Lots of Goodbyes

We've had lots of the girls' friends over in the past week.  We are all trying to cram as much friend time in as possible.  We had friends spend the night Friday night and Saturday night, another playdate Sunday and another on Monday.  Then Tuesday was a Girl Scout day.  Whew!  It's a lot of fun to try to keep a house clean for showing with extra kids in and out!  Anyway, I was thinking today about the phrase, "this chapter of life."  I think it more applicable to my life to say this book in the long series of my life.  (See, I tend to get hooked into reading long series so I guess that's where the analogy fits for me)  I feel like this past week is that chapter that is sometimes at the end of the book where the conflict has been resolved but the ends need to be tied up in a bow.  The "story" is done, but it's not quite time for the epilogue, and the reader needs some closure.  So you get the concluding chapter.  Then the epilogue hooks you into wanting to read the next book, but that's jumping the gun in my analogy for now.  For now, we're still in the last chapter of this book.

We've had a few more showings on the house, yet our prayer still stands at "Lord, send the people who want to buy our house to us soon."  But in the meantime, we have to grab the dog and leave the house periodically.   So we end up lounging at McDonald's (which for those who know my food preferences, this shows how low we have sunk), sitting at a park, sitting in the van, or riding around.  I can really tell we're all a little anxious and the girls especially have a lot of pent up energy because every time we go somewhere with room, or during those witching hours after dinner, they go nuts.  Hence Lyla is contemplating what mischief to achieve with a stick and Celee is singing to a brownie.  Gwyn has actually taken to reading a lot.  She reminds me of another very similar looking girl who walked around reading books all the time.  It has been beautiful here though, when it hasn't been raining.  Fall is the most beautiful time to be in the MidWest.

 Monday night I completed my last baking to do in this kitchen.  We got rid of all the pumpkin and eggs that I had making pumkin cookies.  And Celee really wanted to make candy ghosts to take to her last Girl Scout meeting here.  Don't ask me why a ghost would need to ride a broomstick, just accept it as an excuse to eat fruit roll ups, pretzels, and almond bark in one delicious treat.

Then Tuesday was quite full.  We had two showing on the house so we had Tinkerbell with us for most of the day while we ran errands and then went to our first Girl Scout meeting of the day.  I put Tink in the nursery with the hopes that no one would let her out until at least most of the meeting was over.  Taking into account the qualifier, my wish came true.  It wasn't until the middle of the pot-luck after the meeting that a child let her out and she came ripping into the middle of the meal being chased by several other children.  Needless to say, she was held for the rest of the time.  Oh, and there was that awkward short time period when Lyla thought she had locked Tink in the nursery and I had to ask the Pastor to help me get in to get her.  It turned out it wasn't actually locked, it was just jammed a little bit, probably from Lyla messing with it. But I did feel a little silly having to explain why I had put my dog in the nursery.  (sigh)  My troop's girls and parents really made me feel appreciated at the dinner.  They had a picture frame for everyone to sign for us and they put together a scapbook for Gwyn to keep.  They even gave us each a gift as a going-away present.  (Thank you Jennie for organizing!)  They are a super group of people and I will miss them all so much!  I only started to cry twice though.  I knew better than to try to say anything long to the whole group, but my short thank you almost got me!  Then one of my scouts gave me the sweetest letter that she had typed up for me.  That got me too.  I think having all their friends telling them goodbye really made Gwyn and Celee realize that we really are leaving.  We've all known and discussed that we will miss people, but when it comes down to actually telling them goodbye, then it's pretty emotional.  Celee's troop had a cake for her and made her a scrapbook too.  Celee is a little reserved, but I knew once we got to the car it would hit her, and it did.  There's not much I can do - we are all going to have some pain with this leaving.  I guess we'll just all cry together when one of us needs to.

I realize now with only one day until Jason comes and three more days until we leave, that I have so many thank-you's to send out.  So many people have encouraged and modeled and been thoughtful to me over the past 5 1/2 yrs.  Even some of the more painful experiences we've had here have caused us to grow.  So I can really even thank the few people who are etched in my brain in less-than-complimentary ways.  They too have played a part in the good that has come out of Champaign County.  But there are many more people whose kindness and love has really made this place a home for us.  We moved here not really wanting to put down roots, but they grew anyway.  I do try to give people notes or words of thanks on the fly, but when it comes to an ending I realize how much more I should have said and expressed.  Why does it take leaving or dying for people to tell each other how much they mean to them?  But I won't end this chapter on a sad note.  No I wish I would have or should haves.  I do appreciate all that our friends have done and have been for us.  There are truly a considerable number of people here that I will miss simply for who they are.  And I am so thankful that they shared that with us while we were here!

