Careful What You Wish For.

You may have noticed at the end of my last post that Monday was my birthday.

I've had better.

First of all, Monday birthdays are inherently lame. Everyone is burned out from the weekend and groaning their way into the week, so Monday birthdays are barely acknowledged as people reenter the daily grind. I was kind of bummed that there wasn't more going on for my birthday.

I had a bunch of errands to do. We left the house at 11:30 so the girls could go to their first day of swim lessons. It was great. They both did a good job, and no one had a time out. We looked for boxes on the way home, and then pulled into the driveway at 12:30.

To find that someone had knocked a hole in my house.

At first, I thought it was a motorcycle, because the hole was only about 2 feet wide. They managed to hit right where there was a wall stud, though, so it carried the hole up the wall about 6 feet.

I called A. I called the police. My husband got here first and he was able to figure out from the tracks that it was a 3-wheeler, and from some paint that was left behind on the wood that it was red. He went over and talked to a neighbor who told him he'd heard it happen, but by the time he got out to see what was going on, the people were already driving down the street.

The police showed up and took a report and canvassed the part of the neighborhood where the people had gone, but they couldn't find them. There are two dead end streets in that part of the neighborhood, so they were there somewhere, but they'd had plenty of time to get the 3-wheeler put away by the time the police showed up.

We have photos, but I can't find the camera at the moment. When I do, I will add them to this post. It was pretty impressive. On the inside of the house, the drywall and everything was pushed about 18" inside.

There are upsides. Because we're moving, the mess isn't nearly as bad as it could have been. They hit where our homeschool shelves used to be, but those have been gone for a month now. All that was there were some half-packed rubbermaid containers and they just barely managed to miss those. There was an old rubbermaid container with some stuff from the shed in at the front of the house that they did hit and destroy, but everything inside it was ok, and the container was missing it's lid so I was going to have to throw it away anyway. Also, our car was out of the way when it happened. We still NEED the car for several more weeks, so I'm glad that we were gone when it happened and it didn't get crunched up instead.

Also, the woman who crashed into our house is lucky that she hit the wood addition and not the block part of the house, because she had apparently mixed up the brake and the gas and hit the wall really, really hard. Had she hit the block, she'd probably be dead.

So, you know... It could have been worse.

Still, it put a damper on the day. There were other negatives to the day, too, but the people involved may not want that included in my blog, so just trust me when I say that the day was really bad. With a capital B. Bad.

We had cake with the girls. They got me a Mickey Mouse watch, which was very cute. A got us a sitter and we went out for dinner. We ended up just driving for an hour through parts of town that we frequented when we were first married, but haven't been to much since we moved to this house. We finally settled on Benihana's for dinner, which was pretty good. I've never been to a knife-slinging-Japanese-grill place before, so it was a good time.

When we got back from dinner, the woman who had crashed into the house had come back and left her information with our sitter and restored my faith in humanity. It's nice to know that some people still do the right thing. She probably could have gotten away with it. It's not like the police could have gotten a search warrant to search every house in that part of the neighborhood to find out who had a damaged 3-wheeler. But she came forward anyway, and that made the day better.

I have spent a crazy amount of time this morning sitting at my compter trying to write a post addressing the issue I'm facing with a small handful of people in our lives who are having a difficult time with our moving to the Philippines. It seems like most of their concerns, while well-meaning, are born out of fear of the unknown. And then a friend over on LiveJournal posted this, and it just sums it up so well, though in a different context. So, instead of whining and cajoling, I'm offering humor:



(My blog format isn't showing the whole comic. Just click on it to get the last panel.)

Also? Happy birthday to meeeeeeee!!!

Finishing.

This time, two weeks from now, I think we'll be somewhere in New Mexico. Being under the 2-week mark has lit a fire under my bum. I've packed 3 boxes this week; two to go, one to stay. My goal for today is 5 boxes. You would think that packing a box wouldn't take so long, but when you're trying to pack everything as compactly as possible, each box is a giant 3-D puzzle. I imagine when we get there and I start unpacking, if I pull the wrong piece out first, all the contents will burst out of the box. Maybe if I swing it right, I'll be able to aim the explosion just so and everything will land where it needs to. It could speed things up considerably.

