Where the heck have I been anyway? Working. Working is the answer. See, I was going to take this contract job and then it turned out they really needed someone to work full time. Since I swore I would never take a full-time job again, I was going to say no, but then I realized that it would probably be good for me. I could keep my business and give anything that came in to my 1099 consultants, work the full time job and have a steady paycheck, and be able to get health insurance if my husband decided to leave his job completely when we finally move. And the job is fully remote, so it feels like I’m still working for myself even if I’m working for someone else now.

Anyway, I had a major deadline on Monday, and for the two weeks prior to that I worked crazy hours to get the work done. I think I went down to the farm for one day during that time, but I was mostly either working or sleeping because the exhaustion was real. On Tuesday, I had to go down to the farm to await our shed kit that is going to become a tiny house. It was scheduled to be delivered between 8 am and 8 pm. I had the day off thanks to all of the extra hours I worked in the week prior. So Kyle and I both took off and headed down super early, leaving Micah the College Student home to get the younger kids ready and off to school. We got there at 7:45 and stopped in for a McD’s breakfast and coffee, as we still don’t have food in the house.

We had a small moment of nervousness that we might miss the delivery but HAH, no such thing. We got to the house and unpacked the car, then moved the bookcases that had been delivered earlier from the garage into the house and made room on one side of the garage for the shed kit pieces to sit once they got there. Then, it being stupidly cold and somewhat rainy, we went into the house to work on house things. My projects: get the bookcases put together. Kyle’s projects: powder room sink of stuck plumbing.

When I bought the bookcases, I really liked the look but when I saw the customer photos, I noticed that the backing boards looked like they had been folded in thirds. Because I didn’t want that look, I looked around for a nice wallpaper and instead found a fantastic fabric that was just slightly wider than the backing board. I bought enough for three bookcases plus an extra yard for making mistakes. When I put together the bookcases, I had originally planned to staple the fabric, but I realized that I would be nailing right through the fabric itself, so I just needed to stretch it over the board and keep it in place for long enough to nail it all in. Duct tape did the trick. The first bookcase took a little long because I had to figure everything out (and the directions were unhelpful).

In the meantime, Kyle worked on the sink in the powder room. The previous time we were there I took a stab at some of the stuck plumbing. The main problem is the bathroom is very tightly packed, and though I am not the tiniest person in the house, I am the one with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), so I am the most likely to be able to get to the spot. To wit:

Just spend a moment with that photo. Anyway we have a faucet we want to replace and we couldn’t get it off of the 30 year old plumbing. I was able to get some of it unstuck from that side and from there Kyle could take over on the other side.

So you might be wondering, where’s the shed? So were we. Throughout the day I kept checking the delivery notices, and at 4 pm, the notice changed to “arrange delivery.” WHUT. I checked my email and minutes earlier, I had received a message telling me to call the local delivery company. Note this was coming from Amazon, apparently, but they had transferred to a local delivery company for the end of the route because apparently that’s what they do in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway.

I called and they told me that it hadn’t gone out that day because they didn’t have a 2-man team. DID YOU HAVE A 2-MAN TEAM THIS MORNING? asked the incredibly annoyed me. Doesn’t matter. My point did not get across. I had to reschedule. Could I do Wednesday or Thursday? I said that Thursday would have to do because we had both taken off work and couldn’t do that two days in a row. My shed kit was now set to arrive on Thursday between 2 and 6. The plan was for Kyle to go to work early on Thursday and drive down during lunch to be there by 2:00.

Except I got a call on Wednesday afternoon that the delivery guy was there with half of my delivery and of course no one was there but was there a place he could leave it? He suggested possibly in front of the garage, which he did. Of course, it was about to rain and the “half a delivery” was not in any kind of boxes but was just open wood just sitting out in the elements, and Wednesday night was going to have storms. Kyle left work and drove down to throw a tarp on it.

The next day, the delivery guy called me again to say that his truck was overheating and could we be there Friday instead? I think he heard my head explode because he told me he would figure it out. When he arrived, he had the second half of my shed kit in an Enterprise rental van. No two-man team, bye the way. No way to get the pallet off of the truck, so he handed individual parts down to Kyle, who moved 1000 pounds of shed to the garage, and the delivery guy finally left.

At which point, he sent me photos and I asked, “where are the instructions?”

Let’s just say, I had the most infuriating customer service experience with Amazon over the instructions, had to leave to take Lillian to Dance class and left my phone with Kyle to finish the chat, came back to him still having the most infuriating experience, and still do not have instructions, though things might be looking up as I do have an actual phone number for the company.

Of course it’s Christmas week and I’m working so I keep forgetting to call. Once life gets back to normal I’ll make the phone call and (hopefully) we’ll be back on schedule.

I hope everyone has happy holidays. I know that this time is hard for a lot of people. Do the best you can and don’t forget to rest if you can.

Love, me.