On Tuesday morning three wonderful young people (from Miriam's seminary class...not from our ward) showed up to help us haul our Utah-bound stuff up to our U-haul moving pods. Our driveway is steep so this was rather a herculean task, but we managed to have the job done in a little under an hour (which felt pretty incredible).
Here's Benjamin walking down the driveway with the two young men who showed up (we also had a wonderful young woman show up):
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This morning Andrew took the first set of kids (A and Z) to swimming and then came home so he could be here when our moving pods were delivered. I was getting the second set of kids (B and P) ready for swimming when Andrew came home—and it was a good thing he came home when he did because the pods were delivered half an hour earlier than what they stated our expected delivery window to be!
Phoebe was very excited to get to watch the fork lift at work while I braided her hair.
I took the second set of kids (B and P) to swimming and brought home our two middle swimmers (A and P). Then I went to the dentist and Miriam went back to the pool to pick up the remaining children (Z and B).
So it was a bit of a swimming circus in the morning.
And I had to get some metal "buttons" for my particularly stubborn teeth...and having braces makes me feel a little bit grumpy. Honestly, we joke about Miriam sometimes because whenever she comes home from getting her braces tightened she needs, like, a three-hour nap to kind of reboot because it just makes her so grumpy. And I...kind of understand that...because...same.
And there are always so many surprises. Like, you might just think you're going in for an ordinary check up and they're like, "Oh, while we have you, we're just going to put a power chain on..." (or whatever).
And, like, sometimes I'm not emotionally prepared for a power chain (or whatever), okay?
So today I was grumpy that I had to get metal attachments (so much for the invisi- part of Invisalign) and elastics. Especially because my Original Plan was to work through twenty sets of trays over the course of forty weeks. That still sounded long to me, but I was like, "Fine. This will be worth it."
Folks, it has been 585 days since I had my braces put on!
There are only 280 days in 40 weeks. I have been in braces for more than 83 weeks now. I'm so over this whole process.
I readily admit that I really do have a very stubborn tooth that still needs some fixing, so it's not like it's the dentist's fault. But I still feel a little grumpy about it.
Couple with that has just been some stress of trying to figure out what to do about my job now that we're moving overseas...and whether and how to continue working...and how to figure out my course schedule and what kind of tuition I will be paying (which depends a bit on what I figure out about my job). And then some things are happening that make me wonder if I even want to continue in that position and what certain things like "free speech" even mean these days when everything feels so stifling.
Lucky for me there was cake and ice cream when I got home from the dentist. And then I got to have a nap (to try to get over my grumpiness and my cold and have enough energy to make it through the evening's swim meet), which was lovely.
I rather enjoy when things come full circle.
My niece Rosie was born on a chilly January morning when I was 11 years old. That summer, soon after I turned 12, our family took a trip down to Utah (from Alberta, where we were currently living) and left me with my sister Kelli to be a mother's helper for a week or two.
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I've already made the comparison between packing up for this move and packing up a prairie schooner (though honestly I'm sure that packing up my home has involved a lot more luxuries than the pioneers ever had). Today, however, I couldn't help but feel a little bit like Noah, trying to pack up before the big rain!
Naturally, our shipment day was scheduled for the one week of the summer when we'd farmed out all our able-bodied children (Alexander and Phoebe have done a great job of entertaining each other and keeping out from underfoot...but as far as helping with things like packing and carrying heavy stuff...they are...simply less helpful than our bigger kids are). Equally naturally, it was scheduled for the day a tropical storm rolled in off the coast of...Texas...and then grew in strength over land instead of diminishing...and has landed on us with quite a frenzy, really.
We're under a tornado watch until midnight or so and it is raining like the dickens!
But because we did so much work leading up to this date (emphasis on so much work), our professional packers (see: ways in which our move has involved some luxury, above) were in and out before the storm hit! They arrived at 8:30 in the morning (just as we were leaving for swim practice...making us a teensy bit late to our 8:45 start time) and they left right at 2:00 (just as Andrew was leaving to pick Benjamin up from FSY so he could attend this evening's swim meet and, coincidentally, just as it started to rain here).