Renewed

On Friday me and the girls got to go to Wilderness Prairie State Park in Peoria with friends, Jon and Sarah.  I had never even heard of this place, but I wish I would have.  I totally would have taken my girls, other kids, and scouts here over the past 5 years if I had know what a neat-o place it is!  There are huge areas of free-roaming animals.  We saw elk, buffalo, black bears, a cougar, foxes, a possum, and a lot more!  They have a cool playground that is complete with a 50 ft. slide.  The best thing is that on our way out we stopped to slide "one more time" and some other people who were there loaned the girls sheets of wax paper to make the slide down even faster!  Usually at zoos the animals are laying around or in there houses sleeping - as I would be if I had such a boring enclosed existence.  But the animals here were mostly awake and actually doing things.  The cougar seemed restless, and one of the bears was asleep although he was out in the sunshine instead of a hole, but mostly the animals were out and about.  It was cool to see them in a near-natural habitat.  Wilderness Prairie also has a Reptile House.  While it isn't the biggest or most spectacular reptile house I've been in what was cool was that it was feeding time when we went in.  Gwyn, Celee, and Lyla got to help feed the frogs and turtles.  They each had to count out the right number of pellets and then put them in the tanks.  Then when the lady was feeding the snapping turtle she got him out to show the girls his worm-like appendages on his tongue that is used to attract fish that he then eats.  This poor little guy only got meal worms that day, and I think it made him pretty made to be dragged out to show us how long his neck can reach and what his tongue looked like.  So thank you Reptile House Lady and Mr.Snapping Turtle for the cool learning experience!

Saturday we watched every episode of Wallace and Gromit that was available on Netflix.  That shows how motivated I was to do anything Saturday morning!  We had to be shaken out of our stupor by the afternoon though because we had a party to go to!  Barnes and Nobles held a Harry Potter Party complete with a costume contest.  This worked well for Celee who was going to dress up for Halloween as Luna Lovegood anyway, but the other 2 not so much.  We finally decided that Gwyn could be Aunt Petunia, but none of my clothes looked right.  Later we did find  a suitably marmy outfit at Goodwill that wasn't too horribly large for her.  Then, what to do with Lyla?  My parents bought her a butterfly costume when they were down and this is what she wanted to wear.  My bright idea for the week was to let her wear that and hold a picture frame.  Whalah!  She's a portrait off of the walls of Hogwarts!  Clever if I do say so myself.  :)

The party was fun - Everyone got sorted into House tables and then played games.  They had a scavenger hunt to find their House keys.  They tasted and tried to accurately identify Bertie's Every Flavor Beans.  Then they had the costume contest.  Each table that won a game got to enter their names into a drawing for a Nook.  Well, who won the contest?  The child with the least amount of thought and preparation put into her costume.  Yes, Lyla.  She won the costume contest.  And her prize was the "longest candy bar in the world."  Which was ok with Gwyn and Celee (and me) because we knew she'd share.  None of us won the Nook, but they did get more Bertie's Beans and a poster.  It was a lot of fun!  And I do have to say I think my girls' costumes were pretty cool!

The girls have had a lot of friends over.  They're trying to cram a lot of friend time in too!  Today we had one of Gwyn's friends over and ended up having to go to Meadowbrook because someone was coming to view our house.  (This is always a good thing!)  What a beautiful day to be at Meadowbrook Park!  The trees have all changed colors and the sun was shining.  It was a little windy, but the wind wasn't cold.  There was a guy flying an awesome kite out in the field behind the playground.  Every time he made it take a dive it sounded like a helicopter coming in.  The girls were convinced that it had to be remote controlled.   They got a kick out of watching him maneuver the kite once they believed me that he was controlling it with strings.  It was a beautiful sight.

