Summertime is a time of simple, easy pleasures:

Fans. Is there anything more relaxing than the sensation of a fan blowing on you at night? Bliss!

Ice. When it’s 95 outside, 90% humidity, a glass full of crushed ice, or a Sno-Cone is a wonderful,wonderful thing.

Kiddie Pools. Put the lawn chair in the middle of a recently filled kiddie pool. Sit in it with a fistful of Sno-Cone in one hand and a running hose in the other. Squirt the inadequately clothed child while eating the Sno-cone.

Popsicles. Read description on ice.

Puppy snuggles. Right now I am sitting in my chair with a large-ish goofy dachshund on one side, and a smallish tightly wound dachshund on the other, each snuggled close and emitting intermittent groans or sighs.

A back-to-back soap opera afternoon. With chocolate and puppies. Very nice.

Being able to reach out with your foot at 2am and touch the leg of someone Large and Hairy. ok. I know that doesn’t necessarily sound like a pleasure to everyone, but it is to me.

Speaking of beds-crisp white cotton sheets. Especially if they were dried on a line.

Mint. I always grow mint. It’s perfect in tea, or vodka, or rum, or tabbouleh. Eat a bit of fresh mint then suck on a chunk of ice.

Cold showers. Especially after getting hot and sweaty outside.

Iced Tea. with mint. Sweet. Even better if you’re sitting in a kiddie pool.

Dinner with friends… even if it’s hotdogs and canned cokes. Good company makes good food.

Free perfume samples. I will not commit to $75+ for a scent that might make my family break out in a rash.

A $7 box of hair dye that makes you look like a Real Blonde.

Shaving your legs. Ok, so that won’t appeal to everyone either, but a pair of freshly shorn legs makes me feel 10 years younger and 30 pounds slinkier.

MMM. Now that my legs are shaved, and I’ve eaten a simple meal with someone I like, and I ran through the sprinkler after getting sweaty in the yard, I thinkI’ll go to Dillards and scrounge some perfume samples and color my hair. Sweet Daddio comes home tomorrow so I’ll be able to foot-troll for his leg in the middle of the night. Ahhh..

Ok…everything you do, intentional or not, has repercussions. Sometimes they are internal, affecting only yourself, and sometimes they are global, causing entire races, tribes or species to be wiped out. Right now, today, I am thinking more of the internal reaction.

Several days ago I went a very long time without sleep. This is a bad thing to happen to a manic depressive such as myself, as sleep is to a manic depressive what insulin is to a diabetic I’m not exaggerating. My psychiatrist said if I go 3 days without sleep he’s putting me in the hospital. Fortunately for me and the convenience of my family, I didn’t go an entire 3 days with absolutely no sleep, which is how I choose to interpret his statement. I had about 4 hours sleep those 3 days. Anyway…repercussions. I know from long experience that lack of sleep makes me weird. Weirder than normal. I also know it takes about 2 days for the weird to kick in, even if normal sleep patterns are restored through chemical means. Well, it’s been 2 days, and the weird is kicking in. Hopefully I can make it go away before Sweet Daddio gets home and we go to his parents’ for the long holiday weekend. I’m trying, honey. I am grateful to your parents more than you can know that they took #’s 3 and 4 today.

Here’s how the weird manifests:
-A grossly exaggerated startle reflex. If you come up behind me and say BOO I am as likely to bash your head with a nail studded baseball bat as I am to run screaming from the room.
-My hands shake. I can barely get the key in the ignition or pour the Jack Daniels in the coke.
- I am hungry but lack the attention span to eat anything substantive. Lunch was a Tropicana Twister Strawberry Lemonade and a small bag of Chex Mix while hurtling down I-65 at 80mph. Supper is Hebrew National hotdogs because I saw an ad for them and They Looked Good. Something about the whole ‘Higher Authority’ concept appeals to me, like I’m not ultimately responsible for the meal.
-There is an assortment of aches and pains, mostly joint related, best relieved by tension diffusing remedies like xanax or adult beverages. Jack and Coke, Gin and Lemonade except that I lack the attention span to make the lemonade.
-paranoia. Earlier this afternoon I was overwhelmed with the perception that I had royally screwed something up, something that would jepordize the purchase of the house and our move. I went over all the papers and could not relieve my fears, so I called my handy mortgage officer and whined to him about my fears, and he very kindly made several phone calls and reassured me that all was well. In another event, one of my dogs started staring into space and barking, convincing me that our house is haunted and we would never be able to sell it. Calmer head prevailed, as I realized she was barking at #2’s hat. SD: guess which dog OF YOURS it was barking like a silly inbred twit. Sweet dog that she is, she is a 20 watt bulb.

