Living in Chaos...
It’s quiet in the house right now, the type of quiet I haven’t heard in several days. There’s no hammering, no banging, no drilling or sawing. I actually took my noise-cancelling headphones off for the first time in a while and am not flinching at random thuds and snaps. It’s nice.
For the last three weeks, our home hasn’t been our home, not really. We’ve been existing around it. Getting out of its way. Making ourselves smaller as to not disturb the grueling process its undergone to better itself. And it’s been, in a word
CHAOS
It all started when Zac discovered a very-hard-to-ignore dip in our guest bedroom floor. Whereas the flooring around it was steady as you’d expect a floor in your house to be, this part of the floor felt hollowed out underneath. Like it was sinking. So, we had a foundation repair company come out to validate our speculation, and validate it they did by letting us know that not only were many of our wooden beams rotted out and in need of replacing, but we also had a bit of a mold situation throughout the dark underbelly of the house.
We came by the mold honestly, as one usually does. Living in a 1920s craftsman is cool and all but isn’t without its quirks, and one of those quirks was an outdated drainage system to properly catch and release rainfall away from the house. Instead, it had regurgitated on itself toward the house, seeping underneath and pooling there, eventually growing a cute mold community that multiplied in numbers fast. The mold wasn’t bad. It wasn’t dangerous (that we made 100% sure of). We didn’t need to evacuate the premises. But did we need to get it dealt with and fast so we could replace our rotting beams and save the house from further damage.
So we cleared our the guest room entirely (including the closet) with no real storage solution for the interim. We put the mattress, box springs, and bed frame in Zac’s office/the treadmill room, we placed every jacket/coat/suitcase/extra bed linen/side table/lamp/bits of decor in our main living area, and the large ornate dresser of drawers smack in the middle of the kitchen because that’s the only place it fit. We did all this, and I girded my self-employed, WFH self to endure the ensuing chaos.
I don’t do well living in mess, but I’m not a robot—I have plenty of messy moments like leaving hair claws and bobby pins on literally every surface of this house, somehow shoving multiple pairs of shoes or slippers under the couch only to be found days later, using our daybed in place of the chair and piling it sky-high with clothes, both clean and dirty. But that’s personal mess. That’s not general house mess. General house mess is what takes me down. An unkept kitchen with dirty dishes, clean dry dishes in the drying rack that haven’t been put away, and sticky counters, a messy couch with unfluffed pillows and unfolded blankets, a table covered in junk mail, puzzles, and other odds and ends that have no place of their own, dust and dog hair and godknowswhatelse covering rugs and chairs—that’s the mess that makes me come unglued.
So you can imagine how living amongst the innards of our guest room strewn throughout the house has me feeling right now. In fact, you don’t even have to imagine—you can watch this reel I put together that accurately depicts it all.
For three weeks, men have been showing up in the early morning going in, coming out, and crawling under our house, and I’ve been here for all of it. And hey—that’s home ownership, especially when you work from home. These are issues we had to fix, and I’m genuinely grateful it didn’t involve us needing to relocate while the work was done. I’m happy I can be here; I’m just not happy to be here, you know? Personally, I’ve done all I can to create some semblance of calm in my immediate spaces. I’ve tried to keep my desk unusually tidy. I’ve washed every pillow, couch cushion, and blanket I can to trick myself into thinking my surroundings are clean and not covered in whatever particles are surely floating around our home as these men drip their blood, sweat, and tears into the dirt that has been fully exposed in the guest room since they had to rip up the entire floor. I’ve convinced myself that the smell of pure dirt and Earth that stings your nostrils when you walk into our home right now is fresh and rejuvenating.
(Or, as Zac’s friend said when he visited last week, “It smells like a fucking weed farm in here.”)
But for someone who finds peace and tranquility in her home, walking out of our bedroom every morning to a guest room walled-off with plastic and a kitchen and living area literally covered in belongings that render the space more or less useless has been… trying. There are two types of people: those who move into a new place and can’t sleep until they’ve unboxed everything and put it in its right place, and those who are six months deep into their new home and sleep amongst the boxes. I, and I cannot stress this enough, am the fucking former.
The good news is, we are nearing the end. The mold has been remediated. The foundation is stronger than ever. Our floor is being laid back down board by board, our walls are being repainted with a fresh coat (Garden Vista by Behr, for curious minds), and soon, we’ll reassemble a better, brighter, cleaner guest room (if you don’t think I took this opportunity to buy all new bedding for the guest bed, you clearly don’t know me), and this chaotic time living amongst and in-between our belongings will be but a distance memory. *eye twitch*
WATCHING 📺
We finished Bad Sisters this week, and I’ve never clapped harder or louder for a character’s revelation. The ending was perfect and gave me everything I hoped it would. I absolutely loved this series so much and will deeply miss the Garvey sisters’ drama, most especially Becka who is BONO’S DAUGHTER, BY THE WAY. Just found that out during one of my in-the-moment Wikipedia searches while watching the show (anyone else do this always?). Available on Apple TV.
