Pooped

This is the last post I will write from our old house. I'm feeling somewhat nostalgic. We have lived here for 15 years! That is the longest I have lived anywhere. I looked at the Kid's room and remember all the different stages of her life here. She was nine when we moved in. Had her first room, put glowing stars all over the ceiling and walls, and later in high school she painted it with blue and silver stars and last year, neon green. We will not raise kids in our new home. It sort of feel wierd, as much as I have wanted to get out of this old rental, now I am a little sad and uncomfortable with the move. Today as I was frantically cleaning the old house I found the side of the door where we charted the Kid's growth. Starting at 4'5"! Not that she is very tall now, but that was when she was about ten. I think of all the times she practice violin in here, and the nights I waited for her when she was dating this stupid jock.

Also, it is so wierd that I cleaned the place the most today as I am leaving of all the years that I have lived here. Why do we do this. I kept thinking that we are quite the pigs as I found the biggest dust bunnies ever, some clingning to the walls for dear live it seemed. Anyways, the job is now done. My good friend, Artist's child will come and clean the carpets tomorrow. I was so touched that she offered to do it for us. That did save me loads of time. I should also wash the windows, but I did run out of time. Or I should have started at nine this morning rather than noon. Oh well, I did need some rest. I have been working on moving since Thursday from noon till about 2 Am each day. I am quite tired, but I wanted to do one last blog from this house which even empty (except for the aquarium, the computer, some cleaning supplies, and tons of trash!) still feels more like home than the new house. I know I will love it once things get settled. I will miss the neighbors too, even though they are only 1/2 block away. We will have to invite them over and maintain the friendship.

The Kid is doing good and getting ready to start her classes. She will have a lot of work, but I know she can do it. I do miss her, but she called and we talked for a long time on Friday and Saturday. She is such a great one!

Well sign off from the old funky house where we have 15 years of good and bad memories. I will see what the new one bring. I think maybe I feared that this will be the last house I move into. After all at 50, I know I wont be around for another 30 years. Or not likely to be, so it is a bit chilling to think about that. But maybe not. Maybe we will be able to move again. If so, we need to trim down our possessions! This was way hard to move all of the shit we have accumulated over the last 15 years!

Wierdness

This is truly very wierd! We are moving into our own home. I never thought I could be a homeowner. I guess I really am old! It feels really strange to be doing this. I am still at my computer in the old house and most of our furniture except our bed is at the new house unnatended. The kitchen table, the TV, the couch, all are there waiting to be put to use. The fridge and washer, yet the bed is still here at this house and the computer too. We have done a lot of work, and the place is coming together nicely with a few exceptions. Our bedroom floor needs some help, the floor guys had a problem that their attempt to fix did not solve. They are coming over tomorrow. We still need the counter in the kitchen to be installed and some tiles to be put in. Our bedroom still needs some refinishing of the wall as it has some of that yucky fake wood siding on two of the walls that we will refinish using fun tip # 63: apply liberally (I should be able to do that, the liberal part!) some wall finishing compound that is pretty much new age plaster and then paint on top. It should need about four coats as it tends to crack when drying. There is still some painting to be done in the corridor (Yes! we have one of those, how uncalifornian of us!) and in the master bath and bedroom. Other than that we are in a good shape. It still does not quite feel like home, after all we have been here for 14 years! Maybe fifteen? Somewhere around there. A long time. The longest I have lived anywhere! I will miss this old funky place. The Kid did a lot of growing up here, and so did I.

Other than that the Kid has successfully moved back east to North Carolina and passed her two test to begin instruction. (Stats and Calculus) I am begining to teach my class at the local Junior College and that should be fun, but a lot of work too. My boss is not too happy about that, since I keep asking to go down to 32 hours a week, and now I am starting another thing. Since I wasn't sure that the class would be a go, I did not tell him about it untill today. He asked how it would affect my health? Since I have stated that my current job is a lot for me. I know it was not concern for me on his part, but merely trying to point out that taking more on was not, I don't know, "honest" of me or something like that. Well, my dear boss, somethings are more stressful than others and I am not sure I would go over the last month's stress no matter what.

