We are coming up on a year in the house and life still feels like it is in disarray; so much is still packed in boxes and we have not hung anything on the walls. It all feels spartan, utilitarian, yet disorganized at the same time - a likely reflection of the past year. In all of that I cannot help but feel that I and living The Ant and Grasshopper except instead of playing all summer I stumbled about trying to keep up with forces outside of my control and in the end I am left ill prepared.

We are making headway on the house, albeit glacially. Last week my father and I poured the concrete pad for the new oil tank, which should get installed this week and will go a long way to stemming the tide of complaints about the bone cracking chill that grips the house, that is if you can classify 61° as bone cracking. I’ve also managed to carve a substantial hole in the third bedroom to set up an office for myself and to give our plants a winter home. However, it was really only achieved by heaving more boxes into our already full attic. Someday I’m going to rent a dumpster when my wife is not looking and proceed to toss it all out but it will be luck that I toss out some of Imelda’s shoes.

Looking farther out, we have a number of projects that we want to undertake from putting up fencing to give Peri a place to run around to tearing out all the carpeting and putting in that snap together faux wood flooring. Then we want to paint all the rooms something other than the drab neutral tones. The talk of painting has been our excuse for not hanging anything up, though I think that it is wearing thin on the slow trickle of visitors we have. Maybe I’ll find this winter affords me more time to putter about the house; if anything I can at least finish my office and do something about all these boxes that are crowding us in.