Actual Pictures!

Not *too* tidied up, because then you would not ever see them. And not of everywhere, because some places are not even tidyable enough for this. (The master bedroom still needs drywall, and texture, and paint, and . . . ) And there is still a great lack of Things On The Wall and color in genera. But there's enough to get the idea.
 

Kid desk area in the playroom

Girls' Bedroom. They have, unfairly, more pillows than anyone else.

Playroom. Still needs more bookshelves.

Boys' Bedroom. The most presentable angle.

Living/dining room. (A child is in MY chair!)

Back entry and piano. This is right opposite the kitchen.

Kitchen. Even messy it's still pretty roomy.

Schoolroom. It's honey, not cantaloupe

Backyard. This is the view from the kitchen window. There's a pond down there, with a rowboat and ducks.

Back deck and ramp. So far DOB has not driven off the edge, but it would be nice to get the rail up.

Slow Takes

Because it's been a long time since Friday. But there might be more than seven.

******
On Friday I decided I had better file the tax extension. (The thing about filing a tax extension is that it's almost as hard as filing taxes, because you have to estimate if you owe any taxes, but you don't have to actually be able to find the paperwork to prove it. Since the filing cabinet only arrived yesterday and the files are still all out in the garage, this was looking like the better option.)

I couldn't put my hands on the kids' social security numbers, but I plugged all the other numbers and a wild estimate on medical fees into the software. To my horror, it showed us owing thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes. I emailed DOB to see if this was correct, but he was out of the office most of the day. When he was around later in the afternoon, I messaged him and we both freaked out for awhile. I remembered that I had a digital copy of last year's tax return, so I pulled it up for comparison to see if I could find my error.

Aha! There were the kids' social security numbers. Might as well plug those in while I was at it. As I did it, I noticed our owed taxes melting away. Pretty soon it was replaced with a modest refund. Apparently the software calculated the children as dependents for a modest tax reduction based on just their birthdates, but we had to enter social security numbers for the full Child Tax Credit.

Whew.

******

In addition to moving in over here, we're still working on getting my grandparents' house ready for the market. I'm about cleaned and organized out. On the plus side, I got me a comfy old recliner which is *my* chair and no child is allowed to touch. (This is horribly cruel, in their estimation.) And a nice end table next to it which is now full of books and notebooks and pens and a spot for a tea mug. It's next to the heater for winter and the window for summer. I am very happy about this.

*****
On Wednesday Rocketboy brought the truck to the cedar lumberyard and we got the wood for the rail around the ramp. (A large part of everybody's life lately seems to be calling up Rocketboy and saying, "Hey, can you bring the truck over for . . . " But he has started actual college classes now, in addition to baking his own casseroles, so we are trying to tone it down.) Nothing in the world smells as good as a cedar lumberyad. (At least, nothing without calories.)

We still don't have it up, though, so DOB continues to risk life and limb on the ramp. But hopefully we are at least past the last frost.

*****
The new house setup is amazingly better on game nights. Before, we had eight people eating in a very small kitchen, and then all cleanup and setup for the game had to happen in the same kitchen (where every dish in and out of the cupboard required rearranging half the chairs) and then seven people all trying to fit around the same small table to actually play. Now the kids eat at the kitchen bar, the grownups eat in the living/dining room, and then kitchen cleanup can go on without having to move anyone's chair. And some people can even sit on the couch. It's a whole new world, and none of us have yet died of the disease that turned everyone to flourescent green goo.

*****
It's time to get back to normal life. Which means we need to start school on Monday. I am so not ready for this. I did spend a couple of afternoons last week planning school. (This was because I sat down and discovered I was too tired to get up again, and it felt more productive than playing Faster Than Light.) But that was for next term, and we still have nearly three weeks left of this term, and I have *no idea* where we were. Better find out tonight. At least I can do it without tripping over everyone!

*****
I may be speaking too soon. But so far the neighborhood seems very nice. There's a boy next door who plays very well with the ducklings, and his mom is very friendly and reasonable and even though last week was spring break things fell into a nice reasonable pattern of playtime a couple of hours every afternoon, mostly outside when it wasn't pouring down rain. There are a lot of teenagers in the neighborhood at large, but so far as I can tell they mostly engage in Wholesome Recreations like walking the dog and tossing footballs and digging in the garden, and not in Obnoxious Pastimes like revving cars blaring loud music at ungodly hours of the night. And there's a teenage girl just up the road who has horses that she has invited Duchess to come and help her curry tomorrow.

