Looking for heaven, found the devil in me

It's been too long again, but that's the way life goes these days. I work, I sleep, I engage in capers both gratifying and soul sucking.  There are actually moments when I turn over control to someone else and (gasp!) relax. While I still Instagram the crap out of life, I've been reluctant to blog about all that's gone down, down, down because I was afraid you would....

1.  Think I've gone insane. (Not an unfair assessment.)
2. Offer me advice. (Please don't.)
3. Label me a bad mother. (Get in line behind my kids.)
4. Not believe me.
5. Believe me.

So here I am, toes wiggling at the precipice of another change. The best laid schemes of this here narcissist went out and fell in love with tried to get laid elsewhere and the resulting behavior of yours truly was so unpleasant that now, not only do I get to see what it feels like to be on the other side of the fidelity fence, I also get to move house again. Too precious, I know.

While I'm feeling karmically relieved by my own comeuppance, I'm huffy about moving again so soon. The recently acquired place never quite achieved home status.  Now it contains so much bad juju I'm fixing to flee it like it's haunted by the ghosts of a thousand bad decisions.

Thanks be that everything I own fits in a Toyota Corolla, I've been heard to say quite a bit lately. The other thing I've been saying a lot lately?  I'm sorry. I think Mathman would like for me to stop it already. The voicemails, texts and face to face apologies were enough. The sky-writing in French may have been a bit over the top.

So while I pack my things and adjust to another new place and routine, here's a list of things I intend to bore you with in the coming days? weeks? whatever. Why waste all this perfectly good sturm und drang by not writing about it? At least that's what I keep telling myself. If I can't find purpose in this mess, what then?

Anyway.....

1.  My discovery of hiking and what is wrong with you people, why did you never tell me about how much fun it is?
2.  The divorce diet vs. the break up diet
3.  Training for a non-existent 5k
4.  The Truth and other lies we tell ourselves
5. How I've blown it as an absentee parent
6. Giving up sugar. Less a lament than a confession.

Until next time,

L.

She Laughs As She Runs

My little grey cells are brimming over with things I want to blog about. And here I am still repeating "I have to get this video editing done" and fretting about a conference brochure that has to be in a draft form, ready for J's okay tomorrow.

Yesterday was filled with those little necessities in life like grocery shopping purchasing toilet paper. And then there were the kids' things that suck up a weekend, but good. Garbo's school chorus performed in the park down the road from us. It was so nice to get out and walk and just hang out for a little while, catching up with friends and eating (more) junk food.

Later, MathMan, The Dancer and I drove over to Gainesville to one of the schools being considered by The Dancer. We were there to attend a dance performance of original pieces choreographed by the school's seniors. I hope the additional visit helped The Dance with her decision because if she doesn't decide soon, she's going to see just what a control freak I really am.

For the record, MathMan has already decided for her. I'm still just playing the psychological game of having The Dancer think that this is her decision and hers alone. Maybe that's a Mom Thing?

The Actor has really taken to this new location. Not only does he have friends to hang out with, he's also discovered our local history museum. See, we've moved into a town that has preserved its old "downtown" or main commercial area. And by that, I mean, the old Commissaries built in 1860, the 1850 general store (still in operation), a 1900 blacksmith shop, the 1830s district courthouse, the calaboose (jail), and the grist mill ruins next to the community's crown jewel, the covered bridge. Beyond that, there's not much else. Oh, there is a fabulous barbecue place and a couple of churches, a nice park. I don't want to slight anyone.

The Actor, one of his friends and Garbo have been going to a small tributary creek that runs behind the history museum and into the larger Euharlee Creek. They're excavating pieces of a drag harrow that's buried in the creek bank. It's just the kind of thing I loved doing when I was a kid.

So that pretty much catches you up with the new place. Although I'm still concerned about how to redirect the birds from the old place to here, I'm happy to note that we've got a bunch of American Goldfinches, a nest of baby robins in one of our holly bushes, more mockingbirds than I care for and a fair amount of cardinals filling the trees around the New Golden Manor.

