Thoughts on moving

Hello Everyone,

We've been in our house for about a month now, and I have a few thoughts about the process of getting here:

- Being forgetful and living in a house with a lot of stairs is a good workout.

- Only when you decide to paint your walls white do you discover that there are more shades of white than grains of sand in the world's beaches.

- Buying something online takes either 2 minutes or all day. There is no third option.

- I don't understand how central vacuums became a thing. They're 100% as inconvenient as a regular vacuum.

- Braxton Hicks is the unfunniest joke of pregnancy.

- Letting go of an old beloved item that has outlived its usefulness is painful. There's no room for it in your new home but seeing go to the trash is hard. I had an old IKEA day bed from the '70s that, years ago, was very generously driven here from Nova Scotia (hi Craig and Katharine). I used to nap on it in the back room when I lived at 54, and Sophie and Arthur would crawl up with me. More recently, Arthur claimed it as his domain, and for years, the last thing I saw before leaving for work in the morning was his sad face resting on the pillows of that bed. I put it up for sale on Kijiji, and after several days of inactivity, I lowered the price to free. I really didn't want to throw it in the trash. Then, a few days before Christmas, a couple got in touch and offered to come pick it up. Their 13 year old daughter, who had outgrown her childhood bed, saw the ad and was excited by the prospect of having her own bed to decorate. So, they came over and I helped them load into a borrowed minivan. The couple offered me money, as per the original ad, but I told them to make a donation instead. The idea that the bed would have another life was more than enough.

Wes

Photos

Arthur on a sunny walk in the woods near our house.

Nighttime shot of our house with moon and Christmas lights.

Me asleep on the bed in question, back at 54 Fourth Av, with Arthur, Sophie, and the dearly departed Jane, sharing the space.