December 11, 2006

Hey all,
I've been absent a long time, sorry.
I've been insanely busy, plus my hard drive crashed on my old computer. Ben bought me a new laptop for an early Christmas present, so I'm back online which is nice.
I'm in full-speed-ahead mode in this moving business. A week from Thursday is when we leave. I am all packed up and all our stuff has already been shipped out. We basically just have clothes and furniture here. We're leaving most of our furniture in the house during the showing/selling process, but all our other stuff is packed up and gone. It's pretty boring for the boys!
I'm in the middle of some big projects, the most pressing of which is putting down new tile in 2 bathrooms (downstairs guest bathroom and upstairs master bathroom). I've got most of the tile laid, I still have about half a day's work to finish up the master bathroom, but then I still have all the grouting and caulking to do. Plus have to trim down 2 doors from the master bath, and then reassemble the whole pocket-door/trim assembly that I had to take apart to get that door out to be trimmed. I'm pretty exhausted, but I'm fairly optimistic everything will get done in time.
Ben is gone already-- he started his new job a week ago. So far I think it is going well for him, although he says it is cold and he's having some trouble finding a rental in the area of town we want to live in. He's staying with our friends in Austin until he can find a place-- hopefully before the boys and I show up!
The boys are doing just fine. They miss Ben and there have been some minor behavior issues probably due to the fact that they have no books or toys here and they are bored and also probably a bit anxious about everything that is going on. But all in all they are being good boys.
Brigham and Joseph were both chosen to be star students in their classes this week, which was really nice, but also a bit complicated for me since I was supposed to come up with a bunch of pictures and stuff for the star student bulletin board-- and all my stuff is already packed up and gone and my hard drive is dead, so I had no access to anything! But i managed to scrounge around and found what I needed. Just took a lot longer than I anticipated. Joseph also was selected as a "Kid of Character" for the school for the month (one child in each grade) which he was very proud about. I am proud of him too. I had to reassure Brigham that he and Joseph are still "even" since Joseph has had to move his Bear once and Brigham has never had to move his Monkey. Ahh, the complications of twin rivalry.
Mosey is getting more grown up every day. Last night as I was trying to get him to go to sleep he was "singing" to himself. So cute to hear the things he was singing about "and I love my moooommmmyyy and my daaaaddyyyy, and miiiissssterrrr and aaangeellll." Today he heard a "Chia pet" commercial on the radio and so he's been singing "cha-cha-cha-chia!" to me all day long. He's been a big "helper" for me, pouring the water when I'm mixing up mortar for the tile, following me up and down the stairs to get more tile or to cut tiles, and he's always good for a hug and a kiss.
I'm really looking forward to having this move behind us. It is so grueling in every way imaginable. Every day I wake up and basically have to work as hard as I can until bedtime. I'm glad my body has held up this far, I just need a few more days! I have actually lost some sight in my right eye which is worrying, but so far seems stable. That's a fairly common MS symptom and should be only temporary, but I need it not to get worse as I have to drive from Florida to Texas in about 10 days from now! So even though I've been working myself pretty hard during the day, I've been trying to be reasonable about bedtime for myself. Which also explains why I haven't been emailing even though I've had this computer for about a week. I'm also not sure I really want to document this time because I just hate moving so much. Why remind myself of it later on?!
All right, that's it for tonight. I hope everyone else is having more fun than I am this Christmas season!!