I took the day off of work today to take the boys to their dentist appointments, and they also happened to be off for a teacher work day. I had loads of school work to catch up on, but Trevor was begging to go spend some of his birthday money, so we did stop at GameStop. Before the dentist we went to eat breakfast with my mom (they call her Granny). Trevor started complaining on the way to breakfast that his stomach and head hurt, but he was reading in the car so I assumed it was car sickness. It was not. He didn't eat any breakfast except toast. He changed his mind on birthday shopping and then slept for two hours when we got home. He slowly woke up and moved from our bed which he then proceeded to vomit all over. I felt kind of bad for picking on him about reading in the car. He also kept telling me that it was his day off and he just wanted to go home and sit on the couch. I told him to stop being lazy that it was a beautiful day and he should go play outside. I'm a jerk. I guess that's why I got to clean up the barf.
Something momentous happened before the barfening! I shit you negative, we cleared out the stuffed animals. I told them that we were going to go through all of their stuffed animals and they could decide which ones to keep and which ones to get rid of. I promised myself that I would allow them agency over their own toys, and stick to their decisions. Which I mostly did. We managed to mostly fill a black trash bag with unloved toys. My library is starting to look like trash-henge. That's like Stonehenge but for trash bags. Jokes are so much funnier when you have to explain them. Back to unloved stuffed animals. When I told them we were doing this, and it was not the first time we talked about it, Grayson disintegrated into a puddle of tears. He wept like I told him I was going to drop him off at the fire station forever. I mean, it was rough. He was absolutely heart broken and instantly started naming the animals he wanted to keep: "But what about Daniel Tiger? If I keep him can I still keep Hobbs? I don't want to throw away Blue Puppy or Dino-Thor!"
I was very proud of myself, though. I stayed strong and really made some significant cuts. It was hard, but I did it. Trevor mostly rolled on his bed claiming he didn't feel good while I forced him to make decisions about his stuffed animals like the class-A mom I am. Maybe I should try to work in some more emotional trauma before bed. I'm sure I could get a really good conversation going about the intricacies of a good dick or fart joke. Like there are bad dick and fart jokes. We calmed Grayson down, Trevor bald-faced lied to him and said we weren't throwing them away, just putting them in storage, and I explained that he didn't have to get rid of anything he liked, only stuff he didn't play with. Now I wonder if Trevor really thinks they're going into storage . . . Conversation for another day.
In summation it was a productive day, both on The Plan and on the home front. There was breakfast, two dentist appointments (during which Grayson actually farted multiple times so badly that I had to apologize to the office staff), GameStop, clearing of no-longer-beloved stuffed animals, fierce and furious reading of Dante's Inferno, we helped catch an escaped neighborhood dog (Scrappy), Trevor napped for two hours and then puked on my bed, I then washed my bedclothes, did this week's school writing assignments, made soup for Trevor, typed up this fascinating expose' into the daily life of a 40-year-old suburban mom, and might now hang out with my husband and play some Frozen Free-Fall. Good evening, dear readers.
Friday, September 30, 2016
Thursday, September 29, 2016
In Which There is Angst
Have you ever wondered if there was really something wrong with you? I mean, I know there are things wrong with me, I'm prone to anxiety, I'm an awful procrastinator, I cuss too much, I'm easily distracted. I have all manner of shortcomings that I'm aware of. But I wonder what I'm missing. Here's the deal. I mentioned previously that we somehow forgot to actually tell our two kids that we're planning to move to Maine. They're aged 8 and 5, so I'm not sure how much they would be able to understand, but we probably should have talked to them about it. That's not the part that gave me pause, though.
They're both totally on board. I had separate conversations with them and asked how they'd feel about living in Maine. We talked about how far away it is and how it would be really hard not getting to see all of our family and friends as often, and how they would have to start a new school and we'd have a different house. They both seem to be super excited and okay about it. Grayson, the 5 year old nearly peed his pants in excitement about snow. To them, snow is a mystical, imaginary thing. It's just as likely that candy would fall from our sky.
I know that they can't comprehend how difficult and how different it will be. I remember when my family moved from Beaumont to Baton Rouge when I was about Trevor's age. My dad was transferred with his job, so we didn't really have a choice. My Aunt Debbie and my mom just cried and hugged each other for what felt like forever while I was super impatient to get to our huge new house and my new room. I asked my Aunt Debbie why she was so sad and she said, "I'm just going to miss you so much!" I told her that we would still visit, and she said it just wasn't the same. At 8 years old my psyche just wasn't capable of handling how hard it was for my Aunt to say goodbye to us. It was something I didn't understand until I moved away briefly at the age of 26 and had to say goodbye to my niece Jenna, who I love like she is my own. It was one of the hardest things I ever did to drive away from her little two year old self. Both of those times, the distance was about four hours away. Easily driven there and back in a weekend. Maine is a 32 hour drive each way, if you don't stop to sleep. A six hour flight.
