Two weeks now. Only two more weeks til we will be in our new home, and still so many little stumbling blocks in the way., and so much to pack.

The marble for the downstairs fireplace had to be installed prior to installing the flooring, and it was two days late. We ended up needing more of it than we’d thought, even after getting an extra. Somehow we got the extra piece and it all worked out.

The contractor told us it was a simple task to put in a gas stove if we wanted, so when we went to choose appliances, we picked a gas stove – one with heavy burners suitable and all manner of other extra details. Then a call from the contractor – he’d thought we were going to have an electric range and it wasn’t the time to put in the gas line; it was the timing of the change. This needed to be done after the heater was in, and the countertops were scheduled prior to that, and this could push us back an extra week. Richard and I talked about it, hashing out our options. I even went so far as to go to the appliance store to pick out an electric replacement, even though I’d gotten my heart set on the gas model. Then a call to the contractor who said ‘sleep on it. Let’s see what we come up with in the morning.’ And sure enough, it all worked out.

We want the DSL installed by the time we move in so I spent over an hour on the phone being transferred back and forth between the DSL department and the regular phone company. I needed to have the phone activated first. No, all this was was a DSL transfer and why was I talking to the regular phone people – I needed to talk to the DSL people. After the third transfer I refused to keep going in that particular circle, and instead insisted that they explain exactly what needed to be done and that *they* work it out amongst themselves. Luckily, they were wonderfully cooperative, once I got a bit stubborn, and we worked out a lengthy process by which we can have our precious DSL installed by move-in day. As a bonus, one of the reps figured out that we’re three times closer to the main hub in the new house, which translates to a faster connection.

In the middle of all of this happy house stres…I mean, fun, my mom and I managed to get together and hash out not only a decorating scheme for the reception (resulting from a lucky glance at the ceiling of a neighboring craft store and their floral display), but also the favors for the guests, the flowers for the bridesmaids, and we actually ordered the cake. Plus there are the primitive stirrings of some vague attempts at being actually artistic in my un-color-coordinated brain, and I think I may know what I want to do for *my* bouquet. Finally.

A while ago, Richard and I did a Really Bad Thing for people about to buy a house. We ordered computer desks. Granted, these were not your ordinary run-of-the-mill computer desks. These things weighed approximately four tons each came with built in lights and cooling fans for the towers and multiple sliding surfaces and would probably volunteer to scrub the floor for you during their off hours. But regardless, it is generally a Bad Idea to buy furniture when you don’t even have the house to put it in yet.

Lately we’ve been regretting this decision (although in response to our weakness in ordering those desks, we’ve forbidden ourselves from entering that particular furniture store again – it’s too dangerous). And it hasn’t helped that our contractor planted the idea that maybe we could speak to the carpenter who’s doing all our kitchen and bathroom cabinetry about doing up the computer room too. We were given the name and number of someone who had the carpenter do *her* office, and sure enough, when we went to go look, it was gorgeous. And much more lovely than the desks, amazing and multi-functional as those desks were. The clincher was the fact that the office she had cost just about what one of these desks would cost us. Oof.

It’s not as simple as saving money and getting just what we want though. When we first started building this house, we figured we’d use the larger back bedroom for the office. But then it occurred to us that that room would get more sun and would be a lot warmer with all that computer equipment and so we switched to the front room, which, although smaller, would be much cooler and had the added benefit of a comfy window seat. Hence, when setting up all the electrical and phone outlets, we wired the heck out of the front bedroom and left the back one alone. However, now both contractor and carpenter are suggesting we reconsider this decision, since we could do lots more stuff with the back room. Arrgh! The contractor says that the fewer electrical outlets won’t be an issue and since we’re putting in a ceiling fan, the heat shouldn’t be so much of a problem, but still… Whichever bedroom remains computer-free also gets closed off and becomes cat-free. So the electrical outlet I had placed in that closet for the automatic litter boxes will remain unused and I’ll have to string an extension cord. But then there’s the issue of space…sigh.

I think the stress of everything is getting to me though (the house, the wedding planning, and the situation at work). Last night I dreamt that they just built all the cabinets and shelves and installed it and never told us til it was too late, and then when I asked how much it was going to be, he told me $51,000.

Gotta love my brain’s peculiarity of only allowing me to remember the bad dreams. Sigh.