*****
Deux probably hates moving the most, as he always has. (For some time after we moved from Cincinnati when he was 5 he insisted that his real family had died and though he was grateful to us for taking him in, it wasn't quite the same.) However, the availability of a room on which he can set up a game and leave it out all weekend (or all spring break) is beginning to bring him around. The twins seem to be adjusting pretty well, and Dash is even having a few less irrational food aversions. Duchess, of course, is totally thrilled.

*****
The piano tuner's appointment software messed up and so he did not come last week, but he is coming on Tuesday, and thereafter I can hopefully start teaching the kids music at last. (We've had the piano for some time, but it was out in an outbuilding. Now it's in the entry.) I have actually started on rhythm. As I feared, they have little more aptitude for it than I, but I persevere.

In

We made it in! And although everything was not done before we did it, and there was still a lot of dust causing DOB to spend the first two days sneezing, still here we are and getting unpacked. It doesn't quite feel like home yet, but it does feel like a particularly nice and spacious vacation place. With a few stray boxes.

Since moving in, we have added the ramp, and doorknobs to the two most critical doors (thanks to His Majesty discovering that two of the old doors had lever handles and not the nasty bumpy round ones.) And I've hung some things, mostly crooked. And cleaned out the garage, so DOB can park there.


For the first few days, you aren't really unpacking so much as questing for one item after another to conduct the most basic tasks. Then you can start really digging into the piles and feel like you are Accomplishing Something. I've given myself the rest of this week to get as settled in as I can manage. Because at some point you have to return to normal life and figure the rest will get sorted out someday. Which most of it does, except for the last few boxes that never get unpacked and will be found either in your next move or by your heirs. (Apparently one of *those* contains Rocketboy's sunglasses, which I was keeping a close eye on where he had left them right until the moment when they disappeared.)

Boxed In

The house is full of boxes. Empty boxes. It should be full of full boxes, but I have been over at the other house painting.

The twins helped me pick out the color for the library. (It was going to be the schoolroom, but doesn't library sound better? Besides, I don't think the piano is going down that hall, so we're going to have to have most of the bookcases in there.) We took a curtain to the hardware store to match. I kept being timid and picking the lighter versions, but they insisted on the more intense. I wanted something warm and honey-colored and so finally I just went with them.

Then I started putting it up on the walls. Against the existing ice blue. It didn't looked honey-colored. It looked orange. (This, by the way, is why I don't bother buying a sample and painting it on the walls. I *still* can't be sure what it will feel like.) I was terrified, but I painted grimly on. I finally got to the rolling part, in which the ducklings gleefully participated (only later did I reflect on just how many tiny spatters I would be scraping off the laminate flooring, but then, they probably weren't any messier than I would have been solo). And behold! When it covered the wall entirely, it was honey-colored and all was well.

Although with that color and the name library, I'm thinking the room really needs a walnut table and some wing-backed leather chairs. But I have a feeling that I'll have to settle for a folding table and chairs for a good long while.

Then I did DOB's new alcove, for which he chose chocolate brown and light gray. It's a bit gloomy, but the brown really is tasty looking. Especially on the trim, which looks pretty much exactly like a very long chocolate bar.

Anyway, it's all mostly done now. At least the part that might be covered up by furniture. Flooring is going down and new wider doors are going in (and I'm sure I won't get *those* painted, but then, they'll never have furniture in the way of painting them).

And now I've really, really got to finish packing. According to the plan, we'll be in the new house by this time next week. I don't see how it will all happen. But it needs to happen.

Color Me Incompetent

I come from a line of women who can decorate. You know, the kind of people who can take a room and make it look like everything is supposed to be there, instead of like some random furniture was taking a walk and paused to catch their breath. The kind of people who can make colors who weren't on speaking terms sit down to tea together. And take eclectic and turn it into a style.

I wouldn't say I completely missed out on this talent. At least I got enough to be discontent when the walls are plain white. But somehow things never come out on the walls they way they do in my head. When I put a bunch of mismatched furniture together, it doesn't look "eclectic," it looks "bunch of mismatched furniture." When I put colors together, instead of reinforcing and highlighting, they just glare sullenly at each other.

But hope springs eternal and every house is a new chance. I wasn't going to paint anything at the new house just yet, as the walls are in good shape and resources need to be devoted to the flooring and door widths, but then I realized that the room that is ideal for the schoolroom is also painted powder blue. While I can tolerate plain white with sufficient stuff on the walls, powder blue I cannot tolerate anywhere for any length of time. So I'm going to try again, and see if this time I can get a color on the walls that doesn't turn into something else as soon as I get it up there.