My children are excited and enthusiastically looking forward to moving. That is making me stop and think. Somehow, I found myself bringing up things like how sad it would be not to see their grandparents every weekend or how much they would miss getting to swim at their cousin's house, how we would miss a lot of birthday parties. I managed to stop before I made them (and me) cry, and then realized that their unbridled acceptance of the future move was harder for me to deal with than if they were scared or unsure. If they were uncertain or had questions, I could reassure them, which would in turn reassure me. If they wanted to know whether it would be hard starting another new school or finding new friends I would tell them that it might be, but that it would be an adventure we would all have together. For now I just worry that they are like me at 8 and will never understand until they are adults just how hard this kind of thing is. This thing I am doing by choice.
I tell myself that in this internet age I won't miss much, my kids will know their cousins via XBox live and their tiny phones that can hold the sum of all human knowledge. I have friends who live in other states, other countries, and we don't see each other often enough, but we are still actively friends. I tell myself that we will keep in touch and visit and people will visit us and all of that is true. But the reality that is also true is that it will be sad and scary and really, really challenging.
So, why am I more worried that they are happy with it? Why would I have been more confident in this decision if they had been less so? Am I seeing myself at 8 all naive and starry-eyed, not able to understand the larger implications? Do I need to reassure myself that I'm doing a good thing? That it will be worth it? Is my stubborn, contrary nature so deeply ingrained that I need resistance in order to feel validated? Or is it just the act of comforting and reassuring them makes me feel better? Like the concept of "fake it till you make it?" If I comfort and reassure them then eventually I will also be calmed and confident from believing my own encouragement?
I'm not sure of the answer there, but I hope that it means that I've raised a couple of confident and adventurous kids.
They're both totally on board. I had separate conversations with them and asked how they'd feel about living in Maine. We talked about how far away it is and how it would be really hard not getting to see all of our family and friends as often, and how they would have to start a new school and we'd have a different house. They both seem to be super excited and okay about it. Grayson, the 5 year old nearly peed his pants in excitement about snow. To them, snow is a mystical, imaginary thing. It's just as likely that candy would fall from our sky.
I know that they can't comprehend how difficult and how different it will be. I remember when my family moved from Beaumont to Baton Rouge when I was about Trevor's age. My dad was transferred with his job, so we didn't really have a choice. My Aunt Debbie and my mom just cried and hugged each other for what felt like forever while I was super impatient to get to our huge new house and my new room. I asked my Aunt Debbie why she was so sad and she said, "I'm just going to miss you so much!" I told her that we would still visit, and she said it just wasn't the same. At 8 years old my psyche just wasn't capable of handling how hard it was for my Aunt to say goodbye to us. It was something I didn't understand until I moved away briefly at the age of 26 and had to say goodbye to my niece Jenna, who I love like she is my own. It was one of the hardest things I ever did to drive away from her little two year old self. Both of those times, the distance was about four hours away. Easily driven there and back in a weekend. Maine is a 32 hour drive each way, if you don't stop to sleep. A six hour flight.
My children are excited and enthusiastically looking forward to moving. That is making me stop and think. Somehow, I found myself bringing up things like how sad it would be not to see their grandparents every weekend or how much they would miss getting to swim at their cousin's house, how we would miss a lot of birthday parties. I managed to stop before I made them (and me) cry, and then realized that their unbridled acceptance of the future move was harder for me to deal with than if they were scared or unsure. If they were uncertain or had questions, I could reassure them, which would in turn reassure me. If they wanted to know whether it would be hard starting another new school or finding new friends I would tell them that it might be, but that it would be an adventure we would all have together. For now I just worry that they are like me at 8 and will never understand until they are adults just how hard this kind of thing is. This thing I am doing by choice.
I tell myself that in this internet age I won't miss much, my kids will know their cousins via XBox live and their tiny phones that can hold the sum of all human knowledge. I have friends who live in other states, other countries, and we don't see each other often enough, but we are still actively friends. I tell myself that we will keep in touch and visit and people will visit us and all of that is true. But the reality that is also true is that it will be sad and scary and really, really challenging.
So, why am I more worried that they are happy with it? Why would I have been more confident in this decision if they had been less so? Am I seeing myself at 8 all naive and starry-eyed, not able to understand the larger implications? Do I need to reassure myself that I'm doing a good thing? That it will be worth it? Is my stubborn, contrary nature so deeply ingrained that I need resistance in order to feel validated? Or is it just the act of comforting and reassuring them makes me feel better? Like the concept of "fake it till you make it?" If I comfort and reassure them then eventually I will also be calmed and confident from believing my own encouragement?