The last thing making these few days particularly hard is that the Kid is now 3,000 miles away. And that is tough! She was crying a lot before leaving and I felt a little numb, a feeling I am quite familiar with. As my friend Helene used to say: "I learned from the nuns, you can do everything right, you just don't feel anything." That is the French Canadian woman upbringing in a nutshell. Now that she is far away, I do miss the Kid. I see a red car and automatically think she is near, even though I know she cannot be. I may just have to go visit her. And I know she would be glad of it. Anyone going back east in the near future. Hippiechick, I know you are going to BT in September, want to drive down to North Carolina from there? I think I will book some flight some time soon!

Well these are my musings for now, I need to go get the thrash out at the other house now as they pick up on a different day! And there is a big hill to go down with the can, good thing they have wheels!

Again with the music!

Last night we went to a great concert at the local brewery. It was the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, although there was not 12 of them but 8. They were fantastic and the Hubby and I danced the whole night. It was a great release from all of the stress from the house and work. We are seeing the deadline of 8/31 approach with speed and have still so much to do to be ready to move.

At work I do have a new person who I know will be a quick study. We went to school together and she will be a great addition to the team. I had a very stressful meeting today with one of the families. They were fighting a lot with each other and would not redirect despite several attempts from several team members. I left the meeting exhausted and proceeded to eat some junk, which I have not done for several week. It was very hard to see folks who I know love each other be so mean to one another. I know I also have done this in the past, but I always find discord disturbing (I alliterate!) Then I should have written my documentation but instead I deleted all of the old e-mails that had accumulated on my computer. I had about 1000. I guess I needed to do something mindless as the session took all I had for today.

I am also sad as the Kid leaves this week for North Carolina for the next two years. I know I will see her and talk to her, but I do enjoy having her around. She is a great person. Oh well, I will just have to get on the plane a few more times to go visit, and have her come too. She has been busy getting her new bedroom ready in the new house so she feels like she still is part of the household and she will know what she comes to when she visits. I know she does want that feeling of having a base of operation to return to. Even if it is only for a few weeks when she is done with her studies. She will be 26 then, and probably will not want to live with her folks, I'm sure. I know she will call and write, and we will keep in touch, but we won't have our nights of watching wierd movies and going out with friends. It'll only be for a while. We had the empty nest a while ago when she first left for college, and so this is just a revisiting of the feeling. I don't think it will be as bad this time as the first time.

I now have my own "water pillow." It is a pillow with a pocket inside that holds water. I slept on the kid's pillow while she was away last week and I just loved it, so decided to get one for myself. I know it is a wierd concept, but it is very comfy and I slept more soundly when I was using it, so I recommend them. The Kid worked for a chiropractor for some time this spring and that is where she picked this up. She is a crafty one! Well speaking of which, I should go find that pillow and catch up on my ZZZs. I stayed up too late last night enjoying great music.

Lots of Heavy Lifting

We continue to make some progress on preparing the new house to move in. Today we emptied the storage space of all of my mother in law's old stuff. It's now all in the new garage, which is huge. That will save a lot in storage fees. Some of the pieces were huge and cumbersome, but we had a couple of friends who helped us, and that made things go a lot smoother.

After moving all the stuff we went to lunch and then returned to the house for some few little things. The sun was getting low and it was beautiful to watch as it filled the kitchen and living room with light. The floors are almost done and the red oak we chose for the living room is amazing.

A flock of quails nests near the house and they were out enjoying the evening as I left and walked towards this house. Upon my approach they took flight, filling the air with the soft sound of their wings. There is a lovely french noun that describes this type of soft, gentle sounds (bruissement). Alas, I do not know of an equivalent in english. Although it is litterally like "sounding" it does not carry the brassiness of this word. When I remember to take my camera up there, I will snap a shot of the flock and add it to some post.