Lest you accuse me of being inconsistant, I am writing this after the administration of xanax and Jack and Coke. 30 minutes ago I couldn’t sit in a chair and wait for the computer to warm up, let alone type a string of (alledgedly) coherent sentences. Tonight will involve the welcome administration of sleep-inducing chemicals and possibly the turning-off of phones. I’ll leave on the cell phone because SD is the only person who ever calls me and he doesn’t ever call for No Good Reason.

Today was, for the most part, fairly typical. Scrubbing floors, doing laundry, blah blah blah. They want to show the house at 1, RIGHT when my favorite Soap is on. This is getting annoying, but we deal with it.

Then I get the loan papers, 28 things to sign, and Sweet Daddio has to sign them all, and he’s 5 hours away doing something with machinery. These are Important Papers, full of personal information like loan numbers and phone numbers and even a couple of social security numbers. So, I go to the UPS store to fax them to SD and the guy at the store TYPES IN THE WRONG NUMBER. 13 pages get sent before it occurs to me that he called out THE WRONG NUMBER. So we correct it and I go into a controlled tailspin while my mind wraps around the knowledge that Someone Out There Knows My Stuff. I call SD, he says “maybe it wasn’t a fax number” so I whip out my cell and call the wrong number. Heart sinking gut churning as I hears the whoops and squeals of a fax machine talking to my phone. SO I write a little note begging the indulgence of the recipient, that they’ll destroy the faxes they received, and I prayed to God that the recipient is an honest, merciful sort of person. Then I got very nervous and sweaty and recalled all the horror stories I’ve ever heard about identity theft. At least the only info on those pages was mine, and not SD’s, and I’m not worth anything (financially speaking). I am having thoughts about changing all my credit card numbers, not that any of them were on there. Just Social Security. I wonder what it would take to change that.

Then, when I staggered out of the store thinking deep thoughts about a gin and tonic, I noticed someone’s car was stopped behind mine, like they were backing out and ran out of gas or something. I could get my car out, except that the elderly woman (that Southern sort, with the brillo pad hair permanent and sunken mouth of the mean and toothless) was wandering around behind her car, right where I needed to back out. So I asked her to move. She said her car wouldn’t move. I said (sharply) “I don’t need you to move your car, I need YOU to move so I don’t RUN OVER YOU WITH MY CAR!” She did that thing women of her generation and physique can do, that is, she folded her face in through her mouth and opened her eyes wide, and stepped aside.

I was rude. I admit it. I am rarely rude to people I’m not related to. I feel bad about it, as she had no idea of my mental condition. I blushed furiously all the way home. I am blushing still, tho the gin and tonic is calming my nerves a bit. My one consolation is that we are moving soon and I will probably never see her again.

Awe great. Something else for my mind to beat me up with on sleepless nights. I was rude to an innocent bystander.

Supper tonight by Lean Cuisine and Michaelina. Fettucini Alfred, Mac and Cheese with Ham, Santa Fe Rice and Beans. I just don’t have anything left inside to cook with.

If this thing doesn’t close on time I am going to…I don’t know. Go on a bender or something. Reality, I’ll just suck it up and plow on. Then, when school starts, I’ll go on a bender.

Wasn’t that the name of some psycho-thriller? Well, I was reaquainted with my long-time companion over the weekend. My insomnia is Unpleasant. Seriously. Think of the inability to sleep, wrap it in barbed wire and season it with a thick coating of mindless, gutwrenching fear. Imagine being the main character in a Stephen King novel, pursued by rotting, festering nameless horrors determined to do you and yours unspeakable harm. Make it last 3 nights. The first night is entirely sleepless, the second has sleep with many interruptions, and the third is like the second only with fewer interruptions.