I'm not sure of the answer there, but I hope that it means that I've raised a couple of confident and adventurous kids.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
In Which Things Progress
Today at breakfast I mentioned that my new "Moving to Maine" book showed up and that I really wanted to take it to work but that I would be really busy (and if I was going to read anything at work it should be Dante's Inferno for my Medieval/Renaissance Humanities class) and for some reason, Trevor laser-focused on the phrase "moving to Maine." He asked, "Wait. So we're moving to Maine?!" about seventeen times. I gave Ralph a "baroo?" dog-head-tilt look and asked if we had somehow not actually told our kids about this yet. Ralph says, "Where has he been the past two weeks?" But really, I don't think we've formally told them about The Plan. We might need to have a family meeting tonight.
The takeaway from that is that my new book arrived!! And it has a lovely picture of Camden Harbor on the front, which is the place we usually visit and that inspired my love affair with the state. There's a little mountain called Mount Battie right above the town and when you're on top of it, you look down into the most perfect postcard picture of the harbor. It is breathtaking:
What you can't see there is that the town is also built over a flipping waterfall. It runs under the businesses on Main St. and then out into the harbor. It is magical. Someday I'm going to make live videos of me walking around town so you can all see it. Don't even get me started on the library.
The Plan is marching along nicely, I've pretty much completed clearing out my clothes, except I'll be adding more progressively, as I find things I don't want anymore. Just because I'm a glutton for punishment I might go ahead and do stuffed animals. I may need some moral support if anyone wants to come assist me with discarding the memories of my children and the people who love them. {SOBS}
The spending freeze is fucking difficult. There are too many cute t-shirts and Halloween decorations and fall activities. Froberg's corn maze opened this week along with their new bakery. Soon there are going to be pumpkin patches everywhere. I'm considering not doing my annual pumpkin baking day. Maybe instead we'll just have a mini-movie fest or scale it back a little bit. I've been trying to think up a reason to show my kids "Monster Sqad" and this might be it. Every time I get a little sad about not being able to buy things I just try to remind myself of a life that doesn't require air condition. Bliss.
The takeaway from that is that my new book arrived!! And it has a lovely picture of Camden Harbor on the front, which is the place we usually visit and that inspired my love affair with the state. There's a little mountain called Mount Battie right above the town and when you're on top of it, you look down into the most perfect postcard picture of the harbor. It is breathtaking:
What you can't see there is that the town is also built over a flipping waterfall. It runs under the businesses on Main St. and then out into the harbor. It is magical. Someday I'm going to make live videos of me walking around town so you can all see it. Don't even get me started on the library.
The Plan is marching along nicely, I've pretty much completed clearing out my clothes, except I'll be adding more progressively, as I find things I don't want anymore. Just because I'm a glutton for punishment I might go ahead and do stuffed animals. I may need some moral support if anyone wants to come assist me with discarding the memories of my children and the people who love them. {SOBS}
The spending freeze is fucking difficult. There are too many cute t-shirts and Halloween decorations and fall activities. Froberg's corn maze opened this week along with their new bakery. Soon there are going to be pumpkin patches everywhere. I'm considering not doing my annual pumpkin baking day. Maybe instead we'll just have a mini-movie fest or scale it back a little bit. I've been trying to think up a reason to show my kids "Monster Sqad" and this might be it. Every time I get a little sad about not being able to buy things I just try to remind myself of a life that doesn't require air condition. Bliss.
Monday, September 26, 2016
In Which Vanessa Needs an Adult
Somehow I got exactly jack shit done this weekend. I mean, I did mountains of laundry, we had two basketball games, Raf made a brisket (10 hours of cook time), we watched an awesome movie (10 Cloverfield Ln),we went to church, I went to the grocery store. Basically a lot of stuff got done, but none of it was The Plan. My bags of clothes are sitting in my library and on the floor in my room, but it's because I still want to clear out MOAR STUFF!! The tiny snag in that is that I've been losing some weight lately, so a lot of my regular clothes are getting too big and I'm fitting into a lot of stuff that was shoved in the back of the closet and drawers that I haven't been able to wear in years, so I'm having a hard time determining what to keep. What if I put the weight back on? It's really only a happy side effect of the diet I follow to keep from feeling barfy and tanking out my blood sugar (I have reactive hypoglycemia as a result of having gastric bypass ten years ago). What if I keep losing weight? I have tens of jackets and sweaters that get minimal use in Texas, but I'll eventually need them in Maine, so do I keep them all?? I need an adult.
