Progress at Home and the High Holy Days

So, the recliner has arrived and my bookcases have been extended to the ceiling, and most of my pictures are on the walls, and most of the boxes are unpacked and gone. My library ladder has been delivered and is being installed today, and my new blinds are on their way. Every few days I get an idea about how my belongings could be more beautifully or more conveniently arranged, and I'm getting more and more comfortable in my new home.

On the other hand, the stress of buying the rest of the building, acquiring a huge new mortgage, and relocating downstairs has finally expressed itself in the form of a cold that is going into its 11th day, including two or three days of fever. In order to avoid spreading it around, I missed all the Rosh Hashanah services at shul, including the one I was scheduled to co-lead. I'm planning to attend Kol Nidrei tonight and as much of the services tomorrow as I can consistent with trying to get well.

All this distraction has kept me from doing prety much any spiritual preparation for the new year, I'm sad to say. And that's a particular shame this year because I'm so close to retiring and will need to restructure my days without the framework of work. I will need all the spiritual perspective and clarity of mind I can summon to equip my days with accomplishments and healthy pleasures, be a good and fair landlady, and manage my expenditures. I'll want to find interesting and valuable volunteer opportunities, and build on my CSZ and SFOP work, plus get back into artistic and literary endeavors.

Anyway, maybe I'll reread my Shabbat Shuvah sermon and plan to use time during and between the Yom Kippur services for reflections.

May we all be sealed in the Book of Life for a peaceful, healthy, and productive 5771.

My New Didge

And now I have my own polyvinyl resin digeridoo (complete with a carrying case and instructional video) to play on while waiting for the rest of my home to come together. It's nearly as tall as I am, and nearly indestructible, which I really like - I felt very intimidated by the agave didge I was renting from the teacher. I kept waiting for some horrible accident to happen while it was in my possession.

My new instrument is black, with blue and white aboriginal art that I find appealing. Sure hope it sounds good.

My Library's Coming!

For many, many years, I have had a dream of a home library - wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases with a library ladder on a rail so I could reach the books on the upper shelves. Ever since I decided to move downstairs, I've been planning how to accomplish this.

Bids to build the library from scratch made my jaw drop, and so did bids from carpenters who would take my existing set of teak veneer bookcases and build more shelves up to the ceiling. Finally, I asked my friend Jack to come up with a version I could both afford and live with, possibly involving IKEA products. He came and measured, and studied the Billy bookcase units on the IKEA website, and came up with a plan that will use two Billy bookcases, plus extension shelves, alongside my bookcases. We went to IKEA and picked up the cases, for a song. And then we went to the ladder store, and got a bid on a library ladder that cost half what I was quoted by one of the first carpenters. Adding the very reasonable sum he estimates for his labor on the project, I'm going to wind up with a wall of books and a real library ladder for a nice price.

And once the bookshelves are joined by the pricy zero gravity recliner that I've bought - instead of a visually attractive but uncomfortable window seat that was my first idea - I'm going to have a wonderful place to read, and nap, and read, and nap ...

Back at Work

The actual moving came off without incident, except that Comcast jumped the gun and cut off my service at 4028 a day early. And I was quite correct - my first looks at the empty flat were very sad indeed, and trying to navigate in the new flat between walls of boxes and without curtains on most of the windows was really awful.

That said, I've made - with the help of Jan and my organizer - great progress over the weekend: the heat is now working, I have privacy in my bedroom and bathroom, and about half of the boxes are unpacked and taken away. The kitchen is completely unpacked, the living room and bedroom are mostly unpacked, much of what I need in the bathroom is unpacked, and I've made a start on unpacking my books and the other contents of my library/study/music room. The least unpleasant bit of unpacking was while I was listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," my favorite radio program, on my ipod. I wish it had new episodes daily instead of weekly.

By way of addressing the massive stress of dislocation, I pampered myself on Saturday with a pedicure and foot massage. On Sunday, Jan and I took a digeridoo-playing class. I gotta say that being part of a group of adults sitting in a circle and practicing making raspberries (Bronx cheers) was really funny. Each dig is tuned to a particular note, and I astounded the teacher by finding much lower notes in the instrument that I'm renting for two weeks. I've done some raspberries in various recorder workshops for relaxation of the mouth; that may have given me a slight head start on dig technique.

Getting back to my familiar office is a bit of a relief and a bit disorienting. It may take my wits some time to recover; yesterday I left my purse in a restaurant.

Packed and Poised

So here I am, surrounded by the 70 carton boxes that contain most of my worldly possessions, but I made sure I'd still be able to sit on my couch and watch TV tonight, take a bubble bath, and sleep in my own bed.

Tomorrow, thankfully, I do not have to go in for jury service. So I can sleep in, direct the movers, and start unpacking.

Stay tuned.

Now Comes the Move

My pre-move organization is now complete; packing is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, and the move for the day after that. Then I have the weekend to unpack enough to get by with.

I've informed the post office, my bank, the phone and cable companies, and my housekeeper of the move, and will have many other address changes to achieve. The worst part, I expect, will be looking at my old place once it is all in boxes and then when it is empty. And next worst will probably be looking at my new place all in boxes and then finding all my stuff, finding homes for it, and getting used to conducting my life in the new spaces.

I'll try to focus on the improvements - no stairs to climb, a quiet bedroom in the back of the house, and the ability to retire once the place is fullly rented.

That being said, "My mind's distracted and diffused," and I'm seriously decision-impaired. Normal enough, I suppose. And it should eventually pass.

Excelsior!

End of Decluttering in Sight

So my pack strap broke last week, motivating me to clean it out with the help of my organizer and move what was left into a temporary pack while I got it repaired. I'm back in the old pack now, but it's nearly five pounds lighter - which is good for both its structural integrity and my own.

That helped get me in the frame of mind to tackle the books, and we went through about half of my library. I was able to part with nearly half of the books I looked at - now all the shelves that I've done are a single layer thick, no longer double-shelved. I was on quite the roll, and we quit only because we ran out of boxes to put the discards into.

So we figure on three more sessions, the rest of the books, my music, and the kitchen. Then I move downstairs at the end of next month - having finally been approved for a new loan and struck a deal with Jim's estate. Then I spiffy up my old place and get it rented out, and then I retire. Hot darn!