It’s the anxiety that gets me. Mindless fear that has me cowering under the blanket, whimpering softly and trying so very hard to make my mind do something else, something other than imagining horrific scenarios involving my family.

But it won’t. No indeed. Some sado/masochistic corner of my brain flails away at my comfort and peace of mind, reducing me to animal fear and a near-overwhelming need to flee. There is a rational corner, that knows what’s happening is a figment of my disorder. As such I can remain in the room, quiet enough to keep from waking everyone else, but it isn’t easy or pleasant. I get in the other bed, so my rocking and flopping won’t wake anyone else up. I go outside and pace the walkways, hoping the thick, humid Southern air will move my mind to pleasanter things.

I have tranquilizers, and I took one, then another, then 2 more, normally enough to put me in a deep sleep, but no go. All they did was dull the edges of the barbed wire and sweeten the breath of the zombies. I didn’t have any Zyprexa with me, one sure fire way to stop the monster in it’s tracks. I didn’t think I’d need it, as I haven’t had an attack of that magnitude in nearly 10 years.

I guess it was a result of the stress of recent weeks. We decided to go ahead and move, thanks to a loan from a relative. Now we have closing and moving dates set, and I ought to be feeling easier about the whole thing. On one level I do, but there must be some serious sort of subconcious shit happening to bring these old demons out of the woodwork.

Other than the whole lack-of-sleep issue, the weekend was quite nice. Sweet Daddio and I went out on a date Friday (filet mignon and a whisky sour for me, sirloin and a beer for him, handholding and much smiling). I spent Friday night from 9pm to 5am trying hard not to chew through the walls and run screaming into the night. Saturday we explored the shopping in Savannah (nice, comprehensive malls, lots of esoterica in the smaller shopping centers), Saturday night, I was exhausted from the lack of sleep and mall-trotting, went to bed at 9, woke up at midnight and stayed that way until 4am, still gnawing on the chains around my brain. We got up around 7 and headed for the BEACH! Woohoo! Tybee Island is great- undiscovered therefore everyone else looked as awful in a swimsuit as I did, except for this one couple but they were lesbians so there was none of that competition thing .

#4 loved the beach. The waves were high and the tide was coming in, so he sat at just the spot where they’d break over him and send him tumbling. He’d disappear, then bob up 5 seconds later laughing his head off. #1 got tumbled once when I was watching, understand that he’s 6 ft tall. A big wave crashed over his head and all I saw for a few seconds were his hairy legs straight up in the air. I wanted to get out and body surf- the waves were amazing. There were even a couple of young Turks out there with their body glove suits and surfboards, riding the waves and impressing everyone.

After we all got plenty of sun (I am a tad burned, making it more comfortable to eschew the foundational garments Proper Society requires.), we went into town to River Street. The boys needed to see a few merchant marine vessels-huge ocean going cargo ships from places like Hong Kong and India. We watched tugboats muscles these ships down the river, watched large groups of tourists wearing matching shirts listen to the guide-schpeil about the Savannah slave market and the origins of the cobblestones. We got hot and sweaty and I was ready to saw off my left arm for a cold beer. I was still wearing my swim suit. Do you know just how very difficult it is to pull up a 1-piece modestly cut suit, when it’s still damp and you’re sweating and when you pulled it down you dumped a pound and 1/2 of seashells and sand on the seat of the public toilet?( I thanked God and Savannah Public Works Dept for their huge bathroom, as the stalls on Tybee Island were entirely too small to change in, and I was NOT changing in the sitting area. I’d scar some child for life….) The accursed garment rolled up as I pulled it down, but refused to unroll when I needed it to, and the ensuing struggle took on Zen-Yoga-Akido-Southern White Cussing Contest dimensions. I struggled. The 8 yr old girl on the other side of the door whined. I cussed. She banged on the door. I contemplated just pulling my pants up over the rolled down suit and pretending it was a strange donut shaped lipoma on my butt. Being the strong minded person that I (occasionally) am, I prevailed, and got the suit up. SD and the boys were comfortingly diplomatic, and did not ask what in the HELL took 10 minutes when all I had to do was pee?

