… seriously, what am I doing still awake?

A moderate earthquake near West Salem, IL, woke us up this morning at 4:30 CST. We might’ve slept through it had it not been for some glasses rattling and a delayed recognition of what we were experiencing. We live on the 3rd floor of a 7 story brick and steel building in downtown, St. Louis, about 127 miles away from the epicenter, and felt the vibration once we were awake. Charlotte remained asleep.

For validation, the Internet had instant response from friends via twitter and the USGS was quickly updated.

An hour later, we’re still awake, but since everything is fine, I think I’ll crawl back into bed.

Kelly’s been home with Charlotte since birth, I took off work that first week, and we’ve apparently been parents for about six months. Time has passed in a way that I can’t measurably define it - I’d believe you equally if you suggested we brought her home a week, or a year ago; it seems like she’s been part of our family for so long, but I still feel like I’m making it up as I go. I don’t think I’ve done anything to permanently screw her up, yet, though.

Charlotte is clearly recognizing and watching people and toys now, but only directly interacting with a little reaching and occasional cooing (or screaming). We’ve maybe seen a few smiles and face mimicry, which is really the most amazing thing right now to see the gears turning in her head. As for the screaming, she’s often fussy between feedings, and sleeping, and outings… but hopefully that’ll peak soon and she’ll calm a little as her body’s development catches up some. We’ve had some successes with each of the soothing approaches, but we’ve found it ends up about the 17th thing you try, regardless of order. Or just waiting until time passes until she’s tired of screaming because she’s exhausted, but doesn’t know how to sleep.

Kelly and I sleep mostly normal night hours, but of course have regular interruptions for feedings and soothing. I’m certainly getting less sleep, and with it goes alertness, dexterity, sanity… Fortunately everyone’s been very understanding. (e.g. I still have a job. And a family.) I don’t get to hang out with friends as often, so you all can appropriately pass judgement.

We’ve gone out fairly often past few weeks for errands and food as Charlotte is fortunately fairly tame in the carrier seat used for the car and stroller. Often at her worst I can rock or swing her to nearly put her to sleep, which has led to amusing sights such as Kelly pushing an empty stroller frame through the mall with me following and swinging Charlotte. Overall, she’s well behaved while in motion, so we’re usually found creaking floorboards at home, or we found another place where we can pace and escape cabin-fever.

Today, we visited the mall, and even did the Santa visit bit. Charlotte behaved well enough, but seemed extra uncomfortable upright in another’s arms as mom and dad ducked behind the camera’s shot. Still cute, though. This’ll be fun to bring out many years later.

As for the rest of the holiday, we’ll hit grandma’s on the 24th, and be home on the 25th with family in the early morning for a traditional strawberry waffle feast. Then the next weekend before the end of the year, we’re driving up to Chicago and maybe Madison to visit extended family, and we’ll experience a long car trip with Charlotte for the first time. Hopefully between family engagements we can do some overdue catchup with friends.

Update: I’m not sure when it started, but so many pronouns are now Charlotte-relative. I think the generation context change happened overnight sometime in the last few weeks.

We’re still looking at plenty of boxes to unpack and much stuff to sort and put away, but we were happy to sleep here for the first time Friday night. As for continuing to be in a multi-unit building (180ish in Ely I think), it’s generally much quieter than our past apartment at Terrace Lofts, so we had to run a fan for some white noise. I think we still woke several times as the AC kicked on since it’s a different sound. I’m so far pleased with the soundproofing, as neighbors provided no distraction last night, though the lobby offered a few audible creaks and conversations.

We’re going to have to clean our floors again. I already went through with the janitor’s mop, pushing dirt and dust off the floor, but I think we’ll have to do it again with a wetter mop to really pick up the tiny debris left from deliveries and moving. My socks still darken from these wooden floors. I’ll have to get the Roomba in here soon so it can make it’s daily rounds.

We’re currently mooching weak and inconsistent wireless Internet until the Telco and COVAD complete the circuitry for moving our Speakeasy DSL over, but I hope that comes quickly.

We’ve got our couch set up against the wall by the giant windows, which has my new favorite lounging place, but I’ve got to stand up to watch the people on the street. Street noise is also noticeably quieter, which is nice, though if someone’s decided they want to make noise outside, they’re typically heard. So it goes living on the trendy street.

Our next steps include finishing assembly of our bedroom furniture so we have places to put clothes and sleeping bodies; obtaining blinds for the Washington Avenue facing windows; organizing the remaining 12 kitchen boxes into fewer kitchen cabinets; wiring the TV for audio and video games, with cable/satellite to be decided soon; and again giving everything a cleaning once it’s where it’s supposed to be.

With so much to do, I don’t expect unpacking and re-settling to be a fast process.

I’ll share some pictures soon; we hope to take a bunch of shots before and after painting while the place is empty, and get a few later in the year after we fill it with some new furniture. Once we get move in our couch, get some stools and chairs, and stock the fridge, we’ll have a gathering, so look for that hopefully soon.

The rec room (hooray for the pool table I don’t have to buy), fitness room (to work off winter fat when not on the bike), and roof deck (excellent city views and some grills for…) all look great, and the basement is ginormous - every unit gets an already built storage locker, and while they don’t have the underground parking lines painted yet, it doesn’t look like it’ll involve dangerous navigation.

Of interesting note: English Living and the London Tea Room are anticipating a June 1 opening, a week before we close, and probably 3 before we move in (we’re trying to arrange painting prior to). We checked out their space and they’ve made quick progress. Nothing is currently committed to the east half of the retail space, but I’m excited that we’ll see the west retail space open and active prior to moving in.

