Of Loos and Drips and Lonely Facts

It's been frustrating not to be able to blog whenever I want. I have ideas for blogs come into my head several times a day, only to lose them because I'm in the middle of something and don't have access to a computer anyway. I know, I know, I could write them down on paper, but now that I'm used to a computer it's hard to go back to longhand writing. I just can't keep up with my thoughts when I'm writing like that. So, here I sit, with the time and opportunity to blog and no idea what to say.

We are going to be gone next week. We'll finally be getting our stuff from the old house and bringing it here. Yippee hooray! We'll have to use dial-up for awhile, but I think I can live with that. As the husband would say, "It beats the alternative."

I've been feeling kind of lonely this last week. I'm surprised it's taken this long to hit me, honestly. Moving is always hard on me. I tend to be really attached to my friends and miss them very much. Since I'm shy I also have a hard time making new friends, which doesn't help. It's easy enough to make casual friends, the sort of people you'd have over for dinner or stop and chat in the store when you see them. Really good friends, the kind you can call when your battery dies in Walmart's parking lot or get an honest opinion about this top, "... does it make me look top-heavy?" - those are harder to find and it takes time. I hate the taking time part. Patience is not one of my strengths, especially not when I'm stranded with a dead battery, two little ones in the car, and the husband a two hour drive away. (That'll teach me to leave the teen in the car while I run into the store with the little ones. He had the radio, air conditioner, fan and inside lights on. No wonder the blasted thing died!) (Though, to give him credit, he went and found a very nice young man who gave us a jump. But I'm still not leaving him in the car alone again. Not for a while anyway. OK, not for two weeks. Definitely. I mean it.)

I just have to hang in hear a little longer though. It'll take about a year, judging from past experiences, and then I'll finally have a small group of friends that I can add to as time goes on. It's good training in patience.

In other news, the toddler finally use the toilet as more than a place to sit and be entertained! Last Saturday night she was in the tub and suddenly grabbed herself and said she was stinky. Now, we'd been through this before and I knew it wasn't going to lead anywhere but a wet/soapy floor and toilet seat. It's great fun to pretend we're going potty, after all. So, I told her no, that it was bath time and not a good time to play on the potty. I know what you're thinking, but please remember, I've been waiting months for this. I wasn't expecting her to nod and then cut loose!

I wisked her out of the tub before more than a small amount of solid stuff had emerged and put her on the toilet. She finished up and flushed with great glee and much pride and then we went and told Daddy. (And then Mommy scrubbed the tub, a suitable punishment for her cynical reaction, and the toddler got to take another bath. Whee!)

I'm Back!

For this post anyway. I'll try to make this work every so often, but it's going to be difficult. You see, we don't have our computer, and we don't have internet access at the moment.

The day we moved was hot and cloudy, a miserable combination. We had nightmare troubles getting the truck rented (we went through FOUR trucks, no kidding), and the people helping us move showed up while the husband was gone getting a hand truck (because the truck rental place didn't give us the one we had reserved, although they did charge us for it.) It was a chaotic and stressful day, which ended with too much stuff and not enough truck. Not to mention the charity that was supposed to come pick up some stuff never showed, and it started to rain on the assorted furniture and clothing that I was giving away.

We wound up driving off the next morning, leaving several important items behind (the computer, the vacuum, clothing - all the stuff we left for last because we wanted it off the truck first - in other words, all the important stuff), planning to come back for it in a couple of weeks. We headed for our new home, a 6 hour trip that wound up taking 10 hours. Luckily, the people in our new church who were waiting to help us unload were nice and don't hate us for that. They all went home and came back when we got here and helped us unload in record time.

The house is perfectly wonderful, the neighbors are friendly and helpful, and our new church is beyond fantastic. The teen went to two sleepovers our first week here and has been just as busy socializing ever since. We keep saying, "When do we meet the jerks?" The only problem is we can't convince the local cable company to come out and hook us up. They keep saying they're going to do it and then not coming. It's been nice being without TV and internet though, very peaceful and fight-free. The teen is actually spending time doing other things than sitting on a chair or a couch while some kind of screen sucks his brains out through his eyes. Yay!

Oh, there is one other problem, but it's work-related. They've got the husband on a incredibly difficult schedule at work, five 10-hour days on and one day off. The overtime is nice, and helps us pay the bills, but we can't get back to our old house to get everything. Which means we're having to keep paying the mortgage. Talk about your expensive and inconvenient storage units! We want to rent it out, but that's not going to happen until we can get back down there. Not to mention the husband is so incredibly brain-dead from this schedule. It's just for a while though, they tell us. It better be. I don't know how long he can keep this up. It's not just the long work day, it's the hour and a half commute that's the problem. 13 hours gone from home each day. Wow, I love that man. He works so hard to take care of us.

In other news, the baby started walking (July 12) and got her first tooth (June 30.) The toddler has grown out of most of her clothes again and has figured out that, "I not a boy, Mommy, I a girl!"

In other words, life goes on. Which is a very nice thing.

I'll get back on as I can. Hopefully a couple of times a week. I have to check the library's schedule.