I babble about house plans a lot here but I haven’t touched much on the wedding plans lately. It’s not that we’re not doing anything – it’s just that the house has been a little prominent in my worry-sites. Heh.

So let’s go through all the happy fun and excitement we’ve been having, shall we?

The Clothes: The seamstress is wonderful – comes with a sharp and wicked sense of humor (she’s a gamer so she fits in quite well with our crowd) and a now-four month old baby my mother adores because it gives her lots of grandma-practice during fittings. The outfits themselves are looking marvelous, with the possible exception of my mom’s dress, because apparently the burgundy fabric she choose for the main part of the outer skirt has a teensy weensy problem of bleeding dye everywhere – dye which causes allergic reactions like swelling of the eyes, sneezing, and hives on the part of our seamstress. This is not normally considered a good thing.

The Photographer: We found a photographer we both liked (my mom and I) a few months ago. Not only is the price quite reasonable, but the samples we saw were well done, plus this lady was enthusiastic enough about the theme to volunteer to actually wear a Renaissance-style costume to the wedding while she works. We thought all was just fine until my mom got a call from the studio saying that the woman we’d picked couldn’t do it and someone else would do it instead. No explanation of why – just that there would be a switch.

My mom started calling, pestering them especially when she couldn’t get a straight answer. Seems that the woman we talked to and liked is fairly low on the totem pole and someone with higher seniority saw the package we’d purchased, thought it sounded like fun, and decided she’d rather do it instead. So she simply crossed off the first woman’s name and penciled her own in.

Unfortunately for her, they didn’t count on dealing with my Mom, who is not the type to just sit back meekly and nod. The happy ending to this story is that we’ve still got the woman *we* liked, and the studio has hopefully learned a little lesson about screwing with the customer. Or maybe not, but hey, it’s a nice thought.

The Invitations: About a month ago we ordered invitations after sitting on the floor of a cramped little print shop going through books and books of styles. My mom, having been through this whole wedding thing twice before (for my sisters) insisted we order early so there’d be time for any mistakes to be rectified. Turns out this was a good thing because the lady from the print shop has called three or four times now in the past few weeks. First the invitations were delayed, and then after she (the print shop lady) kept pestering the printers themselves, she found out that they hadn’t even *printed* them yet and they were supposed to be available for us to pick up one week ago!

We’re going to tackle the cake and the flowers this weekend. Should be interesting to see what can go wrong with *them*…

To the mother of two small boys,

This gift may seem a bit odd to you – after all, I’m not sure you’ve ever been the journaling type. But bear with me here.

You’ve got two little boys now and a world of magical and fascinating things unfolding for you and your husband and your children. You take pictures and you preserve those memories, but there are other memories that cannot be captured in a snapshot; memories that are harder to hold on to.

I’m giving you this journal because, years later, you can read back and relive those feelings and emotions that go with the pictures you take. There are happy moments you’ll want to treasure, but the not-so-happy ones are just as important to record and keep. Frustrations can sometimes be a bit more bearable if you write them down.

Write as if no one will ever read but you. Even though your sons may read it, years and years from now when they are grown, write for just you anyway. Write even though you know you’ll read it later and disagree with what you put down on paper, or feel silly about the way you felt. Write in silence, or at the kitchen table listening to your boys play. Write outside in the morning to birdsong. Write by a window with the rain pouring down. Write when you have something to say, and especially when you don’t think you do. You’ll be surprised.

Happy birthday, and happy journaling.

We got our taxes done – finally. We had someone else prepare them because after I attempted to do my own taxes last year and got extremely different numbers each of the three times I calculated, I gave up and swore I’d never do my own again. The minute you sink into the wonderful world of dividends, exercising stock options, and money market accounts, the 1040-EZ form runs screaming, and the 1040-A follows closely behind. Sigh.

I owe the government again this year – enough to make me wince visibly (it’s not pleasant to face a nasty tax bill the same month you’re about to enter full house-mortgage-land), but at least when the nice tax prep man itemized all my deductions, the amount was a bit better. Not much, but some. And when it comes to taxes, I’ll take what I can get.

