Rutabaga Dreams

I went to church at our parish for the last time (for awhile at least) this morning and there were times where I was trying not to cry.  I will miss my parish so much - there is so much that they do well there, and there are also some very wonderful people that I’ll miss seeing every week.  I know I’ll be back, but I also know that it won’t be the same.

At church I noticed that our resident big family was in present in the pew in front and across from us.  This in itself wasn’t particularly remarkable, but they were there with only their mother.  Next time I’m tempted to think I can’t possibly get my family out the door to Mass just by myself I’ll think of her sitting there with her nine children.  They range in age from about 18 mo to 12 or 13 and she’s pregnant with their tenth.    Yes, she looked tired, but they were there - dressed,combed (mostly at least! *grin*) and ready to go.

Do I feel ready?  Um, no, not quite.  But we’re picking up the truck at 1 p.m. today so I better start feeling ready soon!

The house is actually coming along quite well.  The main trouble spots are the kitchen and the office.  Both are almost done, but they have the most work left to do.  It is time to finally pack away my KitchenAid mixer.  *sigh*  We have something like 80 boxes at this point, and I think the end is getting there.  Not quite in sight yet, but not too far away either.  I’ve even started doing some cleaning, which should be a big help for later.

This morning I’m going to try to get the rest of the kitchen packed, take a shower, then head off to church.  Then it will be back for lunch, then off to pick up the truck.  Seems hard to believe, but it is happening - we are finally moving!!

This will most likely be my last post until sometime later next week.  Matt has the computer box in the house, and I think it is time to shut this guy down and get him packed up too.  Next time I post, we should be living on the property - see ya then!

Ack!  We have only two more days to pack and then it will be time to load the truck!  Part of me is glad, because the end is in sight, but I’m also wondering how it is all going to get done.  We’re up to 56 boxes (I think, I don’t have the list in front of me) in the house and I have no idea how much more remains.  It seems like there isn’t all that much, but then I look around and see more and more that needs to be packed.  We worked on the master bedroom last night and we whittled down our closets to just the things we’ll be wearing the next couple months.  It was a strange exercise, and I’m really wondering how all this is going to work out.  It should be interesting…

I’ve been doing lots of laundry recently too, and I have a new appreciation for my washing machine and dryer.  I’m going to miss those contraptions.  I am also really going to miss running water and sinks.  I am not going to miss scrubbing floors, cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming though!

It is really remarkable how dirty this house looks since I have been doing a minimal amount of all those tasks I usually do in the course of a week.  The floors look filthy and the carpet desperately needs to be vacuumed.  But I figure there is no point in doing any of that until we move stuff out, since all we’re going to do is track dirt everywhere in the process.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to be up very late Sunday night so I can finally clean.

that the next time we move we’ll be so old and decrepit that our children will have to pack and move for us.

Sometimes I rather think they’d deserve it. 

Only a couple boxes were packed yesterday, but we did go to a great pizza party with our homeschooling group in the afternoon.  I had rather high hopes for this morning, but Gregory seems to have come down with some sort of stomach bug last night (hearing gagging and retching sounds coming from right next to you at 2:30 a.m. will certainly wake up up in a hurry) which also included a rather gross diaper at about 4:30.  He didn’t want breakfast this morning and he threw up the water he drank.  He’s also in a lovely mood.  I’m rather hoping I can get him down for a nap before too long (although blankie is in the dryer, which does make the whole nap thing slightly more difficult, perhaps I’ll wait until the dryer is done) and then get some more packing in.

I had hoped to make at least an appearance at the homeschool park day this afternoon, but we shall see!

As of Wednesday morning, July 18th, we have packed 43 boxes, plus several more unrecorded boxes in the garage. About 1/2 to 2/3 of the house is packed, including a lion’s share of the kitchen, bookshelves, and other storage places in the condo. We may be further along than my estimate, but it is so hard to estimate.  I made waffles this morning, so the waffle maker will be packed today.  *sniff sniff*

It is hard to believe that I was once able to move by squeezing all my stuff in my Camry. Ah, what 12 years, a marriage, and two kids will do to the amount of stuff one accumulates!

I’ve been carefully writing down what I’ve been putting in all the boxes and numbering them. I plan to put this all on the computer and make multiple copies so that there is some hope of finding things in storage when we want them again. I’m hoping it will at least help somewhat, but I suppose only time will tell.

Emma is trying to get used to the idea of packing and moving. We had many discussions along the lines of: “Everything that we want to bring with us needs to be packed, anything that is left out will not be brought. Do you understand?” “Yes” “So I am going to pack this stuff, ok?” “Nooo!!!” I think we’ve (thankfully!) moved beyond this and I hope to be able to tackle her room tomorrow. I do feel for her though, this has got to be rather traumatic for a five year old.

It seems so hard to believe that at this time next week I’m going to be living on the property, in a tent, without a computer nearby!

The last few days in pictures -

First, on Tuesday we had a Danish themed birthday party for my grandmother, who recently turned 80.

