It's my house and I live here.

Today is the one-week anniversary of our move, and (thanks be to God) the first trash and recycling pick-up since we have been here. Life will be so much better with less cardboard in it.

But meanwhile it is the second day in a row I have awakened with sore, stiff, swollen fingers. Mostly, we are moved in: the rooms all look like rooms now, instead of storehouses. The floors (save the kitchen) are clean. The windowsills and baseboards are clean. Today the cable will be hooked up, but the phone works and there is electricity and internet and water and all that. Our first newspaper was delivered today.

The cats have mostly forgotten that they ever lived anywhere else, though one of them walks through the house yowling in the deep dark of night.

We are getting used to the four separate switches in the bathroom, each of which controls a separate part of the lighting. All the bookcases are where they will stay--at least for a while.

There are still no pictures on the walls, we need to solve the storage situation in the laundry room, there is a significant dearth of towelbars, and we need rugs in the dining room and stairwell and bedrooms. We still do not understand how the automatic sprinkler system works.

But we were able to take a rest from the chaos last night to celebrate the PP's birthday. He decided he would rather eat in than out, so I picked up a beautiful T-bone from the store, and we grilled that together with some asparagus and ate it with couscous. Because I had to stop at the old house over the weekend, I managed to pick 18 figs from the tree there--I had feared they might not be ripe before the close. So I got a little prosciutto di parma yesterday, too, and we had prosciutto e fighi for an antipasto. Summer! Oh yeah, and strawberry rhubarb pie, in honor of the PP's plans to dominate world rhubarb supply.

Unfortunately, today's trash pick-up meant we had to haul all the boxes to the street last night before dinner, insuring that we were both completely sweaty and exhausted on what was supposed to be the night off. Happy birthday, PP!