[update]closed as in sold, and not my problem anymore.[/update]

I’m skeptical because we seemed to get so close so many times, but something always interrupted the process. While we today signed the house away, received a check, and confirmation from the buyer of their transaction, I don’t feel done. I’m not excited like I expected. Hans suggested closure may better solidify when the previous mortgage company issues the “account closed” letter, but we’ll see.

I think I’m just experiencing a degree of relief that this process, which was long extended beyond reason, is finally over.

It did appear that power was lost at one point, which puts the security system into “beeping” mode. Now, we never activated the service when we bought the house, so it no longer calls big brother when there’s an issue (don’t start getting ideas, we’ve got nosy neighbors watchin’), but it’s annoying, so I’ve learned to hit a button to switch it to the “not beeping” mode. However, this time, I noticed the word “chime” on the panel, and even though I kept hitting that button, it wasn’t going away, and every 15 seconds I’d hear another beep. So random button pressing ensued in attempt to discover the secret combination of the unknown security code + action sequence. I had not appeared successful to Kelly by the she found what I was up to, and pointed out that instead of the panel making noise, it was the smoke detector above me asking for a healthy replacement battery. After removing the inadequate 9-volt, I returned to my security panel … to discover I had succeeded in Arming (!) the alarm.

Knowing it would likely be worse if I pretended that wasn’t going to cause problems if we immediately left the house, I tried to replicate my random button mashing to disarm the alarm, but saw no change in display. So I opened the door to trip the alarm and force its hand. A few seconds later the panel and a second as-of-yet unidentified source began wailing so painfully I instinctively plugged my ears and tried to figure out how to stop the noise without removing my fingers. I sought out the louder second source first, as it was likely upsetting the previously mentioned neighbors, found the innocent looking box next to the house’s original door chime, popped open the housing and surgically separated tore the wires from that damned noisemaker. The security panel received a similar treatment (I’m sorry, house buyers).

As things have turned out, the buyers already switched utilities over to their name, and as soon as my ears stopped ringing enough to think straight, I tried to remember if they were activating the security service. So, I dialed them up hopefully before some service might, and fortunately found they did nothing of the sort, so the alarms would only have disturbed those within earshot.

But I was cautious leaving the house, keeping an eye open for any sharpshooters anyway.

I hear it’s going to storm again this Sunday.

Last week Kelly and I found a nice set of chairs, a table and server at Weekends Only. Straying from our first preference of a light colored wood, we welcomed mahogany stained furniture into our home. This makes us sound like furniture racists. The actual color description on the box is cappuccino. That’s not helping. Anyway…

Everything was delivered Saturday morning. The server was perfect and a few chairs were already assembled, with the remaining few still in boxes. The table unfortunately had been dropped at some point and the damage was only realized once it was assembled. Our option was to either return it ourselves, or call WEO replace it with a delivery on Monday (today). We obviously opted for the delivery. Later that day while assembling the last chair, I found some manufacturing defects, and had to call WEO again. The warehouse isn’t far, I was OK with just replacing the bad with good, and the customer service rep said that’d be fine. Turns out it wasn’t in stock. Found out after I got there. I’m certain my frustration was visible. They’ll call when they can replace it. Credit for the chair was refunded in the meantime.

Despite the setbacks, I’m happy with the quality of the furniture, and I like the style. Once we have everything together, you’re all invited to dinner.

New table is home. Looks good. I should probably check the stored leaf before I say that. Damn, I bet I jinxed it.

A few weekends ago while I was procrastinating a project for work, we found ourselves at Home Depot, checking out exterior doors since replacing the front door is on The List. Also among the things we’d talked about in the past (but not on The List) was our deteriorating side entrance, so when we passed the storm doors we decided it would be an easy fix to update the side of the house. Then bought a new storm door.

As soon as we got home I unpacked it and started gathering tools for the replacement, determined to actually move forward on a project. All the pieces were accounted for and I had the necessary tools. Removing the old broken door was a simple job thanks to a power screwdriver. Based on the way everything else often goes, it shouldn’t have been too surprising, but the simple task had complications: the wood I had just exposed was is in dire need of replacement. I pried off one length of the brick trim to get a better measurement, and headed back to Home Depot to find replacements. Turns out the previous installers cut their own brick trim to size, and since I lack a table saw (it wasn’t on the list of recommended tools), and the employees there didn’t have a helpful solution, I left to find a better one.

But then I got distracted with other things, so no home project got attention. For weeks. But yesterday Kelly and I went downtown and joined the housing tour of the loft spaces available. While it made me want to change residency to enjoy the downtown living, it also reminded me that even if that was an option, finishing existing home plans, especially ones left incomplete, would first have to be addressed.

Today I bought some new wood, borrowed a circular saw from Dad, and carved my own damn brick trim. Worked our rather nicely, actually, although I can clearly see my own work flaws. Regardless, it was cut to fit, installed, and Kelly painted. The door installation is still not complete, but we’ve gone as far as possible today since paint must dry first. After another coat tomorrow, I can install the door Tuesday.

I’ve measured countless times in OCD fashion, to make sure I’m not going to have to tear my work down and start over, but I still get the feeling that something else is left that won’t work, requiring additional work. Then I get to feeling that I don’t want to have to bother with any of this, and just want someone else to take care of it for me; I want them to have to deal with the surprises.

Sometimes I don’t want a house anymore.