playgroupsarenoplaceforchildren

Yesterday when going to meet the Blind man at my house (he can actually see…he just sells blinds), I nearly wrecked my car when I drove by this scene.

Thank goodness I’ve taken everyone’s advice and I tote my camera EVERYWHERE I go.

I knew I had to turn the car around and shoot some photos, it was so beautiful! The orange leaves, the way the trees lined the road along the cemetery, the sun and how it filtered through the leaves…

I couldn’t wait to get home and play around on Photoshop with the photos, I had just Stumbled on some free textures on Flickr and wanted to see if I could figure out how to use them.

Of course I never have been able to figure out how to do the vignette in Photoshop, so I just added that part using THE GREATEST PHOTO SOFTWARE ON THE INTERNET, Picnik.  (PS…I’m giving away a PREMIUM Picnik subscription next week!)

There is a certain peace in having moved to Tennessee during the fall and makes leaving my beloved Indiana less painful.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Don’t forget, you can still enter the Vintage Body Spa giveaway until tomorrow morning!

Back when we moved to Indiana, I told you all about my love for HGTV’s House Hunters.  Not only do I love peeking into other’s homes on the TV show, I usually* love my own house hunting excursions.

*Have you ever house hunted ALONE with TWO little bitty children and an aloof realtor???  If not, I’d HIGHLY recommend against it to avoid the loss of clumps of hair and at least four years off of your life because OH MY GAWD it’s FRUSTRATING to say the LEAST.  Two kids in and out of car seats, waiting on a slow motion realtor, keeping four tiny hands from touching other homeowners’ tchotchkes and yowling cats, and rushing to see just three! more! homes! on the opposite end of town through lunch hour traffic before nap time.  It’s not fun, it’s not fun, IT IS NOT FUN.

And we’re back…

So this go round of house hunting was not nearly as fun as normal.  Luckily for the sake of something to actually write about on this blog, there was one notable occurrence.

It had already been a long day of house hunting and our realtor suggested we see a lovely ranch with a fully finished walk-out basement on nearly an acre in a neighborhood on the west side of town.  Since this fit the description of exactly what we were looking to buy, I begrudgingly agreed to go see it before pleading to take a lunch break.  Driving up to the house, I already knew it wasn’t “the one,” but felt like we should at least go in and look since we’d driven all that way.

Walking in the front door, I immediately noticed a very heavy scent of some sort of spice.  The odor permeated the air and made it difficult for me to even look at the house.  I quickly checked out the upstairs rooms (one was a tiger room (???), complete with a velvet painting of a Bengal tiger…raur!) and headed to the finished basement.

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, we could hear a TV blaring.  My realtor and I looked at each other with a mixture of confusion and fear, as she called out, “hello? is anyone here?”   I felt so awkward looking at a house with someone possibly in it!  What if they heard me say something unkind about the decor!?!

An elderly couple emerged from the basement bedroom.  The gentleman was tall, with a slightly hunched back.  He was dressed in a wrinkled suit and his white hair was disheveled.  He motioned to us to come in, waving his hand and nodding his head over and over and speaking in a language we didn’t understand. (At least he probably hadn’t heard or understood me making fun of the tiger motif upstairs.  Phew.)  His wife stood behind him, short and stout.  Her silver hair was pulled up in a bun and covered with a scarf and and she wore a navy blue dress that reached her calves.  She looked at us hopefully and repeatedly nodded also.

We had suddenly stumbled into the old country.**

**I don’t know WHICH old country, just AN old country.

Since I feel weird looking at houses with the people inside, I wanted to turn right around and run back upstairs, out the door, throw the kids in the car, and squeal my tires as I made my escape from the old country, but the elderly man insisted that I see their bedroom.  Across every inch of the floor lay about five handmade blankets of every color of the rainbow.  I tiptoed carefully across their blanket floor since they were persistent and really wanted to show me around.  There were two twin beds on opposite sides of the room, a bookshelf, and a 13-inch television on a small table in the room.  After showing me their closets, they looked at me eagerly, all the while speaking to me in a language that I didn’t understand.

I looked around as quickly as they would let me, apologized for the intrusion, and thanked them for the tour, hoping they’d understand at least something I said.  As I tried to escape, they saw that I had a baby and wanted to see her closer.

“Foiled!” I thought to myself.  “I just want to get out of here!”

The man pointed at me and pointed at Ella and then at me again while saying things I did not understand.  I smiled and nodded politely.  He put his head on Ella’s head and said, “God bless you.”

