Forgiven

The pods were delivered on Friday and then they disappeared this morning. Genius. Did you ever think this day would come? I have nothing but rave reviews for this whole storage pod business. It's awesome. As much as I love U-Haul, I love not going there even more.

Unpacking is going to be a breeze thanks to my superior labeling technique.

Queen M explores the contents of the pods.

Amazingly enough, Queen M appears to have forgiven me for the torment that we've put her through. She quickly settled in for a cuddle with us.

Both kitties also had a lovely afternoon nap in the sun. Those two have become better buds than either of them will ever admit. This is also a sneak peak at another Craiglist special -- check out those pokey chairs, my sweets. Yes, they are Twister meets Romper Room and I love them!

Uninvited Guest

The kitchen smelled a little last night, but I though it was just the two dirty dishes in the sink. This morning, I took the Cupcake out to get one of her many shots. When I returned with my traumatized child, I nearly threw up at the door. The smell was nothing short of extraordinary. It was really and truly the most rancid thing I have ever smelled in my life. It's the kind of smell that is so powerful that even while you are refraining from breathing, it still gets to you. It almost knocks you over. It goes down your throat and makes you want to vomit more than you can possibly imagine. I threw my bag down and took Cupcake upstairs.

I realized that Mikey had died the night before. Mikey was a mouse that we had trapped under the stove. He would visit me almost every night. He would stop in like clockwork to peruse the garbage can for dinner. He found his way in through the garage and then through one of the holes for the water lines into the cabinet. We haven't been able to sheet rock up that back side of the studio yet, so there are ways for a little fellow to find his way in. After we finally saw the little fellow make a run for it from the dish washer to the stove, we stuffed towels under the stove to block him in so that we could figure out how to lure him out in the light of day. Mikey didn't like that. We did have every intention of helping him find his way back out to the delightful streets of the Mission District in which we live. We thought we had time. Mikey was a plump little fellow, but he didn't have the stamina.

So, the ridiculous thing was that I found myself with my newborn baby upstairs not knowing quite what to do with myself. You see, the problem is that we're waiting until this coming weekend to actually start sleeping up there so that the polyurethane odor can completely disappear. It's almost all gone, but there's no reason to be exposing the Cupcake to these things if we don't have to. I don't mind her spending short periods of time up there, but sleeping up there is a different story. I found myself having to choose between the rancid studio downstairs with the non toxic mousey smells or the certainly toxic but not that disagreeable of a scent of the lingering polyurethane. Keep in mind that the Cupcake was also feeling a little cranky from her shot. Poor girl. So, we attempted to run errands, jogged back for naps upstairs and finally retired to the studio in the evening with the air filters going full blast and the door wide open. I think that the smell has improved, but I honestly don't really know. I've been back for several hours now, so who knows. I probably smell like a dead mouse. All that I could think each time that I would attempt to venture back into the studio to get various things during the day was, why did they go to the trouble of water-boarding people when they could just pipe in the smell of a pile of dead mice?

The Queen

The Queen contemplates the hell that we've put her thru since last May and can't quite believe that the Door-to-Door storage pods are coming back TOMORROW. Soon, The Queen will have her torn up chair by the front window again so that she can curl up and soak in the sun all day. She will snack when she needs to and drink water at her leisure. And she will also be the recipient of hourly pats and cuddles. We're coming home, girls. We're comin' home!

Stained Glass

This is the stained glass window that my uncle MADE for us. Yes, you read that correctly. He made it! It's the ultimate frosting on the cake. It's incredibly bright and vibrant from the inside of the house as it lights up the hallway and yet perfectly subdued from the exterior. It looks like an original part of the house. Thank you, Uncle!

Supervisors

While our canine companion has done a fantastic job as supervisor/social coordinator of the overall remodel, it's our feline residents who were kind enough to offer to stay in residence upstairs to manage all of the demolition and construction. They are amazing little troopers. Completely displaced into the backyard most of the time, they have managed to survive it all. Not only do they spend their days sunning themselves in the dirt under the rose bushes out back, but we quickly filled up the entire backyard with various items from the remodel leaving them even less room to roam. For example, our range and Cupcake's crib have been living in the backyard for 5 or so months now along with a delightful assortment of tools and random reno crap. They have a lot to say every morning when we venture upstairs to feed them. In fact, they have a lot to say every time I enter the upstairs. Their tone is never particularly pleasant which I more than understand. I am quite confident that the two of them talk to anyone willing to listen who may be working upstairs in their house. At least my girls may have learned a little Spanish over the last 6 months. They are clearly counting the minutes more than anyone until we have their chairs at the front windows again ready for hours of snoozing. These photos capture them at the front door in a classic morning greeting. Here I think they look like little prisoners contemplating their tragic existence. Hang in there, girls! We're almost there.

