Last week I described the goal as minimum viability for my new living quarters. I’d transported some stuff over the weekend but the big moving day was Monday. That I’m covering for both of us with client work meant there wasn’t much time or energy left for unpacking and arranging things. I still worked to make slow, consistent progress, though, and made a bigger push on Saturday.

Now I’ve achieved closer to a normalized baseline. Of course as I sit in my recliner typing this I’m looking at two boxes of decorations that I’ve not yet placed on the shelves they will adorn nor have I put anything up on the walls and so pictures are spread across the dining room table, so the process isn’t exactly complete. There are a few things I still need to purchase to make the space work for me, but I should have those in place within another week or so. Then I should feel the space to be mine. I talked to someone this week about how that part—decorating and settling in—was his favorite part of the whole moving process. While it is certainly better than twisting screws and carrying furniture, I still don’t think I can say I enjoy it. At this point, I just want it to be finished. But maybe that’s just a lesser part of me talking.

All of this is going to be tested in the coming days. I’ll have several guests staying with me so if something isn’t in order they’ll surely point it out and hopefully fix it. I’m not as excited as I’d like to be about family coming here. I’ll mark that down to the volume of work right now. As I described it to a few people, work right now feels like a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie to eat. I know it’s just for a season and I’ll white knuckle my way through it. It’s certainly a better problem to have than the inverse problem of no work that we experienced at the start of last year.