That I understood.  Sweet as it was, though, I was still uncomfortable and READY TO GO.  They waved to us and repeated “God bless you” to us over and over as we made our way to the stairs.

It was such an odd encounter.

Nothing like this EVER happens on House Hunters.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard or not, but NEXT weekend is BlissDom ‘08 sponsored by Blissfully Domestic magazine. It’s being held in my new home state of Tennessee, just a few hours from me in Nashville.

I think the MOST important thing that I should mention about BlissDom ‘08 is the fact that I will be speaking on a Question and Answer panel.  As your own personal “Yoda of blogging,” YOU can ask ME questions about blogging.  If this isn’t enough to pique your interest (???), maybe the fact that it’s a FREE CONFERENCE will.

So let’s review.

I’m speaking and it’s FREE!

Not enough?

Okay, how about this.  Jessie Baylin, a real live SINGER will be performing.  They originally asked me to sing at the conference, seeing as I do an absolutely FAB rendition of Five Green and Speckled Frogs and If You’re Happy and You Know It.  But with all those questions I’ll be answering, I figured my voice wouldn’t be in pristine condition for singing.  Jessie Baylin is a fantastic replacement for me, though.

And if the fact that I’m speaking, which by proxy means you’ll get to meet ME! and the conference is FREE, AND Jessie Baylin is singing still isn’t enough, then how about a list of attendees…

Check out this link for a list of attendees so far.

Impressive, yes!!!??

I’LL see YOU next weekend in Nashville!

(You all get that I’m making fun of MYSELF, right???  I’m not really this conceited!!)

My style of decorating tends to lean towards “Pottery Barn” or “Target,” and less “floral” or “old lady” or “kuntry.”

I also don’t care for “clashing” or “1987.”

Anyway, I think the photos of the decor in our temporary house can speak for themselves.  If it gets to be too much for your eyes to handle, place a cold compress over the affected area and accept my deepest apologies.  In the event that you like what you see, I’ll get you in touch with the decorator, Ethel.  You have to call her before she goes out for dinner at 3 PM.  She’s very easy to reach around 4 AM before her water aerobics class.

Note how I have the curtains held back with the blinds. This is a new trend in home decorating that I’m revealing here for the first time!

Um? Ew.  Nice touch, though, that they added the “We Appreciate You!” That makes the fact that they mentioned condoms *shudder* so much better.

Those flowers?  Yeah, they’re PLASTIC.  And yes those PLASTIC flowers are planted in the ground.

I know, WOW, right??!!??

Less than three weeks ago I didn’t know that moving my family was even a possibility, but here we are, living in Tennessee.

It’s very surreal.

Tate’s company has put us up in a nice three bedroom house with a deck and a yard.  We are nestled amongst million dollar homes that overlook the lake, though our house is definitely NOT of the million dollar variety.  I’m grateful that we’re not living in an apartment and that we are living rent free until we purchase a home.  However, this nice three bedroom house is in an area inhabited mostly by retirees and is a good 30-45 minutes from shopping and CIVILIZATION.

I’m having a lot of trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that my family and I no longer live in Indiana, but instead I live in amongst retirees in Tennessee.

Since finding out just under three weeks ago about our impending move, my mind has been occupied with the endless details of moving.  I hadn’t allowed myself to think about what it would be like to LIVE again, in the new normal we have to carve out for our family.

My inlaws, who should be sainted or knighted or something, had spent the past week helping me prepare and move.  Without them I don’t think that I could have coped with packing my children’s toys and clothes and driving away from our home in Indiana.  They left to return home yesterday and all day I felt this huge black emptiness.   Way out in retirement land with nary a park or a FRIEND nearby, I feel lonely and isolated.

Frankly, the new normal sucks.

Bitterness about this move continues to creep into my thoughts.  I feel so angry that we are having to find our normal again, after having just found it.  Living in temporary housing, using someone else’s dishes and pots, sleeping in someone else’s bed, showering in someone else’s (carpeted…ew!) bathroom is not what I had in mind for a normal life.

I realize it’s only been ONE day on the quest for normal.  Tate told me last night that despite my assertion over and over that I WOULD be in a HOME by Thanksgiving, there would be no way for us to close on a house anytime before mid-December.  We are at the mercy of our relocation company whose timeline is not the same as ours.

It has to get better, I know.  But when?

**********

I apologize for yet another post about moving, heavy on the whining, light on the funny.  Soon I hope to get my funny back.  If you’re lucky, I’ll post some pictures of the horrifying lovely floral decor in our temporary house.  Because, um, WOW.