God is so good.  He just lavishes His affection of us and humors us so much.  I've been in quite a mood this past week and got a good dose of wallowing in self-pity so I am so thankful that God gave me today. I'm glad I didn't publish this one with what I originally wrote.  I had to wait until the end of today and this post is decidedly different than it would have been.   Today I am renewed.  And who knows?  The people that came to see the house today stayed for a really really long time (we had to make several blocks and finally park in the church parking lot to wait on them to leave even though we were at the park for an hour).  Maybe they'll be the takers.  If not, that's ok too - someone else will come at the right time and love our home as much as we do. 

The Next Week One Down...

I don't know why I expected this month with Jason gone to be less busy than my usual.  Was there some perceived busy-ness that was somehow projected onto him?  Well, bless his heart!  He is off the hook.  I am quite sure now that my busy-ness is definately my own doing.  Last week we had 2 showings and a realtor caravan to see the house.  These are good things.  But I keep having this panic when someone calls to say they are coming.  I rush around cleaning up and hiding things when I really have more than enough time.  There really isn't that much left to clean or hide.  It's pretty much all boxed up.  In my more tragic moods, I feel like the house isn't ours already.  Someone else must live in this mostly-empty echoing house.  Where are  all the toys and pictures?  Where are my half-done craft projects?  Where are the stacks (or piles) of laundry?  How did all these dishes get cleaned and put away - surely no one has been cooking and eating in this kitchen.  I guess that's the point to "staging" a house though.  To make it seem like no one lives there yet warm enough to feel like someone could live there.  Then in my brighter moods, I remember that it is still our house and may be for quite some time.  We can still cook and eat in the kitchen.  We can play in the yard.  That's my kale in the garden ready to be picked and eaten.  It ain't so bad.  I think it's all just a little more punctuated by the fact that Jason is somewhere else.  My heart is partly in Maryland already wanting to get settled there.  Meanwhile the "normal" goes on here in Illinois.

We got to do school at our church one day last week because of a showing.  It was neat to go somewhere different.  We loaded up our crates of school stuff, grabbed the dog, and caged the cat and headed to the church.  It worked quite well.  I think I may file that away as a helpful thing to do sometimes - just pick it all up and have school in different surroundings.

On Thursday Barnes & Nobles hosted an American Girl Doll Party in honor of the new historical doll that was released.  One lucky attendee would win the doll herself so of course we had to go.  We even took a friend with us.  None of us won the doll, but they did get to put together some pretty cool crafts.  They made little paper boats, because the doll's character sails (she's from the War of 1812).  Then they "raced" their skiffs across the table by blowing them.  The winners got posters.  Gwyn won her race and got one.  Everyone else got prizes too though.  The girls had a really good time.

My parents got to come up over the weekend.  They really helped out a lot!  Pete and I packed up the tool bench.  (No simple task) We got down a lot of stuff out of the attic.  We got on the roof and cut limbs off the tree that were touching the house.  Pete fixed and painted a ceiling crack I had never even noticed before.  We burned all the rest of the sticks in the yard.  It's funny that no one got hurt in the previous gasoline induced fire, but in the safely done one I actually burned my eyelashes!  Not completely off, but the lashes on that side are noticeably (at least by me) shorter than the other eye.  I'm almost channeling a Clockwork Orange here.  Anyway, even the girls helped with the cleaning up.  I even caught Gwyn raking without anyone asking her to!  We did just about everything that needed to be done.  All I have left is to paint the front door.







The girls also enjoyed putting on a concert for the grandparents.  Since they don't get to come up for recitals and such the girls wanted to give them one.  Celee played her piano pieces.  (She's donned a hipster hat just for you Daddy!)  Gwyn played her violin.  And Lyla played her "songs" on the piano as well.  All her songs sound the same, but she is playing one note at a time and learning a little bit.

This past Monday most schools up here have the day off for a holiday that I think is pretty lame.  I would much rather have Veteran's Day celebrated than the dude for whom we celebrated Monday.  Anyway, some schools were out so we got to go to the Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur with good friends!  I love that place! Thank you Jen for going with us!  They have the best pumpkin bars I've ever tasted at the bakery there.  They have an amazing display of pumpkins and squash.  Of course there are various farm animals to see and pet.  There are lots of those "stick your head in a hole and take a picture" things.  They have a corn maze that I've never done b/c you have to pay extra for it.  (It's only 1 acre anyway and the one in Rantoul is 10 acres).  There are sunflower, broom corn, soybean, and hay bale mazes that are in with the admission price.  None of them are hard or big, but the kids seemed to enjoy it anyway.  They have a 200 acre farm and the actual pumpkin patch is huge!  No store-bought pumpkins brought in here and laid around!  These are the real deal.  There's even fair food and live music at lunch time.  I just love it!  I wouldn't necessarily go more than once a year, but we do go once a year and enjoy it every time.

