There's No Place Like Home...

Wow. Just, wow.

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated you all on the continuing house flooding saga. Between doing a financial tap dance, increased commuting, coordinating subcontractors (read: herding cats) and an increasingly busy work schedule, I have lost a good 3-4 hours a day of free time, and make it all up on the weekends. Been running on emotional empty for a good week or two now.

But the time to move back into the house is finally here. The walls and insulation are back where they belong, the paint is dried, the flooring installed and the movers are scheduled to move our stuff back into the house. And we only needed to buy two 1.75L bottles of Black Cask to do it... So I thought I'd give a quick recap of life in a hotel, and why I think I know why I'd want my own home more.

Let me start by saying this hotel is awesome. I'll be recommending it to any friends and family that want to come visit us over the accommodations that they normally get. The rooms are a fair share larger than their competitors for the same price, the amenities are simply amazing and it's very close to where we live. And the weekday socials, and subsequent free beer, have been a real lifesaver at times. But it is still a hotel, and living here has removed a good 2-4 hours from my day, everyday.

We have to wake up at 5-5:30am every day (in part because D can't just get out of bed, she needs to snooze for 15mins or more :P ) in order to get ourselves ready. Here is where the time starts slipping away from us. We have to factor in the time of taking the dog on a full walk instead of just letting her out in the back yard. We have to factor in the time it takes to have everyone to get ready and eat breakfast at the same time instead of staggering it, and we have to factor in the time that it takes to get both Clara and Colin out the door in time for him to make the bus, which still makes its stop at our house. What I used to be able to get up and handle easily at 6:30 now takes at least an extra hour or more if I'm lucky and don't miss Colin's bus.

After work, I have to pick Colin up from home and bring him to the hotel. His bus is still dropping him off in our neighborhood. So while I get to the house at 5:15-5:30, he doesn't show until 6, leaving me to waste 30-45mins sitting around in my car listening to the radio. There's nothing to do in the house unless I had the foresight to bring laundry with me in the morning. Then I have to fight rush hour traffic AGAIN to get back to the hotel, again walk the dog instead of just letting her out, and finally start making dinner, usually around 7. This amounts to about an hour and a half lag from where I'd be if I was in my house.

Furthermore, Colin's bedtime is 9. If he goes to bed much later than that, he rivals his mother in terms of difficulty prying out of bed in the morning. Normally, I'm up bopping around and doing things until about 10-11, but I can't do that with the kids in the front room trying to sleep. So this leaves usually just under 2 hours to get dinner made, exercise and the day's business complete before the kids need to get ready for bed. Once it's lights out in the front room, D and I are trapped in the back master bedroom while the kids are asleep. While it was kinda fun for the part of first week to have a built-in together time, we have come to the conclusion that we like being able to decide when and where that together time will be. LOL Another perfectly good hour or two lost every night.

Housekeeping has also been a severe pain. It started off with them taking things out, but not replacing them. They take towels, trash and linens, but then don't replace them with another set. As time went on, things started disappearing. I admit it was also dumb to leave a $20 bill sitting out on the dresser - that grew legs and walked out. It shouldn't have, but that's what I get for trusting strangers to clean my room. Jewelry and other odds and ends have gone missing, either by fleet fingers or careless cleaning. There have been days where we will put up a sign not to disturb, only to have them knocking and calling while the kids are napping. We have also put up the "Later, please." sign, only to have them not stop back at all. When we complained, the next day they checked in on us at 9am on a Sunday to find out when we'd like to have the room cleaned. Then there have been the days that, for whatever reason, the just didn't feel like cleaning the room at all. By the time we get home in the evening, all the housekeeping jokers are long gone, and the front desk can't do much about it beside give us towels and toilet paper.

Last time, they gave management the excuse that the dog was loose in the room, even though Suzie had been in her kennel all day. How do we know this? Because they're not allowed to put the dog away, or even supposed to go in the room if the pet is loose, I put Suzie away (as I always have) before I left for the day, and she was patiently waiting right where I put her when D arrived home that evening. So either someone put her away, or someone's lying.

So where do we make up all this time lost during the day? The weekend, of course! We pack as much as humanly possible into our waking hours on the weekend, skip naps and have even skipped a few meals. All this to be able to do what we normally would do on a weekend, plus paperwork, shopping for replacement items and tending two living spaces. Leaving us feeling more like we need a weekend after our weekend, and less like we're ready for the week ahead.

As far as gaming is concerned, D and I have only really had two nights in a month that we've sat down and played for any real length of time. We leveled BST one night and went out to merit in Nyzul another. I got a day off while waiting for the AT&T (<3) and Brinks guys to show up and install the new phone lines, and got some good money fishing and escorting newbies around to flag advanced job quests. One of them asked me if I wanted to make a quick 35k, and I asked doing what, to which he replied "I need an escort." I told him I don't play like that. Had a good laugh while unlocking his corsair and puppetmaster.

Planning on having a chat with the General Manager about our stay there before we move completely out sometime this week. He has a lot of good things going for that place, but his help needs help. We're not really out for any kind of compensation, but as a former manager, I know it's important to hear honest and civil perceptions from customers in order to fix problems. At this point, all I want is my own schedule and my own bed, in my own room in my own house.