It’s fortunate that Kris and I don’t ever intend to move again. Based on how long it took us to unpack and feel “moved in” at this place, we might never make that adjustment anywhere else. However, after fifteen months of s-l-o-w progress, we do at last feel moved in.

It helps that the bathroom remodel is finally nearing completion. (Yes, it has been nearly eight weeks, and yes it’s only “nearing” completion.) The job is 97% finished, which means the place is perfectly usable, but that there are little details (dimmer switch, power to the garage/workshop, and final inspections) that need to be completed.

It also helps that over the past week, we’ve finally tackled some of the move-in chores that we delayed for the past year. Last weekend, Tiffany came over to help us. While the Gates girls organized the garage, I tackled the garden shed and the spare shed. (You know you have too many outbuildings if you refer to one of them as the “spare shed”.)

(As we were cleaning, I found a dead bird on the lawn. It was probably killed by a cat, but its carcass had been taken over by yellowjackets. There were a dozen of the bastards politely taking turns to eat the bird’s innards. Despite a fear of bees, I managed to snap some handheld macro shots.

The bees were unhappy when I took the bird from them. They swarmed about the spot in the lawn for several minutes, longing for bird flesh.)

When we’d finished, the garage was neat and tidy (and empty); all the stuff in the garden shed had been shifted to the spare shed; and the garden shed had been converted to a playhouse of sorts (for visiting children).

When I was growing up, my grandparents had lots of outbuildings, too. One of them (the one filled with dynamite — no joke) was used as a playhouse. There were cups and saucers and chairs and tables (and the aforementioned dynamite) and all sorts of other things to play with. To make our playhouse, I hung the old bathroom cabinets from the wall, and dragged the old bathroom vanity into place. The space was completed by a small table and the two old chairs from Mac and Pam (chairs that are now destined to go to Craig and Lisa, whenever they want to pick them up).

All this cleaning was great, but the final step that allowed me to feel “moved in” was this: I hauled all of my old computer stuff to Free Geek, a Portland-based nonprofit. How much computer stuff?

• Thirteen monitors
• Eighteen computers
• Four printers
• One scanner
• Dozens of memory modules, about eight hard drives, scads of modems and sound cards and video cards

Most of that equipment was still usable; some of it was even good. I ought to have taken the time to sort the wheat from the chaff, but in the end I just switched my brain off, grabbed everything, and hauled it away. That computer stuff was a boil that needed lancing; it was a sore on my mental life, and I’m relieved to have it gone.

Now my workshop is mostly empty. (All the more so since Kris had me haul the filing cabinet into the house last week.) I have some woodworking tools (and some comic books) laying about, but mostly the workshop is now an empty space. I’ll spend a couple nights this week tidying it up, and then maybe I’ll actually start a woodworking project. (Wait — we still don’t have electricity out there. The bathroom’s still only 97% finished; part of the remaining 3% is reconnecting electricity to the workshop.)

As my obsession with photography continues to wax, I’ve developed other possible uses for the workshop and the playshed. I could convert the playshed to a darkroom, and I could create some sort of photography studio in the workshop. The spaces are great, but there’d be a lot of work converting each to its new use. Still, it’s something to consider.

Meanwhile, Kris’ sister, Tiffany, recently moved to Portland. A truck filled with her belongings arrived on Saturday. We helped her unload the stuff Saturday morning, and she’d unpacked nearly all of it by Sunday afternoon. Holy cats! It took me and Kris fifteen months to move in; Tiffany did it in a day.