Tuesday, October 30, 2012

I own a house and am engaged.

Those are both old news to anyone who sees me in person; sorry to anyone who I haven't been in touch with lately. And the engagement officially came first but both were in the works for a long time in advance, so going into detail seems pointless.

The date of the wedding isn't officially locked in yet, but the season we have in mind is still a long ways away, but getting closer, so it's on our minds, her more than mine. The house has been keeping us busy. We weathered Hurricane Sandy even better than I expected, but now winter is coming on and I've been trying to insulate.

Owning a house is weird. I still feel a tiny, niggling inclination to drill a hole in the wall just because I can.

I'm sure T. is glad I haven't done that yet, but I'm not sure she could even tell, because I've been fiddling with little things all over the place. New lampshades on the light over the dining room table. Foam insulation in cracks. Several trips to Home Depot and similar places. I've set up a ladder half a dozen times to paint. We've put a few prints and paintings and posters and wall hangings up and have several more draped over things near where we plan to put them when we get around to it. I kept the drain on the patio clean during the hurricane by going outside and removing leaves by hand. We have had two plumbers here for a leak discovered after we moved, one for a routine tune-up of the heating system in preparation for winter, and one energy efficiency consultant, and I spent an afternoon at the DMV to update my driver's license to get proof of residency within 30 days of the purchase to get some tax break or other. A new smoke/CO detector up in our bedroom. The old smoke detector from there in the old bedroom that was missing its smoke detector when we moved. The smoke detector in a third room adjusted because it was noticeably sagging, and I thought about taking it down and re-fitting it, but decided, fuck it, we have enough going on, it doesn't look that bad, close enough.

Remember this? And that was just about leasing and moving in with T. The more I do about the house we own, the more I notice I have to do in general.