A Million Shades of Beige

We started painting two weeks ago! I really never thought that this day would come. I can almost taste the finish line now. We did about 15 different shades of beige upstairs and finally made some choices. The same color looks different in every room and different every hour of the day. The process drove us a little nutty. We went with the Benjamin Moore Aura low VOC on everything except for the primer on the trim where we did do the toxic blend. It took the painters two weeks just to do all the trim. There was an enormous amount of prep work and they are perfectionists. I love them. They show up when they say they'll show and are very nice. We even have pleasant conversations about the weather. A far cry from Dour Donald!

The painting will be done by the end of next week and then we're on to the countertop installations, tiling in the kitchen and the finished plumbing and electrical. Hoorah!

Tired of Looking at Doorknobs?

Here is little Cupcake. She is the reason why Little Lantern has been dark for almost 2 months now. This little angel has been keeping us very busy and this lady has found it hard to find a moment to blog when she could staring at those delicious cheeks. She turned eight weeks today, so I decided that enough was enough in my neglect of poor Little Lantern.






Luckily, the house project has continued -- albeit at a much slower pace. You will be glad to know that while I was in the hospital bed in labor, I made J call the flooring guy to confirm that he was in fact coming the next day to stain the floors. I was not about to allow this project to derail simply because we were in the process of experiencing the miracle of life! We needed a home for our little miracle. J didn't take me seriously the first two times that I asked him. He must have thought that I was delirious.
Luckily, the flooring guys showed and did two coats of that glorious ebony. We were a little nervous, but are really happy about how the dark color turned out. Here's a tiny glimpse of what it looks like.


After the floors were done, it was time to tackle the moldings. The lady was in dire need of some dressing up. We ended up going hog wild in the end doing high baseboards which was comprised of two separate pieces, picture frame moldings, door casings with plaster bits in the corners, plaster ceiling medallions, and mammoth crown moldings. Our incredible friend, Pat, was able to do all the carpentry for us. He saved our sorry butts yet again not only because it's done, but because it's done properly. It's really hard to tell from the pics, but here's a glimpse of what it looks like. The photo of the moldings barely does it justice. The floors were immediately covered to protect them from any work that was being done, so it looks kind of odd with the red paper.

Lucy Patiently Awaits Baby Sister

The Threesome Awaits Its Fourth

Baby Mama?

I swung by our local coffee shop and home-away-from-home today, Progressive Grounds. It was about 75 degrees and this pregnant lady wanted a milkshake. Luckily, they have the world's most delicious ice cream, Mitchell's.

The very nice guy who works weekends greeted me with a big smile. Everyone smiles and/or chuckles at me now as I walk/waddle by now as I am only one day away from my due date. As he was scooping out the thin mint chip, he said, "Is that your friend's baby?"

"What?" I replied, not understanding what he was asking.

"Is that your friend's baby?" He asked again.

There was no baby in a stroller nearby or babe in my arms for him to be asking about, so I presumed that he was asking about the baby in my belly.

"No...this is my baby."

"But didn't you just have one?"

"No. This is the same one."

"It's not your friend's baby? You don't already have a baby?"

"No, it's not my friend's baby. It's my baby."

"Oh" he said looking rather confused. "I have four."

So, I left with my milkshake completely unsure of what the man had been really asking me. I concluded that he had somehow determined that I was a surrogate who was busy getting pregnant all the time for her friends. Any other suggestions?

Broken Glass

We got our new shower door installed this morning in the master bath. Yeah! It looked (yes, notice the past tense) so nice. Just a clean piece of glass with two hinges and a handle. Well, about 1/2 hour ago, Lucy and I were awoken from our afternoon cuddle/nap by a sound that I can only describe as a big bucket of ice being dumped on the floor.