Here are Phoebe and Alexander in front of our house with the moving truck (which I guess came today after all—we have hardly understood any of the emails from our contact with the moving company):
Thank goodness today is today because I'm not sure I can keep going at the pace at which we've been going for very much longer. In the morning the packers are coming.
I...don't really know what they're going to do. I thought we had to be ready to pack and load all in one fell swoop, but I was wrong.
The packers are coming tomorrow and they're going to...pack...stuff.
What stuff? I don't know because we actually did a whole lot of the packing ourselves (leaving all the boxes untaped for inspection by the packers) and have everything that might need to go on the boat in The Boat Room.
And I'm just overwhelmed from making decisions.
Like, I can't just go into the garage to decide what might need to come on the boat, you know? I have to pull out all the scrap wood and give that away. And then I have to unearth the bocci balls and decide we'll probably play that a time or two. And what about croquet? Well, the croquet set has seen better days so we won't take that. So we start a trash pile (because there's no sense in putting it back "away," having already determined that it's lived its best life...
In short: every project has been much longer than we originally intended it to be.
I still have piles of stuff behind me that I simply...cannot...deal with right now. So I guess none of that stuff is making it on the boat. My brain is just broken from trying to figure out how to live here for the next 50 days with limited stuff and then how to live there for however long with limited stuff and...I just cannot really think about what we will need.
But I think we'll be fine.
In other news, Phoebe is going to compete in the swim meet tomorrow—her very first time. She can barely make it across the pool but she is so excited to try for a ribbon.
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While Andrew and I were moving a (big, heavy) bookcase, he...pulled it into his (bare) foot and smashed his toe. This was on...Saturday...last week. I remember because soon after we got it outside (for someone else to pick up) Andrew had to leave for the adult session of stake conference (stuffing his poor, throbbing toe into his dress shoes).
It wasn't so painful that he thought it was broken. In fact, he was upset about it because online it said a hematoma of this nature was caused by trauma to the digit.
"It wasn't trauma!" he fake-raged. "It was a light tap! I'm fine!"
His toe felt differently and remained painful throughout the week. The discolouration of his toenail was quite severe.
I believe he will lose that toenail.
He insists he won't.
But he was in quite a bit of pain all week. I told him that if the pressure kept building we'd have to go to the doctor for a nail trephination to allow the blood stuck under the toenail to come out of his body.
He felt that drilling a hole into his toenail was a terrible idea.
"It'll just heal on its own!" he insisted.
"It'll fall off..." I warned.
"It'll be fine."
And then we went swimming as a family on Saturday. The kids love when Andrew comes to the pool because he'll roughhouse with them a bit more than I ever will. So he was in the deep end with them—not even in the pool with them yet (thank goodness), just on the deck, picking them up and chucking them into the water.
I'm sitting alone in what has been dubbed The Boat Room with 51.86666667% of our allotted shipment. I know this because we have been weighing each box and recording its weight in a spreadsheet because we don't know how else we're supposed to know what 5700 lbs of stuff looks like. I'm alone because Rachel is now in Utah, Miriam and Benjamin have left for FSY, Zoë is in Tennessee, and Andrew took Alexander and Phoebe to swim practice.
I haven't been alone in the house in ages.
I may have never been alone in this particular house.
It's quiet and I could be getting stuff done, but instead I'm blogging (which one could argue is getting stuff done). We do need to decide what else needs to come into The Boat Room, but really our rooms are starting to look rather bare.
Last night I was working in Miriam and Zoë's room, which was very nearly finished (but not quite) and I came across a handful of paper-and-ribbon Olympic medals the kids made for their Kids' Olympics a few summers ago and it made me feel so happy-sad.
Our cul-de-sac has been an oasis for my little kids—they have made such good friends with our neighbourhood kids! I'm so grateful for our wonderful neighbours, who have truly been a village. It's been such a privilege to raise my children alongside these families. Thinking about that made me tear up a bit (and I think that's why packing takes me so much longer than Andrew, who is much more pragmatic about things).
And then last night I also got to "attend" my cousin's son's baptism (between packing boxes), which was a wonderful surprise!
