About That Water Damage....

To follow up on this post from earlier this year (in which I said that dealing with repair people related to our water damage problem was a project in it's own right), here's what's going on with that now.

I have moved back into my regular bedroom. We ended up changing out the carpet, hanging up some new shelves, but leaving other things unresolved (the closet door doesn't shut anymore and we still haven't fixed the doorstop). The kitchen has taken longer than anyone has expected - there are some patches of floor that need to be redone (the whole floor has been done once now, but some spots didn't take the way they should have), most of the cabinet doors still need work, and there were some delays caused by our decision to modernize the kitchen a bit while we had the room torn up (we have a new stove/oven, an additional sink, an additional dishwasher, and a few embarrassingly expensive features my parents thought would add to the house's resale value down the road). The extra expense of handling the kitchen wasn't budgeted for, but we were able to take the hit (and the insurance company seems to be properly paying for their share - replacement costs of furniture/flooring/appliances ruined by the original flooding and the various repairmen's actions).

There were some issues with moving my stuff around that are yet to be resolved. It can be a bit hard to communicate my neurotic sorting habits to people who don't share my hobbies - for example, there were several stacks of CD's arranged in various spots in my room. One stack was all items I had listed for sale on Amazon, another was put on a shelf somewhat decoratively to show off a complete discography of my favorite band (Over the Rhine, thanks for asking), another was a stack of CD's I haven't listened to yet (OK, so I actually had 3 separate stacks like this on various shelves - I've caught myself buying collections in bulk a few times when the price has been dirt cheap), and yet another was a set of bootlegs and mixtapes I had received from friends. I'm sure you can see where this is going - Mom decides to "help" and put them all in the same box, requiring sorting again later. Multiply that scenario times quite a few sorting-intensive hobbies and the size of "stockpile" I keep around, and I'm sure you can imagine how obnoxious this got to be. The initial insanity seems to be over but small surprises continue to pop up, leaving me feeling like I still need to spend most of my weekends tidying up (which, to be fair, is also worthwhile towards the goal of moving out if/when I get final word about if/where the office may be moving).

Besides not documenting a few smaller projects of mine (primarily of the more light-hearted LEGO variety - my boss has asked me to periodically swap out my "ironic" display at work), that about wraps up 2009. Any reader questions out there? I like to think that I've covered it, but I'm open to feedback here. Was there anything you wanted to hear more about?