One of the things that happened this weekend is that my sister Amy and her family came over on Sunday to visit. I was putting away last week's laundry in Trevor's room so that I could start this week's laundry and Amy was chilling in a bean bag chair watching me. I was telling her about how one of the only things that is super hard for me to get rid of is stuffed animals. It's really an issue. I remember the circumstances of almost every single stuffed animal my kids have ever gotten and it upsets me to think about getting rid of them. There are literal hundreds of them. I have the first stuffed toy I bought Trevor, a little angel with a bell inside that I hung from his infant carrier. I bought it during a Christmas shopping trip to Macy's with my mother in law when Trevor was a newborn. I have a little yellow care bear that my friend Patty gave Trevor when he was probably a year old. I have the frog that the hospital gave Grayson when he got his tubes in his ears. I have stuffed animals from Maine, Virginia (another friend Patti!) Louisiana, England, and I cannot bear (zing!) the thought of just tossing them out. Amy is not sympathetic. She and Ralph agree that they take up too much room and are pretty useless. But we haven't even talked about the financial investment. Do you even KNOW how much a flipping Build-a-Bear costs?? We're talking $60 easy if you get an outfit. My kids have like four of those fuckers, each. They have stuffed Storm Troopers from Disney World, I'm sure those cost roughly a grazillion dollars. Again, I need an adult to help me make the hard decisions.
I'm totally not going to miss my psychologist appointment again tonight, but I'm also going to focus on finishing the clearing out of my closet and drawers and maybe even start on the library closet. That library closet is enormous and would be the perfect staging ground for our donation/garage sale stuff, since right now it mostly holds pure junk. There are boxes full of gift bags. Multiple boxes. I also tend to keep every birthday card, ever. Each of my kids has stacks of birthday cards, separated by year, that I've kept. All of them. I've even gone back and read some of them periodically. Okay, I might have a problem with more than stuffed animals. I have to change myself from a soft-hearted, sentimental, little old lady to a fiercely efficient, pragmatic, unfeeling taskmaster. But there's this real fur hat that was my grandma's. Trust me, you would love it. How can I ever get rid of that??? I seriously need an adult.
Soon I need to address my thoughts on homeschooling. It's something I've thought about a lot, and something I think my kids would benefit from, and honestly might be something I'm good at. It's a terrifying prospect, but could be the only way to maintain consistency if we become bi-coastal. Probably a thought for another day.
One of the things that happened this weekend is that my sister Amy and her family came over on Sunday to visit. I was putting away last week's laundry in Trevor's room so that I could start this week's laundry and Amy was chilling in a bean bag chair watching me. I was telling her about how one of the only things that is super hard for me to get rid of is stuffed animals. It's really an issue. I remember the circumstances of almost every single stuffed animal my kids have ever gotten and it upsets me to think about getting rid of them. There are literal hundreds of them. I have the first stuffed toy I bought Trevor, a little angel with a bell inside that I hung from his infant carrier. I bought it during a Christmas shopping trip to Macy's with my mother in law when Trevor was a newborn. I have a little yellow care bear that my friend Patty gave Trevor when he was probably a year old. I have the frog that the hospital gave Grayson when he got his tubes in his ears. I have stuffed animals from Maine, Virginia (another friend Patti!) Louisiana, England, and I cannot bear (zing!) the thought of just tossing them out. Amy is not sympathetic. She and Ralph agree that they take up too much room and are pretty useless. But we haven't even talked about the financial investment. Do you even KNOW how much a flipping Build-a-Bear costs?? We're talking $60 easy if you get an outfit. My kids have like four of those fuckers, each. They have stuffed Storm Troopers from Disney World, I'm sure those cost roughly a grazillion dollars. Again, I need an adult to help me make the hard decisions.
I'm totally not going to miss my psychologist appointment again tonight, but I'm also going to focus on finishing the clearing out of my closet and drawers and maybe even start on the library closet. That library closet is enormous and would be the perfect staging ground for our donation/garage sale stuff, since right now it mostly holds pure junk. There are boxes full of gift bags. Multiple boxes. I also tend to keep every birthday card, ever. Each of my kids has stacks of birthday cards, separated by year, that I've kept. All of them. I've even gone back and read some of them periodically. Okay, I might have a problem with more than stuffed animals. I have to change myself from a soft-hearted, sentimental, little old lady to a fiercely efficient, pragmatic, unfeeling taskmaster. But there's this real fur hat that was my grandma's. Trust me, you would love it. How can I ever get rid of that??? I seriously need an adult.
Soon I need to address my thoughts on homeschooling. It's something I've thought about a lot, and something I think my kids would benefit from, and honestly might be something I'm good at. It's a terrifying prospect, but could be the only way to maintain consistency if we become bi-coastal. Probably a thought for another day.
Friday, September 23, 2016
In Which It Will All Be Okay
My next door neighbors came back to town yesterday. This is significant for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they are awesome and we never really got to know them until we discovered that they were spontaneously moving to Tennessee to buy their dream house. They are grandparents, and their daughter was moving far away for her husband's job, so my neighbors decided to pull the trigger on a huge move that they had been wanting to do for years. Pardon me while I hit you on the nose with the second bit of significance.
I was really glad to see them, even if they'll only be here for a few days to clear out and pack up some last bits of their stuff, and we talked for a few minutes about how it's going living the dream. One thing they said multiple times was "We just wish we had done this ten years ago. Now that we've done it, we wondered why we waited so long. We should have done it when we were younger." They aren't old, they're maybe mid-to-late-50's? They have motorcycles. The point is, it was another thing that makes me feel like this might be a good decision. They talked about how awesome it would have been for their kids to get to experience it as children, and how it was scary and difficult even at their age, but that they haven't regretted it for a second, and so many things that I've thought to myself.