We went upstairs to investigate and discovered that the beautiful new shower door had completely shattered. The top third of the door was missing and the remainder of the door was fractured into a million pieces. My online research suggests that there was a manufacturing defect in the piece of glass or something happened when he installed it that later led to its implosion. I have left the shower door people a message and I hope that they will tend to this without any problems. I remain optimistic. It's actually kind of cool how it shattered. The safety glass prevents it from breaking off in large scary chunks. Kind of like a car window, I suppose. Anyways, good thing we're not actually using that bathroom yet.

Nicaragua?

Josh and I are both very excited about having a baby girl. She's just 16 days away! The thing that scares us both to death, however, is the prospect of dealing with the pre-teen into teen years. We have both been coming to terms with this though as everyone has reminded us of all the wonderful things about having a girl.

Yesterday, I had an encounter my incredible grouch of a neighbor. We've both been saying "hello" to her almost every morning for the last 2 years and she will never even smile or nod her head in return. She almost grimaces. Anyways, yesterday she seemed to suddenly realize that I was pregnant. At almost 38 weeks, it would be rather ridiculous not to be confident in this assumption. She smiled at me and asked me about my pregnancy and whether or not it was a boy or a girl. When I told her it was a girl, she told me that she had a daughter. Yes, I realize that. She lives next door with you and I see her every morning when you two walk by. She immediately launched into how I should start worrying now about junior high and how she was considering sending her daughter to live in Nicaragua with her husband because it would be so much better on all levels -- but particularly for a pre-teen/teenage girl. So much for putting our fears to rest.

Sheetrockers

So, we are about a week behind schedule, but that's ok. It's looking like we'll be down here in the studio with the cupcake for about a month before we can move back upstairs. Not bad at all, eh?

Update:
- rough electrical and plumbing are done
- sheetrocking and taping/mudding are done
- the tilers started today on both upstairs bathrooms
- 2 coats of primer throughout the house starts tomorrow

We had one of those late night last minute fix-it situations last evening. We decided last week that we wanted to add extra plywood and padding to the floor upstairs to improve the sound-proofing in addition to putting in new hardwood flooring. This, in turn, messed up a lot of what the plumber had done with the toilet flanges. I have no idea how to spell flange. So, Josh made a late night run to HD Pro for more pipe and an extendo-flange thing. He and Jonathan re-jiggered the 500 pound cast iron tub so that it was a touch lower. Josh extendoed the curb to the shower this morning and finished it about 60 seconds before the tilers arrived this morning. Pretty amazing and such a relief that we didn't have to sheepishly tell the tilers that we weren't ready for them....

34 Weeks Pregnant

Photos all by the amazing Todd Wemmer aka my cousin. 

Do Not Touch Unit

Josh has this week off of work so he has been busy upstairs scampering around in the attic working on the low voltage wiring. Too tired to shower last night, he crawled into bed and fell right asleep. This morning he really wanted to take a shower, but I prevented him because the shower door people were due to arrive any moment and I figured, why create another lake in the middle of our new bathroom when we didn't have to? 

Well, five hours later they finally arrived and installed our doors. The good news is that the shower doors look even nicer than we expected. The bad news is that we can't use the shower for another 48 hours. Lordie. The above pic is how dirty my sweetie got today. Notice that his smile gets bigger the dirtier he gets. There wasn't even a remote option that he wasn't going to shower tonight. The layer of grease and grime on him was so thick that could have scraped it off. We went over to Jonathan and Arminda's to shower tonight. Believe me, this was no small act of generosity. Jonathan's offer to hose Josh off before getting into the shower wasn't such a bad idea. Now we are fresh and clean. Josh did get the clothing dryer installed yesterday which is extraordinary. I've done about twenty loads in the last 24 hours. So much freshness we can barely stand it. 

The Hungarian and His Latte

The Hungarian electrician is back. He cut his price by 30% for the upstairs which actually brought it back to the original price he quoted us ages ago, so we couldn't say, "no". That and the fact that he started the wiring yesterday and will likely be done by tomorrow, Sunday, sealed the deal. Three days. Love it. Love it.