Today we had a Girl Scout meeting.  It's hard to think that I'll only have one more meeting with these girls!  I've seen them grow so much!  I sure will miss them - even though they are a lot of work and at times a source of much frustration.  They were worth it!  Afterwards I was blessed to go out to eat with some very special ladies from the Girl Scout Service Area Team.  They took me out to one of my favorite restaurants here, Radio Maria's.  All I have to say is if your girls are in Girl Scouts here, be sweet to these ladies, those that were there tonight or not!  They care so much about your daughters and give so much of their time and energy for them!  Thank you ladies for helping my daughters have a positive experience with other girls and in leadership building!  Thank you also for the conversations tonight and the yummy Mahi Mahi!  It lightened my spirits considerably after a hectic afternoon.  There are some stresses that are melted away by enjoyable conversations with other adults!
 I have neglected the Word this week.  This is me calling myself out.  How can I expect peace and discernment without consulting His Book?  Joy comes in the morning and I will be more disciplined this week.  So we'll continue to skype with Jason, even though the internet connection at his hotel sometimes makes him look like a Picasso version of himself. We'll do school.  We'll do our lessons and gymnastics, and spend time with friends and have fun.  Week one is down and I have 3 more to fill with good things.

Momentary Freak-Outs

I am officially unemployed now so I have to do this at more creative times than before when I had 4 hours of early morning time at work to do it.  I am finding this morning that I will have to get up earlier than I did today because one of my peeves is someone reading what I'm typing over my shoulder, which is happening this morning as Gwyn got up before the other two.  Ah new challenges.
This past week went by too quick.  Jason was also technically unemployed because he had finished his last day at Volition but had not started at Firaxis.  He did get the bathroom finished!  It looks pretty good if I do say so myself.  It's not what we would have done to it for our own house to enjoy for a long time, but it is a vast improvement on what it was.  We had our burn party on Wednesday.  We had to burn some limbs and brush that we had collected so why not invite other people over to do it?  The boys of course had fun with the fire.  The wood was wet from a previous day's rain so they resorted to putting gasoline on it to get it started.  Why is this what always happens when boys get together around fire?

Thursday was spend boxing and packing.  We actually had our small group over at our house in the middle of all this.  They are such good sports!  We finally had our squirrel dinner.  I did make a pot roast, but we also had fried squirrel fritters.  They were quite yummy.  Everyone had to sit in camp chairs because we sold our couch, but it was all good.  Like I said, they are pretty good sports.  I think it's part of realizing as a group what is really important, and whether or not we have the usual couch and chairs doesn't change that.

Friday was a flurry activity.  We postponed the realtor coming to take pictures because Jason was leaving Saturday and we didn't want our last day to be spent killing ourselves to get ready for that.  So we hung out and he packed.  Then Saturday morning he was off.  The girls and I were sad and I was hanging in there until we all prayed before he left and I lost it.  Such is life.  If I didn't love him so much I wouldn't cry about him leaving so it's a good thing to have something worth crying about.

 

The girls and I didn't have long to think on being sad because a short while after Jason headed off, girl scouts arrived at our house to be taken to Wolf Creek.  Some of our troop was already there and had camped out Friday night, but as we didn't want to miss Jason's last day we opted to go down Saturday along with 2 other girls.  The group camp site there is awesome!  We were the only people out there and the site overlooks Lake Shelbyville.  It was very pretty.  The girls had a lot of fun climbing up and down the "cliffs" and exploring the beach.  When it got close to lunch time we all loaded up and headed over to do a 3 mi. trail before eating.  The trail needed some upkeep, but the girls had fun climbing over downed trees that covered the path. We ate a yummy lunch and I was introduced to the yumminess of white chocolate peanut butter.  There was a playground next to the picnic area we ate at, so naturally the girls wanted to play on that.  Us grownups just sat around and talked for quite a while.  Then we decided to move into the sunshine where I promptly laid down and fell asleep!  What a treat!  Lyla was super excited because they found a box turtle inside the playground area that apparently was trapped by the big plastic bumper around the area.  So we saved him and Lyla stalked him waiting to see him move.  Which probably kept him inside his shell and not moving because she is not the most gentle nor quiet animal lover.