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Joining the ranks of things around the house that are falling apart because they know we’re this close to moving, the toilet in the master bedroom decided it had had it. Near as we can figure, what with peering into the tank (and some wise person installed a bathroom counter directly over the tank so you kind of have to lift the lid and peer sideways and rely on dunking one arm into the water in a rather awkward position and trying to half-feel, half-squint at the problem), that the little lever that attaches chain to handle has broken. I’m sure it’s fixable – they make packages of toilet paraphanilia at hardware stores – but at this stage of the game, there is so little incentive to even bother! We’re just starting to accumulate a nice little list for the landlord when we move out. I’m sure he’s going to appreciate it. Really he will.

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In house-building news, we had to finalize our picks for the kitchen and bathroom floors. This necessitated going to the local dealer of carpet-and-other-stuff-you-walk-on, and flipping through books and racks of vinyl samples. The selection of unattractive kitchen and bathroom flooring in every shade of beige known to man (and then some) was staggering, but having been through the ugly, speckle-infested countertop selection, and the paint chip joy of selecting the right white, I think we were more than prepared. In the end, we found our choices and are quite happy with them. Whether we will be quite so happy when they are on the floor and we are actually comparing them to the rest of the house remains to be seen, but I’m being optimistic here.

While the guy at the store was writing up our order, we got to amuse ourselves by trying to find the ugliest carpet sample in the display room. It was a close race, as there were entire binders full of those hideous spotty or geometricly-afflicted carpets one finds in business offices, and for a bit there our fiercest contender was a square of blue with a pattern of white guaranteed to induce nausea if stared at too closely. But in the end, this had to take second place. The winner, hands down, was the salmon-pink selection (bright salmon pink, too) speckled with multi-colored spots in shades of orange and red. The effect was sort of what one might find should one’s cat toss her (barely digested) cookies onto a carpet which had once been a sickly yellow but onto which someone spilled an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismal.

The scariest thing about these lovely gems is not that someone thought them up. It’s that someone, somewhere, probably has an entire room (perhaps a house, but that thought is just too painful to comprehend) of this stuff. On purpose!

Richard and I borrowed a car from the Toyota dealership last Saturday. We didn’t have to pay any rental fees – we just let them copy our driver’s licenses and then drove off as they waved goodbye. We got no hard sell – an unusual thing for an auto dealership; no fast patter to convince us we should buy. But that’s because the folks at Toyota probably realize by now that there is no need. They can’t keep these things on the lot. The car sells itself.

We drove the Prius last Saturday – Toyota’s little gas and electric hybrid. We traded driver vs passenger every time we stopped the car on our many errands that day, taking turns adjusting the seat, fiddling with the controls, watching the digital display screen avidly, watching the little picture diagram of gas vs electric motor usage and excitedly calling out each increase in our miles per gallon ratio. We drove at least 200 miles in that car Saturday and by the end we were both head over heels in serious like.

The Prius looks like someone took a normal compact and squashed the nose and rear. It’s a cute car – which scores points with me (the one who’s dream car used to be a Volkswagon Beetle because it’s so darn cute). It’s also got most of the bells and whistles of the standard compact, plus an air conditioner where you can choose the temperature. This also scored big points with the one who can never get comfortable with AC in the car and keeps turning it on and off even on hot days. Um – that would be me there too.

We scooted around the greater Sacramento area in search of marble for the fireplace. Our stop at one home improvement store was futile, but as we were about to get into our little loaner car, another family stopped us. What the heck *is* it, they wanted to know. So we dutifully babbled all about how cool this car was, even popping the hood so they could check out the engine, letting them pile into the front and back seat so they could ooh and aah over the nifty digital display. The one thing which gets everyone (it got both of us – heh) is that when you’re idling, the engine eventually stops. It just shuts off. It’s more than a bit disconcerting because the normal reaction is to think that it’s stalled, but it’s simply that the electric motor has taken over. This little car is *made* for rush hour traffic, and toodling around town hitting stop signs and stoplights. Contrary to the regular compact, it’s fuel economy goes up when it does lots of stops.

We took that car everywhere. We showed it off to all our friends and to my parents. We had one heck of a lot of fun with that car. And we gave it back the next day without buying one.

