We're in, but that's about it

(I had a post completely written about the new house, but I'm writing from the library and something happened when I hit "publish." Thanks, library...)

A moving experience

One week from today we'll be sitting at a big conference table with cricks in our hands from signing papers on our new house.

One week and one hour from today we'll be sweating in the July sun moving our entire lives under a new roof.

One week and a day from today, I'll bring the boys home from Grandma's, and instead of turning onto Gary Pl., we'll veer north a bit to their new home for the rest of their childhoods. (Really makes me wonder if Alex, just shy of four years old, will have memories of this house and how it was the only thing he knew for so long.)

It's the calm before the storm, folks, and here's how it's going to play out:

Friday: take the boys to Grandma and Grandpa's a little north of here. While we're there, we'll pick up a ginormous box truck belonging to Brother-in-Law, kiss our babies goodbye, and rumble back south to Tulsa. The boys will spend the night there. When we get home we'll begin loading onto it whatever we can fit...and lift.

Saturday: keep loading the box truck. Have two or three arguments with Pete about how I don't what my photo albums on it until the last minute since I don't want them baking in the heat. In the late afternoon Pete will go to Grandma and Grandpa's and pick up the boys. How he's getting there is still a mystery...since the box truck will be loaded up, etc.

Saturday evening: walk to church for the last time.

Saturday night: enjoy our last night together in this house. Pete will look at me funny when I start reminiscing...especially when I talk about when, on our wedding day, we walked over in all our wedding finery to have our photo taken in front of it. And when I talk about how he pounded a sign the size of a billboard in our front yard announcing Mickey's birth. He'll shush me when I tell him we'll remember the driveway where Mickey learned to ride his bike, and where Alex wore out his Little Tikes basketball goal. Then the whole family will fall into the remaining bed in the house...exhausted, and excited at our new chapter about to begin.

Sunday morning: try to get up before the movers get here at 8:30 a.m. Gather up the boys and shuttle them to their other Grandma's, where they'll be until Tuesday. Race back to Tulsa and clean, clean, clean. Sunday night Pete and I will head to a hotel for the night, since we have to have everything completely outta here and I'm not sleeping on the floor.

Monday morning: close on the houses in the a.m. Movers will meet us and our box truck at the new home...and the real fun begins.

That's the plan; I'm pretty sure there will be changes (ya think?). I will probably not be online for several days, either. To take advantage of having the thing disconnected, I'm taking the computer to the shop next week to have it tuned up and de-virused, etc.

So if I'm MIA for a while...um...you'll think everything's completely normal.

What's your best time?

I'm 43 years old and I've finally realized I need to listen to myself: I am productive, eager, enthusiastic, and patient...

...in the morning.

I tend to get up before anyone in the house by an hour or more. I shower, put on makeup, do my hair, and get dressed before anyone's even awake. I go downstairs, make coffee, have breakfast while reading a cookbook, put in a load of laundry, empty the dishwasher, lay out the boys' clothes, fix their lunches if it's a school day, check my email and the news, and start planning the week's meals (okay, lying about that last one but doesn't it sound good?).

I do more before 9:00 as a stay home mom than I used to in a whole day at my day job. At least there toward the end of my cubicle career anyway...

I maintain that ferocious ambition at home for several hours.

And about 4:00, the wheels on the production bus fall off. By five, I'm skidding. 6:00, wow, pity the phone solicitor that draws up my number. I'm short with the boys, trying to fix dinner without letting the TV babysit them, and wondering if Pete's "I'm on my way home..." means he's in the truck with the motor running or he's "finishing up" an email. Big difference between those two scenarios.

So I've learned that if I'm going to try to accomplish something that will be especially taxing, like shopping for a week's worth of groceries with both boys, it needs to happen in the a.m. when I'm at my best. If you ever see me at Walmart after 4:00, might be in your best interest to pretend you didn't...

It sounds crazy, but I'm just now realizing this to the point of changing the way I do things during the day. Things that are easy, like letting the boys play on the computer or watch a video, need to happen during that witching hour at 4:00 or so. In fact, I believe they, too, begin to get bored with the day...probably a lot of kids do. So I used to blame that stress-filled time on them until I realized, hey! I have a not-so-great time of day, too. Who knew?

So what's your best time of day? Morning? Midnight? When do you have the most energy and what do you do to get yourself through the times of day when you're dragging? (And I already know about coffee.)

Overheard: Frightening

Scary words from Mickey to start the day:

"...hey Alex, let's play Wipeout!"

(And happy 500th post to me!)

Mishmash

-- I've started packing...hooray! How do you say goodbye to baby clothes? The boys have some I just can't part with, and I know I'm going to end up shuffling them around a hundred times before I find space for them. But I just can't put them in the giveaway box now...or ever, if you want to know the truth.

-- Mickey has a couple of new phrases that make me grin when I hear them. "...Grandma's house is so decorational..." and "...Mom, it's soakin' hot out here!" I think they work!

