La Bene Vita

Polarismageddon, Days 22-28

It's piano moving day.

A week has passed since I last blogged, and the only reason I'm blogging now is because it's 5am, I've been awake since 2am due to whole-body pain and scrolling mental checklists, and I thought maybe a data dump might do me good.

A couple weeks ago, I asked my dad to help me narrow down a five-page list of contractors so I could get quotes for my Gahanna music school renovation project (dividing a larger classroom into two smaller lesson rooms,) and when I gushed about how helpful he'd been, he offered to drag his recently retired butt from Maryland to Ohio to help me close my Polaris music school. Dad arrived Sunday afternoon, just in the nick of time. The Polaris lease expires 8/31 aka Thursday aka two days from now, and my husband, Keith, is working all week.

I've moved SO MUCH STUFF from Polaris to Gahanna over the last few weeks, and most of it has been piling up in my soon-to-be new office/lesson room (half of the aforementioned larger classroom.) But today, I need to move six pianos from Polaris to Gahanna, and two of them are going into that space, so I've been singularly focused on redistributing The Stuff to either its interim or (ideally) permanent new home.

Here's what's happened since last Tuesday:

Tuesday, the newly hired theory teacher showed up for his orientation, and we love him (Daniel.) I trained him all night.

Wednesday, I secured a sub for my own Polaris students so I could teach in the Gahanna music lab. Daniel will be the Wednesday lab teacher starting this week.

I took a carload (SUVload) from Polaris with me on Thursday and Friday after teaching lessons and dropped each off in Gahanna. Some items went straight to their new (permanent) homes, like the music lab laptops and chargers, a second teacher desk for the lab, the last of the instruments, and a few small bookshelves (rehomed in various lesson rooms.) Everything else landed in "Michelle's office" (the future Room 8.)

Over the weekend, Keith took down about fifty guitar and violin wall hangers in Polaris and hung them in every room in Gahanna, roughly tripling our capacity for (permanently) wall-hung instruments.

Sunday morning, I left the house at 5:30, headed up to Polaris, loaded up the car again, them dragged almost everything that was left up to the Polaris lobby, where it was sorted into three areas: (1) keep/take to Gahanna, (2) post "free to a good home"/(donate), and (3) "throw that shit straight in the dumpster." I took photos of a few giveaway items and issued on socials. Then I headed to Gahanna and unloaded, mostly to make room for groceries. Keith and I have been living off of fast food and too many restaurant dinners because the one time we were able to squeeze in a Clicklist order two weeks ago, they cancelled it due to being short-staffed. With my dad coming to visit and Keith and I suffering severe malnutrition and (and possibly a broken bank), I had to squeeze in the time. So after unloading in Gahanna, I hit the grocery store for my pickup (which was NOT cancelled, *whew*) and then headed home to unload the groceries, throw together some food, and go straight back to Gahanna (with Keith in tow the second time) to start organizing and distributing The Stuff in Future Room 8.

Sunday evening, Keith picked up dad at the airport while I continued sorting and redistributing. They returned and finally got the book display rack from Polaris installed in the Gahanna lobby, which provided a (permanent) home for piles of music books. Mounting the rack was a tricksy project due to the heavily-drywalled concrete walls, for which neither traditional drywall-and-stud nor plain-concrete hanging fasteners were wholly appropriate.

Yesterday morning, I followed up with a contractor (my favorite, SB, is waiting to hear back from my electrician, who apparently thought SB was spam 🤦‍♀️.) Then Dad and I stopped by the Budget truck rental place to arrange his travel home; he took a one-way flight to Ohio so he could haul home the kayaks we've been trying to get my parents to take for a year now. Plus the box truck will be handy for bring about thirty chairs from Polaris.

Then we went to Gahanna to work all day. Dad completed the following projects (I kept adding items to the list as I encountered the need; classroom dry erase boards are very handy and fun to scratch off in varying colors):

- installed wall-mounted shelving units in the staff restroom (doubles as storage for cleaning supplies, etc.) and the reception area (which gained a second large-screen monitor, and subsequently lost some desk space.)

- installed a Nest camera in the music lab for security

- installed cubicle wall hooks for lab bulletin board

- moved the lab dry erase board

- hung mirrors in a couple lesson rooms

- dismantled the electronic drums in Room 6 to make room for a Polaris piano.

- and, finally, moved a bunch more stuff up to the newly-floored storage loft over the restrooms, including wayyy too many music stands.

Then we rested while staff and kids and parents started arriving, because I had a few lessons to teach, and I was Dad's ride. Keith could have brought him home after work (he was there anyway, dropping off a load from Polaris he'd grabbed on his way home,) but Dad wanted a lesson with my most advanced drum instructor, and we'd booked him later that night. So we just chilled. Sort of. He chilled, but I was in Gahanna on a Monday. Literally every teacher and receptionist was like, hey! You're here! That's convenient, because I need something from you. 🤣 All joking aside, I loved being accessible. I'm going to love it even more when I'm not exhausted.

Now let's get some pianos relocated!