Like I said, we’re head over heels in serious like with the car. The possibility of cutting our gas bills literally in half has an enormous appeal, plus the fact that’s it’s environmentally friendly is a big selling point too. But we’re being good. We’ve got this house we’re buying and very soon we’ll be dealing with one whopping huge mortgage and, well, it just wouldn’t be a smart idea to jump into car loans right now until we make sure we can afford it.

But in the meantime, we’re still gushing. And looking down the road to when we’ll be able to get it – one for each of us.

There is an undercurrent of unease at work these days. We’re in a period of assessment, examining what’s been developed so far and trying to figure out how much further we have to go. But while we’re doing this, development has been frozen, and while all the technical team members have been pulled instead into documentation, assessment discussions, and design sessions, there still isn’t enough work to keep us all comfortably busy.

We’ve known there might be cutbacks – the rumors have been circulating ever since they first started planning this particular activity of the project. So it’s not that we didn’t know they were coming. Still, it would have been nice to have been given more warning than simply to leave work one evening, and come back to empty desks where developers once sat. There was no message circulated to prepare us. Just – one day they were there, and the next they were gone. The second wave – scheduled at the end of this week – is at least expected now, but still, there seems to be gaps in their reasons for who should go and who should stay through this process.

There are rumors of yet more cutbacks. We eye each new email from our own company managers as well as communications handed down from the program managers of this project with trepidation, never knowing if this will be the next missive full of names to disappear overnight. No one seems to know what we’ll be doing come April – this includes the technical consultants as well as the business people themselves. We’re told that those who’ve been removed will come back when development starts again, but we contractors and consultants know the business too well to be willing to believe that promise so easily. Companies do not like to have their employees sitting idle on the bench while a customer twiddles its thumbs. It’s highly likely that some of those people will be placed on other projects and will not return in May, taking with them all the knowledge they’ve accumulated and were never given the chance to pass on before they left.

So we busy ourselves with the tedium of documentation long overdue, and we watch, and we wait. There is nothing else we can do.

It is March, but you wouldn’t know it from the weather. It’s been in the high 70’s this week so far – far warmer than it should be for this time of year. I’m wearing short sleeves and it’s not even spring. This does not bode well for summer.

I’m sitting in the computer room and I’ve opened the window because it was a bit stuffy in here. There are a number of tiny bugs that have darted inside the room and keep alighting on my monitor. The cats find them fascinating. Sebastian is sitting on Richard’s desk, crying piteously each time he tries his futile best to capture one of the little critters. Allegra is creeping up behind him in that cautious awkward way she has when she’s intent on a target, and Rebecca has taken over the windowsill, nose pressed to the screen, bugs ignored because she can smell Outside through there. Azzie – not too sure about all of this – is watching from Richard’s chair, patting at Sebastian in puzzlement, and otherwise ignoring the bugs.

I’m going to regret letting the bugs come in, I know. The cats will probably tear the computer room apart to get to them and there will be a mess to clean up tomorrow morning, plus random crashes tonight that will be of the sort where we lie in bed and debate if it sounded breakable. But for now, they’re happy – excited to have something different.

They’ll have something different very soon – something far more exciting than a few random bugs crawling on the window screen. We’ve an end date now – just a bit less than four weeks left to go. Once tax day has passed, Richard and I will move into our new home.

It’s hard to imagine that it’s this close. Now that I have a date – even though I’ve been wishing for one for so long – I’m not sure if I’m more excited or scared. It’s going to be a big change – living in a house that’s truly ours. So many things to think about. So much to do to get ready. We’ve barely begun cleaning the garage. We need to start gathering boxes and packing things. We need to talk to moving companies. We need to talk to someone about landscaping the front yard. We need to call the bank and lock in a mortgage rate now, while it’s still low, while Alan Greenspan is being so kind as to drop it bit by bit. Two full points it’s fallen since we began this project five months ago.

I’m not ready. I’ve been so impatient all this time, waited so many years to finally have a place of my own, and I’m not ready for it to happen. I keep waiting for the ax to fall. Somehow, someway, this isn’t really going to happen. It can’t be this close – just around the corner.

Sebastian has succeeded in capturing one of the bugs, hooking his paw around it and pinning it to the wall. In just a moment, he’ll begin the game of lifting his paw slowly and looking for the bug, which will – unless he actually managed to squash it – have escaped. He’ll ponder this turn of events for a few long moments, staring at his paw in puzzlement, and eventually give up and go leaping for another victim to start the cycle all over again.

