Hear them calling
Frayed ends of sanity
Hear them calling
Hear them calling me
– Metallica, The Frayed Ends of Sanity, 1988

Nine months today.

I never anticipated that we would still be in a state of flux nine months after that damn tornado!

And this week will likely be one of the most difficult since those initial days after the storm. I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced this much anxiety. Here’s the current scoop:

• Tomorrow we have one of the final inspections scheduled. The final mechanical, electrical and plumbing inspection (MEP). If it fails anything then we have to fix issues and reschedule.
• When the final MEP inspection passes, we can call for the Certificate of Occupancy (CO) inspection. Which at the earliest would happen on Wednesday, if the city is quick about turning it around and getting it scheduled.
• We’ve got furniture scheduled to deliver on Thursday. If we don’t have that CO yet, they can deliver but not unwrap/unpack. It cannot look like anyone is potentially living there without the CO.
• Our lease is up and keys are due Friday. Apartment has already got someone lined up to move in and won’t extend anymore.
• We can’t move anything from the apartment into the house until we have the CO. So we’ve got movers on standby for Friday. If we get the CO we’ll move stuff in. If not we’ll probably park a uhaul behind the house and move stuff from the apartment into the uhaul.
• If we don’t get the CO by Friday we’ll be hotel-ing it over the weekend and until that CO can be obtained.
• I leave for San Francisco for a week on Monday for a conference. I’m scheduled to speak at 4 different sessions so it’s not something I can cancel.

It’s all like a set of dominoes stacked up in a line. If they are spaced correctly and fall as expected we’ll get to where we need to be. If not, the process comes to a halt.

I’m not exactly what you would call a control freak, but I am a planner. I’m habitually early when I need to be somewhere and like to have my ducks in a row. So this ‘not knowing’ is a huge challenge for me. Not knowing whether we’ll have a place to move our things. Not knowing where we’ll lay our heads Friday night. Not knowing if when I leave on my business trip that Don and the kids will be settled in our home.

Needless to say the rope holding my sanity has been on a slow burn for the past few weeks.

If you see me over the next few days and I look or act like a rabid, snarling dog, now you know why. I’ll apologize in advance. There’s only so much a girl can take. I feel like these nine months have aged me by at least a decade.

Sorry for the downer post – hopefully the next post will be filled with joy at finally getting our home back!