We all got ‘home’ (The Trellis Garden Inn, SD’s Home Away From Home these 2 months), had showers, supper, a movie for the boys in there room, HGTV and History Channel for SD and me, and I tried a third time to get a decent nights sleep. I needed it most emphatically, since I had a 5 hour drive the next morning. I slept, only waking up 4 or 5 times and except for a 1 hour stretch, falling right back to sleep.

The moral of this, if there is one to such a silly melange of information, is Never Take Sleep For Granted. It’s important. Don’t neglect it, even if in the name of fun and frolicing. People go bonkers if they don’t sleep. I know I do, that’s why I get in such a swivet if I don’t get the proper amount. 2 or 3 nights of lousy sleep can send me into a psychological tailspin that takes months to recover from, and frankly, I don’t have time for that right now. So tonight, I am going to pull out the Big Gun. I am going to take a Zyprexa, sleep like the dead, and have to drink an entire pot of coffee to crawl out of the fog. But! I will sleep! Which means I will be able to do that which I must do, make calls, pay bills, pack boxes, mediate battles, plan, function, and learn, all without the embarrassing odor of fear and loathing permeating the air around me.

I just realized something. My drivers license photo is the best one made in the last 17 years. *sigh*

HAve you ever noticed that after writing a particularly light hearted and witty pose, blogger throws it into the netherworld, never to be seen again? I realize blogger is free, and I get what I pay for, but it’s annoying to spend 30 mins writing something and watch it go *poof*, and it’s never the same the second time I try to write it. Never. So I am not going to try.

Instead I want you to imagine an overweight 40 yr old white woman, artifically blonde hair, with Mehendi tattoos all over her face, arms and hands. She is sitting on a skateboard, contorted into an impossible and slightly obscene yoga position, holding reins attached to a pair of recalcitrant black and tan dachshunds who are pulling her down the street in the municipal Christmas Parade. Notice the mothers on the sidewalks covering their children’s eyes and the fathers trying hard not to stare (as that would make the mothers angry). They are, however, wondering if she teaches lessons.

There.

What a peculiar summer. I don’t know that any of the kids have spent more than 4 days in a row here. It’s been nice, really, that everyone has been off being either spoiled silly (by one set of grandparents) or worked hard and ignored (by the other set), and away from here Not Messing Up The House or Getting In The Way. But I am missing them and the routine that goes with them.

I miss #1 and his surly, supercilious attitude. I miss worrying if he with who he says he’s with, doing what he says he’s doing. I am immensely and eternally grateful to Sweet Daddio for taking over the responsibilities of worrying about #1. It’s been difficult for #1, to be sure, being stuck in a pokey little town with no friends and no car. He has developed such an attitude toward the whole region that it will be a remarkable thing indeed if he is able to make a friend or two, come school time. You can read his account of living in the New Town on his blog at http://tacojockey.blogspot.com Lord love him, I wouldn’t be 17 again for all the coffee in Seattle. I hope I can keep a positive attitude toward him for the next 10 months. If he doesn’t shape up, come the end of the school year, his stuff will be in the front yard and he will No Longer Live Here. Call me a lousy mother, but right now I am really looking forward to that day.

#2 has been alternating his time between Grandmother and Grandaddy(who spoil him silly, have 500 channels on the tv, and let him shoot their many and varied guns) and Gran and Gramps,(who make him work from daybreak to mid morning chopping trees and clearing underbrush then pay him slave wages, feed him eggbeaters with mushrooms, and ignore him unless he asks for something and they tell him no). He is such an easygoing kid that he seems happy to do whatver anyone wants him to do, and his only form of complaint is to text-message me with his cell phone, asking when Exactly am I coming to pick him up. I predict he’ll make new friends quickly in the New Town, someone just as esoteric as he is.

