learned:

1. Go back to the gym, lady.
2. Never allow your friends to take a picture of you when there is a stripper in the room.
3. Never attend anything involving a stripper in close quarters again.  I do not need to have that experience ever again.
4. Look through old pictures more than once every 6 years.

I have an irrational, ridiculous hate for the word ablution.

Out of all the words to hate, I realize it's not a real winner.  I read romance novels, so I know how many terrible words there are out there in the world (or I know how many terrible words there are to describe sex and anything sexual).  I mean.  Quim.  Mons.  Member.  Bulge.  Sheath.  Explosions.  

And yet, I read ablution and want to throw a book down in disgust.  Just wipe it up, nothing fancy.