Last night after yoga, basketball and karate, I came home and made dinner, Raf went off to watch the Texans lose their ass to New England (BOOM!) and I set about working on my drawers. I nearly filled yet another huge, black trash bag with t-shirts, shorts, tank tops, and scarves. I also trashed untold amounts of underwear that for whatever reason I had been hanging on to for over a decade. What is it with people not throwing away old underwear? Ralph has some that literally fall off of him and he refuses to throw them away. So, some minute progress was made. I was pretty proud of myself for all of my activity and still getting it done. I often feel like Titus Andromedon from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in that I've already DONE something today.
The second season of Fargo is shaping up to be even better than the first. It takes place in the 70's which I LOVE and the cast is stunning, on par or surpassing the first season. Kieran Culkin is a damned treasure, and Patrick Wilson is dreamy, and Jeanne Smart is so fucking good she just steals every scene she's in. I can't even with this show.
OH! Great news, everyone! It turns out there was some kind of settlement from Barnes & Noble about Apple ebooks and if you purchased anything like that from them, you got some money back. Turns out I have $25 in my B&N account so I ordered my very own updated copy of "Moving to Maine!" It didn't violate my spending freeze! I know you were all worried about how I would possibly manage with a ten year old copy of it, but rest easy, I'll be okay. It will all be okay.
I was really glad to see them, even if they'll only be here for a few days to clear out and pack up some last bits of their stuff, and we talked for a few minutes about how it's going living the dream. One thing they said multiple times was "We just wish we had done this ten years ago. Now that we've done it, we wondered why we waited so long. We should have done it when we were younger." They aren't old, they're maybe mid-to-late-50's? They have motorcycles. The point is, it was another thing that makes me feel like this might be a good decision. They talked about how awesome it would have been for their kids to get to experience it as children, and how it was scary and difficult even at their age, but that they haven't regretted it for a second, and so many things that I've thought to myself.
Last night after yoga, basketball and karate, I came home and made dinner, Raf went off to watch the Texans lose their ass to New England (BOOM!) and I set about working on my drawers. I nearly filled yet another huge, black trash bag with t-shirts, shorts, tank tops, and scarves. I also trashed untold amounts of underwear that for whatever reason I had been hanging on to for over a decade. What is it with people not throwing away old underwear? Ralph has some that literally fall off of him and he refuses to throw them away. So, some minute progress was made. I was pretty proud of myself for all of my activity and still getting it done. I often feel like Titus Andromedon from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in that I've already DONE something today.
OH! Great news, everyone! It turns out there was some kind of settlement from Barnes & Noble about Apple ebooks and if you purchased anything like that from them, you got some money back. Turns out I have $25 in my B&N account so I ordered my very own updated copy of "Moving to Maine!" It didn't violate my spending freeze! I know you were all worried about how I would possibly manage with a ten year old copy of it, but rest easy, I'll be okay. It will all be okay.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
In Which It Begins!
I actually did start clearing out my closet, y'all. I did. I threw away at least 20 pairs of shoes that were old or falling apart or cost $11 and were therefore made of cardboard. Between Ralph and myself we filled three huge black garbage bags with clothes to donate. Honestly, it felt so good that I'm going to go through my closet again, because it doesn't look as empty as I want it to. I have so many fucking hangers. Next up will be my drawers, I have a full sized chest of drawers that I only regularly use two drawers of, the sock drawer and the underwear drawer.
We started on Monday evening, and were so into it that I legit forgot about my psychologist appointment. I have it every Monday and was stunned that I forgot it. I remembered in the middle of the night and decided to take it as a good omen of my mental health that I was able to forget that I need to be treated for it. We went like gangbusters until it was bed time, and gave ourselves Tuesday off because of basketball at the YMCA. Yesterday we didn't have any activities but I had to actually cook a meal for dinner and make a trip to the Library, then do some school work, so nothing else got done. Today is activity-heavy, too: I'm doing a yoga class, Grayson has karate, and Trevor has basketball, then the Texans kick off at 7:30, so we all have something going on. I fell asleep trying to watch Fargo last night, so I may work on drawers and catch up on that while Raf watches the Texans. Fargo is an amazing-ass show, if you haven't seen it. The cast is spectacular and I have a total girl crush on Allison Tolman. Rawr.
Ralph is working on trying to build up some business in Maine, but is super optimistic about his business here. Things seem to be on the uptick, which is awesome. We also decided that if he starts really churning and burning, making more than we need, that we might just buy a summer house in Maine and still keep Texas as our home base. That is what we'll end up doing eventually, anyway, but having one home at a time is all we can plan for at the moment. We've been doing a lot of research about schools and areas, trying to decide if we want a neighborhood house in a small town or something with some land a little further out. I'm leaning towards land further out. I don't want to live somewhere that looks just like any other neighborhood, I want trees and mountains and water.