Break Point on Netflix is one we’re working through slowly. Each episode is so intense because tennis stars are so intense, so it’s not really a binge-worthy type docuseries to me. I love a good sports documentary, especially because sports in general are so exotic to me. As someone who is generally bad at them (just bad at sports. @ sports), I find the best in their field to be incredibly fascinating because I could never. Available on Netflix.
When I popped by my parents house this week to record the podcast with Ellen, I witnessed my dad watching this live camera of a bald eagle somewhere in Big Bear waiting for her eggs to hatch. This is a real live stream that is on YouTube, and people have been watching it since September. Her and her mate have nested high up in a tree and have been waiting patiently for their eggs to hatch, and it’s pretty wild to see nature this up close and personal. As of right now, it’s incredibly cold there, and the winds are gusting, causing me severe anxiety because I want these eagles to be okay. But clearly they are built for this shit, and she isn’t budging off those eggs. Watch it on YouTube.
LISTENING 🎧
Admittedly, I don’t listen to every single one of Kate Kennedy’s Be There In Five podcast episodes because they’re extremely long, and it’s not the type of podcast you put on in the background. Kate is so well spoken and so deeply introspective in everything she says, you don’t want to miss a word so I normally reserve her show for the occasions where I happen to have two full hours of my undivided attention to give her (eg: on a flight, on a very long walk, doing a deep clean of the house). Her latest episode entitled Millennial With Child is so moving on so many different levels, and I encourage everyone to give it a listen, whether you want kids or you don’t. Kate has had an ongoing series of episodes called Childless Millennial that she started a few years ago, in which she discusses the nuances of not NOT wanting children but not dying to have them either and everything that comes with that. She also experienced a traumatic miscarriage in 2021 and has been through the IVF ringer, finding out over Christmas that she was pregnant via natural conception. I love what she has to say about the sometimes taboo topic of pregnancy and am excited for her and her family to go on this journey.
MAKING 🔪
The absolute best taco meat I’ve ever made then eaten is by Skinnytaste. The recipe is called Madison’s Favorite Beef Tacos (Madison’s her daughter) and it all takes place in a crockpot. This is the only taco meat recipe I will make because it’s so insanely flavorful and rich and, most importantly, stupidly simple. I like to eat the meat as a taco salad with a cilantro lime vinaigrette, but it’s your meat so do whatever you want with it. See below for said taco meat atop a Tex-Mex salad with some ‘cado.
I made a new soup this week that will be added to the Miller dinner rotation. Brocc Your Body’s Veggie Packed Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul is what that book should’ve been called. This soup is loaded with stuff: chickpeas, Roma tomatoes, green cabbage, carrots, celery, and sweet potatoes. Zac and I were slurping it up and agreed that it was even better the next day for lunch. A few notes from me about her recipe: I only used one 15 ounce can of chickpeas cause it’s all I had. I also bought Trader Joe’s Just Chicken and chopped it up even smaller, and that cut corner was worth it. Also, low sodium broth, always. I’m not a food photographer, but here’s documentation.
SHOPPING 🛒
I was thinking about grabbing some disposable cameras for Zac and I to bring to Cabo next weekend as a cute throwback gag, but that’s before I realized that one singular camera costs $22 on Amazon. They are vintage; thus, I am vintage.
I love my CALPAK belt bag for everyday use. It’s truly a bottomless pit of a fanny pack. But I need a mini version to throw on for outdoor walks when all I need is my phone, house key, and some money, so I caved and ordered the lululemon version in the Solar Orange color.
I’ve got Spring fever (i.e. the desire to start shopping Spring clothes), so I got a lot of little things from Target and am actually planning on filming myself trying them all on for the first time later today. But since you’re a subscriber, I wanted to share what they are in case we all end of loving them! I’ll be “unboxing” the following: this black wrap skirt, this black midi skirt, this green and white striped set, this khaki jumpsuit, this colorful headband, and what I hope to be my pool/beach bag for the year. Keep an eye out for the try-on video, so you can see them in action.
You probably caught this on stories this week, but I finally got got by the Nolan Interior couch cover ads all over my Instagram and decided to order some for our nicer couch that I really don’t want the dogs to ruin. My review: They’re cheap, but they work. Unless we had custom covers made, I think any additional couch cushion cover is probably aesthetically unpleasing but what’s more important: how the room looks on a day-to-day basis or preserving a couch you spent good money on so it doesn’t stink of Bulldog butthole? FWIW, the “back” cushion covers were way too small for the shape of our back cushions, so I ended up ordering all “seat” cushion covers.
Thank you for subscribing and letting me into your inbox every Friday! Paid subscribers: Be on the lookout for another mini newsletter toward the beginning of next week!
Until then…