I try reading books about color design, but they all start out with the first-grade color wheel, and then they start talking about how colors next to the main color can coordinate, or colors on the opposite side, and then my eyes glaze over when they start talking about hue and saturation and I go away with the impression that you can put together pretty much anything and it will look great in a decorating book and terrible in my living room.

One thing I haven't actually tried yet that I do have some hope in: I'm going to try matching my paint chips to the curtains and pictures I already like. It doesn't require me to read about hue and saturation, for one thing.

Home Improvement

One of the joys of selling a house is finally being required to do all that stuff you vowed you'd do to the house when you moved in.

This is the first time we have moved straight from one house to another, so there is also all the stuff to be dealt with before moving in: quite a bit in this case, because of the need to make the entrance and master bedroom and bathroom wheelchair accessible, at a minimum. There are a lot of other things that would be nice to do, but can wait, like putting a full bath in the master bedroom or repainting the hideous 80s dark wood flat-front cabinets. 

DOB proposed that we divide and conquer--I would handle the old house (a few random handyman projects that I could either do or be here when kind friends and relations came to help with) and he would handle the new house (getting bids, making lots of decisions, and hunting up funds). It was a logical system, but the lines invariably blur somewhat.

I am not handy. This is not a gender thing, it's a complete physical ineptitude thing. Still, I want to do my part, besides just calling people up and fixing sandwiches.  For the most part, I stuck to demolition. I managed to rip out the old wallboard in the basement stairwell without poking through into the laundry room or breaking my leg on the stairs, so that was an accomplishment. Also it involved burying two rats that had drowned in one of the garbage cans.

Two more big-ticket projects were replacing a broken window and painting under the eaves. Fortunately a friend suggested I check out the Habitat for Humanity store and there was, amazingly enough, a window that almost exactly fit in our very strangely-sized window slot for a third of the price of the special order from the hardware store. Also cheap paint in a color that didn't match, but no color would have matched. The color of our house is unique in human history. So it all came out much cheaper, which always makes me happy.

For a few brief moments I felt the glow of handiness and visions of improvements on the new house, planned and undertaken solely by me, danced in my head.

Then I returned to earth, where the children had reorganized the house, there was nothing to eat, and I was so exhausted I wanted to spend the entire next week in bed. I may decide that 80s dark wood cabinets are just fine.

Neighborhood

Our house lies in a part of town that isn't quite ready to commit to being town yet. Yes, it's within two minutes of two Large Evil Chain Stores, one in the process of becoming Even More Supremely Evil. But it wasn't that long ago that it was out in the country. We have city water, but our own septic tank. (Or at least a septic-handling device of uncertain vintage.)

The town grows, though, and our little pocket is getting smaller. Over the back fence is a brand-new development with moderately-sized houses on tiny lots, with immaculate yards and tidy driveways. It's actually a low-income development built under a sweat equity program, but it's clear that the people who live there have every intention of being just as nice of a suburban development as anywhere else. Sometimes we sneak through a hole in our back fence and go play on their playground, but we almost never see or hear children, though the few we have met assure us there are many more. Even the dirt seems particularly clean.

On our side of the fence, the houses are smaller, sometimes trailers, and the lots are much bigger and often overgrown, except for the occasional yard whose overflowing abundance of flowers proclaims its owner to be retired. Chickens wander in people's yards and wake us up in the morning. Children ride their bikes next to the road, even though the observed speed limit is closer to fifty than thirty. They say hello to strangers and invite them back to admire the poultry. Probably no one thought twice about seeing the Duchess and Deux standing by the side of the road, holding up signs to invite all and sundry for a visit. It would have been unthinkable on the other side of the fence.

We want to put a gate in the back fence, to make it easier to get between the two.

Exploring

Some pictures (courtesy D1, which is why she's in none of them) of the kids in our new yard. I've only had to rescue two boys out of the laurel bushes so far.

Conjugation

We are moved.
We have been moved. (Thanks to many helpful people.)
We shall be moved. (When we figure out where everything goes.)

Right now it's time to feel like the old sailor. And note that this is a *really* bad time to come down with the stomach flu. But not quite as bad of a time as last week would have been.

