I thought this post would write itself. I thought, easy peasy. We’ll get home and I’ll write about how great it is to be home.

We officially moved home yesterday evening. HOORAY! We had just enough time to get everyone into their own beds and get to sleep. It was glorious. I took today off as a “moving day” (which is a really lovely thing for my employer to offer). The day went mostly like this:

Um… have you seen the measuring cups?
Shoot! The mugs are still at the apartment! Maybe you can use a glass for your coffee? I’ll use the travel mug for tea.
How on earth did you shower with no soap in there? No, nevermind, don’t tell me.
I can’t find my long-sleeved shirts. Do you have any idea which box they might be in?
Oh my gosh! Boys! You have to get out of here! It takes 10 minutes longer to walk to school from here! You’re going to be late!
Wait – where’s the hairbrush?

Not long after the kids were off, the builders arrived. Bang! Bang! Bang! Tssssst…. tsssst….zzzzz… BANG! They were finishing up the siding. And they still had to cut the dryer vent… and we can’t put anything against the walls or in the closets yet because the painter has to do touch-ups on Friday. The final drawer pulls for the master bathroom aren’t in, so we can only open two of the drawers. There is a giant orange work trolley thing in the corner of our kitchen.

All day long, I was looking for a moment to write about that showed gratitude or humour or just, you know, my-new-house-is-great-and-also-I’m-appropriately-humble. I couldn’t find anything because, honestly, I the only thing I was feeling was overwhelmed. Every time I tried to sit down to write, I thought of something else I needed to do. I spent a lot of time opening the computer, scrolling aimlessly through social media, realizing I had forgotten something important, closing the computer to go do the suddenly important thing, realizing I hadn’t written anything, and starting the process over again.

The kids came home and scotch-taped saran-wrap to the freshly painted walls. I cannot explain this. A neighbour came over with his dog and the dog pooped on the new carpet. He was mortified (but it was perfectly easy to clean). I lost the phone handset in a pile of bedclothes and put blankets over the windows since we don’t yet have curtains or blinds. Finally, I had to take a walk to clear my head. There is an awful lot going on.

Today was a glorious mess, and guess what? We are home.

The movers are booked for tomorrow. My husband has been packing for days. The cats are freaked out, the children’s room is somehow magically both packed and a complete mess, and the kitchen is bare. After living in a small apartment during almost nine months of renovations, we are ready to go home.

(Originally, these renovations were supposed to take four months, but then it turned out our kitchen was actually the old stable, and it wasn’t exactly firmly attached to the house and the foundation was, well, somewhat less than stable. The project grew.)

The builders have been putting the finishing touches on the house. For me, finishing touches are things like putting up the light fixtures and putting down the carpet. For them, apparently, finishing touches include things like moving the plumbing in the basement so that the bathrooms drain more effectively – or something like that. And yesterday, as they dug into the basement floor, they discovered – completely by accident – that our 110+ year old house still had pipes made of clay.

Notice the use of the past tense. The pipes disintegrated.

Did I mention that we are supposed to move in tomorrow? Unfortunately, when the inspector came yesterday – right after the whole, “oops, my shovel went right through that pipe” debacle – he declared the house “unfit for occupancy.”

Luckily, our (truly amazing) builder has already fixed the pipe problem. Unluckily, booking a housing inspector requires *at least* 24-hours notice. So… the movers come tomorrow but we can’t actually stay in our house until Monday. Or maybe Tuesday. Also, Andre – who is wildly prepared – had already packed all of the food, most of the kitchen and all but two sets of clothes for him and the boys. I’m the only slacker and, thus, the only one with clothes.

Now, I will admit to feeling a little sick about all of this, but my 12 year old’s over-the-top pre-teen reaction helped me put things in perspective. Upon hearing about the pipes, he heaved a giant sigh and threw himself onto the couch: “I just knew something like this was going to happen. I am literally going to die if we have to stay in this apartment.”

I mean, he might die, but we’ve lasted nine months. It seems like we can make another three days. Right?