One of the things we're trying as a part of all of this (The Plan, capital letters) is a shopping freeze. I read about it on some frugal living blogs I scanned once. Basically, you commit to buying only absolute necessities. We've had to kind of do that lately anyway, just because our income has been lower than usual and somewhat inconsistent, but we've now made an actual decision and spoken it aloud. We aren't buying clothes, gifts, trinkets, toys, anything. Groceries and bills, that's it. It has been really hard to not buy t-shirts with polyhedral dice or coffee mugs that say "It's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers." I did have a little bit left on my Starbucks account, so I treated myself to a decaf pumpkin spice latte to kick of the first official day of autumn. Why can't those assholes make a sugar free version of it? Jerks.
If anyone else wants to jump on board the Move to Maine Train, there's an actual book you can buy about it. It is called, cleverly, "Moving to Maine" and is chock-full of great information and anecdotes. I may reference it periodically, because it's just so fucking good. As a side note, I have owned this book since 2006. There is a new edition that was published last year and I may have request it as a gift, since I can't fucking buy it for myself, dammit.
In summary, I feel good about Week the First so far.
We started on Monday evening, and were so into it that I legit forgot about my psychologist appointment. I have it every Monday and was stunned that I forgot it. I remembered in the middle of the night and decided to take it as a good omen of my mental health that I was able to forget that I need to be treated for it. We went like gangbusters until it was bed time, and gave ourselves Tuesday off because of basketball at the YMCA. Yesterday we didn't have any activities but I had to actually cook a meal for dinner and make a trip to the Library, then do some school work, so nothing else got done. Today is activity-heavy, too: I'm doing a yoga class, Grayson has karate, and Trevor has basketball, then the Texans kick off at 7:30, so we all have something going on. I fell asleep trying to watch Fargo last night, so I may work on drawers and catch up on that while Raf watches the Texans. Fargo is an amazing-ass show, if you haven't seen it. The cast is spectacular and I have a total girl crush on Allison Tolman. Rawr.
Ralph is working on trying to build up some business in Maine, but is super optimistic about his business here. Things seem to be on the uptick, which is awesome. We also decided that if he starts really churning and burning, making more than we need, that we might just buy a summer house in Maine and still keep Texas as our home base. That is what we'll end up doing eventually, anyway, but having one home at a time is all we can plan for at the moment. We've been doing a lot of research about schools and areas, trying to decide if we want a neighborhood house in a small town or something with some land a little further out. I'm leaning towards land further out. I don't want to live somewhere that looks just like any other neighborhood, I want trees and mountains and water.
One of the things we're trying as a part of all of this (The Plan, capital letters) is a shopping freeze. I read about it on some frugal living blogs I scanned once. Basically, you commit to buying only absolute necessities. We've had to kind of do that lately anyway, just because our income has been lower than usual and somewhat inconsistent, but we've now made an actual decision and spoken it aloud. We aren't buying clothes, gifts, trinkets, toys, anything. Groceries and bills, that's it. It has been really hard to not buy t-shirts with polyhedral dice or coffee mugs that say "It's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers." I did have a little bit left on my Starbucks account, so I treated myself to a decaf pumpkin spice latte to kick of the first official day of autumn. Why can't those assholes make a sugar free version of it? Jerks.
If anyone else wants to jump on board the Move to Maine Train, there's an actual book you can buy about it. It is called, cleverly, "Moving to Maine" and is chock-full of great information and anecdotes. I may reference it periodically, because it's just so fucking good. As a side note, I have owned this book since 2006. There is a new edition that was published last year and I may have request it as a gift, since I can't fucking buy it for myself, dammit.
In summary, I feel good about Week the First so far.
Monday, September 19, 2016
In Which She Clarifies.
I've had the weekend to think about it . . . and am still totally committed to moving to Maine. I'll admit I had some tiny misgivings. I'm sure those will turn into huge misgivings once we start making real progress. It is a scary thing, to uproot a family and move into the great, white north. I know there are people who think we're making a mistake, and others who will just be sad to see us go, and all of those feelings are valid. All I can say is that, most days, I'm pretty sure this is going to be at the very least a great adventure, and possibly the most awesome thing I've ever done.
Here's the deal. I know this is a dream. I know it is a crazy thing to most people. A lot of people cannot imagine making this kind of decision voluntarily. To the people who have lived with my crazy dreams for most of my life, trust me, I know how much of a flibbertigibbet I can be. There aren't any reassuring things I can tell you to convince you this is different because it probably isn't. There have been a few things in my life that I did against a lot of well-meaning and incredibly smart recommendations otherwise, that turned out great. I have to believe that this will be great also. I get horrible anxiety about a lot of things. But this, I have felt nothing but joy about.
