We moved! And other news.
As of today, we've completed our sixth week of quarantine. We're in the new home, settling in well but with plenty left to unpack and lots of house things to do. The garden is a mess with a winter's worth of fallen leaves to sweep up, and we still have no shades (we've been using my handy dandy kraft paper roll for makeshift ones, held up by painter's tape, that we've been folding up and down each day).
Aside from the move, I'm excited to share that we have a new member of the pack. Her name is Sunday, and we've been fostering her for a week as of today.
She's an 11 year old girl who found her way to the Muddy Paws Rescue foster network after being surrendered to a NYC Animal Care and Control shelter in January. She looks to be a terrier/pit/hound mix, and may have had puppies at some point in her life. She's very sweet, very patient with our two little resident dogs, and adorably, has taken to the tiniest dog bed we have in the house. We brought her home last Friday for a foster-to-adopt arrangement. Typically we would have had the opportunity to meet her in person with our resident dogs ahead of time. Instead, we picked her up from the Bronx and did the intros in our neighborhood ourselves.
We spent about an hour walking her and our two boys, first across the street from each other, then slowly, slowly closing the distance until they were almost sharing the sidewalk.
The first few days and nights were exhausting and overwhelming, but we're making progress every day. While she's very good about the boys, she still wants to play when she's energetic, and since she's so much bigger than them at 48 pounds versus 15 and 11, they are apprehensive when she's excited. We've had to be hyper vigilant about their interactions, making sure to divert their attention if things seem like they are getting tense. Everyone is still getting acclimated to the new pack dynamic, but I'm delighted at how far we've come in just a week, and really proud of all of the dogs for how they've behaved.
Since she's arrived, we've averaged about 4 miles walking a day, or 11k steps. It's been really good to get moving again. On Monday, we got takeout from Roberta's and Bien Cuit on the way back from Sunday's vet appointment in Brooklyn. We brought home two ready-made pizzas, two frozen pizzas, a salad, and a sandwich from Roberta's, and half a dozen baked goods including several croissants from Bien Cuit. It was so nice to eat things that we didn't have to cook ourselves. On Wednesday the fire department came to our house after we called 311 about a giant branch that had broken off of a nearby tree during a storm but remained precariously balanced on a lower bough, threatening the sidewalk and any parked car below. They used the fire truck's ladder to push it until it came crashing down, then left (?). I got to submit my second request in two weeks for NYC Sanitation to complete a large item collection. The first large item collection last week was for our old bed frame, which we'd had for over five years and which did not fit between the built-in cabinets that the previous owner had installed into the master bedroom. We were already considering getting a new, non-upholstered bed frame anyway, since I've suspected that the dust and particles that get trapped in fabric aggravate my allergies.
We looked around and ordered a bed from Thuma. It arrived on Wednesday and we had a really easy, even fun, time putting it together, as it's designed to have the pieces fit together using Japanese wood joinery techniques and comes with just two screws.
After a week of sleeping in the living room on the couch and an air mattress pushed together while waiting for the bed to arrive, I'm so happy to now also occupy the master bedroom. Next, we'll work on clearing out the smaller bedroom of boxes from the move. I've continued with my seed germination kick. I ordered a paper pot maker and it has helped my process, while at the same time using up old newspapers. My current babies are all flower seedlings, but there are herb and vegetable seeds on the way.
On the pottery front, I've tried to continue to make new pieces despite the full house. I'm getting antsy about the fact that I can't fire anything until the studio reopens; my greenware collection continues to grow. I've started to watch YouTube videos with such titles as "Kiln Basics" and "Tips for New Kiln Owners" and even though I don't have plans to purchase a kiln in the near future, this kernel of an idea is less of an impossibility these days.
I gathered some items around the house that represent life lately for me:
Scallions, from a giant bunch that we've been going through. For the scallions where we're only using the greens, we've been soaking the whites in water to have them re-grow. This morning I used some in a batch of potato pancakes for breakfast
Plenty of dog treats all over the house so they are never too far away when we need to distract the dogs
Candles, for added coziness in the evenings
Bien Cuit campagne bread - the last of Monday's loaf
Lots of coffee for our earlier mornings and chai tea for mid-day warming up
Looking forward to signing off from work later today to start our weekend. We'll be watching the Devs finale, stopping by the apartment to feed the fish (who have not yet moved over), enjoying wine that was delivered this week from Astor Wines, and hanging out with our pack of dogs while we continue to tidy up the house and garden.
Hope your week has been kind to you, and see ya next time.
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