freaking out a bit

so everything's moving on at a jolly good pace, which is totally freaking me out!

i just went online & downloaded the school calendar for 2011-12 & realized that christopher's first day of school is august 15th & the kids start on august 22nd. our buyer wants to close on august 24th. that means that we need to move the weekend of august 13th at the latest! ideally, i'd like to move the weekend of august 6th so that we have 2 full weeks of sleeping in the new house before school starts so that the kids can start to get acclimated before we totally change their world again. and somewhere in there we'll have both kindergarten orientation and pre-k orientation.

but thankfully i have amazing kids. the other day, the kids and i painted their rooms. at the time i thought i was crazy for having them help with the painting, but it actually turned out really nicely. chris had found little rollers & paint trays for them, so they actually got to paint their own rooms. we had gone to home depot the day before and picked paint colors, which totally thrilled them, and they did an awesome job painting. so their rooms are done. barbara & chuck are supposed to come in this weekend to finish clearing out the house & then we'll be able to paint our room, the dining room & living room; rip out the carpet & have it replaced; buy a new refrigerator; and replace the bathroom sink. all in 3 weeks. the painting and carpeting NEED to be done before we move in. the existing carpet has been there since they bought the house in the 50's. seriously. it needs to go. every time barbara vacuums, she's vacuuming up the remnants of the padding through the carpet. i was really trying to convince christopher to go with the hardwood, but i had to be a gracious loser in that battle. oh well. i won the battle of the paint color for our bedroom, so :)

and i haven't even started packing what's left in the house. pretty much everything that we don't need is already in the new house or stored in the duplex. what's left is really just the bare necessities. i really think it's harder to move across town than across the country. it doesn't feel like you need to actually pack to move down the street. and we've been doing it so piecemeal that it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we need to get everything else ready to go. but i can't pack the toaster, cuz we still eat toast for breakfast. i guess i could pack my cardigans, sweatshirts & sweaters. i probably won't need those for a bit :) but the kids clothes are done. i actually need to get out what i packed away from the spring to see what we need for school. crap! another thing to add to my to do list :( and i wonder why i'm not sleeping & eating way too much chocolate :)

another day, another bath in paint thinner

so it has begun. we got an offer on our house, so we are officially moving. well, assuming that nothing goes wrong & we all know what happens when we assume...

but we are stepping out on faith, as my mother would say, that all will be well and the deal will go through. so we are busy getting the other house ready. it hadn't been painted in literally 50-60 years, although the bathroom was repainted by my husband about 3 years ago, and one bedroom had been re-painted in the 80's. so christopher & i spent the last 2.5 days scrubbing walls, chipping paint & primering with oil-based primer/sealer. the fun thing about oil-based paints vs latex paints is that oil-based CANNOT be removed with simple soap and water. hence my daily bath in paint thinner. oh joy! i can only imagine what my daily paint thinner facials have been doing to my skin :)

but i'm totally excited that we're finally moving forward! there's SO much work to be done before we can even think about moving stuff into the house. and most of the stuff that we don't need right now is already in storage at the duplex or the new house. thankfully, chris & i agree on most of the immediately necessary changes to the house. we've compromised on the carpeting, but now we need to agree on paint colors. that should be fun :)

as we were scrubbing the walls of what will be alexander's room with bleach, i was kicking myself for not taking pics so that i could do a before and after, but c'est la vie... by the time we're done working each day, i'm so tired all i really want to do is take a shower and sit on the couch with my hand down my pants a la ted bundy :) at least all of this work is just physically exhausting. by the time we move, i should have fabulous, ripped arms. whoo hoo! :)

I AM NOT A HOARDER! :)

it's rummage sale time again at my church. it's really my favorite time of year. i volunteer during the set-up week, since i can never work or go to the sale since i work. i've fallen into a routine with the ladies -- everyone has their section that they sort. my section contains sweaters, pants & skirts. it's really an awful section for me to work, cuz my weakness is sweaters & cardigans. i love them. and every rummage sale, i come home with an enormous pile of *new* sweaters. but every rummage sale, i go through my stuff & the kids' stuff and get rid of stuff. i really don't understand how i can get rid of so much twice a year, and still have so much stuff!

but this year is a little different. we're planning a move, and so christopher is all about getting our house ready to put on the market. since we're planning to live in the house while we're trying to sell it, it needs to be ready to show at any moment. and that means that we need to downsize the amount of junk we've got. that means *I* need to reduce the amount of junk i have. but as i'm going through my stuff, yeah, i've got a lot, but no where near as much as i thought i did.

there was a trunk in our under-porch storage area that i've had since i graduated from high school. i had it shipped over to the states from germany when i started college. it went into storage every summer in ithaca & has gone everywhere with me since. i really had no idea what was inside. but what i found really surprised me -- there was really nothing inside! lots and lots of moldy junk (since we had a water problem under the porch), but nothing of any real importance. i mean, i found a lot of sentimental crap, and i did find my passport (which expired in 1993), and pictures of my brother & sister from high school, and a fabulous letter to charlie peltz, orchestra conductor & sex maniac extraordinaire. :)

i'm a sucker for pictures. i found a photo album of pictures of me taken in a random park. really odd. i also found 2 composites from my fraternity in college. totally awesome, but i really don't remember some of the older girls in the fraternity. and the hair! my word! :) we thought everything was so important back then. and some of my fraternity sisters are still really good friends, even 20 years later :)

but most of the stuff that was in the trunk that i thought i absolutely had to keep got thrown out. letters from high school friends in texas about people that i don't remember. posters from shows i don't remember doing. really random stuff that i don't remember why i decided to keep it. it actually feels good to let go and stop allowing myself to be defined by the things i own. now, if only i could feel that way about my shoes.

i have an entire collection of heels on a special shoe rack in my bedroom that christopher built for me. they're all arranged by color. i have an entire row of red shoes and one of purple shoes. i'm searching for the green shoes i see in my head. i only have 1 pair of orange shoes, but they're flats, and i'd love to find a pair of pumpkin pumps. :) but i only wear them on sundays to church. i don't go anywhere any other day that wearing clickety-clickety heels would be appropriate. i definitely couldn't stand up in them all day at the salon. and i'd look weird wearing them to drop alexander off at pre-school. so why do i need so many pairs? it always seems that i wear the same ones all the time anyway. but i love to look at them. christopher tried to get me to keep them in the basement, but i need to be able to see them. on sunday mornings, sometimes i'll lie in bed and look at them while i try to decide what i'm wearing. OOH! i just bought a new pink silk cardigan at the rummage sale that i think would go with my pink slingbacks for church on sunday with a white shell & a black pencil skirt :) nice! i love it when inspiration just hits me :)