Am I the only one who gets an inflated sense of satisfaction from finishing a bottle of various personal care products? Even without the move, every time I finish a bottle of lotion or shampoo, I give myself a pat on the back. "Way to go! You finished your Bath and Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossom body lotion! Now you get to go buy more!" Woohoo! Yay for consumerism!

Sorry... I got swept up in the moment there...

Anyway, one of the perks of this move has been that it's been a good motivator to finish off all the trial-sizes and samples and half-used bottles of things that have been lurking on my shelves. Only now, the prize when I'm done with a bottle isn't that I get to go buy more: it's that I don't have to pack it! This is proving to be a much bigger thrill.

Why, yes, I did write this entry as a form of procrastination... I'll get back to work now.

I'm all better now. Moving forward.

Now that the Big Yard Sale of Doom is over and done with, I'm on a much more even keel. There were a few things that, as they left my possession, I will admit I got a little teary over, but all in all, it was rather freeing.

The first day was crazy busy. Advertising on Craigslist is very effective! We set it all out again on Monday and at noon I called some friends to come over and pick through what was left to save us from hauling it to goodwill. In the end, we went from most of the contents of our house to 5 boxes and two garbage bags full of stuff to be donated. Not bad.

We are into the realm of "weeks" before we leave our house. There are a handful of fun things to do before we go. The girls start their Summer Movies on Thursday, my birthday is Monday (woohoo!) which is also when the girls start their swimming lessons. Then, on the 12th of June, we're headed out.

In the midst of all the fun things, I've got a fair bit of packing to do. The girls have check-ups scheduled. I need to find ways to keep them entertained in the car for the 8-hours a day we'll be driving. Videos will only get us so far. I have the Everything Kids Travel Activity Book, but much of what's in it is beyond A. She's the one I'm most worried about. K can veg in front of a TV for hours if you let her, but A likes to be doing things. I have a feeling I'm going to spend a good amount of the trip wedged in the back seat between the two of them, both keeping the peace and keeping them entertained.

I think we're going to end up going from Springfield, MO through Kentucky and West Virginia to get to my friend's house in Maryland. I am so excited about that part of the trip! I haven't been in either of those states before, and I think it'll be a prettier drive than the Illinois/Indiana/Ohio route.

So, yup... Here we are... Trying to pick up the last few things we want/need before we go. Getting everything boxed up and ready to go.

To that end, I went to the mall today with the kids to avail myself of the last of the Memorial Day sales and to pick up Bananagrams which I'd seen at Borders last night when I was out with A, but had to come back for when I had my 15% off coupon with me. (Honestly, if you are a scrabble-type of person and haven't played that game, you need to get your hands on it!) Anyway, the kids are slowly growing out of the stage where they like to hide in clothes racks and run up and down the aisles of the store when I'm shopping. Today, I hit gold with them. K was starting to act up and I turned to her and said, "Look, K, we are in the kind of store that Mommies usually come to WITHOUT their children because they want to shop in peace. You need to stop being so loud and let the other Mommies here have their quiet time!"

She took that to mean, "If they see me, they will kick me out." She stayed by my side the rest of the time we were in the store and when she had to speak, she used a stage whisper. I don't know about the other Mommies in the store, but my shopping experience was much more peaceful after that!

Panic. PANIC! PANIC! PANIC!

Does anyone have a paper bag? I would like to breathe into it for a while, kthx.

No, really. I need some blood pressure meds or something. This move is making me rediculously insane.

Big yard sale this weekend is screwing with my mind. The fact that we are off-loading so much of our stuff has got me shaking in my boots. We have had 3 yard sales in the last 6 months or so. I'm ok with offloading a bit at a time. As it stands, my 10-ish by 20-ish dining room is literally half full of stuff, and all that's in there is what's left from the last yard sale, and the new gleanings from the kitchen and laundry room. And that doesn't account for the furniture that is staying in place until the actual sale.