Basically, all we've done is make a decision and start a planning process. At any point along the way, the plan may change and that is okay. We may decide to wait a while longer, we may decide to go sooner, we may do things differently. Instead of moving there to stay 100% of the year, we'd really prefer to spend half the year there and half in Texas. That will take a little bit more planning and money, but is the ULTIMATE dream. What matters is that we have a plan. We, Ralph and I, have a goal that we're working towards together and we're both really excited about it. We may spend one winter up there and come screaming back to Texas, and that's okay, too. Texas will always be home.
There will be a lot of bumps in the road, first and foremost is money. We cannot even consider doing this until we are financially stable and all debts repaid. That's a biggy. We'll have to sell our house and find something temporary, preferably in our current school district. I don't want to move the kids school, and I want somewhere safe and relatively nice. We need to decide exactly where in Maine we want to live. It's a huge state, with hardly any people in it, something like 1.3 million in the entire place. Their largest city, Portland has less than 67,000 people in it. Compared to the suburb of Houston I live in, which has almost 85,000 and is considered small. The city I work in has 150,000. Houston proper has 2.2 million and the Houston metro area has 6.5 million. The population density (or lack thereof) means fewer jobs and lower pay. I want some land, but want to be close to a grocery store and a hospital. There are a lot of things to consider, and we're going to consider the fuck out of them. NPR will be jealous of all the shit we consider.
WEEK ONE!
Tonight, we're starting on the clean-out process. I wanted to start in the overstuffed cave of our library closet, since most of the stuff in there has sat untouched since we moved into that house over a year ago. Ralph, who is at times much smarter than I am, wants to start in our actual closet. Where all of our clothes and shoes are kept. For some reason this feels a much more real and scary place to start. I haven't worn most of those clothes in ages, I tend to wear the same stuff over and over again, and I do have a bit of a shoe problem. But it hits me right in the feels to think about throwing away my clothes. I've always seen them as such a part of my identity. Will people still know I'm me without my witty t-shirts?? It is going to be a difficult but admittedly better place to start. So, if anybody wants any nerdy chubby girl clothes, I'm going to have a shit ton to get rid of. Hit me up!
Here's the deal. I know this is a dream. I know it is a crazy thing to most people. A lot of people cannot imagine making this kind of decision voluntarily. To the people who have lived with my crazy dreams for most of my life, trust me, I know how much of a flibbertigibbet I can be. There aren't any reassuring things I can tell you to convince you this is different because it probably isn't. There have been a few things in my life that I did against a lot of well-meaning and incredibly smart recommendations otherwise, that turned out great. I have to believe that this will be great also. I get horrible anxiety about a lot of things. But this, I have felt nothing but joy about.
Basically, all we've done is make a decision and start a planning process. At any point along the way, the plan may change and that is okay. We may decide to wait a while longer, we may decide to go sooner, we may do things differently. Instead of moving there to stay 100% of the year, we'd really prefer to spend half the year there and half in Texas. That will take a little bit more planning and money, but is the ULTIMATE dream. What matters is that we have a plan. We, Ralph and I, have a goal that we're working towards together and we're both really excited about it. We may spend one winter up there and come screaming back to Texas, and that's okay, too. Texas will always be home.
There will be a lot of bumps in the road, first and foremost is money. We cannot even consider doing this until we are financially stable and all debts repaid. That's a biggy. We'll have to sell our house and find something temporary, preferably in our current school district. I don't want to move the kids school, and I want somewhere safe and relatively nice. We need to decide exactly where in Maine we want to live. It's a huge state, with hardly any people in it, something like 1.3 million in the entire place. Their largest city, Portland has less than 67,000 people in it. Compared to the suburb of Houston I live in, which has almost 85,000 and is considered small. The city I work in has 150,000. Houston proper has 2.2 million and the Houston metro area has 6.5 million. The population density (or lack thereof) means fewer jobs and lower pay. I want some land, but want to be close to a grocery store and a hospital. There are a lot of things to consider, and we're going to consider the fuck out of them. NPR will be jealous of all the shit we consider.
WEEK ONE!
Tonight, we're starting on the clean-out process. I wanted to start in the overstuffed cave of our library closet, since most of the stuff in there has sat untouched since we moved into that house over a year ago. Ralph, who is at times much smarter than I am, wants to start in our actual closet. Where all of our clothes and shoes are kept. For some reason this feels a much more real and scary place to start. I haven't worn most of those clothes in ages, I tend to wear the same stuff over and over again, and I do have a bit of a shoe problem. But it hits me right in the feels to think about throwing away my clothes. I've always seen them as such a part of my identity. Will people still know I'm me without my witty t-shirts?? It is going to be a difficult but admittedly better place to start. So, if anybody wants any nerdy chubby girl clothes, I'm going to have a shit ton to get rid of. Hit me up!
