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.