Status Report

Potty Training: Almost there. They've got the idea. D4 persisted in a triumph of willpower over lack of readiness, but he finally started figuring it out after several days of trauma for all concerned. They still have accidents. D4 still won't use full-sized potty. I spend a lot of time debating under what circumstances they earn chocolate. Still, I packed up all my diaper covers and training pants and sent them to Goodwill yesterday. (I saved the diapers for a lifetime supply of cleaning cloths.) Disposables will actually not be that greatly reduced, since I don't think we're anywhere close to staying dry at night yet.

Packing: Agonizingly slow. I'm trying to retrieve all the little pieces of everything and get them in the same boxes as all the other small pieces of the same category. And make sure we only take our stuff. And clean, and purge, and organize. And not murder anyone who discovers a cool lost toy in a box and drags it back out again.

Moving: We closed on the house on Thursday. Now we need to clean it very thoroughly, then paint and do some minor fixes. We're hoping to move Memorial Day weekend, which we realize is terrible timing because everyone able-bodied in the country will be out camping, but it's when we think we'll be ready. People have started to give me plants, and I'm very excited about that.

Colds: The kids have had them. Now I do. Bleah.

One Year Ago Today

Things were finally settling down a bit. We'd nearly survived the first year with twins. (And, as I kept telling them, they should have already been one! Someday I will forgive them for making their due date.) They were starting to utter their first words and thinking about taking their first steps.

I was making plans to start some simple schoolwork with D1 and enjoying living in a house that was finally painted and arranged the way I wanted it. Well, mostly. DOB was grateful to have a steady job with people he liked being around. We'd just taken D1 out on a birthday trip and she'd vowed she wanted to do the exact same thing next year. We spent a lot of time at our neighborhood park. We'd finally gotten the lawn mowed and ordered a reel mower so I could keep up with it myself.

And then the next evening, DOB came home and asked if I'd like to go out to dinner. Cicero was there to watch the kids, supper was long since fixed (I'd learned very early on that we wouldn't eat unless I did all the cooking as early in the day as possible). After a day like every day, who would say no?

We went to our favorite sandwich shop and he asked, "What do you think of moving to Washington?"

What did I think? I couldn't think of that--I'd never allowed myself to think of it.

By the end of the evening we'd decided to move sometime in the next year; by the end of the week we'd decided to leave that fall. It was impossible and absurd and imprudent, but having thought of it we had to try.

We fixed up our house, and sold it. DOB gave notice at his work, and found a replacement. We got rained on, learned to do things we couldn't do, and accomplished the impossible task of showing a house in immaculate condition while living in it with four preschoolers.

One day, the time had come, and we packed up the last of what was left and headed west. Our trip out felt like an epic adventure. We were free of everything, committed to nothing yet, following the pioneers only with better plumbing. We drove as far as we wanted to, stopped when we felt like it, and saw the country one mile at a time.

Then, we got here. After a few weeks of settling in and networking, all that energy we'd had for moving and adventuring came to a crashing end. We slept for ten or more hours every night and barely dragged ourselves through the day. We came down with one sickness after another. Our idea that we might find work while waiting for the bar exam turned out to be wrong; not that either of us had energy to work anyway.

There was nothing to do but wait. Wait and try not to think about the fact that we were unemployed and living in our parents' basement, which is not where anyone wants to be at thirty.* Especially not with four kids.

Then came a rush of studying for the bar exam, the thrill of DOB actually *taking* the bar exam and then . . . more waiting. Winter ended and spring began and it rained a lot and we stepped on each other's toes and the children screamed pretty often and there was nothing to do and nowhere to go and the bills kept adding up and we had probably done something incredibly stupid, but it didn't bear thinking about now.

And then . . . things began to pick up, a little. In one networking meeting in November we'd met with a Seattle attorney who knew a half-dozen lawyers in our area. We'd met with several of them before we collapsed in December. One of them, in the nicest possible way, ripped our presentation to shreds and made us rethink everything we were looking for and everything about how we were presenting ourselves. One of them was congenial but didn't know of anything.

In March, the latter one called me up and asked if I'd like to do a free-lance research project. In April, the former one looked at DOB's many-times-revised resume and said he'd finally got it and he should talk to X firm as they always had more work than they could handle. When DOB finally managed to speak to someone there, they gave him a contract project--and then another, and another. And finally the results from the bar came in, and DOB could be a real lawyer in the state he lived in for the first time.

Through all this, DOB's knee had been acting up due to the driving position of a minivan, but he'd tried to tough it out before spending money on a second car. The day after he got sworn in, a week after he'd started working on a contract basis, the strain in his knee became too much and he broke his foot. His good foot, which meant a wheelchair and therapy and no driving at all.