I spend about 90% of my time in my house and almost everything that makes it My House is about to get stuck out on the lawn. I like my house. I like my things. I know that we will replace a lot of this stuff on the other side of the move, but that doesn't really register at the moment. All my things are going bye-bye!

A few days ago, the idea of starting over was a liberating thought. Right now, it's just freaking me out. FREAKING ME OUT!

Was I just whining about being stuck with nothing to do?

I talked to hubby since the last post and he pointed out that this weekend would be an excellent time for The Big Yard Sale since it's going to be Memorial Day weekend. Now, I am going crazy trying to get everything ready for that.

Ok, really, I'm not even letting myself think about it. I'm just wasting time on the computer. That can only last so long, though. Then I need to kick it into high gear.

I was hoping to teach the kids through the end of the month, but I have too much to do! One week shy isn't bad, right? If I can get us up and going again by August 1st, then they will have a "standard" summer break and that's ok. I can live with that.

Nothing to Do

Today, I ran out of ink for the printer. I HAVE to get more, because we have two more weeks of school left, meaning two more weeks worth of copies and worksheets to print out. I'm highly annoyed about the timing, though. Why can't everything just magically run out on the evening of June 11th?

I've run out of shortening, too. This stinks, because I'm trying to get us through enough of our baking supplies that we don't have to try selling it. I have a bunch of butter that I got on sale around the holidays in the freezer, so I guess we're going to be eating high on the hog while we use that up, because I don't want to buy a huge tub of shortening when we're only going to maybe--MAYBE--use half of it.

I wish I had a magic wand. If I did, I could change the things we have a TON of into things I'm running out of.

Hey, bar of soap! *poof* You are now a container of baking powder!

Maybe then everything would average out and I'd feel less cranky.

What am I even talking about?

Really, I just can't believe that we are less than a month away from moving out, and it's starting to stress me out in a very real way.

I have a $30 coupon for Staples for bringing in a ton of old printer cartridges. Normally, this would thrill me to no end. Now, I'm trying to figure out what I can get for $30 that will be something we can use up before we move, or won't be too bulky if it has to move with us. It's a chore.

Spending free money is a chore!! That should tell you the kind of mental state I'm in right now!!

I'm not using it for ink, I'll tell you that much. I can get a refill across the street from Staples for half the price. At least I'm still cheap. I can always rely on that!

It's official.

July 1. The goal is to have the office in Manila functioning on July 1.

This means that we will be heading to DC sometime in the middle of June, and up to MA towards the end of June.

And there was much rejoicing!

It only became definite-definite today, and already my brain has clicked back into Hardcore Moving Mode. This is a dangerous thing, since Hardcore Moving Mode interferes with Homeschooling Mom Mode, and the girls already had a 6 week vacation the first time we thought we were moving. We need to keep up our 4-day a week schedule through the end of May at least, because at that point it will be 2 full months before we do school again. Must... resist... Hardcore Moving Mode...

The good thing about this delay is that it will let us get to better stopping points in their curricula before we call it quits, so when we do start up in August, we won't skip the review lessons of the texts this time around.

The downside is that it is HOT here in Arizona already, and by mid-June it will be much hotter. I think our final yard sale will actually be a come-inside-and-roam-around sale. That may be the only way we can lure people out for it!

Tentative

We have a tentative departure time frame. Because of this tentative departure time frame, we have a tentative depart-for-Massachusetts time frame.

I will not, however, commit the dates to this blog. The reasons for this are because everything is still very much in the theoretical stage at the moment and because I don't want people freaking out about it when it could all crumble again.

I'm just saying things are tentatively moving forward, but at least they are moving forward.

Updating...

Just a quick update: We are still in a holding pattern concerning the move. Still in a perpetual state of "8 weeks from now."

The girls and I got back into our homeschool routine two weeks ago. Unfortunately, we are now to the point where we are running out of unpacked supplies and I'm going to need to start opening up packed boxes to get more curriculum out for us to use. C'est la vie. I've been stretching things a bit by using online resources and spending a day every week on a field trip. We've been to the Phoenix Chlidren's Museum, ScMoCA, and Heard Museums so far. This coming week, we'll be hitting the Phoenix Art Museum.

Just plugging along...