And so it begins...

I have been a little MIA in the blogosphere lately.  I have great ideas for blog posts, and when I sit down at night after the kids go to bed...I'm too tired to write.  The last few weeks, I have been getting back to normal (or as normal as I get) while my new thyroid meds start to kick in.  However, I don't really have the luxury of time to sit around while the meds do their magic due to The Move.

The Move is happening in eleven weeks and three days.  That may seem like plenty of time to get everything done, but I assure you, it is not.  I have to declutter and pack up a 4,400 square foot house while trying to manage taking care of the rest of my usual chores.  In addition to kid stuff, mowing, laundry, more kid stuff, and then some kid stuff, I'm keeping the house in "showing" condition and packing as much as humanly possible every day.  So far, things are going pretty well.  I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff - a LOT - by donating it to a local church.  As an awesome bonus, Fausto, who has done  house painting work for us in the past, comes and picks everything up from us.  Score!  The trick is to get rid of things while the kids are at school or otherwise occupied.  If they're around, every single thing I try to put in the donation box becomes the VERY BEST TOY EVER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.  Quite frankly, I sort of have to pull the same shenanigans with Trevor.  I found a box of files that had some of his old phone records and random bills from when he was in law school.  Uh huh.  I'm really glad he moved those from house to house without ever opening the box.  So, bye-bye bills.  Bye-bye college textbooks.  Bye-bye gross, sweat-stained baseball hats.  (And you just know he's going to read this now and immediately begin to squirrel things away.  Here's a tip for you, T: you had better start bolting things down because Mama's going scorched earth and there's nowhere to hide.)

It's not just that it costs about a billion dollars per pound for a long-distance move.  I mean, that's a huge factor, but it's more that I am ready to live a simpler life.  I want less...stuff.  Less stuff to clean, to care for, to worry about, to move, and to contain.  I want to spend more time with my family and the people I love.  I want to spend more time doing what I love to do and enjoying each day as it comes.  I'm always going to have the memories associated with the things even if I don't have the things, you know?  If the whole cancer brouhaha taught me anything, it's that being happy doesn't come from having things; it comes from appreciating all of the intangibles in life.  Peace comes from forgiving, starting over, and moving on; it doesn't come from holding on to what you don't need.  Don't get me wrong: I still have stuff but I think a lot less of it will help me focus on what's really valuable in my life.

"Free time"

With Lottie and Dallas both in preschool, you're probably wondering what I'm doing with all of my free time.  Ha.

First of all, it's not exactly "free" time.  As anyone knows, houses don't run themselves.  I normally have to sneak in cleaning and laundry when the kids are otherwise occupied; if I don't, I get a lot of unsolicited help.  And by help, I mean the opposite of help.  I also don't have copious amounts of time.  Dallas is only going to school in the mornings, so I have between 8:30 AM and 11:30 AM to get things done, travel time not included.  That's not a huge amount of time, people.  Now before you roll your eyes, I'm not complaining about the lack of time I have alone.  I know that in just a few years, I'll be alone all day long and missing my kids a lot...maybe.  And despite popular belief, I'm not sitting around on the couch, watching my stories, and eating my bon-bons.  Au contraire.

In the hours I have to myself, I have been organizing the house, and I love it way too much.  The sense of accomplishment I get after cleaning out or organizing just one drawer makes me realize that I either need a hobby or to see a shrink to work on my self-esteem.  I mean, that's nutty, right?  Nutty or not, it feels really good to be getting the house back into shape.  Although, honestly, I'm not sure it was ever truly in shape from the first.  When we moved it, Lottie was only 11 months old, and within one month of moving in, I was pregnant with Dallas.  Not a heck of a lot was getting done for a while.  Now I have some time to breathe and take stock of what has happened to my house, and I don't like it.  I don't feel like I can really relax and have fun with the kids while things are falling out of the hall closet or clothes are spilling out of drawers.  I enjoy working on projects while the kids are gone so that I can enjoy spending time with them when they're home.  It's not fair to them that I get twitchy every time I pass a pile of laundry. although technically, the amount of laundry is sort of their fault.  That's the only reason that I wish I had a couple of more hours to get work done as well; once I'm on a roll, it's hard to stop.  I have a feeling the staff at Good Shepherd Day School is going to get used to me running in at 11:31 PM, covered in sweat and dust, with a rag tucked into my back pocket.

So far, I have cleaned and organized Lottie's room and Dallas's room; I have gone through all of their clothes; I have cleaned and organized the mudroom and the front hall closet; I have cleaned the screened porch; and I have begun to go through all of the books in our library/office.  Once the books are done, our bedroom and our closets will get the treatment. The basement is going to be a huge project, so I'll probably save that for the winter months.  By and by, I'm going to get my house clean and keep it clean or at least clean enough that I don't start to shake uncontrollably at the thought of friends just dropping by.