We've also got new birds that bring out my bird watching tendencies. We've had visits from eastern towhees (who have a funny habit of hopping from one branch to the next as the travel up a tree) and cedar waxwings, whom I just adore with their taupe bodies and masks of mysterious black.
Now I'm trying to learn their calls. The other evening, right before dusk, I was in our bedroom which faces the back yard, and the window were open. I could here all kinds of songs and non-computer-related tweets and twitters and calls. I looked out and realized that another good name for this location would be Tall Pines. When the developers built this subdivision, they did a good job of leaving a lot of the natural growth and existing trees. We have a stand of tall pines right behind us and they are just alive with bird sounds. It's amazing.

Oh, speaking of songs, at last night's performance, I heard music by the Vitamin String Quartet for the first time. (Well, The Dancer tells me that she did a piece to some of their music a couple of years ago, but whatever). I don't know if I've ever shared with you my love of the violin, but when I heard this music, I was blown away. They take popular music and adapt it for the Quartet. For example:

Old classics like Led Zepplin's Stairway to Heaven, AC/DC's Back in Black, and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Newer classics like Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and R.E.M.'s Shiny Happy People. The Smith's There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. Other newish music like Foo Fighter's Everlong, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Snow (Hey oh), Muse's Supermassive Black Hole, and 3 Doors Down Here Without You.

Their complete library is here. Call me dork, but I love this. Love it.

I have a prize for the first person who emails me at lisahgolden at blogspot dot com and tells me what the title of this post means. No answers in comments, please. Understand though, if you win and the prize arrives and demands food, directions to the nearest XBox360 and grumbles that it didn't think "Mom would really follow through on her threat," I'm absolved of all resopnsibility. You win it, you keep it.

Okay - now I have to get that conference brochure done or I'm going to be up all night. Ah, who am I kidding? I'm going to be up all night anyway......

Blog Against Theocracy: Leaving it all behind

So you've heard how people who are being foreclosed upon trash their houses?

Not us. I understand the anger that people feel when they must leave their homes, but why do damage? How can that possibly make you feel better?

As we finish closing up our house to turn the keys over to Citibank, I'm vacillating between an odd melancholy and a sense of relief. I can assure you, though, that it has not occurred to me to damage the house.

Perhaps the fluorescent light bulbs have disappeared. And the good shower heads. And some of the heavy-duty dowel rods from the closets. But these are all things we purchased on my credit card and will continue to pay for as part of our Chapter 13 bankruptcy settlement. I figure that as long as that chunk of money for creditors is subtracted from my paycheck, then I'll be damned if I'm going to leave those things behind.


It's really as much what you don't do as what you do, I think, when it comes to leaving a house. Luckily, we've been able to take our time. The Sheriff didn't knock on our door and demand that we leave. I'm glad for that.

However, knowing that we were leaving, things like simple repairs didn't get done. Why bother? Screens are damaged and go unreplaced. The Actor and Garbo cracked a window in her bedroom a while back and we didn't fix that. We never finished the painting job we started in 2007 when our lives derailed and today I peeled some blue painters' tape from a door jamb, chuckling to myself about how many times I'd said "we really need to finish those touch ups and be done with this."


As I walked through the house this afternoon, I listened to the echoes of my footsteps, playing off the walls. And what was that? The wild footfalls of the kids running down the hallway, the sound of a cat mewling behind an accidentally closed closet door, the crackling of bacon frying on a Sunday morning, a hushed laugh in the master bedroom, the faint racket of the washing machine winding down its cycle in the basement.

I stood for a moment in the master bathroom and stared out the window at the cedar tree that stands alone in the back yard. As odd as it seems now, this was the room where I experienced my most intense emotions. It was where I hid to cry, where I mulled things over as I got ready for my day, where my eyes met the eyes of my beloved in the mirror as we shared that space.

I snapped a picture and then moved on. The neglected garden waited for me. I joined MathMan in the back yard, sorting out the hardscaping and emptying pots of soil into the tangle of weeds that would have been, in other years, a dark patch of earth with new growth already poking through. I plucked the low iron fencing from the edge of the herb bed and considered which plants to dig up and bring with us to the new place.

There won't be too many more trips to the old house now to tidy up. All that remains is a second hand weight bench, some pots from the back yard, an odd box of bunting that needs to go back to The Dancer's high school, and some cleaning supplies.


I did leave one thing behind. I couldn't help myself. Of course we'd left our marks all over the house. The color of paint on the walls, the type of flooring. The dings and scratches on the walls where pictures once hung.

That just wasn't enough for me, though. I wanted to leave a message. In the master closet, I'd done my handiwork.


