Relocating Stress

Mountains of Stuff

• What: Trying to get it all done
• When: Moving with kids
• Why: Someone has to do it
• Where: Our home

I’m trying to psyche myself up to get the blog done this week. Even though the kids have gone back to school, and for the first time ever, I have three kids in school every day (and the same school at that! The same drop off time and location! The same school break schedule!!!), and I should have oodles of time to myself, I can’t seem to find the time to get it all done.

I’ve told myself I will have more time for the last two years at this time of year, too. First, my youngest went to preschool two days a week for five whole hours. So I started getting serious about the blog with “all” those extra hours. Then last fall, he went three days a week. I thought I’d have fifty percent more time. Instead, I got sick.

Now, we’re doing something I swore I’d never do: moving with kids. I grew up in one house my entire childhood and loved it. The ten acres to roam probably didn’t hurt, or the strong community where everyone knew everyone. I wanted the same thing for my kids. I love living small in our “little” house, which is so much bigger than most people around the world enjoy. And then the inevitable happened. I fell in love with another house, in our same neighborhood which we couldn’t imagine leaving. Now we have two houses and we’re in the process of moving.

I say process because we didn’t have a firm date for so many weeks, and I am a person who likes a deadline and a schedule. Instead, we had one not too big project to complete before we could consider moving into the new house, and one really big project the previous owners had to complete before we could talk about moving into the new house. Now, several weeks past the anticipated date, the big project that wasn’t our responsibility wrapped up. And we put some serious sweat (and swearing) into our project to make the move happen.

So in between the sand, dust, and construction, and packing and moving, and scheduling repairmen and keeping track of the repairs other people did, as well as having the kids home full time on summer break, I’ve been trying to keep up with the blog.

If I miss a day or two here and there, you’ll know I am probably lost under the mountain of boxes and stuff I unearthed in our house. I’m hoping to let go of some things we don’t need anymore or haven’t seen in years. I’m threatening to get rid of any box that hasn’t seen the light of day since our last move thirteen years and three kids ago. I’m confident in even another month, or another week, I won’t remember the long days and short nights and struggle that went into making this move happen, and it will all be worth it. Until then, you might see fewer words, but never fear. I’ll have many more to share soon.