All nervous or whatever.

Yesterday we had a huge yard sale, and sold the furniture we're not going to be able to take, got rid of extra clothes we don't need, and sold the Suzuki.

I was completely fine with it all (the fat wad of cash helped) but this morning I woke up to feelings of shock, and about a hundred thousand butterflies in my stomach.

We're really going to do this.  We're really moving.   I mean, we are, aren't we?  I'm going to wake up each morning to a comletely different view from my windows, and hear completely different sounds.  I'm going to have a completely different house in a completely different state.

I don't deal well with change (yes, I KNOW this was all my idea), and I think I'm starting to freak out a little.  Just right now, as I'm looking around my quickly emptying house, I'm starting to feel the ramifications of what we're doing.  I'm excited to go, but I'm so scared to actually get there.

Crap!

Marissa's first slumber partay.

All week long Marissa was bugging me about having a slumber party.  ALL.  WEEK.  LONG.  She wouldn't let up, even at the risk of great physical peril, so Bryan and I caved.

It was not the best weekend, time-wise, for us to have the slumber party (we were supposed to have a yard sale this morning, but as you can see I'm blogging instead, so there you have it) and I wasn't sure if it was even enough notice for her friends to be allowed to come over.

As it turned out, Marissa's friend from down the street was able to come, along with the friend's two cousins (it's convoluted, but Marissa knows one of the cousins and is friends with her).

So the girls came over, and watched movies, and went swimming, and had popcorn, and made spider snacks, and played, and had pizza, and played some more, and then finally crashed out on the couch.  The friend's mother warned me that the girls might not want to go to sleep over here and might ask to come home, but they didn't (I WIN!), so they're all 4 sleeping on the futon in the living room, limbs akimbo and covers twisted.

These girls were SO SWEET and SO POLITE, and said, "Yes, please!", and, "No, thank you" and included Phoebe in everything they did.  They helped me clean popcorn off the floor, and picked up the toys, and told me that this was the best slumber party they'd ever been to.  I don't care if this is the ONLY slumber party they've ever been to.... when they said that this was the best one I looked at Marissa, and she looked so happy I thought I was going to cry.

So, I'd say it was a hit.  My kid is happy, the other kids are happy, and I can't help but pat Bryan and myself on the back a little.  Who knew so much fun could be had sans hookers and booze?  You can color me pleasantly surprised, and totally down to do it again.  HOORAY!

Choking back my terror.

I don't want to pack.  We have way too much crap for me to want to even START sorting things and deciding what stays and what goes.  As an example, I went through my box of scrap fabric the other day.  Mind you, these are just scraps left over from clothing or other projects, and I've been hoarding these since the dawn of time.  I sorted the scraps by color (kind of) and took a picture, and posted them on one of my boards. I told quilters and appliquers (appliquer?  I don't even know 'er!) that they could have them all for free if they wanted to pay shipping.

I know, I'm the biggest nerd for not just tossing them.  Bite me.

Someone posted that they were interested, and I weighed the box of scraps.  THIRTEEN POUNDS.  Thirteen damn pounds of not really even useful material.  I immediately broke out into hives just thinking about sorting through my actual fabric stash.  You know, pieces that are actually big enough to make something.

I won't break the furniture down for you room by room, but suffice it to say that I easily have two housefuls of furniture.  EASILY.  I'm dealing with my horror by not dealing with packing.  I figure the night before we actually move, I'll set aside a couch and some picture albums and then torch the rest.

Remind me to get some renter's insurance beforehand, kay?  Thanks.

Back to my roots.

I'm taking a break from my insanely busy schedule of doing NOTHING so that I can talk a little bit about West Virginia.

I started writing an unnecessarily long post, and was waxing philosophical about it, when I realized that a very simple answer will do.

My mother's family is there, and living a nomadic Army life as I did during my childhood, is the closest thing to home that I know.

I'm a simple girl, and I want a simple, wholesome life for my children.  I'm convinced that I cannot find that here, and I'm further convinced that what I want can be had in West Virginia.  My parents moved here when my dad retired from the Army; I did not choose to live here.

Furthermore, there is no way in HELL that we will ever ever EVER be able to afford to buy a home here.  I don't want much, but I do want to own a home, and $40,000 goes a lot further out there than it does here.

I want for my girls the things that I had growing up.  I want them to know their extended family.  I want them to catch lightning bugs in the backyard, and make snowmen.  I want them to catch crawdads in the river.  I want to go to huge ass family reunions and try to explain what a third cousin once removed means to them.

I know that moving to West Virginia sounded strange and bizarre just coming out of the blue like that.  I hope that answers some questions, and makes me seem, at the very least, closer to the sane side of crazy.

Braniac.

Last night I dropped a can of green beans, and I deftly moved my fragile toes out of the way before the can hit my feet.  I felt very much like a ninja, and was silently disappointed that no one was there to witness my superstar moves.

As I was preparing dinner I reached for the same can of green beans, and then paused.  This thought actually formed in my brain: "I can't use that can since it fell on the floor earlier.  If I open it before it's had a chance to settle it will explode.  Oh............ wait a second.  That's only for soda!"

I lost all my cool ninja points, didn't I?