Snow Days

The sounds in my house have been a constant babble of girls, freed from the confines of school by the beauty of snow.  The unexpected break has afforded my girls endless hours of friendship and confidences shared with some of their best friends that, luckily, live right across the street.  The five girls have been virtually inseparable over the last 3 days.  Much like the snow, they swirl from one space to another, settling in drifts to play Minecraft or watch Disney channel.  Warming up to cups of hot cocoa, only to become unsettled again and disappear into the cold once more. 

Currently, Riley is explaining to her best friend how she is going to dress up the family dog for Halloween this year with a Beware of Dog sign around the harmless dog’s neck.  I listen from the semi-privacy of my own space.  I am overwhelmed with a melancholy sadness knowing that this Halloween will not be spent with friends that we have grown so comfortable with.  Friends that we have played dress up with in a plethora of cast aside costumes from Halloween’s past.  Friends that know that the dog is most definitely not the kind of dog anyone needs to beware of.  Instead, we will be in a new place, celebrating the new milestones of our life with people that are, to us now, strangers.  In my overwhelming sadness, I cannot be excited today about all the interesting things our future new home will bring.  I can only be broken by the sadness of what we will be leaving behind.

As a general rule, I'm trying to stay positive about the upcoming move.  I think we are moving to a great area.  There are going to be lots of new, positive experiences for my girls, and hopefully me.  I spent the morning researching schools on Niche and discovered that 16 elementary schools from the county I want to move to, ranked in the top 20 in the state.  13 of the middle schools ranked in the top 20 and 8 of the high schools.  It's a great area and there is going to be so much to do.

But the reality is my children are going to be leaving behind some pretty special friends.  Rena, who is in 5th grade, is finally starting to make some really good friends here.  I know that sounds like she has trouble making friends, but that's not true.  She has just been content with her best friend (across the street) and hasn't really needed or shown interest too much in connecting with others.  She enjoys other friends, but I just haven't really seen her bond with anyone too very much.  Until recently.  My twins, however, make lots of friends wherever they go.  Especially Riley.  I swear, she's going to be the kind of girl that has 20 bridesmaids.  But even they are growing their social circles every day. 

We just finished up our basketball season and there is/was real potential to facilitate some bonding among the teams.  If the temperature will ever make it out of the teens, we will be starting our softball season.  I'm sure it's going to be a great experience.  The girls already know several team mates and softball here is very serious.  At least 2 if not 3 practices a week and then games.  There will be lots of time for friendships to form and bonds to strengthen.  And yet I'm torn.  It's difficult to put the time and effort into connecting with new people knowing that there really is no point.  We'll be gone in about 15 weeks.  Wow.  That's it.  All of those connections for my children will be lost.  So, I'm left deciding how much I want to encourage these fresh friendships and how much I want to insulate my children from the pain of leaving it all behind.  Moving sucks.  Even when you get to go to some place better.

So, I'm trying to clean out at least one area a day.  Really clean it out.  Throwing things away is difficult for a pack rat, but I'm feeling pretty good about what I'm getting accomplished...it just doesn't feel like it's fast enough.  More crap piles into this house on a daily basis than is manageable.  It's truly astonishing!

I tackled the linen closet the other day.  And I think what strikes me the most is the amount of disorganization that has taken over the house.  There is stuff everywhere!  I finally managed to get about 1/2 the towels and all sorts of mix and match sheets packed away.  I got 3 huge boxes done.  I figure the more I can pack away now, the less I have to clean around next month.  If I was able to actually declutter/clean/organize one room a day, it would take me over 2 weeks.  That's not going to happen though because life has not stopped for us to get ready to move.  Au contraire, the schedule has rampppppeeeeeedddddd up significantly.  We are finishing up basketball (2 teams) this week, but we are/were starting softball this week.  Except mother nature decided to cast us all in ice.  So that is postponed a little.  Of course, it's a totally will we/won't we email fest everyday.  And the girls are on their 3 day of missed school. 

And all of this is getting me closer to the emotional part of moving...something I've been able to completely ignore so far.  The first two days of our snow day, the girls best friends spend the whole day over here and then the next day they were back and forth between houses and ended up sleeping over at the friends house.  All 3 of them.  I really missed them.  But I also realize the we aren't going to have that easy comfort for a while once we move.  These girls have grown up together.  They are more like sister/cousins than neighbors.  The are going to miss each other.  I'm going to miss them.  But truly, I can't think about that now.

Last week was kind of a bust on all things moving.  Current life kept me really busy.  But I swear, it is constantly on my mind.  What to throw out, what to keep, what to pack up, when to pack it up.  And I check out realtor.com almost daily.  And then I get so depressed because all the houses I like....and I'm not talking about 'oh, when I hit the lottery' like, but just a 'hmmm, that's nice.  it'd prolly work' like run about 600K or more.  WTF!  The must make the houses out of gold in Maryland.