#3 has been doing essentially the same thing as #2, only opposite so they aren’t in he same place at the same time. Except for one when they were both at Gran and Gramps and found themselves several miles away in the woods, lost. Gramps insists they always carry a compass with them, so they eventually found their way back home. #3 is Gran and Gramps’ Golden Boy. He spends more time there than anyone else. He enjoys hard physical work, and Gramps pays him with ammunition, so he can shoot things with great abandon. Right now he is on his way with them to Point Clear, where he’ll enjoy the resort food and 5 interconnected swimming pools. Plus there’s a full moon right now so there just might be a Fish Jubilee.

#4 has spent more time here at home than any of the others, but then he is an avowed Mama’s Boy. As he told Grandmother last time he was there “Your hugs are nice but I really need my Mom’s.” Fortunately his idea of a perfect day is to spend it outside in his playhouse…’scuse me… in The Hammer Hut…hatching plots and swinging in large circles. So he doesn’t make much of a mess. He’s also young enough to remain ignorant of the magnitude of what’s happening. I have no fear of his ability to make friends. He has no problem approaching a large group of strangers and organizing a game of kickball. He also has a healthy sense of danger, and will go off like a siren if he doesn’t like the way things are going down.

Well! This is news! SD just called an informed me that Miss Sylvia, Proprietress of The Trellis Garden Inn where we stay when in The New Town, has given us permission to keep the dogs with us in room 215 while we are there, thus saving the cost of boarding them. I’ll have to think about that. I suppose we could, because once we close on the house on the 12th, I’ll be spending most of my time there and could put the dogs in the fenced in back yard. Hm. She asked that we keep them crated while we’re gone, and don’t allow them to bark excessively. no big deal, that’s what muzzles are for.

So here’s how things shake out starting today.
6/23- we pack to spend 6/24-27 in The New Town, visiting Savannah and Tybee Island and making a vacation away from the demands of moving.
6/24-27- in the New Town, return home early afternoon the 27th, but leave #2 there with SD and #1
6/28- do laundry, breathe, play with the doggies, hope fervently the realtors leave us alone
6/29-Take #’s 3 and 4 north 3 hours to hand them off to Grandparents
7/1- SD and #’s 1 and 2 come home
7/2-7/4(or5) travel 5-1/2 hours north to SD’s parents, eat, blow things up, eat some more
7/5-7/10- SD is ON VACATION and HOME! WOOHOO! We’ll get lots of niggling details tended to, maybe even pressure wash the deck.
7/10-SD and #1 return to New Town and work responsibilities
7/11-I go to New Town, children and animals packed into crates and installed in the minivan, then deposited at the vet’s for boarding. Well. animals anyway. I asked and they said children were too much trouble and they’d have to charge double for them, and one must always pinch pennies during a move. Gran has offered to come and help be an extra set of eyes.
7/12- Close On The House, Lord willing.
7/13 SD returns to Old Town to supervise movers. I remain in New Town with #’s 3 and 4, the dogs, and Gran. I get the bedrooms painted requested colors, and paint the large and impossibly dark family room a LIGHT color that looks ok with the bricks on the fireplace, and maybe get the amazing Vintage Green Velvet with Gold Ball Fringe Draperies replaced with some nice, neutral natural canvas tab curtains and wrought iron rods.
7/14- SD supervises movers while I pace nervously because I got all the rooms painted the day before.
7/15- the movers should show up 3-ish, and unload our stuff. I stand around with a clipboard and count boxes to make sure they all made it and aren’t wandering around in Oklahoma or someone’s pickup truck.

Then my work begins. Unpacking, putting the furniture where I want it, finding all the official papers for I can get the boys enrolled in school. It won’t take long. unpacking always goes faster than packing, and there is this massive room just off the driveway that we can use as an initial staging area.

It’s going to be a very busy 2-1/2 weeks. Yes indeed. But I like it like that.

Ok, here’s the scene, as it currently stands (or sits, as the case may be).
It is a little after 7 in the am. I am in my cream leather recliner, wearing a powder blue cotton bathrobe, the one with the lace around the shawl collar and cuffs. Very feminine. Next to me on a little wicker and iron table is a large cup of coffee, half empty. My little black computer warms my lap, and I didn’t do anything terribly strenuous yesterday, so I don’t smell. Well, unless you call hefting a $23,000 check into my purse and depositing it in to the bank “strenuous”. Boy did that feel good. The money is there, now all we have to do is coordinate lawyers, appraisers, realtors, and the guy who owns the fabulous and palatial house we wish to purchase in the New Town.