Somehow he kept working and we kept going even though it all felt like a cruel joke at times. Earlier this month, after sufficiently demonstrating his skill at negotiating for other people, he negotiated himself a full-time position. I got a second research project, and it may work into something intermittent but regular that I can do from home.

In short, we did it. We moved, we changed careers, we're going to settle where we've always wanted to live. DOB loves negotiating and advocating and I love researching and am starting to get back in touch with the self I left behind in Washington without losing the people I love. Our children are best friends with their cousins and have the run of the farm where I grew up. We are back on track towards being able to pay our own way.

There's still a long way to go. It still looks like it will be awhile before we have a home of our own again. DOB is starting over from the beginning in a difficult career, and the learning curve is steep. Health issues still crop up periodically and caring for four only-slightly-older children is still exhausting. In some ways it seems like we traded a lot of work for an overwhelming amount of work. We've asked a lot from those around us and we wish we had more to give back.

But we're very thankful for where we have been, for what we have been able to do, for where we are now, and for where we can go next.

*Not that the basement isn't a very nice place, in fact larger and airier than either of our apartments. And with much better grounds. The difficulties were psychological rather than physical.

Theories of Job Searching

The Goldilocks Theory of Job Searching states that for any given job searcher, two kinds of job postings are listed:

Too Big: "Candidates must have three advanced degrees from extremely expensive colleges, thirty-five years' experience in espionage cases involving rare Peruvian wildlife, and fluency in Basque, Parsi, and !Kung. X-ray vision a plus. Salary starts at $1.5M"

Too Small: "Candidates must be a vertebrate form of life with at least five words in vocabulary. Absence of criminal record a plus. You pay us."

There will, of course, be an occasional listing that slips through that an ordinarily competent mortal might apply for, but never fear, those positions will have been filled before the posting was listed, and the post is merely kept up as a sadistic trick.

This is why you are not supposed to look for a job by answering job listings anymore, although everybody keeps doing it anyway. No, you are supposed to get a job by networking, which is exactly how people have always gotten jobs but now there is a fancy name for it. It is, of course, simply the process of finding out whose sister's neighbor's cousin has a job open. You just have to talk to an awful lot of people until you find out which one it is.

Another downside is you must (if you are male) wear a tie. Now, this is the West Coast. Senior partners in downtown firms do not wear ties to work. But struggling, starving (not us, you know, but someone) lawyers-to-be must come up with a tie, and a good one, too, and demonstrate their ability to tie it. The ability to comply with meaningless formalities is, after all, an essential legal skill.

Actually the real trouble we have encountered is that just taking care of the ducklings is in fact more than a full-time job for two people. This leaves little time left over for minor things like earning a living. And upon arrival in a new state there are thirty-nine essential things to do in the first thirty days, all involving paperwork that could not possibly be obtained within thirty days.

But at least I got the lost broccoli and smashed crackers cleaned out of the van.

Places We Went, Things We Did

I feel that I have been exceedingly negligent in posting about the trip, but as someone has said, after a move it's not as if you can just do a few loads of laundry and be done. (In fact, I still haven't finished bringing in the toys and spare snacks from the car.)

The first two days we just drove straight up to northern Wisconsin, where we visited a friend for a few days. We had a lovely time walking in the woods, watching the snow fall, and generally relaxing after a very exhausting week . . . month . . . year . . .

After we left Wisconsin, our first notable stop was at Mall of America, which we visited ONLY because it has a large Lego store. To our bewilderment, D2 wandered off and insisted he wanted to go on a neighboring amusement park ride. We persuaded him that it was impossible and finally left, ears ringing, brains buzzing, the only benefit being everybody had a chance to stretch their legs out of the rain.

Our next destination, near the end of the next day, was the Badlands. This was particularly noteworthy as we arrived near sunset, and the older ducklings were on the watchout for bad cowboys the entire time. DOB and I were more watching out for staying on the road and not hitting antelope.

The following day we had gloriously warm weather and visited Mt. Rushmore. D1 and D2 were most impressed by the "mountain with faces." We stopped for a roadside picnic at a lovely little spot only a few minutes up the road from the main visitors' area--which turned out to be a good thing when a certain child who shall remain nameless realized an urgent need despite ceaseless attempts to take care of all such things before leaving the last available restroom.

The following day we had the choice to drive through Wyoming or Montana and settled on Wyoming, being rewarded by a drive on an even more lovely day through the incredibly beautiful Bighorn Mountains and Ten Sleep Canyon. We were hard-pressed to move on as everyone was ready to settle down as cowboys. (The good kind, of course.)