All the way up and down the closet. Keep Church and State Separate. It's my little way of participating in The Blog Against Theocracy and spreading the word.

The Ongoing Saga of Golden Manor - At least the knick knacks are all perfectly lined up on the mantel

And so the settling in to the new home continues. We're up, we're down. We're stabbing things with carving knives. You could say it's a smorgasbord of laughs, or an unidentifiable pain in your eye. Either way - we definitely packed The Crazy into the one of those big boxes and brought it with us.

Okay - so it's not horrible. I can rattle off a list of pros and cons with the old house versus the new house pretty easily. May I start with DSL? What a beautiful thing it is, too. We've been so long in the wilderness, that I forget that I can now upload photos to flickr, delight in all sorts of jackassery on You Tube, indulge in a few "after hours" of private video, download itunes updates and still not blow the bandwidth. It's like seeing light for the first time or something.

And there's the crown molding, the chair rail in the office, the dogwood trees blooming in the front and back yards! And don't forget the Love Tub. Which warrants its own damn post. If ever we get some bubble bath. Although, MathMan nixed my idea to live blog from the tub with webcam.......

MathMan and The Spawn are on spring break. I made the mistake of working from home yesterday. While I attempted to do summary of some new FTC rules that I have to distribute to the organization's members, the madness went on around me like a maelstrom. Let us review:

(1) The Dancer learned that she wouldn't receive a much hoped for scholarship from the University she really, really, really wants to attend. I am not so hard hearted that I can't understand the resulting tears, but the gloom that descended upon my darling girl did not dissipate the whole day. By 9:30 p.m., I had announced that if anyone sat down in the chair opposite from me and dare to do anything other than smile and giggle, I would commit some horrendous act of violence.

I am now in the process of writing a groveling email, asking the University's admissions office if they can see any way around the out of state fees. After all, MathMan and I are alumni of said University and we still have plenty of relatives - like my parents and siblings - living in that particular state. (Thank you in advance to those who will suggest that The Dancer take a year off, live in that state and work and then go to school. It's been discussed. We fear that if she does that, she'll lose the other scholarship money she's been offered.) She does have other options. I'm simply indulging her desire that we exhaust all possible methods before chucking the idea of attending that school. It's all I can do since MathMan and I have not saved the money necessary to allow her to go to school anywhere she damn well pleases.

(2) Garbo has decided that she wants to move back to the old house. I don't know what else to say about this except "change is hard." She tosses out barbed statements about the new place. She cries bitter tears of sadness. She threatens to run away "back home." I try to comfort her while firmly reassuring her that this will eventually feel like "home." But this is a kid who refused to rearrange her room back at the old place. Change? Let's just say we'll have her talk to her therapist about it. In the meantime, I've offered my lap, hugs, to check out a book about moving from the library and a trip back to the other house, now standing empty and full of echoes of our time there. Nothing will solve this. And she can't have her way.

My sympathies for both girls will be short-lived, I fear. At some point, soon, I will be telling The Dancer to buck up and carry on with one of her many other options. I'll be offering to pack Garbo's suitcase. As their mother, I see my role to offer comfort, yes, but I will not lie to them. The whole "life's not fair" thing is a painful thing to learn.

(3) Humming to myself because my work day was done, I opened the drawer that holds our kitchen utensils. My nonchalance came to an abrupt halt as I spotted something skittering around and screamed. I grabbed a carving knife and started waving it around, thinking I would stab whatever it was running about in the drawer. I actually thought it was a little mouse.

Upon further examination, and with two alarmed Spawn peering over my shoulder, I poked around in the drawer with the end of the knife blade. Discovering that the massive creature inhabiting the drawer was a roach, I did the only thing I could do besides faint. I uttered the magic words...."get Daddy."

(4) Because tears, madness, and a cockroach the size of a chihuahua aren't enough, we also learned that the lovely patch of winter rye growing at the far end of our new back yard is a restoration project being managed by our neighbor. A very nice man in a corporate logo shirt brought a nicely typed letter in an envelope with a stamp* on it to the door and explained that there was an ash escape a few months ago and they were finishing up the restoration after clean up.

Huh. Well, then I guess we won't be planting vegetables in that raised bed right next to where that ash went sluicing down the little creek bed behind the house......

