To answer a question I've been getting: The house is officially listed as 2200 sq ft at the tax assessor's office. I think it really is 1900 sq ft with an additional 400-500 sq ft in the basement.
I just need to jot some things down so you may want to skip this post if you want any useful information. Skip to the end about Michael's latest funny antics.
March 26 - closed on our house
March 27 - moved in with lots lots lots of help from Joen/Tony; The Gaglianos; Bill/AK. Spent the 1st night in the house up wondering if I could breath because I was allergic.
March 28 - Bill/AK leave in the early afternoon and we spend our first day/night on our own here.
Lots of unpacking happens after this. I resolve my allergy problem by 1) cleaning the air ducts/ steam cleaning the carpet to get the cat dander out (which I am allergic to). This in turn, got my allergies under control enough that my nose stopped running/stopping up enough for me to get my nasal spray to penetrate in my nose and work. Gross, but effective. Now 2-3 days after figuring this out, I am almost normal. Also helps that the trees are almost done blooming in our neighborhood and we ran the air conditioner for 2-3 days which helped to filter out some more allergens. Yes, I am allergic the country. Thank God for the French system of medicine where my Ob/Gyn wrote me a prescription for a year's worth of my allergy medication. In America, I would have had to go to my allergist also once a year to get lectured about getting shots and then get my prescription for the year. Don't argue with me about which method is actually probably safer.
I digress. Not going to complain about how I finally got a doctor's appt for Michael for a well kid check. That is a blog for another day.
Also another tangent. Grocery shopping at the American grocery stores is getting boring. I figured out why. It's because all the shelves are always stocked full of everything. They might be out of 1 thing...but it's highly unlikely. It's probably just behind something else. In Paris, you NEVER knew what they would have in stock and what they wouldn't. So going to the grocery store was actually quite a surprise. At the time, I found it an annoyance. Now, I find it boring that everything is always in stock here.
Trader Joe's though...they sometimes run out of things. I tell you, if I didn't have Trader Joe's, I'd be in a real bind. If you want stuff that's the most similar to French stuff, you can go there. It's my happy place. I love getting their "Fearless Flyer" and finding out about the "new" stuff they have that's developed straight from France. And their frozen Indian food ain't half bad either.
OK...MICHAEL STUFF
- I was showing Brian how the different pedals change the sound of the piano. Michael decides to take over and says, "See Daddy, when you push this pedal, it makes it sound like Coldplay." IF ONLY!
- We passed by a cemetary and Brian says, "Here's a cemetary. It's where dead things go." And MIchael responds, "That's where stinkbugs go!" We used to get a lot of stink bugs at the apt and Brian would capture them into our bug jar until they died. Hence, Michael's frame of reality.
- Michael likes to point his finger a lot. When he's talkin' to you, YOU know it.
- An oldie, but goodie: Michael tells me he is scared of worms because they don't talk.
- Michael and I played our first piano "duet" today. He played middle C while I played the accompanying adult part. It was actually very cute and sounded right. Am loving having my piano here. Thank you so much to my parents who thought it was useful to give me lessons and buy me a piano.
- Michael gets on the piano 2-3 times a day. I'll be doing something in the kitchen and I'll hear him banging away. I love this.
OK...got our storage shipment on Wednesday. Am ashamed at our accumulation of stuff. I had 4 flour sifters. 2 old fashioned ones and 2 more "modern" ones that used a pumping handle.
For every box we go through, I would say that we are donating about 80-90% of it.
Next Tangent: It is shameful how I wasted money before on "stuff." I am so glad we lived somewhere that had space as a premium. So now, we don't need all the "stuff" anymore. We buy one thing, make sure we love it and it's good quality, and use it until it's broken. Then we replace it. No more accumulating crap. No more buying multiples of things. No more thinking I "need" all this stuff I don't. No more Consumerism. NO MORE!!!!!