Bad weather had to catch up with us again at some point, and it finally did at Yellowstone. We still braved the drizzle to watch Old Faithful erupt, and saw a few other features before sleet settled our minds that it was time to move on.

The following day we drove a longish ways to central Washington so we could have a short drive the following day. That also gave us the chance to spend the night with some acquaintances, which was fun and relaxing. Midway we had the serendipity to discover a lovely park when we pulled off to look for gas in Idaho, and gave the kids the chance to climb on play equipment, something that they had found rather absent amid all the scenic beauty.

After putting in five to seven hours of driving each day, our final stretch of three hours seemed effortless. We didn't even bother to stop. We had seen plenty of rocks and trees and trees and rocks and so forth.

Travel Companions

We have arrived, bags and baggage, which are all piled about at random right now. Instead of dealing with them, however, I shall sit and reflect upon the journey. The contemplative life and all that.

The best advice about traveling with a lot of small children is probably: don't. Nonetheless, I'm glad we had a good excuse to do so, because I adore road trips, even though with four small children it takes an hour-long stop just to cycle everyone through the bathroom.

Plus we were at the point where we had the maximum amount of gear per person and the minimum amount of hefting power. The ducklings tried, but they were not always clear on the concept, D4 insisting on hauling the diaper bag back out to the car no matter how many times we tried to point him to the hotel room door. When we could get a place with luggage carts, however, all was well--indeed, riding on the luggage cart was the highlight for everyone. We probably should have gone by luggage cart instead of by van.

D1 and D2 were well stocked with ideas and maps and presents to open and generally enjoyed it all fairly well. D1 was convinced that all the most scenic items were on D2's side of the car, though I tried to convince her that the American West was not carefully arranged to disadvantage her. She worked it out by always announcing she had seen whatever sight there was to see, whether or not she had, and definitely if D2, whose brain seldom switches gears fast enough at 80 mph, had missed it.

D3 was our easiest traveler, as her ideal of life is to sit, hold Doll-doll, suck her fingers, and stare out the window. This she did with great contentment for hours on end, sometimes with her eyes shut, sometimes with them open. She was not without adventures, however, as a tumble off a wall in Wyoming left her with a nice patch of bandaids on her forehead for strangers to remark upon.

D4 was the one we were most concerned about. Sitting still is not on his List of Things To Do any day of the week. Seeing new places and things compensated him greatly, though. The first few days were a bit uneven, and once he started shouting, "Done!" from the back seat we knew we had better be done fast, but once he got used to the routine of travel he was contented and even eager to ever be moving onward. I was then worried he would not be content to remain, but he seemed to know that this was the place to stay as soon as we arrived; perhaps it was finding his bikes all waiting for him to arrive, or his new freedom to wander outside as much as he pleases.

On the Pain of Packing

I made a comment on facebook that packing for a road trip was worse than labor, and got some vigorous disagreement--and some agreement. Perhaps it depends what pain is freshest in your mind. Nonetheless, as I was sitting on our friend's floor, surrounded with eight different receptacles and fifteen different piles, gasping for air, while people brought me water and encouragement but could offer no tangible assistance, it did feel oddly similar. Unfortunately, all the information as to what had to be packed where existed only in my own brain, a place where it was never really at home and kept trying to leave.

I read some wise advice that one should pack in outfits for each person per day. Thus, the advice said, you would only have to take in a bag of pajamas and toiletries and another bag with tomorrow's clothes. This made a lot of sense. So I packed that way. So now, at any given spot, we only have to haul in the bag with tomorrow's clothes, and the bag of kids' pajamas, and the bag with grownup pajamas, and the bag of dirty laundry, and the bag with toiletries and DOB's swim gear, and the cooler, and the box of food/kitchen items, and two beds for the babies, and two booster seats for the babies.

But, you know, there's a small bin of clothes at the bottom that we don't have to haul in every night. It helps.

I hope the beds for the babies survive the trip, as we could find nowhere to put them but down the aisles of the van--which doesn't get in the way of the kids' legs, but I'm not sure what my weight climbing on them a dozen times a day is going to do to them. We put the babies in the very back, in hopes that they would sleep more readily that way, and also because they have a handier shelf for accumulating toys to throw on the floor. This makes for quite an ordeal getting them in and out, however. They do sleep a lot in the car, which means they do not sleep once we arrive at a hotel, instead spending a couple of hours popping up out of their beds like prairie dogs. But the tradeoff is worth it at this point and we will rediscover a Sensible Baby Schedule once we have arrived.

