Hiya.
I'm having a limbo kind of morning, and sat down to write...and suddenly felt drawn here instead of my current project. So, let's see what comes out?
We're having carpet installed today.
When we moved into this house 12 years ago, there had been this scratchy sort of berber stuff in our living room that wasn't the least bit comfortable and smelled a lot like dogs. We didn't really want to take on the expense of replacing it at the time, but felt like we needed to. And the universe delivered on its message that we should when our 16 month old dumped a five gallon bucket of white ceiling paint right in the middle of the room. Which, was obviously awesome.
So we listened and we put this stuff in and thought we were living large - it was top of the line in stain proof abilities and so much softer than what had been there. But it was unfortunately brown (I don't even remember picking this color?!) and after more than a decade of kids and pets, it's been getting wrinkly and pulling up in places and it was just time.
(We're also getting all new windows in a couple weeks as Matt was on a very "let's make everything nice at the same time and have the best, coziest winter situation possible" crusade.)
So anyway, they scheduled the install today without telling us what time it would be.
They've been very casual about this whole thing. Very, "yeah sure we'll bring you some carpet," and we're over here like okay so.....when? This is clearly a much bigger deal to us than it is to them. What, with a couch currently taking up the entirety of my kitchen and my dining room holding basically every other piece of furniture we own.
So, I've just been kind of...sitting around...waiting for word. Trying not to focus too hard on my stomach burning.
I started a new medicine last night that I was told to take halves of for the first week to reduce side effects. Seconds after taking it, my entire esophagus started burning and my mouth started watering like throwing up was imminent. I chugged water thinking maybe it got stuck on the way down, which wasn't likely since it was teeny tiny, and the burning just kept getting worse. I started eating hunks of bread and more water, then tried ice cream. It was barely doing anything to help. It felt like...the worst acid reflux I've ever had with a side of ultra soreness. I started to panic a little because it was just getting worse and worse and I couldn't seem to control it. After several more glasses of water, I ended up sleeping upright and the pain slowly moved down towards my stomach.
It's mostly gone today, but my stomach just feels...off. Slightly burny. Kind of like there's a small fire kindling in there. Just enough to be annoying. And after being up too late, tossing things down my throat to try and smother the fire, I slept through my alarms and right up to the point where I had to start packing lunches and helping kids out the door. So, I'm unsettled.
When the carpet is finished, I have to put my living room back together. No idea how long it will take them. Then I'll hopefully get a chance to put myself together, and possibly a few dozen loads of laundry. (How does it accumulate so damn fast? I hate it.)
We have plans tonight with a group of Luke's friends and their parents, and I'm looking forward to it. The pandemic made me extra anti-social, and I've been trying to figure out how to emerge into life a bit more here and there. (I still don't like it, but, it also doesn't feel great to always be on the outskirts of everything.) I'm also usually the coordinator of plans such as these (we're doing a fire and a haunted hayride), and it was really nice to be invited to something like this that someone else is planning. My brain is too frazzled right now to juggle planning myself.
Sigh, which reminds me, there's so much going on. It's not stuff that I really want to talk about - I'm talking about it enough in therapy and it's super terrifying and uncomfortable and like, one of my worst nightmares level of sucky. I mean, I do share some of it on my Instagram because I'm trying to do this whole thing where I actually talk about some of the things I'm writing about so that, I don't know, maybe 4 people someday have the satisfaction of journeying along with me. (I do seem to have wonderful conversations with people every time I bring up the hard stuff, and I not only had one of these chats with a new connection last week, but opened up a new line of support between us that is just..invaluable kinda stuff.)
I'll talk about it eventually. I'm not sure I'd be able to avoid bringing it up, anyway, but graciously this is all still in the future (not very far in the future, but still, not here and now thankfully). So...I'll get there.
Excuse my balancing act of wanting to talk through things and also feeling not fully ready for the details. I don't mean to be cryptic or whatever, but my inner circle knows the details and that's all I'm really ready for. I guess the point is: there's big scary stuff happening soon and it's painting over all the other things going on in life, lately. Everything feels harder and heavier and scarier.
Wait, can we swing back to the carpet again?
I just want to say, in case you're thinking I'm crazy: I love the cozy softness of carpeting, but I don't necessarily love the look of it. If I had it my way, and the oodles of money to make it perfect in here, I wouldn't have replaced this carpet with more carpet.
There's perfectly wonderful original 1950's hardwood under it (I know!), but it needs serious refinishing, which would require refinishing the whole house. There's hardwood laminate in the kitchen and dining room that would be the wrong color and the wrong direction so that would need to be fully replaced, the bedrooms would need to be refinished, too (those do have the hardwood), and suddenly we'd be going wild on every room in the house and bleeding money everywhere. It just wasn't feasible for our plans.
IF we can ever find a house that we don't get outbid on by a cash offer, we plan to hang onto this house for our kids (home ownership is not looking so likely for their generation), and renting it until that day comes. Money and labor and future plans and all that considered (plus you know, a dog and cats and 3 will-be teenage boys), it just made the most sense to go with a nice carpet with a nice pad and enjoy the coziness.
We picked a greige that's brighter and slightly lighter than what we have (but not too light, see: kids and pets). I just know I'm going to see it when they're finished and want to drive to Lowe's immediately to get paint for all the trim in the living room. I've always planned to do it, but this *might* light a fire under my ass.
Anyway. They're here now. I'm hanging out in my library with my dog (she was barking her face off at them), and my stomach is burning and I'm wishing I could go up there and steep some peppermint tea. Sigh. Life is just so weird these days. Not all bad, mind you - just weird.
I really wanted to get some writing done today, but the banging above my head is just a touch distracting. Not ideal for reading, either. Which is why I'm still here rambling. Hope you were in the mood for some stream of consciousness nonsense!
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