-- I used chipotle peppers in adobo sauce for the first time the other day in a chicken taco recipe. (Go ahead, say "adobo" a bunch of times...fun!) Then I noticed "chilpotle" on the label and I wondered if any other glaring errors had been made in the production of this can. Of course this blog is not perfect, but I try to avoid paying people to make mistakes.


-- Ya'll...Pete's in the middle of a horrendous travel week. Think about him and pray his travels are safe and he can get some decent rest soon. And his friend's wife is in the hospital suffering with a pulmonary embolism, which, given his history with that demon, has him visiting her in the hospital as much as he can. Her husband was out of state when she went in the hospital...can you imagine. Anyway, he's having a very draining week and I hope he'll be able to have a relaxing weekend...

-- ...after I go see the Harry Potter movie on Friday night with my moms! Woo-hoo!!

-- In my frenzied weekend, I missed a traveling Titanic artifacts visit which my good friend frantically called me to tell me about. And I missed it. I'm a little sick about that one...

The new house!

I'm starting to wonder if I'll have everything packed in time for the move two weeks from today, but then I realize I don't have much choice in the matter. I'm feeling a little like back in college when I procrastinated for weeks before a final then crammed all my studying into the 18 hours before test time (for whatever reason I know a few college freshmen who read my blog; ya'll don't do that, mmmkay?)

As promised, however, here are some pics of our soon-to-be home sweet home. I'm calling them "before" shots, since we have a list a mile long of improvements we want to make:

Raining when I took this shot, so I wasn't getting out of the car to get the whole house.

Does anyone know the technical term for this thing? Looks like something that will require climbing on rooftops someday.

I love the bay windows. There are three sets in the house!

'Cause you needed to see the stone close-up.

Must. Be. Climbed.

Handwashing sink in utility room. Weeee!

Unfinished kitchen cabinets that will soon be "ginger." Better known as medium brownish-y.

"Hey, let's put granite in, but that means we have no budget for a backsplash. Maybe The Hometeam won't notice..."

The third bay window in the dining room just off the kitchen. This one looks out onto the...ready for this...BACKYARD! (Which I have no pics of...sorry.)

Formal dining room. But we're not calling it that because we're not formal (suggestions for other names welcome).

Den. With a weird closet thing that we'll have to define sometime.

Sort of a shot of the yard. It has a fence and trees. I'm livin' the dream, I tell ya.

...and the house has a front door.

With a window like this in the office, I'm sure to write some inspired blog posts for once. Right now I'd settle for just writing.

Stairs...which I don't really like having, except I love these since they lead to...

...a gameroom!

More gameroom.

My favorite bathroom feature: they all have these bureau-type vanities.

Guest room upstairs, too. Crooked ceiling fan included.

Boys' room downstairs next to ours. They'll be rooming together until further notice. Or the fighting starts leaving scars.

"Oooo, and let's not replace any ceiling fans. We can call them vintage!"

The bad news: all the closets are small like this. The good news: there's four of them.

New appliances. Yay!

Storage in garage. I'm very excited about this since we won't have as large a utility room in the new house.

I'm also excited about having a screen door in the garage. Oh the little things...

Spot for our second fridge. I still have mine from my single life. Seriously, save a couple hundred and buy one for your garage. Priceless for summer time drinks and frozen treats, stocking bottled water, trays of party food.

Ceiling fan in the garage. I'm sure there's a sweet spot somewhere those three blades will cool...

Mickey's very intrigued by the mail drop set-up. When he saw this picture he asked "...what happens to the mail when the garage door goes up?" Hmm...

Not looking forward to fitting all my pots and pans in here.

The utility room sink again. I'm in love with it.

I may even leave one remaining piece of "vintage" in the house.

Checkin' in

So just for fun I checked out how many posts I put up here during the last few months. Seems I've been doing things other than writing. Oh, well. I'm so glad ya'll don't hold that against me.

On the house situation: as I mentioned before, we close on both the sale of our house and the new house on July 27. I've finally accumulated a few boxes and have actually packed one as of tonight. Packing is quite overwhelming to think about. So I'm preferring not to think about it. But I'm saying "no" to extra activities a lot, which will be a good thing when I decide to attack the packing head-on.

Tomorrow we visit the new house since I get to choose a stain color for the new kitchen cabinets. I'm more than incapable of making such a decision by myself, so I called a friend to meet me there to help me decide. She doesn't know it yet, but I'm also handing her a tape measure and a pencil to write down window measurements. None of the windows have any coverings on them, which will drive Pete to insanity within one day.

I'm hoping to snap a bunch of pics, too. Just maybe I can take some time to put some up here.

The inspection on the new house is scheduled for Thursday. We hope nothing major will be discovered, or that it is and we don't have to pay to have it fixed!

There's the whole incredible update; ya'll have a fabulous week.

Happy Fourth of July!!

It's a little soggy outside today, so I'm hoping our Fourth festivities will still happen. But just in case, there's this as a worthy substitute.

Ya'll be safe!