Bizarro-Chango

It’s been BIZARRE here to say the least in the last week. We’ve known for one week and one day that we are officially moving, and the garage is full of boxes, Doug has a “leave date,” oh, and quit his job. I told the company I’m working for that I’m leaving and they in turn told me I wasn’t. And yesterday, CJ quit. We worked it out so he’s giving us some notice, probably about three weeks worth. Unless he finds a job sooner that requires him to start sooner. I guess he’s gotten a lot of pressure from everyone in his life to start looking for something else, some of that is reasonable and some of it isn’t.

Our life is so good, and that isn’t something I take lightly. We’ve worked VERY hard to make it happen.

My mom is here for Easter, tomorrow our house will be FULL. We’ve got Marlena coming to entertain the kids for a few hours, Tony the handyman coming to fix the fence (and I think he’s bringing a helper), Jeff and Quentin are coming over so Uncle Jeff can help Doug finish the patio cover, and as I said my mom is here visiting too. It’s going to be a madhouse.

Doug and Frank leave Monday for a Yosemite adventure week. They’re going to camp, and sleep in the Suburban when it’s too cold, and just wing it. I’m so glad they’re doing it. It’ll be an adventure neither of them will forget.

I’m packing and packing and packing, actually more accurately, I’m sorting and sorting and sorting. The garage is getting very crowded with boxes of moving sale items. I’ve got the entire first floor of the house done with the exception of the toys, most of which I think we should just keep, pack and move. The boys are going to have playroom-gameroom-plus space they’ve never imagined since that is how the houses in Colorado are designed for the most part. The main floor and second story are pretty normal, average houses; and then there is a “basement” which doesn’t really seem like a basement because the “back” of the house is three stories. So you have windows and sliding glass doors that go out into the backyard. And that floor usually has a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms, a “wet bar” which is almost always a mini-kitchen, a gigantic family room and game room, usually some “unfinished” storage area (like the size of our entire garage), and sometimes a home theatre (on the front side of the house where there aren’t any windows). Why get rid of stuff they can play with when they’re going to have so much room to play in?

I believe one of the things that contributed to Frank’s incredible imagination was how much he played with toys (and ones that required imagination and pretending rather than interactive that did everything for him), and how little television he watched. And reading, of course. Both my boys have a deep appreciation of books and love, love, love to read and be read to. There isn’t anything like having the ability to entertain yourself, not needing constant “entertaining.” Both my kids need their quiet, play on their own time. Each of them will suddenly walk over to the bookcase, take out a pile of books and sit and read and read and read. Frank would even do that when he was on playdates, and the other kid’s parents would always comment on how funny it was, that their child would try and try to get his attention to play something and Frank would just sort of zone out for a bit until he regrouped. Beckett is exactly the same. He’ll be playing and bringing me toys and getting all his baskets of toys out and then all of a sudden I’ll think, what’s he doing? And sure enough, he’s gone to the reading corner and he’s as a quiet as a mouse.

I was having a surprise going away party for Doug on May 6th, but one of the neighbors (yesterday, day after the invitations went out), came up to Doug and said, “I’ll be at your party on the 6th!” Oh well, no longer a surprise, and no big deal either. Doug was still happy (he’s so-o-o-o happy these days.)

I’ve got some serious work to get done, and have no business updating the blog instead of doing it . . .