Just like home, only very different

Like at home, Amazon sends packages to the hotel for us – except here, I get a phone call in the room when they arrive.

Like at home, we have tons of laundry to do – except here, we have to go downstairs to the laundry room and use the machines with three settings (hot, warm, cold).

Like at home, the kids make a disaster at meal time – except here, at least for breakfast, they get to do it as entertainment for everyone else eating downstairs.

 

We’re all tired – it’s surprising how it takes extra work to keep things going while staying here.  It seems illogical – at the hotel, there should be so much less to do, right?  We had to pick up a mat for the bathtub here (Josiah bruises himself enough playing on his own, we don’t need to let him get banged up from falling in the bathtub), salt and pepper (using the little fast food-sized packets for meals at home gets old), and sanitizing wipes (Josiah is gross – he wants to lick everything).  It’s always little and seemingly insignificant stuff that you need (or without which you are inconvenienced enough that you have to get it).

This morning we went for a walk up and down the hall.  Josiah had a blast being able to run for long stretches as we chased each other.  After dinner, I took him down to the laundry room with me to do some wash.  He is terrified of the elevator!  I let him push all the buttons (which he enjoys) but he does not like when the elevator door closes.  We’ll keep working on that…

The cats are settled in – they’ve been out roaming around, napping by the window and on the bed like they own the place.  It’s good to see them recovering (still slowly – eating and drinking but still far less than usual).

 

Tomorrow will be a big day.  We got a call from the association asking us to meet the building inspector at the condo tomorrow afternoon.  They told us we’ll have 2 hours where we can get stuff from the house.  The insurance adjuster will also be meeting us there to get his first look through things.

So far, all of our calls/contacts with insurance have been about getting somewhere to stay and trading contact information.  Tomorrow starts the process of ironing out what needs to be repaired, replaced, cleaned, tested, etc.  That can all go smoothly or be a nightmare.

Probably the most exciting part of the day will be getting some simple information from the building inspector.  That will give us a sense of how long we’ll be restricted from going in the house on our own and how long we’ll have to wait to be allowed to move back in.  After we get a sense of those situations (which will only be his best guess), we can start extrapolating to when any repairs/cleaning would be completed and we’d be ready to go back.

One of the biggest unknowns is how the demolition/construction will impact us.  We dread having all of the noise, chaos, hazards, and even parking congestion that comes with rebuilding the 12 units in the two center sections of the building.  [Imagine the chaos – the condo association’s insurance company handles rebuilding the structure but the individual’s insurance company handles rebuilding the interior of the unit.  What does it look like to have them coordinating different insurance companies and then potentially 12 different contractors!]

 

As we get more settled here, the hotel begins to feel more relaxing to us.  Absent a DVR here at the hotel (and for our technical friends, no, we don’t have a Slingbox at the house), we have some pretty limited TV selection.  We’ve become so addicted to the convenience of Netflix and Amazon’s Video on Demand service.  Yes, both are available on our laptops but that’s just not as convenient as having them on the TV.  Yesterday we ordered a second Roku (we got one for Christmas that we use all the time in our bedroom) which showed up today (thanks to Amazon Prime’s $3.99 next-day shipping).  We plugged it in to the TV and connected it to the hotel’s internet and we had our movie/TV collections that we’re used to at home.  That was a huge plus for the kids, as they can now watch “Sid the Science Kid” and “Word World” throughout the day (bonus: we don’t have to deal with Barney on PBS in the late morning).  Once the kids go to bed and we’re wrapping things up, it’s so comforting to watch some of the shows we normally would watch at home!

The insurance company tells us they’ve got us paid up here through Monday.  After tomorrow, we’ll know if we’ll be here another week, if we’ll be moving to a furnished apartment for a few more weeks (very unlikely at this point), or if we’ll be heading back home on Monday.  Stay tuned!