New (old) house and small progress

[mtbc]

Today is my first work week and it turns out that we get both Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving which is most welcome as I could use that extra time around my new house. I am accumulating a backlog of chores as I try to make it into a home and it will be great to have those extra spare daylight hours to make progress with them. Intellectually, I know there is light at the end of the tunnel, that in a few weeks' time I'll be further along, living in my home and having far fewer to-do's remaining, but apprehending that emotionally is a whole other thing that might require more of that progress to have actually happened. A good start was that my morning pre-work chores went fine this morning, that augurs well; now I have my reusable facemasks soaking in soapy water.

It is a relief to have my driving test behind me given that Tennessee gives only thirty days' validity to my overseas driver license. The examiner was friendly and reassuring and the resulting paperwork reveals that my short road skills route was the abbreviated rather than the extended one. Perhaps my Ohio one was too, for that segment was similar. I wonder who gets the longer. They knew I had turned in an expired Massachusetts license.

I learned more about the history of my new house. It was originally government-owned, one of the prefabricated alphabet houses (mine's a type B) built for the Manhattan Project workers, mine in 1943; the residents got better rations, deliveries of ice and coal, etc. In subsequent decades my house was extended considerably, all of sideways, backward, downward, but much of the original structure remains clear, including the fireplace with working chimney, which is just as well given that the air-source heat pump may not be optimal on the coldest days.