Month: June 2026

This is a question I have heard a bit with friends at the pool, friends at church, and everywhere else.

No. The answer to that question is No.

But we are making great progress! Here are a few things I want to share from the past little bit that are worth mentioning about it:

Taylor left town immediately for a work trip.

This was a view from her morning walk 4 days after we moved in. And if you think I am going to make decisions about which drawer to put our bowls and silverware in, or the types of kitchen chairs or table we will have in our kitchen , you are out of your mind. Clearly that is a Taylor job, and it definitely won’t happen in her absence.

I got a new grill

Who cares about getting settled in, let’s smoke some meat! Obviously this was a higher priority. For the few days Taylor was gone, I tried one of each: wings, ribs, and a boston butt. They were all low-risk, because if they turn our terrible, who cares? And not very expensive at all to get a few pounds of meat.

So, no: my socks weren’t put away in a new closet the way that I would really like to do it, but I assembled the new grill and the ribs were pretty darn good, and that counts for something.

Father’s Day

Somehow it’s father’s day again. I dont know where or how that snuck in on us, but it did. So, instead of deciding where to put my winter gloves and snow pants, we did whatever I wanted to do, and that meant riding bikes to Ben and Jerry’s after eating my waffle-face breakfast. The kids did amazing. It was hot. I told Mercy to just follow her older sister, and she took that as marching orders and rode with reckless abandon, beyond the strength of most any 5 year olds.

Cardboard Boat Regatta

What in the world is a “cardboard Boat Regatta” you might ask? If you guessed “building a boat out of cardboard and racing it in the pool” you would be right. So the day before father’s day, instead of organizing a garage and figuring out how to mow the lawn for this new house, we spent the day building (or, just helping supply stuff) for Rosie and her BFF to build their own cardboard boat.

Their boat is called the “Karen Cruiser” and the theme was “I want to talk to the manager.”

It was really hilarious. Here is a very worthwhile video of it, without any AI at all:

The oven

The oven that came with the house seems great- its an LG, gas range. I think it even has convection cooking.

But it doenst have racks inside.

The old owners took the oven racks with them. And you know what can be cooked in an oven without oven racks?

I’ll keep waiting while you come to the same conclusion we did: nothing. Nothing can be cooked in an oven without oven racks.

So, I ordered new ones. 24.7″ seemed about right- amazon sells tons of them that size. But they are all too big and dont fit. 24.55″ are also sold on Amazon. Those also don’t fit. The model number is very, very hard to find on this sucker, and after finding the model number and searching, the result from the LG website was “0 items match that model number”.

So after 2 weeks and returning 2 sets of the wrong sized oven racks, the correct ones are on order. And no, the TV isnt mounted the way that it should be yet, but we will soon have a usable oven.

The Dog

One of my favorite things, and probably the simplest, is the dog door. I didnt realize how many times the dog is let in and out of the house during a day, until it doesnt need to be done anymore.

And while the dog does let itself in and out, we quickly learned the fence does not contain the dog. So, while Taylor was away on a work trip for several days, I spent many, many hours chasing the dog, who knows she is much, much faster than I am.

It was an opportunity to meet many new neighbors. And after the 7th time, I rage-ordered a special collar from amazon. Two (extremely low setting) shocks later, the dog has not run away in days.

Sorry, the books in my office have not been placed on the shelves yet, but the dog hasn’t run away, so thats something.

Things are going great, and we are getting there! As for “All settled?” That might be a couple years from now.

We thought we wanted to just remodel our kitchen. Then we went to go look at a house “just to see”, and 45 days later, we closed on it.

The past week was just downright wild. Rosie finished 5th grade. Mercy finished Pre-K. 5th grade had a graduation pool party. Taylor started to get all the feels about Rosie getting so big:

Closing, Moving, and the first night.

We had an excellent Realtor (and our neighbor) Chidi- he walked us through the process and joined us for a pic after closing, and then we will be putting him to work selling our old house in just a few weeks:

Since we are moving as quickly as possible, I borrowed my mom’s van for these few days (thanks mom!). Its much better than spending money renting a truck to tackle all the things a moving company can’t get, but driving this van comes with its own vibe. So I rolled up to the closing attorney (who was an old high school friend of my brother Jake) driving this bad boy, complete with the first load ready for the first night at the new (and very empty) house:

Also, I had to pick up Rosie from her last day of school in the van, along with her friend- I’m sure riding in that van created a memory both of them will carry with them for a lifetime.

After a couple hours at the pool, the girls and I came to the new (and very empty) house. It has no TV or internet, so we spent the night like savages: building a swing and kicking a beach ball around. The girls shared Mercy’s bed, and the air mattress I brought deflated before I even got on it.

Taylor went home to sleep in a bed.

Moving Day

The moving estimate/moving process was an interesting one at best, and let me tell you why.

In order to figure out an estimate, I had to do a video call with the company to tally all the items that are going to be moved. So, we did that- because I sure as hell am not going to mess with moving myself, or getting friends to help. That window of opportunity in life has closed.

After the video call several weeks ago, I reached out again saying that we have a ton of boxes that also need to be included; they said ok, no problem, we will add a few hundred dollars to the quote.

Then on moving day, I hear: “each item needs to be in a closed box, otherwise we will have to wrap it (in plastic) for you.” This is a silly rule, we are only going 1.5 miles.

Taylor had a hell of a time helping the mover align his original “quote” with what actually needed to move. And let me tell you, pictures of boxes fall short on how much stuff there actually was. The moving guy had to re-tally about everything upon seeing our packing in person (luckily it was only a few hundred instead of a few thousand dollars difference), and they were off to the races.

These movers were huge. 5 of them. Like oxes, and it was 93% out with 99% humidity. They didnt stop all day. They were polite and worked like mathmeticians figuring out the right geometry to get each piece of furniture out of the old house, and into the new. One guy bear hugged a dresser and walked up the stairs alone. My back hurt just watching that.

They did an amazing job. I can’t believe it all happened in one day, and if you ever need to do a move, check these guys out, they did a great job.

Now, we have to spend the rest of the summer selling the old house (1.5 miles away) and getting settled in the new house: I can’t wait to set up this smoker and dig into my new hobby.