Sunday we got up and got ready for church.  Gwyn was in charge of feeding the animals before we left.  Bless her heart.  She went to feed Ozzie (the guinea pig) and said, "Oh how cute!  He's still asleep!"  I immediately asked if he was really asleep and rushed to the cage.  No he was not just asleep.  He passed on.  Poor little thing.  Celee was just playing with him the day before and he acted alert and just like normal so I am hoping it was just old age.  I was told he was around 3 when we got him so I hope his last year he was loved on and taken care of before it was his time to go.  The girls were predictably sad.  I had to go out into the yard in my Sunday clothes (why did I choose this Sunday to wear stockings?) and dig a hole to give him a burial.  Ozzie was a good and sweet hairy pig and I'm glad he was part of our family for his short time.

After church and lunch we headed off to Rantoul for yet another Girl Scout event.  This one fit into my list of things to do before we move category too.  It was Girl Scout Day at Hardy's Reindeer Ranch and Corn Maze.  I love their corn maze every year!  It's big enough to take about an hour each time we've done it.  They hid 8 punches throughout the maze which is shaped in a theme each year.  We got 7 out of 8 before the girls gave up because we were all pretty tired by then.

We hurried home because I still had mounds to do before Monday afternoon when the realtor was coming.  The girls were a big help!  It makes me so proud that they really do pitch in and do real work.  We were all toting and cleaning and moving things around until quite late.  We all knew it had to be done that night too because we had co-op Monday morning and would be arriving back home at the exact time our realtor was coming.  My one big snafu was that Sunday I had gone around and filled all the nail holes with the plan to touch up the paint Sunday night.  When I went to get the paint out, the paint for the dining/computer rooms was spoiled.  I didn't know paint would do this, but when I opened the can, out came the foulest smell I have ever smelled in my life.  It was gag-worthy.  No amount of stirring was going to fix that, if it even could be stirred back into some sort of paint-like state.  Then I realized that there was no more paint for Gwyn and Celee's room.  Crap on a stick!  (That's a strong expletive for me)  I had a momentary freak out as I realized that any pictures of the house would have white splotches all over numerous walls in them!  I still had the Lowe's label for the downstairs and I scraped some paint off in the green room to attempt to match it in the morning.  So I dropped the girls off at co-op and ran to Lowe's.  The green I had scraped off wasn't big enough so I just had to eye-ball it to try to match it and pray it wasn't too far off.  With 2 quarts in hand I rushed home to cover the splotches.  As I began to paint the splotches in the dining room I realized that the paint didn't match.  It looked much lighter!  Double crap on a stick!  I had another momentary freak out as I contemplated how I was going to repaint the entire two rooms with my quart of paint before I had to leave to teach at co-op at 10am.  I began to paint one wall and by the time I was half-way through, I noticed that the paint was drying darker.  It was not a perfect match, but it certainly might be passable.  I finished painting the one wall and just went ahead painting the rest of the splotches and prayed for the paint to match when it was dry.  Hallelujah!  After-the-fact I will say that it is noticeable if I pointed it out to you or if bright light is shining on it, but it will do.  It has to because I'm out of momentary freak-outs.  The next one might be permanent.
So the pictures were taken.  Everything went well.  And someone already came to look at the house today.  A bunch of realtors are coming tomorrow to look at it. The girls got finished with school early today, even though we did an added science lesson.  I got to hang out and chat with a friend all afternoon. (Thanks Jenn!)  And due to me having my phone accidentally on silent, had to call up a friend for us to crash at her house this evening while the said people came to look at the house.  Thank heavens I had dinner in the crock pot and we had cleaned the house up again before we left after lunch, because I got the message people were coming about an hour before they came.  I grabbed the dog, cat, and crock pot and headed over to a very accommodating friend's house for dinner.  (Thanks Robin!)  Crazy times!  But good times!  I can't complain about someone wanting to see our house.  Every person who does is a potential person to buy it.  And wouldn't that be awesome to head off to Maryland at the end of the month knowing our house was sold.  I can hope and pray.