Jazz for the Open Road

At 9:49 on Saturday morning, we pulled out of our driveway for the last time. Of course, we had planned to leave at 5:30, but then it turned out the gym wasn't open the night before as late as DOB was able to go, so we had to wait for him to go the next morning, and we certainly had not finished loading everything, but Cicero was there to tidy up the last bits, and so we at last just went.

Our destination the first day was Madison, which meant seven and a half hours on the road--which we hope will be our longest day. D4 certainly hopes for that, though he did surprisingly well. When he started shouting "Done!" from the back seat, though, we knew it was time to find a rest stop. Very soon. And produce snacks in the meantime.

We managed to survive on picnics for the first day, but below forty degrees picnics start to get a bit less fun. Fortunately we were on a toll road for suppertime, and instead of freezing outside in the dark were able to take our food to a food court at an indoor "Oasis" that crossed the tollway.

To mark our progress, we are creating a paper clip chain to which we add a new paper clip every fifty miles. So far it stretches from the mirror nearly to the dashboard. The big kids get a coloring page for each new state we enter.

Sunday we had an abbreviated picnic on a nippy but glorious mountain park with giant boulders buried in golden leaves. We're now in the north woods of Wisconsin for a couple of days, visiting a friend and watching the snow fall on the autumn leaves. And trying not to think about how many of miles of cold lie between us and our destination.

Now It's About Packing

I feel slightly guilty that one of the primary tasks of preparation has been planning activities to do in the car. Did Ma Ingalls worry about keeping the girls occupied for months on the trail? I think not. Of course, they didn't have to be completely immobilized for the entire trip. And there are a lot fewer buffalo chips to gather these days. Besides, what's the point in bemoaning how much more spoiled we are than past generations? Now is when we live and there's not much to be done about it; we might as well enjoy it.

In that line, I am delighted by the discovery of burning MP3 files, which our car CD player can handle. With the aid of Librivox and some spare CDs, we now have more than a dozen books on three cds--which in audio files is only about half of one short book. Trying to aim at books enjoyable for all concerned, I have both Alice books, The Princess and the Goblin, the Just So Stories, a whole bunch of Oz books (pretty silly as I recall, but DOB has a deep appreciation for lame puns that should carry him through), The Lost Prince, and an E. Nesbit I've never heard but am willing to take on faith. Also I and II Samuel, Luke, and Acts.

There's a point in an airline journey--usually it's getting on the second flight on the trip out--where I always used to be able to think of nothing more than the misery of another flight (I never quite outgrew motion sickness) and then think with further dread of how I would soon have to repeat all this in a few days to return. Why not stay where I was? Whatever it was I was going to do fades completely.

This is that point in packing. All I can think of as I watch everything disappear in boxes increasingly random in composition despite every attempt to make them sensible, is how I'm going to have to unpack them all. And then pack them all again. And then unpack them all again. Each time no doubt increasing the randomness. (The trouble is, things seldom occur to me the same way twice. This time it made sense to put the extra tea and the cookie cutters and ingredients for cookies in a box labeled "Tea and Cookies," but is that likely to happen again?) And how is it that we already gave away half of our stuff AND packed up half of what was left and stored it at someone else's house, and we still have this much stuff left?

Countdown Menus

One of those basic housekeeping tasks I've never done before is planning a week of menus and then shopping on that basis. I have been following a general outline of menus--the same basic two-week-rotation with tweaks--since D2 was a baby and my brain started to fry, and then I just keep the kitchen and pantry stocked with basics plus what's on sale. Supposedly this is in fact even cheaper than regular menu planning, but I've never done the math. Plenty of pantry and freezer space has made me careless of getting duplicates. (Quintuplicates?)

But, this week I face the challenge of getting the pantry down to as little as possible before we go. Actual planning seemed in order. And since I'm rather pleased with myself for doing it, and, more importantly, since this slip of paper is almost certain to get lost or thrown away before the end of the week, I shall document it here.

Monday: Pizza Pasta (using up some of the many cans of diced tomatoes that had overtaken the pantry, plus the last of the mushrooms, olives, pre-cooked hamburger, and all but the last half-box of pasta.) I forgot to serve the corn--we have a lot of corn in the freezer--which goes to show why I don't usually bother with detailed planning.

Tuesday: Chicken (probably just pan-fried with spices) with roast veggies (using squash from the garden), peas (from freezer).

