In Which I Swim
Jan. 5th, 2020 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aToday was the first day that felt like real life, instead of a constant attempt to settle into our new house.
Oh, we did some work. I built two more chairs for our dining room set (two left, and they're taking about an hour and a half for each pair); we ordered a few more necessities for the house; Kimberly and I decided to spend our Christmas money from the Appels on some patio furniture, which we ordered; and we also opened a few of the boxes which arrived before we got here and have been clogging our entryway (which included some things we mailed to ourselves or had mailed to us from Berkeley, and some Christmas gifts! thanks folks!). But that was maybe three hours of actual work, and I didn't feel the need to make progress on everything for the rest of the day.
So, I played some games on my computer (I haven't been having a lot of success reading since we landed, I think because my routines have been so disrupted). And most importantly: I swam!
Around 3pm, my dad and Mary came over, and then I drove us over to Salt Pond Beach. This way day #3 of driving in Kauai, and it's getting increasingly doable. I was still tense, but less so, and best of all I knew the way to Salt Pond, and even am getting used to some of the turns and twists on the road.
Salt Pond isn't the most beautiful beach on Kauai, but it is a nice swimming beach. My dad and I swam all the way south to the end of the beach that's protected by rocks where there's a current as waves crash over the rocks (though not a lot of current today), then swam back. We talked a lot. It was nice, as swimming with my dad always is.
The weird thing was that he left his old beat-up slippas on the shore when we went in ... and they disappeared! Maybe stolen? I dunno. I didn't even see where he left them because I was blind. (I have prescription goggles which must have ended up in a shipping box, and I have a prescription mask, which hasn't made it over from my dad's house yet, where it's lived for the last several years, and without my prescriptions I really can't see.) My dad was somewhat happy to be rid of them, because apparently they needed to be repaired again.
And meanwhile, we christened Julie the Benz with some sand and probably some red dirt. She was just pristine when I got her, our guess is she was only used by her realtor-owner to go to open houses, and never had seen a beach before. Well, now she has.
At dinner, Kimberly and I continued our very successful cooking of real food, not frozen meals, admittedly made easier by Costco's prepared food. I butchered the rest of the roasted chicken and mixed some of that into a salad we also got from Costco. (I need to learn better how to debone a chicken, because I was like a drunken assassin.) And I also steamed some broccoli as a side dish. It's now been five days that Kimberly and I haven't et a frozen meal, which is a record for the last 10 or 15 years since Kimberly stopped cooking. So, yay us, it's a great start.
And there's been more relaxing this evening, though I also did some work for my one current contract job, Bitmark, the first I'd done since we landed in Hawaii.
Like I said, real life. There's still lots to be done for the move, but we're slowly clearing out the things that have accumulated in the house, putting things away and destroying boxes; add that on to our furniture we've purchased (and assembled!) in the last few days and it's starting to look just a little bit like a real house. (I think our next big challenge is going to be after our boat comes in, figuring out where to put away all the stuff that got boxed up in Berkeley; this house is bigger, but we have less wall space and almost no shelves or other containers yet (other than the built-in, but they're mostly kitchens and bedroom.)
And also work starts tomorrow for me. I've committed to 12 final weeks or so of Skotos work before I move fully over to contracting. That's going to eat up my daytime that I've been spending on moving in, and also it's going to be really busy because we have to get things ready to be handed off.
Oh, we did some work. I built two more chairs for our dining room set (two left, and they're taking about an hour and a half for each pair); we ordered a few more necessities for the house; Kimberly and I decided to spend our Christmas money from the Appels on some patio furniture, which we ordered; and we also opened a few of the boxes which arrived before we got here and have been clogging our entryway (which included some things we mailed to ourselves or had mailed to us from Berkeley, and some Christmas gifts! thanks folks!). But that was maybe three hours of actual work, and I didn't feel the need to make progress on everything for the rest of the day.
So, I played some games on my computer (I haven't been having a lot of success reading since we landed, I think because my routines have been so disrupted). And most importantly: I swam!
Around 3pm, my dad and Mary came over, and then I drove us over to Salt Pond Beach. This way day #3 of driving in Kauai, and it's getting increasingly doable. I was still tense, but less so, and best of all I knew the way to Salt Pond, and even am getting used to some of the turns and twists on the road.
Salt Pond isn't the most beautiful beach on Kauai, but it is a nice swimming beach. My dad and I swam all the way south to the end of the beach that's protected by rocks where there's a current as waves crash over the rocks (though not a lot of current today), then swam back. We talked a lot. It was nice, as swimming with my dad always is.
The weird thing was that he left his old beat-up slippas on the shore when we went in ... and they disappeared! Maybe stolen? I dunno. I didn't even see where he left them because I was blind. (I have prescription goggles which must have ended up in a shipping box, and I have a prescription mask, which hasn't made it over from my dad's house yet, where it's lived for the last several years, and without my prescriptions I really can't see.) My dad was somewhat happy to be rid of them, because apparently they needed to be repaired again.
And meanwhile, we christened Julie the Benz with some sand and probably some red dirt. She was just pristine when I got her, our guess is she was only used by her realtor-owner to go to open houses, and never had seen a beach before. Well, now she has.
At dinner, Kimberly and I continued our very successful cooking of real food, not frozen meals, admittedly made easier by Costco's prepared food. I butchered the rest of the roasted chicken and mixed some of that into a salad we also got from Costco. (I need to learn better how to debone a chicken, because I was like a drunken assassin.) And I also steamed some broccoli as a side dish. It's now been five days that Kimberly and I haven't et a frozen meal, which is a record for the last 10 or 15 years since Kimberly stopped cooking. So, yay us, it's a great start.
And there's been more relaxing this evening, though I also did some work for my one current contract job, Bitmark, the first I'd done since we landed in Hawaii.
Like I said, real life. There's still lots to be done for the move, but we're slowly clearing out the things that have accumulated in the house, putting things away and destroying boxes; add that on to our furniture we've purchased (and assembled!) in the last few days and it's starting to look just a little bit like a real house. (I think our next big challenge is going to be after our boat comes in, figuring out where to put away all the stuff that got boxed up in Berkeley; this house is bigger, but we have less wall space and almost no shelves or other containers yet (other than the built-in, but they're mostly kitchens and bedroom.)
And also work starts tomorrow for me. I've committed to 12 final weeks or so of Skotos work before I move fully over to contracting. That's going to eat up my daytime that I've been spending on moving in, and also it's going to be really busy because we have to get things ready to be handed off.