Monday, February 24 2020

Dear Journal,

Good morning everyone! Happy Monday. I'm coming to you from a temporary battle station at Canine Sports Zone, where our family is holding out all day until we can move into our AirBNB for the week. Against my better judgment, I spent the first hour here trying to get Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles working for Rodney, which led me to discover that our home media library was unreachable. This led me down a rabbit hole of debugging. While Rodney was waiting patiently beside me watching YouTube videos, I dove into problem solving, pinging various expected endpoints around our house.

It turns out that before leaving, I forgot to ask the guys not to unplug anything upstairs. They must have unplugged my datacenter wall, which rebooted the network. Everything is set up to return gracefully except for the media server. That machine is still on old hardware which requires you to press a tiny white button on the front of the panel. There will be time to address that later. I'll probably call the guy and talk him through where the button is, or it probably wouldn't be a very big deal to swing by the house later and sneak up stairs. Today they are just sanding, so no toxic fumes to contend with just yet. The way my head works, now that I know the problem and have a solution, I can move on with my day.

So needless to say, this is a weird week for us. Our Madison stay-cation has been on the calendar for about a month, and we've been chipping away at the work all along, using our new spiffy color coordinated index card whiteboard system. First came cleaning the basement. We did a full sweep for garbage, which included tearing down Marissa's old resin tent. While the basement was briefly empty, we opportunistically squeezed in a weekend to pour some concrete and paint, as this would become Marissa's new art studio after we moved back. Understandably, she gets restless if she doesn't have a place to paint - much like I start to get snippy if I don't have a reliable Internet connection.

Next came the actual moving. We started with the things we don't use every day - out of season clothes, rugs, extra furniture, books, decorations. While our house started to look emptier, things were still easy to cope with. One funny thing we notices is how much more dog hair accumulates on the floor without the rugs.

This past week, things started to get a little more serious. We broke down Rodney's changer. We packed up our bed frame and started sleeping with our mattress on the floor - which was way more uncomfortable than I remember. Packed up our dining room chairs and bar stools. It's amazing how tired you get in your own house without a place to sit down and focus, or even a place to change a diaper without bending over.

Yesterday was the climax of the work. We started things off with a nice slow breakfast. I made a Dutch baby, and drinking plenty of coffee we got to packing the rest of the house up. After heating up leftover salmon for lunch, I packed up the kitchen. I cleaned the fridge, wiped down the counters, and basically did the equivalent of an entire week of kitchen chores in one day.

Marissa spent most of the day evicting her art studio from Miles room. After returning home, she'll have a change to spread out and take up the whole basement, but for now, her whole art career is pact in gallon sized ziploc bags, leaning against the wall of the basement corner.

We taped plastic loosely around the computers. We bagged our clothes, emptying our closets and piling everything on the floor in the basement. "I'm doing my best to keep things organized down there, I know you have a system," said Marissa while making trips.

"Oh the system has broken down," I laughed. "It's kind of starting to look like Good Will down there, just stick things where there's room and try to leave room for us to walk around down there."

We packed our bags for the week, stacking everything we'd need by the front door. I packed a miniature kitchen, grabbing my peeler, immersion blender, potato masher, and Dutch oven.

Marissa and I declared victory last night at midnight. With the TV sitting on the floor and with nothing else in our living room except for our blue couch, I poured some tequila and we enjoyed some brief TV time before bed. Before turning in for the night, we scooted the TV and the couch into the kitchen.

The work continued this morning. Marissa packed the car while I readied Rodney. I changed him, and he helped me roll up his air mattress and gather his toiletries. Woah, look! he said in wonder, wandering around our empty, cavernous house.

After moving our mattress into the bathroom, we were officially ready to leave. We ceremoniously tore the final project card in half before hitting the road. I nodded off in our packed car with Ziggy in my lap while Marissa barreled down the highway.

We were feeling tired, but also grateful, and to be honest, we're proud that we kept everything under control. Rodney is in good spirits, the dogs are comfortably sleeping in their crates. "Not only did we pack everything up on time, but we didn't have to stay up all night," boasted Marissa. "And we cleaned our basement," I added.

Sometime last night, Marissa asked me if I was still excited about our floors. "It's funny," I replied. "I forgot all about the floors. I was just so focused on moving everything." I'll probably get excited when I see them.

In a few moments, I'll take Rodney out to go pick up some donuts while Marissa works on her mural. I have the day off today, and now that the craziness of this morning is winding down, this Monday is starting to feel like a day off.

As always, thanks for stopping by. I'm looking forward to writing on the road throughout our stay-cation in Madison. See you tomorrow, readers, and happy floor week!

Oh, and if you see my younger sister Sarah around, do wish her a happy belated birthday.