September 19, 2008

Excuse me while I freak out

Mr. BBM is all zen. When we were selling our house, he was calm. My realtor and I were not. When I’m freaking out because I don’t feel they’re going to finish our house in time, Mr. BBM says, "It will all work out." Last night, I finally brought him to my side, the dark side of worry and pessimistic paranoia.

While I fully realize that a crew of men descended on my house like a hive of worker bee’s, completing the insulation on Monday and hanging all the drywall on Tuesday, when there is no activity on your house for three days post all this crazy activity, you start to worry a bit.

Tomorrow is September 20th. Our settlement date is October 20th. As of tomorrow, they have exactly 30 days, 29 really because they won’t be working on the 20th of October anymore. We’ll be moving in.  There are also weekends in there, which brings the number of actual working days down considerably.

Mr. BBM was asking me why I’m freaking out and I said this: "The siding guy hasn’t been back since Saturday. Only about 1/10 of our house has siding. The stone guys can’t come until the siding guy is finished. The stucco guy can’t come until the stone guy is finished. They can’t tape and spackle the drywall until the house is one temperature which means the furnace needs to be installed. They can’t install the furnace yet because they still have to saw through 10 inches of ribar-enforced concrete to create my new Bilco door basement entrance right near where the furnace goes. They also need to pour the new concrete basement wall where the door used to be. That has to sit for 24 hours. Then they have to seal it and that has to sit for at least 24 hours before they can push the dirt back. They can’t grade the yard or work on the sidewalk to the house or the driveway until the yard is graded. If the furnace isn’t installed and they can’t finish the drywall, then they can’t paint, install trim, put the floors in, or the cabinets, or the countertops or the lights. . ."

By the end of my little diatribe, he was looking pretty stressed. His whole, "the outside pace doesn’t have any effect on the inside pace" and vice versa thing fell through completely. Screwing up the bilco door screwed up the schedule and now I am having a fit.

I emailed the builder representative this morning and questioned him about when things are going to happen. His answer was pretty much "don’t worry about it." I’m sure there were matching hand gestures.

Here’s the thing. I am worried about it.

You see, I think we’re approaching the end of the honeymoon period of living with my parents.  The other night my dad sat in the living room drinking directly from a near-finished bottle of wine. He didn’t want to make another dirty dish or glass. It’s probably just my paranoia but I’m thinking they’re tired of their dishwasher running all the time.

When I joked with my parents last night that they’re turning into my grandparents and bickering over silly things like opening the dishwasher before the dry cycle is over with, my Mom retorted with a "Well, we’re tired." I don’t know exactly what that meant but I knew it meant something and headed for the solace of our room above the garage, also known as the disaster area where the kids’ toys live.

When my Mom comes home from work and we’re not outside, she asks me if I’ve had the girls out for a bike ride. When I say "no," I get this look. The truth is that I would have loved to ride bikes with the girls, but I spent the morning washing my Mom’s sofa cushions when Lil C decided that my Mom’s sofa resembled a toilet and while I was still cleaning that up, the girls knocked over my glass of iced tea which splashed on the sofa, the rug, my dad’s magazines (gasp!) and everything else within a 10 ft. diameter.

To say that I am stressed is sort of an understatement. I’m tired of not knowing where my stuff is located. I’m sick of cleaning up after the girls non-stop. I’m tired of sharing a queen bed with Mr. BBM. I want my king back; and I’m really tired of sharing a bathroom with three other people.

I’m also tired of this knee business. When I wrote about my knee this week, my readers came out en masse and basically said that I’m mental, in a nice way of course. While I don’t disagree with this assessment, it’s also a fact that my knee hurts. When I took Big I to karate last night, Hanshi began asking me when I was coming back. I asked him when he had time to do a private lesson or two, to just walk through kata slowly without the pressure of feeling like I have to keep up with the class. We started trying to come up with a date and we were back to mid-October when Hanshi strongly suggested I make the trip in tomorrow morning.

Because I haven’t been able to think of an excuse worthy of blowing off a 9th degree black belt, I guess I’m going back to karate tomorrow. Why not right? What’s one more thing to stress about in the grand scheme of things?

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Posted by on September 19, 2008 in ACL Hell, Building the BBM House, Tales from the dojo | 7 Comments

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