Friday, September 16, 2016
Shit's about to get real, y'all.
I've always wanted to live somewhere cold. I grew up in Texas and Louisiana so soul-crushing heat has always been a part of my life. Once I grew up a little and had a nice job and income of my own, I started thinking about my first grown-up vacation. All I wanted was as far north as I could get. Other people want beaches and umbrella drinks, I wanted snow and hoodie sweatshirts. My incredibly logical brain decided on Maine, because it is coastal (another requirement), full of lobsters, and if Stephen King has taught us anything, it's where the monsters are. So, in 2006 I tricked this cute boy into going with me and made my first ever trip to Maine, at the bright-eyed and innocent age of 30.
It all began there, the boy and I got married, had a couple of boy children, and always talked of someday living in Maine. We would dream about half a year in Texas (in the winter) and half a year in Maine. I would home-school our children and we would be a mobile family, chasing good weather around the country. Ten years have gone by and we've visited Maine as often as we can, but are no closer to living there than we ever have been.
Until this week. I got a phone call in the middle of the afternoon on a regular old Thursday from my husband, Ralph (Raf, Rafy) and he had finally hit the wall. I don't know if it was our visit to Maine this past summer or the weather here just broke his spirit, but he made it clear he wasn't kidding and said, "Let's really do it. Let's make a plan because you're good at that, and let's really shoot to move to Maine at this time next year." This is very unlike him. He longs for cooler weather and a life we can lead outdoors, but he also greatly fears change and is by far more conservative than I am on every front. I'm the dreamer, the spontaneous one, I have fancy plans and pants to match! So, I've started planning.
The plan starts with us clearing out all unnecessary belongings out of our home. We're both a little hoarder-y. We love pop culture and nerdy things and books and tend to hang on to things forever for emotional reasons. We have a 3,000 square foot house that is cluttery and packed with our stuff. It is all going away. I have 52 weeks to get organized, get our house sold, find temporary housing, like a rental house or an apartment which will be both cheaper and easier to walk away from when September 2017 rolls around, and find us a place to live in Maine.
Our lives are already full of kids activities and sports, extended family things, my online college classes, the usual work and home duties and I'm frequently overwhelmed. I remedy this by sitting on my butt playing iPhone games, playing Dungeons and Dragons with old friends, marathon binge watching House Hunters International, and basically not doing anything about the actual work that needs to be done. Summarily, I'm an incredibly awesome and fun person, but sometimes a bit of a shit housekeeper and wife, so this should be an interesting experiment.
For those who know me in real life: Surprise! We're really moving to Maine! For those of you who don't know me or have found this somehow on the internet: Welcome! I'll try to keep it mostly dick and fart jokes, while constantly mocking myself and everyone around me and throw in some tidbits about this whole life-changing decision every now and then.
It all began there, the boy and I got married, had a couple of boy children, and always talked of someday living in Maine. We would dream about half a year in Texas (in the winter) and half a year in Maine. I would home-school our children and we would be a mobile family, chasing good weather around the country. Ten years have gone by and we've visited Maine as often as we can, but are no closer to living there than we ever have been.
Until this week. I got a phone call in the middle of the afternoon on a regular old Thursday from my husband, Ralph (Raf, Rafy) and he had finally hit the wall. I don't know if it was our visit to Maine this past summer or the weather here just broke his spirit, but he made it clear he wasn't kidding and said, "Let's really do it. Let's make a plan because you're good at that, and let's really shoot to move to Maine at this time next year." This is very unlike him. He longs for cooler weather and a life we can lead outdoors, but he also greatly fears change and is by far more conservative than I am on every front. I'm the dreamer, the spontaneous one, I have fancy plans and pants to match! So, I've started planning.
The plan starts with us clearing out all unnecessary belongings out of our home. We're both a little hoarder-y. We love pop culture and nerdy things and books and tend to hang on to things forever for emotional reasons. We have a 3,000 square foot house that is cluttery and packed with our stuff. It is all going away. I have 52 weeks to get organized, get our house sold, find temporary housing, like a rental house or an apartment which will be both cheaper and easier to walk away from when September 2017 rolls around, and find us a place to live in Maine.
Our lives are already full of kids activities and sports, extended family things, my online college classes, the usual work and home duties and I'm frequently overwhelmed. I remedy this by sitting on my butt playing iPhone games, playing Dungeons and Dragons with old friends, marathon binge watching House Hunters International, and basically not doing anything about the actual work that needs to be done. Summarily, I'm an incredibly awesome and fun person, but sometimes a bit of a shit housekeeper and wife, so this should be an interesting experiment.
For those who know me in real life: Surprise! We're really moving to Maine! For those of you who don't know me or have found this somehow on the internet: Welcome! I'll try to keep it mostly dick and fart jokes, while constantly mocking myself and everyone around me and throw in some tidbits about this whole life-changing decision every now and then.
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