Kindergarten here he comes!

With all of the travel and moving the start of school sort of snuck up on me.  School shopping consisted of a trip to Target to buy one of the six remaining lunch bags on the shelf.  I'm glad that there was a Spiderman bag left since that was just what he wanted and what I would have gotten him anyway.

He is excited to go, especially since he has one of his good friends in his class.  I am glad to have something for him to do.  He is getting tired of watching me clean and unpack.

Dad took him to school on his way to work.  The kidergarten kids start each day with Book Browse, a 10 minute reading time with the parents.  I think it probably helps with the separation anxiety, for the parents that is.  After school I asked him how the day went, "Awesome" and what he did , "Play.  That's all."  So far so good. 

When I went to wake him up for the second day his response was, "Again!  I'm so exhausted."  It is a long day.  Our district has full day kindergarten.  That is a lot for a little kid, but they do adapt to it after awhile... eventually... so I've heard.  (I could go on about how I think it is catering to working parents and excessive academic pressure, but I'll spare you the diatribe.)  He wanted me to come pick him up at recess so that he could come home early, but no, I assured him that I would be there when school was over.  After school he had had a great day.  There wasn't much commentary, but there were a lot of smiles.

By the end of the week he didn't want to go any more.  He had a cold and just wanted to stay home.  I dosed him up with cold medicine and sent him anyway.  He still came out smiling.  In a letter from the teacher he is quoted as saying that his favorite thing about school is "everything".  I hope he continues to enjoy it while he gets used to the long days.  I think a weekend of rest and play will help.

Moving on up...

It's been a busy few weeks.  Just before leaving for Utah we signed a lease on a new house ,so that meant moving.  By the end of the month.  During a family reunion trip to Utah and Idaho.  The reasons for moving are many, and include a landlord who has been in some stage of forclosure for quite a while.  He has filed law suits against the bank that have been rejected and now the inevitable is coming soon.  Don't feel bad for the guy.  He thought he was a "Real Estate Investor" or so his hot pink business cards claimed.  He now has ten or so homes in various stages of forclosure.  He is taking the rent and presumably, not paying the mortgages.  He even asked us to provide him with the past three months of utility bills so that he could Photoshop his name on them to show the bank that he lived there.  (Yes, he has been telling the bank that he has been living at our old house for the past several years.)  Once during the time we lived there and he was refinancing the house he even switched the utilities to his name for a similar reason.  Moving on our timeline sounded better than getting kicked out with minimal notice. 

Looking for a new place was depressing.  There are a lot of filthy poorly maintained properties out there.  Now we are in a different house.  Our new place is the same size, but nicer.  The landlord and his family had lived here for several years and fixed it up before moving so it is set up to live, not as a cheap rental.  They had tried to sell it but typical of the current housing market they couldn't get their asking price, so they decided to rent it out.  When I saw the pictures on the ad I knew we had to make every effort to get it.  When we went to the open house the people were late so we waited on the front lawn for half an hour to see it.  Other families came and left during that time.  Thankfully we got it.  Hooray!!

While the kids and I were off playing and reunion-ing John and friends and family did all of the heavy moving.  When we got back the kids rooms and kitchen were set up so we had a place to sleep and eat.  My parents came out to help with the final moving and cleaning.  It would have taken a month to do what we got done in those few days they were here.

Thank you, thank you to everyone who helped, especially John's Mom.  It has been a lifesaver.  I am also grateful to a friend to gave a good home to our piano.

I am now in the final stretch of sorting and purging and putting things away.  We did a lot of packing and purging as soon as we decided to move to make the transition a little easier.  It is amazing to see what accumulates in a small house.  We had boxes that had never really been unpacked from our last move.  It was time to cull the crap.  We got rid of a LOT of stuff that was just hanging around with no real purpose.  Both my husband and I are savers and accumulators.  Not good when you live in a small house.  If I lived in a 3000 sq ft house I could save and collect a lot more.  That is not my reality.  So I have been and am still on a chuck it, donate it rampage through the house.  It was a little hard to get used to, but I like having the empty space more than the stuff. 

Now that most of that work is done I have been reading "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh.  He is a professional organizer from the TLC show Clean Sweep.  His mantra is "Imagine the life you want to live."  For many of us all of the stuff we have gets in the way of what we actually want to do.  I don't want that so with a new house I am trying to do better.  You know how it goes, a place for everything and everything in it's place.  That means even more sorting and purging even though I thought we had gotten rid of just about everything possible.  One of the drawbacks of the move is that the old place had four bed rooms and five big closets.  This house has three bedrooms and three small closets, no storage room, no big hall closet, no rafters above the garage space.  Therefore even though the house is the same size there is a lot less room for stuff, but there is more room for living.  I need to keep that in mind.

So, that is what I've been doing.  I'll post more about the trip and the first day of kindergarten later.  For now, I'm going to go do a little more work.


P.S.  our old house has been relisted with the property management company for an extra $395/month.  Crazy!

Super Saturday

We are in Utah for our much anticipated family reunion trip.  As it turned out, the morning of family reunion #1 was the ground breaking service for the Brigham City, Utah temple.  A temple in my little home town.  Wow!  My parents were able to get two of the 2000 tickets and Dad graciously gave me his ticket and stayed at home with the kids so that I could go with Mom and my brother and his wife.  There were even more people on lawn chairs and standing in the back and across the street on the tabernacle lawn.  It was a wonderful morning.  You can read more about it in the Deseret News.  The talks were short, but full of good things to hear.  President Packer advised us to use the time during the temple construction to build our lives spiritually to prepare to serve in the temple.

We arrived early before the sun was over the mountain and fortunately the shade from the trees that line main street and a few clouds, perhaps a little divine intervention, helped keep the crowds comfortable on a beautiful morning.

(So do we look alike, just a little?)

After all of the church and civic dignitaries turned their shovel full of dirt, the kids were called up and a crowd of camera toting mothers followed.  After the kids anyone could come in for their own photo op.  It was fun, so here were are, shovel in hand.

That afternoon we headed to Cherry Hill Campground for our reunion.  The kids and I had a great time.  I got to see and talk to cousins I hadn't seen in many years.  It was a lot of fun.  The water slides and pirate ship didn't hurt.

Back tracking just a little bit, we stopped at Temple Square on the way home from the airport.  The kids had never been there before and I hadn't been there in a very long time.  It was a great experience.  The kids especially loved the scale model of the Salt Lake Temple, the seagull monument, and of course the statue of Christ in the North Visitor's Center.

We have only been here a couple of days, but these days will be tough to top.  We have more fun planned including a visit to a REAL cowboy to see his horses and cows.