Have you ever had a post at the top of your page that you really wish wasn’t the FIRST thing people see when they happen upon your blog?  Well my last ultra whiny, self-absorbed post about my descent into moving hell is just that post that I’d like to be moved down the page a bit.

So here I am, not exactly taking a blogging hiatus, or possibly I am.  I seriously just want that last post to just move on down the page.  I’m not saying, “hey I’m totally fine with this move!”  I’m not fine.  But I’m trying to make the best out of a lousy situation and reminding myself that 1) we’re lucky my husband has a job in this economy and 2) I NEED to be positive for my sanity’s sake and my kids’ sake (and 3) It’s not okay to be as upset as I’ve been over the loss of my dream kitchen because DUDE:  GET OVER IT.  It’s merely a gas cooktop, sink in the center island, double ovens kind of kitchen.  SERIOUSLY, BIG DEAL.  WAAAAAH.)

Moving on…(ha!  Get it??  Moving?  God, I’m hilarious!)

Tate left Monday to start his new job and prior to his departure I was very worried about how I was going to be able to handle my two zoo-like wild children on top of all the stress.   “Ohs noes!  How ever will I do it alone?!  It cannot be done!  It cannot be done!  Woe is me.”

Writing this next sentence is probably going to condemn me to a life of vomit/tantrum/diarrhea/no sleep hell tomorrow surely, but!!!  This week has been surprisingly easy.

Possibly because I know that I don’t have reinforcements showing up, I’m freakishly calm and patient with the kids.  So far this week, I’ve had to take two children two and under to the BMV (B???) to get my license plate.  It was the easiest trip ever and my children…behaved.  Then I lost a filling in one of my teeth and had to arrange childcare and find a dentist and schedule an appointment.  Everything fell into place thanks to two of my neighbors and it turned out that I hadn’t actually lost a filling.

My son has become a pogo stick, jumping up and down at every attempt to dress or undress him.  Normally I’d be sweating and cursing under my breath and saying (yelling) things like, “CARSON.  ENOUGH.  Stop jumping right now or I’ll take away all of your trains and feed you to wolves.”  There would be lots of wrinkle inducing nose scrunching and eyebrow furrowing.  And eye rolling.  And huffing.   (There wouldn’t really be mention of being eaten by wolves.  Uh.  Yeah.)

But instead I find myself gentler and smiling and not allowing this annoying stage to get the worst of me.   I haven’t freaked out when Ella throws her entire tray of food on my just mopped floors.  My house is cleaner, the TV hasn’t babysat, and I’ve made lots of “progress” on our impending move.   And oddly, despite Tate getting to socialize and eat out every night, I don’t feel resentful or overworked for being the stay-at-home parent.

I’m not sure what being a better single parent says about my parenting abilities or mental state, but I’ll take the “good mommy” me over the “BAD mommy” me anyday.

**********

I’d like to thank each of you who has offered sympathy and encouragement to me as a result of our move to Tennessee.  To answer a few questions we are moving to East Tennessee, we’ve lived there before, and my husband is in management for a company and apparently he’s pretty good at his job so they keep asking him to help at other plants.

I’ve been trying to write these words for days and haven’t been able to form my muddled and numb thoughts into sentences.  In a very short amount of time, my life has been completely turned upside down.  I vacillate between intense woeful crying jags to sheer, bitter rage where I want to hit someone.

Tate has been transferred AGAIN.

We are moving to Tennessee.

I feel bitterly angry that I allowed myself to finally feel at home someplace.  In the ten years that I have been with Tate, we have moved at every request of the company.  For me, I moved begrudgingly and suspiciously and have watched over my shoulder and held my breath waiting for his company to call with our next move.

This time, though, I allowed myself to dream what it would be like to raise my children here, in THIS place.  I allowed myself to breathe after ten years. I immersed ourselves into this town and embraced all it had to offer.  We have made friends and we have made plans.  We have made a life and a home here in Indiana.  Never once had it occurred to me that I shouldn’t root myself and branch out and allow myself that hope of home.

I feel bruised and numb all at the same time.

Right now I have no desire to write.  My mind swirls with nothing except relocation companies, mortgages, real estate, and moving vans.  I don’t know if I’m taking a blogging hiatus for awhile or if the desire to write will return as I digest and stew on this information.  If you’ve recently emailed me, I will reply sometime.  I’m purposely ignoring my inbox because I simply do not have the power to think past myself and my family right now.

At least if we have to move, it’s to beautiful Tennessee and luckily we already root for the right team.

And you want to know something funny? I just got my Indiana driver’s license last week. I’m supposed to pick up my Indiana license plate tomorrow. [insert maniacal laughter and tears]