April 24, 2011

Move day is Tuesday so we are very busy packing, making daily trips to the house to check out how the final things are coming together, trying to keep the rental house somewhat in order because they are showing it and trying to keep up with our day-to-day regular tasks, such as fixing meals and doing laundry. I can't wait until this is over.

When I am here at the rental house I feel overwhelmed, disorganized and stressed. When I am at the new house I usually feel very calm and happy. It really is a wonderful, calming place. It is very quiet and serene and has the sounds of country living (minus the cows and chickens and such).

The new house has come together quite nicely. I was a bit skeptical they could finish everything in time. It is a good thing we decided to move on Tuesday instead of Monday because it would not have been quite finished. They still have a few final details to take care of on Monday and we still have to do a walk through with them. The final inspection is also scheduled for Monday, although at this point I think it is pretty much a formality.

Last weekend the people who do the clean up started cleaning. They did all of the windows, removing all of the stickers and cleaning them so nicely. They really look great. They were there off and on throughout the week and they were there again on Saturday.

There is a water leak in the yard just in front of the house that they are working to repair. The yard is currently all dirt... actually, it is now all mud - at least what is left of it, as it has been raining here non stop for quite a while now. We were having one of the worst droughts in many years here and then the rains and severe thunderstorms started and now it seems it will never stop. We are to receive over 4 inches of rain in a few days, from last I heard on the weather channel. I checked today and they are showing cloudy but no rain for Tuesday so I am hoping they are right and we have a good day for moving.

The irrigation guy is suppose to start work at the new house on Wednesday but I'm sure that depends on what the weather brings. I am hoping he can because the sooner he is finished, the sooner we will have grass. Until then, all along the bottom of the new house, the rock/brick will stay covered with splashed up mud and dirt. Actually though, the bigger issue is that the boys have no where to play until the grass goes in. They enjoy riding their scooters on the driveway and sidewalk but that does not last very long.

Today I thought Ben was starting to waver on wanting his own bedroom. He was talking about how they would not be able to have pillow fights if they had separate rooms. Nick just thought of reasons they could still do it and seemed to still want his own room. I asked Nick if he thought he would be OK sleeping by himself in his own room and he thought he would. We'll see. I am not convinced. He frequently will not go into a dark room by himself and does not want to be alone in a room away from everyone else.

What else is going on in our lives? This house thing is so all consuming. We have not had any reading lessons in a long time. The funny thing is that the boys are reading everything these days, especially Nick. I can hear them both reading to the dad right now. They are upstairs, reading stories before bed. More and more they want to read them to us. Today during quiet time Nick was reading some of the readers we use for our reading lessons so Ben started reading some too. Ben tends to do it in response to Nick doing it. Nick seems to do it because he really enjoys reading and books. Ben likes and enjoys books too but he stays very busy in pretend land most of the time. Pretend land these days includes a lot of Batman, Robin, the Joker and the Penguin, Peter Pan and anything to do with castles, tree houses, jails and hand cuffs and dressing up as a police man or a pirate. Those are the most popular things lately. We are once again listening to Peter Pan in the car so he is on the radar again.

The boys are still in soccer and swimming once a week and violin lessons, although we will miss violin on Tuesday and they have not practiced in a couple of weeks. I think, after the upcoming week, we will all be looking forward to getting back into a nice groove, having a bit more structure in our lives and having more of a routine. We will start our daily violin practice again and we will also start regular reading lessons again. Sometime this summer, after things settle down again, we will start doing a bit more school, at least three days a week or so.

It has been a long day and time for me to turn in. Hope you all had a Happy Easter.