It’s been nearly three weeks since I’ve last posted. Part of it is because I continue to have slow-down problems with MSN Spaces. The other part – the bigger part – is that I’ve been busy moving into a new house and I just haven’t had the time to sit and write.

There really isn’t much to write about. Mostly I wanted to write because writing has always been a way for me to get some of the frustration I’m feeling off my chest and out of my head.

Why am I frustrated? Have any of you ever moved? That’s part of the reason.

It’s just been hectic these past couple of weeks, and thank goodness we planned on taking a vacation around the end of May because instead of hanging out in L.A. chilling with the rest of my fellow Star Wars geeks at Celebration 4, we’re busy moving into our new house. That part worked out really well.

The only part that didn’t work so well were: waiting for Josh to paint the inside of the house, then having Josh that he can’t do it until later in the week, then having Josh tell us that he can’t do it that weekend but maybe some other time and instead of spraying the rooms he can instead roll them. Now its hard to complain about someone doing a good thing for you but when they voluntarily give their word to help you out, then delay you from moving into your new house, it kind of frustrates me.

You see, when we talked about moving into the new house we mentioned painting the inside. Graham mentioned having a “Painting Party”, where our friends could come over and everyone could be merry and paint together. Sounds pretty when you think about it, doesn’t it? Well Josh, being a professional painter, said he could probably hook us up with some free paint (which he did and we’re forever thankful for that) then mentioned that he could spray it before we moved in. That sounded fine, but having it sprayed nixed the Painting Party idea. So we waited on Josh to mix the paint, all the time telling him that it wasn’t a big deal, we know he has to work and we don’t want him to go way out of his way to do this for us. He insisted, but being the single guy that he is, he’s on his own time. I’ve noticed this about most single guys, they run on their time.

We got our keys on a Friday hoping to paint that weekend. He was busy and had already told me that, so we thought maybe a Tuesday or Wednesday night. That was fine until Sunday rolled around and he was too tired. Monday came and he was too tired but maybe he could do it that weekend. Tuesday came and he decided he can’t do it that weekend but he could roll it for us in a couple weeks. We said forget that we could roll it. He did get us some paint and Tuesday and Wednesday we spent painting and re-painting the three rooms we wanted to do.

So now we were pushed back to a possible move-in on Thursday. Thursday was our fourth anniversary and I had a day planned for the two of us. We postponed our anniversary and begged my Dad and brother to help us move in our stuff that evening. They agreed and we were able to move in everything and sleep in our house for the first time since we got the keys six days ago.

Friday I was even more frustrated because I offered myself to the newspaper for work on Friday. It’s the state high school playoffs for baseball, softball and soccer and if they needed me then I could cover a game. I’m an idiot and days later I stand by that. Why would I ask to work in the middle of vacation and moving week?!?! Let me reiterate – I’m an idiot!

I was hoping they’d let me cover a baseball game at Safeco Field or even a soccer game, since I’ve covered a few of those this year and have become familiar with the teams in our area, but instead they scheduled me to work two girls softball games in Tacoma (a 1.5 hour drive from our new house), oh and on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend! Again – I’m an idiot!

I was completely frustrated with myself, which made me not a good person to be around in the days leading up to Friday.

Not only was I frustrated but Lis was too as she was busy trying to organize the entire home. Now, you’re all asking why I don’t help with that. I try but honestly every time I put something away I comeback 15 minutes later and its in a different place. I figure its best if I take Lukas and we stay the heck away.

So since Lukas and I are spending more time together, we end up frustrating each other. At one point I thought it would be best if the three of us slept in separate rooms and not talk to each other for at least a half-hour.

Anyway, back to Friday. I got lucky with the first game when the team in our area lost its first round game and was thus not advancing into the quarterfinals. This allowed me to relax a bit before checking to see if the other team would win or lose. They won so I was headed to Tacoma.

Once I finished the article I felt a little weight off my chest. Saturday we would spend organizing more stuff around the house before we had people over for Lis’ 30^th birthday on Sunday.

Of course when you – ME -- organize anything a little ways in advance something is bound to go wrong; and when you live in Seattle that usually involves rain. It was nice the couple days leading up to Lis’ birthday and as I write now it’s a bit overcast but not rainy, but on Sunday it rained all friggin’ day (actually it stopped when our last guests were leaving the house).

So we had 20 people hanging out in our living room. Not a lot to do. My picture perfect volleyball game never happened and the hanging out and enjoying the sunshine on our patio never occurred either. Instead my Dad got extremely annoying and I finally told him to “Shut up!” really loud and in front of all of our guests. You could’ve heard a pin drop after my rant. No, it wasn’t the Johnson temper it was just me getting frustrated at his nonsense. Actually it was seeing Lis get frustrated that blew my top.

Now I sit at home, with Lukas napping behind me writing and hoping to get the frustrations off my chest. Lis is at our other apartment cleaning it, hoping that we’ll get our deposit back. I feel bad useless because I haven’t helped her with stuff. In a way I am useless because she knows what she wants to do and wants to do things her way. She’s also extremely stubborn and doesn’t ask me for help, like when she almost fell off the back of a chair trying to hang the curtains up. But I’ve done my job in keeping Lukas busy. It’s better if we leave her be and let her do her thing, or else we’d both end up getting in her way and whining the entire time. He napped today, I washed the dishes and put the dishes away and now I’ll do some laundry. Who’s the woman in the relationship here?

In the meantime, enjoy the photo slideshow I made for Lis’ birthday by clicking here.

But again no complaints! We’ve bought a house, we’re raising money for a cause we feel strongly about, we’re celebrating life and love, and I’m doing work that I enjoy (the second job that is). So again, it’s all good! Though I’m looking forward to mid-June when we can sit out on our new porch, fire up the BBQ and relax.