Wednesday: A simplified version of Lengua, using the last can of chiles from the pantry, more of those tomatoes, corn from the freezer, and of course, tongue. (DOB tries to forget that this is in it, since the thought grosses him out but the dish is delicious.) Crisp for dessert using mystery berries from the freezer and possibly pantry.

Thursday: Turkey sausage and fried potatoes; salad of whatever is left; whatever frozen vegetables are left.

After that the dishes and pots will be packed.

Shoes and What Goes in Them

The pendulum has swung back, and from maintaining the house in unflinching neatness we have gone past normal functional-but-messy-at-the-edges to Total Chaos. This could be psychological, or it could just be the necessary consequence of trying to pack with the children's help. ("No, you DON'T want to pack your tennis shoes. You need to wear your tennis shoes." "Hey, Mama, what can I do to help? Oh, hey can we play dress-up? I'm sure a good helper, huh?")

Actually wearing shoes is what the babies like best. After weeks of borrowing any shoes lying around the house, they were thrilled to get their Very Own Shoes, and they know quite well whose are whose and that you need both of them to get dressed. They hold out their little feet, quivering with excitement, for socks to be applied. And then, please, can we go Out? Door? Out? D4, especially, finds a day wasted if he does not get to acquire a brand-new scar. (The prizewinner was falling off a brick wall into a rosebush.)

Not to be outdone, I invented a new sport this week. I have been needing a more aerobic activity, because when I don't get aerobic exercise, I can't sleep, and when I don't sleep, life is horrible. Which it was last weekend. I like to just walk, but unfortunately I tend to forget I am walking for exercise and instead mosey along lost in thought. It's good for the mental health, but not sufficient physically. Unfortunately, brisk walking or running require concentration on something that is, to me, extremely boring, i.e., repetitive physical movements.

Early this week we watched a movie that included some demonstrations of free running. Now that looks fun, I thought. And--another requirement in my book--no special equipment or location. Unfortunately, while other little girls were doing gymnastics and turning cartwheels, I was walking into walls. So the more acrobatic elements of the sport--vaulting, flipping--are well beyond me.

But, I figured, anybody can stop going straight on boring paths and instead look for ways above, under, or through obstacles. And thus, I invented my own personal sport, which I shall call "crazy running" because the goal is to have the neighbors look out and say, "What is that crazy lady doing?" The rules simply are (1) Keep moving quickly; (2) Keep it changing; (3) Avoid actual damage to people or property while otherwise pushing the limits of acceptable adult behavior. So, climbing trees, running up or down slides at the park, jumping off bleachers, running and jumping on and off the curb, taking advantage of abandoned jump ropes and hopscotch games, high-fiving random poles, breaking into a crazy step pattern, vaulting fire hydrants, and who knows what else I may think of tomorrow. (I'll admit, my attempt to vault a fire hydrant was not very successful, but I think I can learn how.)

The challenge of coming up with new crazy things to try keeps me interested and moving fast. The variety of movements makes for a far better workout than running or walking alone would. I've been doing about a half-mile of running/jumping interspersed with brisk walking, which I know is not much but it's where I have to start and I hope that now I will actually build up my strength. Afterward I cool down by taking a classic mosey to clear my brain.

Not About Packing

So I should be packing up everything, but I can't seem to muster up the energy. At this rate we're going to have to abandon half of our stuff to the buyer. (There always is something, though, isn't there? Weird curtains and odd pieces of lumber stuffed in corners of the attic and basement.)

The older ducklings are at Grandma's today, but I have temporarily picked up three extra who are not allowed to go visit their new baby sister in the hospital owing to flu season having officially started yesterday. I am glad I do not have triplets. Actually everyone is occupying themselves pretty well, but I certainly do not have enough lap space for three toddlers.

Yesterday I picked up a bag full of library books to tide me over until we leave. It left me wondering why murder mysteries are such good comfort reads. Actual murders would, presumably, not be comforting. I suppose it is the moral resolution; it is Judgment Day for other people, which is always far more comfortable than it should be. A really good novel is about Judgment Day for yourself, which is always uncomfortable. That is why I have not read any really good novels lately; that and I accidentally packed Anna Karenina after reading the first twelve chapters.

Nonetheless, I was really distressed to start Alexandar McCall Smith's Scottish series and discover he had gone for a second forty-something lady with a troubled past marriage but a kind and philosophical outlook. He surely could have managed something with a little more variety if he had tried. Or maybe he thought it would have been trying too hard to be distinctly different? Or did he think switching from Botswana to Scotland was change enough and he'd better stick to what he knew for the rest?

I shall read it anyway.