Busy busy busy

[capricious_k]

Lots going on as we prep to move to the new house.

• On Saturday, we went over to the house and painted. Of course, it poured rain. Weather, you so crazy.
  Paul's dad and stepmom came over to see the house since they are very rarely in the bay area and won't make it for the housewarming.
  A few friends also came over to see the house without furniture and hang out while the paint dried.
  
• On Sunday, Crystal and I went to church where the sermon was all about dealing with change which included an extended metaphor about buying a house (the minister stopped at one point and said she hadn't written the sermon with us in mind, really). We announced that it was our last Sunday at church and we got a lot of hugs and well wishes. After church, we ran errands/shopped for 3.5 hours. All of it was related to the move and necessary, but oy, it felt like we wasted the day.
  We did go to our favorite framer at Michael's in Union City - he's a genius and came up with three awesome solutions for three different pieces. He practically hyper-ventilated when we asked him to reframe the hand-signed and -colored Salvador Dali lithograph. It feels good to trust it with him because he recognized the value. Not that we left the piece at Michael's - hell no, it's back at home until the frame comes in then one of us will be present the entire time he does the work - also his idea. :)
  
• On Monday, we checked out a friend's couch then went to drop off more stuff at the new house and see if the couch fit now that we had accurate measurements. On arrival, we found an awesome present: our agent bought us a wine fridge as a housewarming present! Sadly, we decided the couch won't work though.
  Also, we pulled the masking tape off the edges of our paint job from Saturday and... it didn't mask very well on the textured walls. I need to remember to pull it off while the paint is still wet, too. *sigh*

Before, after, and in between all this, we have been packing, sorting, donating, and packing. The movers are coming at 8am on Saturday which seemed fine until last night. I think we're 90% packed, but the last 10% is killer.

In other news:

• There was a fairly horrible "review" in the Wall Street Journal that was actually an editorial, basically saying that all modern young adult (aka YA) fiction was depraved and warping our kids. There was a massive backlash from writers and readers alike, which I mostly noticed on Twitter as the #YAsaves hashtag trended around the world. As important as I think reading is to me now and even more so was to me as a teen, I have to confess that I hated YA fiction when I was a teen. I almost flunked an assignment in English because I was pissed they wouldn't let me read Jane Austen instead. Looking back, I read a lot of genre fiction that I would now classify as YA but it wasn't presented that way at the time (Eddings, Lackey, Anthony). Following links in various reaction articles, I came across a list of "unsuitable" books that teens should read anyway and that felt a lot closer to my experience. My point, sorry it took so long, is that teens should be free to read anything they want - it helped me in more ways than I could possibly count.
  
• There should be another bullet here, but I've forgotten what it is. Oops.
  
• More so than any other place I've lived, I'm really looking forward to having people over to the new house. I've been picturing dinner parties, garden parties, summer bbqs, movie nights, relatives visiting from out of town, dancing in the living room, and more. I want people to start coming over right away, but we're not going to be ready for weeks and then Crystal will be in Scandinavia somewhere. Stay tuned for invites though.