Today will involve things like packing boxes. I was able to fit 10 small (book) boxes into the back of Litte Martha, tho I had to put the top down to do it (O! the hardships we endure in the name of Doing What Must Be Done!), so I expect some of the morning will be spent filling them up. I counted, and we currently have 23 boxes of books. Sweet Daddio issued an edict that All Books Will Be Packed In The Smallest Box Possible. We have many oversized books of the Coffee Table variety, which will never ever fit in a shoebox, so they go in these lovely 12×18 boxes that are white and say TWO MEN AND A TRUCK “Movers Who Care” www.twomen.com
and have their cute logo of a crudely drawn truck inhabited by 2 smiling stick figures, neither of whom have their hands on the steering wheel. I just noticed that and am making a diligent effort to not be alarmed by this.

Details. Details detailsdetails.Blah! I Remember When… my involvement in a move was to make sure I knew which box my clothes were in. Now, Lord it’s so complicated. Find a vet to board the animals. Don’t pack the vacuum cleaner. Where’s the document box? I can’t find the document box! Have all the electronics in one spot to facilitate efficient packing. Make sure all local bills are paid. Don’t forget to order a platter of sandwiches from Subway to feed the movers and everyone else. Must Make Lists. Must Remember Where Lists are Located. Don’t pack the xanax. PLEASE don’t pack the xanax. Oop…return Mom’s cookie jar.

O! to be fabulously wealthy and have an efficient Irish housekeeper who would take care of all this for me. I could simply go rent a beach house on Tybee Island and tell them to call me when everything is unpacked. But then, I am too…something…I have to be immersed in whatever is going on or I feel left out and ignored. I like feeling important, and what I am doing here is vitally necessary to the efficiency of this endeavor. Yes indeed. SD is going to handle the stuff on that end: finding a vet, getting phone, electricity, internet hooked up, and signing the papers.

Shoot I just thought of something. He was going to handle the closing on the house, but I may have to be there because my name will be on the deed with his. Dadgummit. Oh well. So I’ll have to be ready on the 11th instead of the 13th. Not the end of the world. I’ll bring the dogs over and get them boarded. I wish I could board the kids, but they need to Be Involved.

It’s funny how the removal of one source of tension can so completely affect every aspect of your life. Dad made us this loan and suddenly, my headaches are gone, I can digest my food quietly, and my legs develop a healthy glow. The dogs are funny again, instead of irritating, and I Have A Plan.

Dad told me last night he’ll go to the bank around noon, where I’ll meet him and we’ll have a notary sign the promissory note and get the funds transferred. I talked to the mortgage company yesterday, begging and pleading for a closing date of July 1, so we could move on the 5th while Sweet Daddio is on vacation, and they assured me they could not POSSIBLY close before the 8th, and the VERY earliest, so we set the date for the 12th, with moving on the 14th and 15th. But I want to move on the 5th! (see the Southern White Woman stomp her foot, and hear her whine) But alas, they remain unmoved. So the 12th it is.

My job now is to Pack. We are dealing with a local moving company called Two Men and a Truck. They are being wonderfully accomodating, agreeing to deliver boxes to me whenever I need them, and they will get my piano from my parents house 2o miles away out in the boondocks, and bring it here, sometime before the actual move, and just lump the cost of everything onto one invoice. I told them how grateful I was about the box delivery issue, because as wonderful as Little Martha is, she is utterly incapable of toting anything more substantial that my purse and gym bag, especially if there are children involved. SD’s boss expressed scepticism about us using a moving company that wasn’t called Mayflower or North American, but Mayflower won’t get the piano, or deliver boxes to my house. North American treated me like I was a college student who couldn’t possibly understand the complexities of dealing with a major carrier. 2 Men and a Truck acted like I was the answer to their prayers, and are bending over backwards to accomodate my whims. Not only that, they are local so I expect if they say they’ll be here at 8, then that’s when they’ll be here. Off to pack today. I think I’ll work in the kitchen and the dining room.

