BECAUSE, my friends, I’ve managed to stick to my new nighttime routine. I think it’s been two weeks now? Or going on two weeks? That I routinely shut everything down at 10pm and start getting ready for bed. I have a whole routine, and it takes a little time. Here’s what I do:

–Any cleaning up in the kitchen that may still need to be done (usually not a lot, if any).

–Make my PB&J (peanut butter and jelly sandwich) for the next day’s lunch.

–Do the other things needed to get ready for work: fill my water bottle/put a clean mask in my bag/set my shoes and tool belt (if I brought it home, which I usually do, because I use my box cutter here, too) by the front door. I still love my day job, so it’s a pleasure getting ready for the next day, rather than a chore. I remember all my years of working in offices and dreading going in. Never again. I am blessed. The accident of getting my job was the happiest accident ever!

–Set house alarm system.

–Take a shower. I take cold showers now because they’re so incredibly refreshing with my tea tree soap.

–Nighttime skincare routine: either retinol cream or high-potency vitamin C serum, depending on the night (I alternate). When I use the serum, I let it dry down and then apply a hyaluronic acid and peptide complex cream to calm down the stinging. Eye cream goes on last. Lip balm.

–Gather up Nenette and put her on the bed, if she isn’t already there.

–Go in heavy with the super thick and moisturizing balm on my hands.

–Set my alarm.

–Triple-check doors to make sure that they’re locked. I finally have my new front door! What a relief to have a sturdy, tightly sealed one with a peephole and solid hardware that locks properly and securely.

Yes, this is a big deal. Would you like to know the saga of my front door situation? If yes, keep reading. If no, I don’t blame you. What’s to follow is a long, dry run-down of the events leading up to the installation of my new door, and let me tell you, it is riveting.

First, the backstory: One morning, in either April or May, I tried to lock my front door, and the mechanism fell off. It could not be fixed. The wood inside the lock aperture looked chewed-up and rotted away – that’s how old it was. I couldn’t lock my front door, but at least I had my good ‘ol steel security screen door on the outside. (The one that tried to cut off my foot.)
Secondly, I noticed a person who appeared to be staking out my house, being weird in his car and doing things like coming to my door, ringing the doorbell, and going immediately back to his car at the curb (not even waiting for me to answer the door) and sitting and staring at my office window before slowly driving away.
And then I noticed that the two padlocks on my two back gates had been turned upside down and left that way, keyholes pointing up to the sky. No wind could do that. The locks fit snugly, and they have to be wrangled with to even remove them and put them back in, much less turn them completely upside down.

SO:

–On May 8, the person who’d done my sliding-glass door came over to look at the front door (which was super old, anyway, and didn’t seal properly – it needed to be replaced for pretty much every reason) and give me an estimate for getting a new one installed.
–He said he’d send me the estimate in a few days, but he didn’t.
–We’d set a date set for him to come back and do a temporary fix on my lock, but he was a no-call/no-show.
–After several days of trying to reach him (his voicemail inbox was full and he wasn’t replying to texts), I finally got through. He said his truck had broken down, and that was why he didn’t show up.
–He said to find the door I wanted online and text it to him.
–I didn’t bother asking him to reschedule the temporary lock fix. I figured that my very sophisticated system of piling dumbbells up in front of my door at night was good enough.
–Found the door I wanted and texted it to him as requested. I bought new hardware (top-quality, tamper-proof lock set, because I am SERIOUS) for the new door.
–Never heard from him again. It was strange, because he’d been so friendly! I didn’t take it personally, though. I hope he’s okay.
–Contacted an actual door company to start all over with them. The manager came out immediately to take measurements. She was efficient and we had an effortless back-and-forth throughout the process from estimate to ordering to putting half down. We set a date for the install: August 16.
–Within a week of the install date, she called to say that the door wasn’t finished yet. We rescheduled for September 1st.
–I took September 1st off as a vacation day because she’d said that I had to be there all day. I had another (phone) appointment scheduled for the same day, so it was going to be a good use of a day.
–But at the very last minute, the door lady called to say that my door wasn’t going to be installed that day, after all, because IT HAD BEEN LOST. Those were her exact words: “Your door has been lost. We can’t find it.”
–She said that ten other peoples’ doors had been lost along with mine. The doors had been lost at the distribution company. (My day off worked out well, anyway, because in addition to my phone appointment, I also spent six annoying hours on and off the phone with the IRS, which had to happen but could not have happened had I not taken the day off from work – but that’s neither here nor there.)
–She stayed in contact with me every other day to update me on their progress in finding my door. At one point she called with good news: the door was going to arrive on the truck the next day! We rescheduled the installation for that Saturday. They were making an exception with the Saturday install because she knew that I wasn’t about to take another vacation day for it, and they felt it was the least they could do, anyway.
–But then she called to say that my door (along with five other doors) had not been on the truck. Later that day, she said she found out from the distribution company’s manager that my door hadn’t even been painted yet.
–She called again two days and a weekend after that to let me know that another truck was coming on Tuesday. Instead of telling me that my door would be on it, she said, “Let’s keep our fingers crossed that your door is on it, because they promised that it would be painted by then.”
–On Wednesday, she said that my door had arrived! It was actually in front of her eyes.
–Yesterday was Saturday, and they came early in the morning to install the door. It did take all day. It was a huge job. It’s perfect!

So finally, after five months, I have a new front door. The only thing left to do is paint the interior frame (or have the door company guys come back out to paint it; the door lady and I are going to discuss it tomorrow). But that’s cosmetic. I can now secure the house.

Here are a couple of pics of the long-awaited front door that had been on such an adventure, I’m surprised it didn’t arrive with exotic stamps and destination stickers all over it:

Between routinely getting ready for bed early (for me) and getting my new front door installed, that’s TWO snowballs frozen in hell! Also between the two of them, plus sleeping without a pillow, I’m sleeping better than ever.

Have an amazing week ahead, my friends.