Always looking at the bright side, I am. I mentioned to MathMan that perhaps we could solve all our problems at once. We could abandon the new, arsenic contaminated place, move in with my parents, send The Dancer to that school she wants to go to and tell Garbo that she may be losing her old home, but she's gaining grandparents and wouldn't that be nice for a change!

MathMan looked at me as if he were glad I'd put down that carving knife.

Later it occurred to me that when The Actor appears to be the most sane person in our household, we're lurching about on some pretty shaky ground. Oh, sure, we'll get through it. Compared to many, we have precious little to whine about, but the challenges of the last week and the ones that lay before us have me feeling a tad anxious.

I know we're all feeling it and we'll each process the anxiety in our own way. Some of us mope, others cling, still others yell and behave manically. There will be tears, flattening of tires, food fights, short-sheeting of beds, defiant stares, hidden television remotes, ignored orders, accelerated consumption of sweets, threats, excessive fluffing of throw pillows and more than our share of slammed doors.

For my part, I've noticed my OCD kicking back up again. You want to set off a neat freak? Move her. Oh, yes, that's the trick.

Just today, as I stood at the copier in my office, waiting for it to warm up, I noticed that a couple of adding machines, abandonded to the bottom storage shelf were quite dusty. I took off my shoe and dusted the display of an adding machine with my stocking-clad toe. Then I saw the crooked stack envelope boxes, the slightly off center painting of the Georgia State Capitol, the not quite lined up logo on the water cooler, the flecks of dust on the copier display.......

*Note to self - pry off that uncancelled stamp

Blah, Blah, Blah, Pretty Much There

Well - just don't look at the garage. We still have some intense reorganizing to do before we can park two cars in there, but I'm confident that we can manage it. Look - I admit it: After ten plus years of schlepping babies, diaper bags, briefcases, class projects, sack lunches, toddlers stuffed into snowsuits and groceries to and from a car parked at the curb in our old Illinois neighborhood, I will not have a garage so stuffed with things that one can't properly park a car in it. That simply will not do.

So we carry on....we are mostly done moving our household. Holy cats, what a process. The packing, the culling, the unpacking, the stabbing comments, the climbing up and down stepladders, the sleepwalking, the confusion when you say the word "home," the hiding for a few moments of peace, the laundry back up, the lack of sleep, repetition of phrases like "Where did I put the....," the dance breaks with and without jazz hands, the shouted threats and muttered oaths, the disappearing wires, screwdrivers and toilet paper and the constant need for someone to announce their current state of being - tired, bored, hungry, horny, weepy, exhausted, sad, hot, cold, achy, gassy, wheezy, overwhelmed and over it. (And that just covers my announcements. You should've heard what issued from MathMan and The Spawn.)

Let's get on with it, shall we? We're nearly done. Nearly done. Nearly done. Like Dorothy clicking her heels three times, I'm hoping that repeating it three times will make it true.

Following is some photographic evidence of our nearly doneness.

Garbo is learning about the pleasure and pain of neighborhood living. She's already been shoved down and scraped up her knees when a friend of the little boy across the street got the better of her in a fight. In retaliation, she's formed an all girl street gang dubbed the Covered Bridge Springs Tarts. I wouldn't mess with them. They fueled on Freezer Pops and Dum Dum suckers.

The laundry room might be my favorite room in the house. It's like the panic room, I swear. I can be in there for a long, long time before anyone finds me.
And, yes, those hangers have been sorted by color. What of it?

XBox Central. It reeks of Axe, Doritos and root beer burps.
Caution: Extremely high testosterone levels may be combustible and
make you misspell words like martyred.

Blogging Operations are nearly complete. Thank goodness.
Not having online access is akin to _____________________.

The Dancer enjoys practicing her sloth on the same sofa in a different living room.

When discussing whether or not to hang the Chinese market silk thing over the toilet again, MathMan announced that he likes looking for the dragons while he pees. That explains a lot.

I give the framed picture on the counter two weeks tops before it's lying shattered on the floor.

P.S. My mother would call my style of decorating "overdoing it."
At least I never decorated in that late 80s "country" style rife with powder blue geese
and mauve pineapples, so there.

We're down to a couple of unpacked boxes of books and the moving around of a desk or two.
And, of course, we need to find a place for the junk drawer. We don't have a junk drawer yet.
It's not a home until there is a junk drawer. That's a rule, right?