I made the cake per her request - white cake with lemon pudding filling, with white frosting coated in coconut. The flags apparently are a Danish tradition for birthday cakes.

On Wednesday, it was up to the property to show my father, step-mother and grandmother around. We had a lovely picnic on the property and they were all glad to finally get a chance to see it.

Then it was off to my parent’s cabin in Tahoe for the night and onto Carson City in the morning. We were over in Carson City for the wedding of two lovely and wonderful people. Emma was honored to be their flower girl. Doesn’t she look lovely?

Then we drove home on Friday night after the reception, and now I’m supposed to be packing. As you can probably tell, I am procrastinating by looking at the pictures from the week, but I think I have about wrung that particular procrastination out. I have packed some boxes today though, but there are many more to go. *sigh*

Rather than leave off on that note, here’s two more cute pictures from the week. Lest you think we didn’t bring Gregory, here’s a picture of him from the wedding location.

And here’s a silly picture from Friday morning. No, we didn’t make her sleep there, we just discovered her there when we woke up in the morning!

I can’t remember just how much I’ve said on this blog about what my family is doing, and I’m too lazy to try to back into the archives to check, so I thought I would just write a quick post to try to bring things up to date.

As you all probably know, we are in the beginning stages of building a home for our family.  And by building, I mean that my husband will be doing most of the work of building.  I hope to help as much as I can, but I think that with the kids there’s only so much I’ll be able to do.  I’m planning on spending a lot of my time on the garden and outside, getting some livable outdoor space going and getting some growing space together so that we can start growing some of our own veggies.  I’d love to get some chickens this summer as well, but that might have to wait until next spring - there’s a lot that needs to be done first.

On July 23rd, we’ll be moving to our property.  Most of our stuff will go into storage, and we’ll be camping (yes, in tents) on the property for about two months.  Once it the weather starts to change, we hope to buy a used trailer and move into that on the property.  We’ll be in the trailer until we all kill each other or the house is finaled by the county (meaning house is enclosed, electrical, plumbing, waste systems finished, basic bathroom and kitchen installed, stairs and railings finished, and probably more that I’m forgetting at the moment), which ever comes first.  :-)  Matt thinks/hopes that we will be in the house sometime next summer, but I think this is rather optimistic.  Everything always takes longer than it seems like it should on the outset, and I think that with the house this will only be more pronounced.  I’m hoping that we can be in the house in early ‘o9, although even once we’re in the house I’m sure it won’t be finished.  It will be safe, but there will still be a lot of trim work, flooring, and other details to fill in that will help make the house look more settled and get it to the point where we can really start unpacking.

As far as services go on the property, we have the well working, although we don’t have power to it yet.  We do have a generator though, so we can at least run the well and other electrical devices.  We’ve filed the paperwork with PG&E to get the power going, but they aren’t exactly known for their quick turn-around time for this sort of thing.  We’re hoping they’ll be turning on our power sometime this fall.  Phone lines were laid along with the power cables up the road, and we could probably have that in the fall too.  However, we do have cell phone access at the property, so this isn’t quite so much of a priority.  We’ll get the septic put in sometime later this summer or fall, so that once we have the trailer we can hook it up to the septic system and have a somewhat real toilet rather than the porti-potty that we’ll be using while we’re camping.

As far as amenities like laundry facilities, a real refrigerator and a freezer (not to mention a real bathroom!), we’ll have to wait until the shop gets built on the property next door.  Once that is done and their septic and power are hooked up, we’ll have access to it and we’ll be able to put our washer, dryer, and freezer there.  There will most likely be a refrigerator there too, so we’ll be able to use that as well.  And there will even be a real bathroom with a real shower and a real toilet!  I’m eagerly awaiting the completion of this structure, which will hopefully be done sometime in the fall.  (Sooner rather than later, I’m hoping!)

I think my biggest concern at this point is the laundry issue.  I feel that we have other needs figured out fairly well - food, keeping ourselves reasonably clean, lodging, and keeping the kids busy and hopefully not too upset about all the changes - but the laundry issue is a pain.  I think that we’re going to have to go to disposable diapers for a couple months until the shop is finished, because I really don’t think I want to go to the laundrymat every four days to wash diapers.  I really loathe disposable diapers though - the feel, the cost, the whole throwing them away thing - but I’m not sure it can be helped.  If I could find a laundrymat that was open really early and perhaps even had internet access, then I could go by myself before the kids were awake and that would be bearable, but I really, really, don’t want to have to sit there in a laundrymat and keep the kids happy while the diapers wash every four days!  At least I could take them home to dry them afterwards…  but still, ugh.  I may start out trying it though, just because my distaste for plastic diapers is that great.  :-)  The rest of the clothes - well, I can hand wash some things, we can rewear others, and I hope to not have to go more than every two weeks.  We’ll see though!

So that’s where things stand now, and I think I need to go pack some more boxes!   Any questions? 

