As Fast As We Can Go In Slow Motion

Well, it's official: We've sold our house. Moments after our counter offer was accepted I was completely sure we had done the wrong thing, and now that we've found a rental, a house plan and are getting things rolling for building our next home, I'm feeling pretty sane about it all. It doesn't hurt that the rental home is one of Trevor's clients' homes, all cozy on Walloon Lake with its many thousand square feet in which to stretch out. Granted, it is furnished as thought it's the resting place for all those model boats and leather loveseats lawyers get rid of when they retire and we have no idea where we're going to fit the kids' stuff, but looking out over the lake for the next few seasons will probably make up for it.

We'll spend the weekend packing and on Monday I'm headed over to pack up the owners' clothing and more rare, er, model boats, and to clean the house in preparation for two kids under four and a dog. I'm bursting out of my seams, I'm so excited to get over there alone to clean and assess the next seven or eight months.

We have about two weeks to get comfortably moved in, as we close on Nov. 16 but let's not forget about DEER CAMP which must be attended the weekend before and on various days throughout the following week. We're headed downstate for a weekend in early Novemeber, and I'm scheduled to take Berit on a little trip down to Ohio to visit my relatives there the weekend after, so even though we have until Nov. 23 to actually leave the house, we technically don't have very many days to move. We have ALOT TO DO.

Conversely, with the past few days of pure rain and wind and with the swine flu breathing down our necks quite literally, we've been cooped up going absolutely stir crazy. After several school districts around us closed due to the flu and after one of Berit's classmates came to school sick, we decided to pull B from school for the rest of this week and possibly Monday as well. So many parents did this that the preschool closed itself until today, and next week will implement serious germ-fighting measures. All the right things to do, but I'll tell you what, it's making us all a little bonkers. With the rain pouring and wind blowing so outside is miserable, and with our whole purpose for getting out of school being to keep the kids away from germs therefore limiting our adventuring around town and to the usual hangouts to NOWHERE, the kids are seriously going bananas. Today I took them for ice cream and they reacted like they had been stuck in a closet for the past three days. On the way home, determined to get them fresh air without getting poured on, I rode for a few miles with the windows down and they gulped at the wind with glee.

I have to wonder if these kinds of days are healthy themselves. I know we're keeping the kids away from germs, but they are truly grumpy and crazy and don't know what to do with themselves. On a typical day during down time they can muster up independent play pretty well, but when the entire day revolves around the living room, the basement and their bedrooms, they forget what to do and wander around yelling nonsensical noises, stripping off their clothes and sweeping entire shelves clear of toys for the sole purpose of sweeping entire shelves clear of toys. This morning Marta was screaming to "go bye-bye" at 7:30.

When we're cooped up I'm always shocked at how long the days are. Whenever I check the clock, thinking that thank God Trevor will be home soon, I realize that it's NOT EVEN TWO O'CLOCK YET. It's days like this that I think it might be a good idea to enroll Marta in daycare twice a week, just for a change of scenery. But I guess we'd have pulled her out, too, so boo on that thought.

Anyway, we're probably going off the radar for a couple of weeks here, to pack up our house and put it somewhere (with the excess boats, maybe?), and before we know it I'll be posting from the new house.