I've decided that it's high time The Spawn learn geography.
Now if I can just get them to shower.......

Whenever we move, this is a common MathMan activity.
I think he does this on purpose so he doesn't have to put away spice jars.

I finally stopped shrieking about how much I hate organizing the kitchen around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. MathMan got involved and things went much faster with two sets of hands.
Now we just need to deal with the ants that have come in through the window over the sink.
Demonstrating once again, it's always something.
P.S. WTF, cabinet installers? Why install cabinets to open in the same direction?
Clearly you've not spent much time in the kitchen, if you think this is efficient.

And finally, when things have settle down, we're treated

to a little something new by MathMan who found a harmonica randomly tossed into some box.

Le fin.......thank goodness.

Please Leave a Message at the Tone

Hi, this is Lisa. I'm not here right now. Can you guess which item might be keeping me from blogging? I am:

(1) Standing on a kitchen chair, clutching a couple of spice jars in my sweaty hands, screaming at the top of my lungs that I hate, hate, hate, unpacking the kitchen stuff.

(2) Lolling about in the Love Tub, drinking champagne from some decorative glass something or other I haven't found home for yet and wearing a beard made of bubbles.

(3) Hiding in an undisclosed location (read: bathroom), sending SOS text messages on my Twitter and Facebook, hoping to rescued from the mess of moving.

(4) Crying big, fat tears because I miss having time to be online, reading and commenting and being a pesty pest.

Anyway, there is still stuff to unpack, porn to hide, goblets to break, the dungeon to set up, Spawn to ignore, and MathMan to annoy. I better get going....

There will be pictures, and possibly video later of the progress we're making or not making. Either way, you'll be riveted by the horror of it all, I assure you.

Speaking of horror - please remember to Vote for Nora in the Fangoria Spooksmodel contest. She's in the finals! Let's help her win! Read Bubs' instructions here and follow his link. This time voting requires a quick email confirmation so the vote registers. Bubs explains it.

That is all. For now.

Satan on My Tail

Life seems a bit surreal right now. We've got the whole blog-worn subject of moving. Enough said? Ha! I'm like my mother who used to yell at Darling Sis and me. She'd say a piece and then stomp back down the hallway to go fume. A little while later, we'd hear the heavy footsteps of her anger, our bedroom door would fling open and in would come The Big R again with more, more, more.

We were most imperfect children who richly deserved our mother's harsh words. But crimony, could she not have delivered them all at once.

And so here I am again talking about moving. Ho la la la hum, right? Right.

We're getting there, People of the Internets. There have been no shouting matches. There has been little bloodshed, no broken bones, minimum hurt feelings, no thrown telephones, Hershey's Syrup cans or broken dishes. Oh - no, I lie. I did break one of our beautiful crystal goblets. We received the pair for a wedding gift. I refuse to address the symbolism of that right now.

Compared to other times in our marriage, we're getting along superbly. Seriously. If we had a little spare time right now, we'd be like those middle-aged couples in Cialis commercials swinging footloose and fancy free down a wooded path in our light colored khakis, polo shirts and deck shoes or curled up lovingly in a hammock, gazing deeply into each others eyes.

Seriously, stop laughing. It's unbecoming. And that snorting? Just stop.

Okay - at least it's not like the time our marriage was breaking down and we did what all disintegrating couples do. We painted our house - together!!!! The living room was this dandy deep rose color (I had illusions of making our little tract house appear to be a Victorian on a tree-lined street). We were painting over the dark rose with a flat cream. During all of this, we were having some pretty heavy discussions as our wedded bliss was long gone and our future seemed rather in peril.

At one point, MathMan said "Hey, Lisa," and I looked up at where he stood. The words "FUCK YOU" stood out in bright white relief against the dark rose wall. Yeah. And I'm sure I deserved it. Later, after having left the room for one thing or another, MathMan returned to find the words "KISS MY ASS" painted on the wall opposing his message to me. I can assure you he deserved it.

And so we merrily trip along, unpacking, rearranging, talking about making lists of things we need to do, things we need to find, one or two simple items we'd like to purchase to finish this set up or that and never quite getting to writing those lists down. But we're making progress. Thank goodness because we're not painting and it would slow us down tremendously if we were to break out into a heated battling of dueling, angry text messages. Besides, we can do that from our cars and workplaces anytime.