Lord I am so relieved. You just don’t KNOW!

The biggest thing that has been bugging me lately is the separation of the family. Them there and us here and seeing each other only once in a while SUCKS. I was whining to my mother about this, about how stressed out I was, how I hated having to be on high alert all the time and keeping the house perfect and never being able to let my hair down. I told her I wasn’t depressed, just really discouraged. She said she could hear it in my voice and see it in my shoulders. I was nice to have someone to whine to, that I wouldn’t be dragging down with me.

Then, later on Saturday night, my dad calls. Sweet Daddio answers and I hear them discussing stuff that sounded serious. The call ends and SD asks me to join him on the deck. He tells me my dad has offered to withdraw the money we need for down payment and closing costs from his retirement account, and we’ll just pay him back when our house sells. My word. Suddenly, a huge weight is lifted from my shoulders and I am nauseous with relief. Well, except that I need to call the mortgage company and make sure this won’t affect our credit rating adversely, to where we wouldn’t qualify for the mortgage. I don’t think it will, as I looked into getting a bridge loan and they were willing to loan except we didn’t have any real estate we could use for collateral. For all they care, this business with Dad is a gift from a rich relative, or an inheritance, or something.

Ok. Yes, I am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel now. I realize that light could be an oncoming train, and so my optimism is tempered by my characteristic pessimism. But the light is there. By golly, we might get moved after all!

SD had the idea (before Dad called) of approaching the owner of the fabulous and palatial house in New Town with an offer to rent it until we can close. Straight up rent, don’t apply it toward the cost of the house, just so we can get moved in and the kids signed up for school. So, there is that to fall back on if we need to.

No matter which even works out, we may be moving by the week of July 4! SD is off 11 days then! How perfect would that be! He had the idea to come here and get us moved, while I go there and paint the walls in the fabulous and palatial new house. I could take the kids to Lowes to pick out colors, then paint before we ever move in and not have to contend with furniture and all. Logistical genius, he is.

Here, we spent this weekend…well, I say we but I mean them and not me…shoveling wood chips and throwing grass seed and hi nitrogen fertilizer and sweating and grunting and being manly men. I made sure everyone had plenty to eat and drink and kept the dogs out from under feet. I felt guilty for a nanosecond, that I wasn’t helping work outside, then reminded myself that I spend 2-3 hours every single day cleaning, that I painted the entire interior of the house BY MYSELF, and handled all the onerous dealings with mortgage companies and movers. So, I’ve done MY share and the guilt was gone. The yard looks amazing. No more holes and humps, nice and smooth and filled in with lovely wood chips in the spots that needed them and not in the spots that don’t. When the grass comes up it will be even more wonderful.

#1 went back to the New Town with SD. #’s 2 and 4 are out at Gran and Gramps’ until Wednesday. #3 is with me for 3 days, and I am going to use him to dig up some daylilies and irises that are too lovely to leave for someone who will most likely just yank them all up and plant monkeygrass. I have a friend who bought a house once owned by a premier breeder/grower of daylilies, and is landscaped with massive amounts of these lovely plants, most of them very unusual colors and configurations that the former owner bred himself. A couple of years ago she was dividing these plants, and gave me a big bucketful. They are blooming now, and are truly amazing. One is a deep burgundy red, small flowers about 3 inches across and many blooms on a stem at one time. Another is the color of peach jello, with ruffled edges and a yellow streak down the center of each petal. When we get to the New Town, and am going to put in a great big bed of all different types of daylilies. So pretty.

SD signed up for NetFlix, to have movies to watch while living in the hotel. He has been enjoying the TV shows, and left for me Season 1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation…WOOHOO! I checked out Netflix last week, and they have LOTS of stuff I am interested in seeing. Man. Whatta concept. I truly could go for an entire month without even getting out of my pajamas, between online groceries and Netflix and pharmacies…well. Not a whole month, I’d have to get dressed to buy booze, I suppose. But if I quit drinking I could do it!