It used to be that I loved my job all the time, and the days when I wished I could do something else were far and few between. It used to be that I would dream code in my sleep and leave myself half-awake voicemail messages for how to fix the problem that was plaguing me at that moment. It used to be that I enjoyed work, and never watched the clock. It used to be.

I do not have to wonder where my disillusionment and dissatisfaction began – I know the starting point. I don’t have to ask how I became so jaded. I know far too well. I’ve tried so often to convince myself to find reasons to be optimistic with the Big Fish, to stop comparing now to then. But this has gotten harder and harder the more I learn about this company I work for. Their policies and business ethics in upper management don’t anger me as much as they sadden me now. My former company – the one Big Fish swallowed up just over a year ago – was so different. As consultants we were sent to projects with one goal – to make the customer successful. We knew that the money we brought in was important to our managers, but never did I feel as I’ve felt lately – that they would add people to a project simply to rake in the cash.

It’s hard, sometimes, when you are hanging on by a thread and constantly questioning your decision to stay, to remember why it is that you were there in the first place. It’s difficult to see through the frustration and the anger and the disappointment to the reasons why you came.

It’s days like today, however, that make me remember why it is I used to love my job. Days when I’m in the middle of things, when I’m designing in my head, when I’m working hard. Days when the time zooms by and I’m not constantly checking my watch to see how much longer I have to stay. Days when I leave with a smile that lingers even once I’m out the door where no one can actually see me anymore.

I love consulting. No matter what happens with the politics and the management policies of this company for whom I now work, that cannot change that fact. I love the challenge, the constant changes. And even though it is often frustrating (especially these days), I even love the excitement of the politics and ever-changing policies at the customer site. There are few jobs that offer what consulting offers – never the same thing twice, and even though I am sometimes overwhelmed and feeling as if I’m struggling to hang on by my fingernails, I also know that I’m very good at what I do.

Sometimes it just takes a day like today to remind me. Despite everything, the Big Fish cannot ever tear that completely away from me. Not unless I let them.

Covington Cream. Painted Lady. Peppertree. Lakeside. White Shadow. Swiss Coffee.

There are whole folder of names like these, beside inch-square chips of color, grouped carefully on a white background. One whole folder of colors was marked ‘historic’, meant specifically for those of us who are partial to the Victorian era.

I am not good at matching colors (For this very reason, the house interior will be all one shade of white. White Shadow, to be exact, although the Swiss Coffee intrigued me, simply because of the name). But the paint chips gave me a glimmer (albeit a faint one) of how these things might go together. These are the colors you see on carefully preserved homes hundreds of years old. Each name calls to mind a different image. Painted Lady will be the hue of the fishscale on our gables. I like that image – our house will be a bit feisty as a result…but then, with stone dragons on the front walkway, how could it be otherwise?

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Some time, when you’re bored, wander through your house and count every single light. Closet lights. Hall lights. All of them – and don’t forget the ones in the garage, and the ones outside. Porch lights? Toss them in too.

Now. Just for fun and giggles, take that list and go to a home store, and pretend you’re going to replace them. All of them – all at once.

Home Base is going out of business, so for the first time, our contractor sent us to go do the purchasing instead of simply handing him a list of model numbers and having him do it. We did a walkthrough of the house and were handed a rather lengthy list, which we were to take so that we could purchase every single one of them. By ourselves.

Some of them were easy. One hall or closet light is just like the other, so all we had to do was grab a whole stack of the same fixture and pile it into the cart. The rest weren’t quite so simple though. Which fan to get – four blades or five? Wood or painted? Antique brass or shiny? What type of ceiling light – flush or semi-flush? We walked in circles in the display aisles until my neck ached and my eyes started to cross. Will it be as bright in the house as it is in the store? How hard is it going to be to clean? What type of bulb does it use?

There are now two cart-loads of lights sitting in a pile in our garage – a very expensive pile, I should add. We still have yet to buy bulbs for them all too (wince), and worse yet, we’re still not done. Even though we threw up our hands and gave up and begged our contractor (wonderful man that he is) to get the can lights for us, we’ve still two more to buy, plus a few fans.

Here I was, worried about kitchen appliances. I should know better, really I should….