Regarding the surreal mention up there, I've been so out of my element the last couple of weeks, being sick and then packing and moving that I am clearly not in any sort of routine. No matter, really, I suppose, since everything would have to be adjusted anyway. Still, I've been discombobulated, quietly crazed and slightly off kilter. I know some of you are wondering how I could tell a difference considering I'm often skidding around all askew and without a compass. And those are my good days.

Well, let me tell you - see that picture of the truck at the top of the post? I snapped that photo on my way to work on Wednesday. As I flew along, and I was going really fast because I was late, this guy came bearing down on me. I shook my head to clear it because I thought I was seeing things. I blinked and looked again. Nope, that really was a horned semi coming at me.

He got closer and I saw that this guy really did fancy himself somewhat devilish. The truck was red. Then I noticed that he had flames painted around his windshield. I snapped my pictures and this caused me to slow down a bit. He got closer and I wished that he would pass me so I could bet a better look, but when he was right up on my bumper, our eyes met as I glanced in my sideview mirror.

The hell, literally, with more pictures or gaping. I floored it. Seriously, People of the Internets, the guys eyes glowed.........

Priorities

What will eventually be blogging ops....

So have I mentioned that we're moving?

Yesterday the moooooovers came and carried most of our big, heavy stuff to the new place. They were a touch late so the day went longer than we anticipated, but no one's head exploded, nothing got broken and MathMan and I didn't kill ourselves lugging big pieces of furniture and appliances up and down stairs. We saved killing ourselves, and possibly each other for the unpacking phase of this life project.

Anyway, the moving crew were really nice and didn't even get upset when I hollered "Hey, be careful with our Bondage Gear, willya?"

There was some concern about the missing piece of our bed's footboard (movers don't want to be accused of damage they didn't do). In response, I grossed them out thoroughly by telling them it was damaged during a particularly wild night of sex. Funny, they stopped yapping and moved faster when I asked "Wanna see the video?"


So here's the part where I tell you I wish I were Samantha Stevens. I'd get Darren drunk, blow him for good measure and then twitch my little upturned nose and have all this crap unpacked and put away right fast.

Sadly, I'm more bitch than witch and so the process continues. We're almost done with blah blah moving blah, blah. Next I'll be all blah, blah unpacking, blah, blah......oh am I sick of this subject already!


Nevertheless, priorities are being managed. When The Actor asked if we had thought to pack and bring over the food yet, I believe I pointed in the general direction of the office/dining room and yawned "I think there are some PopTarts in a box over there somewhere." The nerve of the kid to think we should have considered food. Selfish prat.

No matter - the sofa may be in the kitchen and there's a good portion of stuff still in the garage, but the important things are all set.....

As they say on MTV's Cribs. This is where the magic happens.
Just don't ask to see MathMan's wand. That would be too personal.
And I'm all about the boundaries, aren't I?

All the Clever Things I Should Say to You Got Stuck Somewhere

And so I'm punishing you with this YES, WE'RE STILL IN THE PROCESS OF MOVING place holder. Go on, click this link, you masochists. You know you like it when I punish you.

Take me home........no, really, take me home. Because I'm ready to be home. Pick a house, any house. Let's just be done with it already! Actually, look at our new neighbor. No, it's not a nuclear plant, it's coal fired! Bonus! Let's just hope that the coal ash pits are secure because guess who's going to be living in the back yard of this beast?

Cough, cough.

Because I like you so much better when you're naked, that's why!

This Post Approved by Cow Number 22

Cow number 22 is wondering why I keep driving back and forth, back and forth.......

I am about to break the land speed record for most boring blog post ever. Don't brace yourself. In fact, why don't you do me a grand favor, get naked, slather yourself with some canola oil (it's better for your heart), put on some loud music, open your window coverings (blinds, curtains, whatever) and prance around in a trance of utter bliss for about ten minutes. Then when you wish you had the moments you just spent reading this post back, you can at least thank me for making you (1) more soft and supple from all that oil; (2) burn some calories with the prancing; and (3) the talk of the neighborhood.

Okay - here's the long and short of it. I still hope you're not bracing yourself. And put down that oil. You're going to slide off your chair if you're not careful.

Pack, pack, pack. Move, move, move. Unpack, unpack, unpack.

It's so exciting, I'm almost embarrassed to share it with you because I don't want you to feel too badly about your own situation.