The Hungarian loves his morning coffee. He always makes a big production out of it. As you may recall, I stopped making him coffee in the morning while he was doing the downstairs wiring a few months ago when I got frustrated with him. Boy, did I show him. So, last week when he and his Mexican helper were here, I offered to get them coffee. Yes, I was feeling generous that morning. It may sound silly, but a cup of coffee ain't cheap anymore! And when you're already paying someone like an electrician or a plumber a pretty hefty wage, it pains me to spend $2 buying them a cup of coffee. Illogical and stupid, but I can't help it. I've also started an informal tally of people's eagerness for me to buy them a cup of coffee in the morning. In general, I have found that the harder someone works overall, the less they demand that cup of coffee in the morning. The less speedy folk seem more desperate for me to get them a cup. Now, the Hungarian is actually a fast diligent worker who is also eager for his coffee, so he is throwing off my statistical analysis. He is extremely chatty when he's not working though. I clearly need to define the scope for more data analysis for better results. 

So, back to my fascinating tale: the Hungarian asks me to get him a large latte and a croissant. I chuckle a little bit and agree. I look to his helper, Adam, and ask what he would like. The Hungarian responds for him and says that he would also like a latte and a croissant. I'm sorry, but no one else who has ever worked for us over the years has ever requested a latte let alone a croissant. And I have an impossible time believing that Adam really wanted a latte and a croissant. I dutifully went on my way to fetch them their lattes and croissants. 

Since we signed on for the upstairs electrical, the Hungarian has started buying us coffee in the morning and even bought us pizza for lunch today. Now that's what I'm talkin' about. Look how easy I am to please! 

On an amusing sidenote, Josh has taken to mimicking the Hungarian around the house as he works up there with them. He screams, "Adaaaaam!" periodically as he wanders around the house. Adam loves it and the Hungarian doesn't know quite how to respond. 

A San Francisco Moment

I went to Progressive Grounds yesterday which is the coffee shop around the corner from our house. It is truly our second home. On average, I go there 2-3 times a day. I mosied over to the couch in the corner with my bagel and carrot juice (thanks for the reminder, Aunt Liz!) and received a big smile from the other woman on the couch as I started to settle in. 

"I'm a mom too. I feel so incognito today since my son isn't with me." Couch Lady

"Ah, well, I'm not officially a mom yet." Me

"It's a special club that you're a part of now. You'll see." Couch Lady

"Yeah, that's what everyone told me. The mother's community is a little different than what I was expecting. The people that have been consistently reaching out to me around here are all the teenage girls. They are very sweet and always stop me and ask how far along I am." Me

"Huh. Has your midwife introduced you to the other women in your birth month yet?" Couch Lady

"Uh, no. I'm not really part of any groups. Actually, we don't have a midwife. In fact, we don't have a doula either. Very un-San Francisco of us, I know." Me

"Oh. Where are you giving birth?" Couch Lady

"CPMC. Probably the most unfriendly doula hospital in the city, but I really like them." Me

"Oh, that's nice. You should really check out the mother's groups. My mother's group is meeting next week with our midwife in consideration of having our second child." Couch Lady

"What does that mean, 'in consideration'?" Me

"I'm not sure exactly, but we just like spending time with our midwife." Couch Lady

Lucy Manages to Get By

We've been staying at Lucy's best friend's house. Somehow, she seems to be managing to relax amidst the chaos and changes. She and Coopie have been getting two giant walks a day together and non-stop cuddles and play time. 

Exploring

Poor Muffin and Spats greet me every morning with a chorus of meows. Luckily, the weather has been really nice, so they have been supervising the demolition and framing from the backyard. In the evenings, they come inside for a snack and to sleep in their little beds in the back. They are clearly a little frustrated by the state of things, but they are little troopers. I need to get them treats tomorrow for being such good girls.

Take Stock of Things You'd Like to Fix

I thought this was funny. I am 24 weeks pregnant now, so I just checked BabyCenter for the 24th week and this is what they have listed as this week's activity:

"Tackle your home improvement projects. Sit down with your partner and take stock of the things you'd like to fix around the house before your little one arrives. Then let your partner handle them. (You shouldn't be exposing yourself to chemicals or getting up on ladders.) Some things for the list:


• Install or check smoke detectors, get a fire extinguisher for each floor of your house, and plan a fire escape route.
• Fix or remove any broken furniture or fixtures.
• Paint the nursery, hang curtain rods, assemble new furniture."

I suppose they didn't really mean vacate the premises, demolish all walls, install new electrical, plumbing, bathrooms, kitchen and flooring when they said "take stock of the things you'd like to fix around the house".