On the seventh day...

He may have rested on Sunday, but not us. Then again, it isn't actually our seventh day in the new house, but only the third full day. Let me give you the rundown of what we've done so far:

- Ripped out dark pink (some call it mauve, I've also heard it called rose) carpeting and underlying padding from the living room, dining room and upstairs hall, leaving it in place only on the stairs until the carpet dudes come to install runners and W2W on the lower level.

- Decided between "Pearly Fleck" and "Natural Fleck" carpet samples I'd driven around in the van for a week for the lower level and staircase runners. (Natural Fleck won, and yes they WERE TOO different colors. Really. The differences were subtle but real, dagnabit!)

- Removed the tack strips, complete with ninety million nails and eleventy million staples, from just about everywhere there had been carpeting, with actual Smith Family Feet stepping on the aforementioned nails and staples only four times in the process (and three of those were mine - yee-OUCH) (Oh, and for the record, Hubby and Kiddo did all the tack-strip removal, I pulled nary a staple or nail myself.)

- Removed large, padded area rugs from all three bedrooms.

- Removed the matching Pink/Mauve/Rose swag valances from all the downstairs windows, which were installed by means of hammering in seven thousand brass upholstery nails (the fancy kind that one sees on leather, wingback chairs in Rich Old Man Studies) along the top of the window frames.

- Unloaded the truck, minivan and car, thereby ensuring we have Boxes Everywhere.

- Cleaned 44 years' worth of Oldster Grime Remnants from various surfaces, with many more surfaces to go.

- Mowed the front and sides of the yard, bringing the grass level down from Holy Heck, Did We Buy a Plot of Jungle? to Well, it Isn't Perfect But You Can Tell it is Just a Lawn, Whew.

- Hauled all the carpeting and padding out to the curb, where it really didn't look any nicer in the sunlight.

- Made one very expensive trip to Walmart, slightly less expensive trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Target and one trip to our new "home" grocery store, following which I vowed I will never, ever shop there on a Saturday afternoon again, ever. (Holy tourists and slack-jawed yokels, Batman!)

- Consumed our respective body weights in pizza, subs, soda and Dunkin Donuts, with one lovely respite meal delivered via one of the college boys hired to help us move, made by his mom - pulled pork BBQ, baked beans and a ridiculously delicious apple pie.

- Officially signed the death certificate for our grill, which I was surprised Hubby even wanted to try moving, as it was barely more than a mass of rust molecules held together only by a thin layer of Residue of Meals Past. Also subsequently finished cooking sausages and hot dogs in the Ancient and Tiny Oven instead of grilling our first Saturday night dinner in the new house.

- Asked "Have you seen the........." eighty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve times.

- Answered "It was in a box........." eighty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve times.

- Snarked "WHICH box? Where?" eighty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve times.

- Snapped "I don't know - just go LOOK for it, all the boxes are labeled!" eighty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve times.

- Ate another donut because of stress of all the damn boxes.

- Instituted Rule in which if one opens a box looking for something, one must then unpack that entire box.

- Threatened to Ignore That Rule and then counter-threatened to Divorce Immediately if the rule was ignored.

- Ignored the Rule anyway (but so has he, so ha ha hardy ha ha).

- Scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed at the Weird, I Don't Want to Think About the Origin or I'll Totally Freak Out discolorations and stains on various bathroom surfaces.

- Realized I didn't really miss having Tiles with Ancient Grout in bathrooms over these past 9.5 years of having New, Non-Tile bathroom fixtures (grew up in a house full of Tiles with Ancient Grout).

- Went to eat another donut because of the stress of Weird Discolorations and Stains but discovered the donut box was empty. Because that was the one box in the house that had to be empty, right?

- Worried about the health of Kiddo's goldfish, temporarily housed in a dirty tank with nonworking filter on the hearth of the fireplace in the family room, but decided to wait it out until Hubby cleans it all out and fixes it up.

- Met two of the neighbors (one from across the street, one from next door) who came over to introduce themselves and welcome us to the neighborhood, and waved at the other next-door neighbor as we headed out to the Ridiculous Grocery Store.

- Had our first official visitor who wasn't a service person (Yay Kristin!) who kindly didn't comment on the state of disaster in which we currently are dwelling.

- Had a locksmith come over to re-key the locks so that the number of keys we needed to carry to enter our home was something less than a million (seriously - two locks per door, five doors into the house, and a different key for each lock. All the keys had Oldster Code on them in the form of various combinations of dots in various shades of Pink/Rose/Mauve and red nail polish. Not being 86 years old, we were unable - okay, unwilling - to crack the code).

- Verified that there are in fact four eggs in the robins' nest above the light on our back patio, thereby saving the nest from being knocked down by Hubby because it might damage the exterior.

- Freecycled the first of our eleventy billion boxes as we finally, finally got some unpacked.

Whew.

Alas, there still are many, many, many, mannnnnnnnnny boxes left to unpack, miles of wallpaper to strip (haven't stripped a single inch yet) and many surfaces left to de-Oldsterfy. When we came through the house on our final walk-through the other night, we were sure that the Oldsters had hired a cleaning crew to come through, because on first glance, everything looked all clean. We had spent hours - literally, HOURS - cleaning our house before we left, down to thoroughly mopping the floors and wiping down all the counters, cabinet shelves and drawers. And the fridge and freezer and the washer and dryer, too. I even washed off the damn lint screen in the dryer. Once we moved in, though, we realized that not only had they not hired professionals to clean, they really hadn't cleaned anything themselves, either. I mean, it isn't filthy, but there is a definite layer of 44 years of accumulated residue on everything from the rails of the wrought-iron railings on the stairs to the doors and walls and shelves... The terms of the contract state that things will be "broom clean" upon occupancy, and I guess they were, it just wasn't the same level of broom clean that we did at our old house. Sigh.

So, we plow onward through towers of boxes and gallons of cleaning products. Things are starting to find homes where they belong, like the linens and pantry items, and my goal for the end of today is to have the kitchen unpacked and put together so that we're no longer hunting through towers of boxes in the garage or on the lanai for a spatula or pot holder or what have you. Hubby is going to take out the orange shag carpeting in the office and continue working on the wiring of the house (cable and phone lines need to be run basically to every room, as it was only on the lower level and in the kitchen, and he didn't want to pay the Time Warner dude to do it when he could do it himself). Kiddo is going to continue to alternately offer to help us with things and write plaintive notes saying "Der Mom, I just want to do sumthing fun. Love, Kiddo" or "Der Mom, I wish there was sumthing fun that I culd do insted of work. Love, Kiddo" though she did act like a kid at Christmas when I opened up one of the boxes for her room and tossed a variety of princesses, dinosaurs and My Little Ponies on the floor for her to play with yesterday. Crazy Cat is no longer cowering behind the dryer, and is now prowling about the house as if she owns the place. She even has barfed up hairballs in the middle of the night for the past two nights - clearly she is feeling much more comfortable and at home. We haven't yet unpacked my computer (I'm using Hubby's laptop right now) or found the camera cords, so I can't share any pictures of the progress so far, but I will as soon as I am able.

And now Hubby has finished showering in the newly scrubbed, newly shower-curtained, newly installed showerheaded Pepto Bismol shower, which is my signal to get off the computer and back to life in the land of Moving. Yee-ha!

Hope everyone is having a delightful weekend that doesn't require the opening or unpacking of any boxes or any Oldster Residue Removal!!