I can’t remember who it was that asked me, but at some point when Eric and I were entering into our careers and in the early months of our engagement someone asked if his musician/freelancer schedule and income made me nervous. And honestly, it didn’t. There are two reasons why. 1) I had a long time knowing his career plans long before we hitched our wagons together. 2) This man works like few people I know. I always trusted that in a pinch Eric wouldn’t sleep until we had what we needed to set our house right. The last 8 years of marriage have proved me right. And, this week with his parents visiting I’ve witnessed first-hand exactly where his mighty work ethic comes from.

But the extra adults in the house this last week have enabled more productivity than I could possible imagine. There are few major problems at the house than need to be addressed for now. (We’re saving up for a roof repair later this summer, and setting aside funds as we know there are some heating, plumbing, pool items that will need to be fixed at some point.) But the list of refinements and changes that we need to make is endless. I liken this list to 10,000 paper cuts daily irritants that just keep getting caught as you’re going about your day. Between the pregnancy, a full time job and entertaining an active toddler, we’ve struggled to tackle the thousands of to-dos that come with a new home.

Here are just some of the things we’ve accomplished – in addition to Luke getting tons of cuddle time and play:

• Tearing out dead plants/trees and hacking back overgrown bamboo, vines and plants throughout the backyard.
• Sealing and staining the unfinished baseboards below the entry doors to the back of our house.
• Filling and spackling nail holes and dings in the walls
• Finally replacing that damn padded rubber toilet seat
• Retrieving all the honey from the hive that was relocated off of our property.
• Spray painting out door pots and our dining set
• Finding the sprinkler shut off until we can replace the too tall/broken sprinklers throughout the front yard.
• Cleaning summer umbrellas that had been left outside and were full of spiders cobwebs and other such delight.
• Scrubbing and refilling the built in shower caddy that had rusted/molded but can’t be removed in our master bath.
• Helped brainstorm, mastermind and measure some furniture and DIY projects we’re excited to share in coming months.
• Moving the door pulls on the sliding doors to our laundry room so they actually are placed logically.
• Removing poorly mounted shelving in our office that I was sure would come crashing down in the night.

What’s more, they’ve fed us, cleaned the kitchen and freed me up for some desperately needed nap time.

We’ve also broken out the checkbook to have some experts come in on a few instances. And, it probably won’t be the last time in the next few weeks as yesterday we had a pipe start leaking and we noticed that one of the dying trees on our property looks to have termites.

• I think I mentioned that we inherited a gigantic bees nest. Gentle honey bees to be sure, but a swarm of bees around small children is just not something we’re going to mess around with. Being California naturalists that we are, we looked around and found a bee relocation service that would come in and transport these beauties to a new home where they can continue their delicious and necessary honey making ways. (Relocating the bees was five times as expensive as exterminating them. You’re welcome bees.) The company took a very cool video of the move and you can see our hive here.
• Our pool — the pool we swore we’d never have when we were house hunting — needed some love. Both the pump and filter broke the week we moved in. The pool service we connected with recommended that we invest in a low energy filter that would save us on our electric bill and qualify for a rebate but again we shelled out four times the cash up front to put it in. In the time it took to get the filter, the pool turned green and needed a good scrubbing, so we’ve paid for that tool. Bonus, I’ve had massive sciatic pain since getting back from Vienna and the only thing relieving it has been my daily swim. So, comme ci comme ca.

The house is feeling more like home every day, and my parents are coming in two weeks of a similar visit. We’re sure to make some major progress into settling into our first home and I absolutely couldn’t be happier and more thankful for the extra hands on deck.