I’m starting to realize that our move is very near - too close for comfort, really!  I’ve packed a few boxes in the past couple weeks, and now I’m trying to start packing in earnest.  I’m finding it a little rough going though, and not exactly for the reasons you might expect.  Yes, packing is a pain, and packing with a 5 year old and an 18 month old “helping” doesn’t exactly make things easier.  But what I am finding most difficult is my inclination to look at many of our things and think “well, this is the last time I’ll be seeing you for a couple years”.  Some things - glassware, fancy serving stuff that I hardly use - isn’t so bad, but it is the things that I do use but won’t be able to use for awhile that are the hardest.  Things like my bundt cake pans, my roasting pan and my big soup pot were somewhat difficult to pack away.  Now don’t laugh (too much) but I almost cried when I tried to pack my waffle maker - just think, no waffles for two years!  I ended up putting it back for now because I think we’ll make them one more time before that gets put away.  And then there is the thought of packing my KitchenAid mixer and food processor…  *sniff sniff*  It will be like saying goodbye to friends.

I think part of why it hits harder than I initially expected is twofold.  First, it is a very real sign of the adventure we’re about to embark upon.  Second, they are in a certain sense a part of my identity.  They are tools of my trade, necessary items (in my mind) for my role as wife and a mother.  Being able to make delicious and interesting things is part of how I care for my family, and it is a creative outlet for me as well.  Of course I’ll still be doing this once we move and are camping on the property, but it will be with a different set of tools and on a more limited scale.  There is only so much I can do with a BBQ and a camp stove!

It should all be very interesting…

As some of you might remember from this post, I signed up to receive a preview copy of the book Away, by Amy Bloom from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program. I thought the description looked promising, and I was looking forward to reading the book. I wish I could say glowing things about the book, but now that I’ve read a little over half of it, I’ve decided not to read anymore of it. I put it down four or five days ago in disgust and then picked it up again today thinking, “oh, it couldn’t have been that bad”. I quickly regretted my decision as the “accidental heroine” started to stumble into a three-some with the prostitute who picked her up out of the gutter and the prostitute’s pimp. It wasn’t so much that I objected to the sexual content of the book (although much of it seemed gratuitous, albeit not as graphic as it could have been) it was more that I objected to how the main character, Lillian, has no reaction to anything.

Lillian is not an “accidental heroine” as the blurb describes her, she’s sleepwalking through the book. Her only reaction to almost everything is numbness. Lillian does have a tragic past - losing her whole family, including her daughter (who later is supposed to have been saved and taken away from the village by another family), in a pogrom - and perhaps her attitude is supposed to show her absolute numbness to life because of past events. This does not make for much of a main character in this case, because there’s nothing compelling about someone who just stumbles from one odious situation to another with little to no reaction. Everything is ok with her, although ok is perhaps too strong of a word. Nothing is worth objecting to and everything is at least tolerable. I think the author was trying to show that she was willing to put up with anything in order to get her daughter back, but it isn’t very convincing. She doesn’t seem to have any thoughts of her own, any reactions to what is happening to her. She’s willing to put up with anything, but it doesn’t end up feeling like she’s willing to do this because she’s so focused on her daughter, but rather because she’s so two-dimensional she just doesn’t care about anything.

I’m trying to think if there was anything I liked about the book. The cover was nice (although I suppose the author has little say over that), the prose was decent enough, and I did like her technique for dismissing supporting characters from the stage. As a character was no longer needed, she would quickly sum up some “high” (really low) points of the character’s life and then move back to Lillian. It was sort of an interesting technique, and I rather liked how it tied off the characters when they were no longer needed. But as you can probably guess, I really don’t recommend wasting your money and particularly your time on this book.

This morning after Mass I had signed up to do the “donut ministry” so that I could feel like I was giving something back to this great church that I’m going to be leaving so soon (*sniff sniff*).  All I had to do was get there a little early, make sure I knew where everything is kept, start coffee if it hadn’t been started already, then get donuts, coffee, juice and all the accessories set out after Mass was over.

It all went swimmingly, even with the two kids.  Gregory is really great about not running off, and he just stayed right near me the whole time I was taking everyone’s money.  I also held him for part of the time, and he didn’t even try to grab for anything.  He would, however, occasionally make “mmmm” sounds while pointing at the donuts.  I knew what he wanted, but I chose to play dumb and tried to deflect his attention.  In a little while, he asked to get down and then went over to my purse.  I thought he was going to unpack it again, which was fine, but instead he carefully unzipped the change compartment and carefully fished out one coin.  Once he had the coin in his little hand, he came over and handed it to me, pointing at the table with his other hand and saying, “mmm!  mmm!” quite emphatically.  He figured out that he needed to buy a donut with the little things in my purse and he was all set to do it!  At that point I did take the money and I bought a donut for both of us to share.  :-)  Isn’t he such a cutie?  He may not be able to say much, but he sure knows how to get his point across!