Here are the things we've discovered during this move:

(1) Four inside cats dispel a lot of hair (this part isn't really a discovery) and when the main vacuum er kinda sorta gives up on her outlandish fantasy of domestic perfection (that happened right around the time Martha Stewart was sent to prison for insider trading - my domestic bubble burst like so many tiny real estate markets), lots of cat hair accumulates in hard to reach places. Ish, blech, retch. It's enough to choke a bear. Seriously, we could make a new litter of full grown cats from the nasty cast-off fur.

(2) My plan to put away most knick-knacks was a good one from the "I'm over dusting" standpoint. Where I relented and knick-knacks remained range free, but undusted by those who claim to need them in their lives (read: The Spawn), the dust of ages made me sneeze and squeeze. Having to do the sneeze and squeeze makes me a tiny bit peevish.

(3) We have too much stuff. We're Americans - I suppose that goes without saying. Clearing out the clutter feels so good. It's hard to distinguish between what you want to keep because it has a purpose and what you want to keep for sentimental reasons. I've pitched things that made my heart wince a little, but I know a week from now I will NOT be wondering where that thingy is. I know this. Still, the wincing.

(4) We're going to be those people who use their china everyday. Mind you, we don't have everyday china and good china. We have china. It's a bit dated - screaming the era that we got married, but it's quite pretty, quite sturdy, a full set and what the hell good is it sitting in a box? We used to use it for every day. We're going back to that.

Why keep it for special occasions. We're going to let every day be a special occasion dammit, and if that plan doesn't work, well, busting up our wedding china in a dramatic display of smashing dishes in a fit of pique or tossing them into the fireplace to celebrate something seems a lot more interesting than ripping a paper plate in half or crumpling a Styrofoam cup*.

Besides, all the casual stuff we have is chipped all to hell and I'm sick of nicking my fingers on the dings and chips.

So that's it for now. The big stuff gets moved on Tuesday. We'll have the t.v. and phone people coming out to do installs, as well. Fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly because, of course, we now have word that there are two REALLY IMPORTANT kid events on Tuesday evening that we must attend or be expelled from parenthood. You know I lie - we could never be so lucky as to be expelled from parenthood.

Oh - one more thing - The Actor can carry much heavier things at the age of thirteen than he could when we moved into this house in 2003 when he was seven. The end result is that he can help MathMan heft the really heavy stuff so that I don't have to do the lift and squeeze in addition to the sneeze and squeeze.

And that, my friends, People of the Internets, is worth all the china from, well, China. Because ours certainly isn't from anywhere that would regulate the amount of chemical byproducts and lead, you know. I mean - how do you think I got this way?

P.S. Go wash off that oil now before you get it on something.

* We limit our use of paper plates and Styrofoam for environmental reasons. I simply used the examples of paper and Styrofoam because it seemed funnier than saying chain-sawing melamine plates and melting plastic cups.

He Is a Traveling Man

As the great migration from the current Golden Manor to the NEW AND IMPROVED Golden Manor over in Badgers Drift continues, I may find myself writing posts that consist of blah, blah, blah, packing; blah, blah, blah, moving; blah, blah, blah I have a cold and am sick of feasting on post nasal drip.......

But before we descend into the depths of me blogging about the contents of the boxes that I've packed in an utterly willy-nilly fashion (the way I'm packing things, you'd think we're fleeing an advancing horde of hungry teens or something) - I want to tell you about Saturday evening.

MathMan, Garbo and I got to meet Traveling Man Rick who was visiting Atlanta this weekend. Oh my word, I was so excited to meet him and I was fretting that I wouldn't be able to pull it off because The Dancer had prom, we're packing to move, Garbo is difficult (I know, this is not news), The Actor had a birthday party to attend, blah, blah, blah busy.

But Rick - an amazingly warm, witty and wonderful guy - drove all the way up to our little slice of Georgia heaven (read: way outside of Atlanta) to meet us at the local Starbucks. We hung out and talked about all sorts of things and I marveled once again at how you really can feel like you know someone after reading their blog for a while.

Rick is fabulous on his blog. He's even better in person.

Rick - thank you for coming so far out of your way to spend time with us. It was such a delightful time, the highlight of a busy weekend.

And when bloggers meet, there must be pix, right? So here we are....

Photo taken by Garbo.