Week 13 – bag of stuff to Goodwill.

Hazel’s first collection. She almost always brings a little something home from a walk, after carrying it around the whole time and refusing to drop it to catch herself when she falls. How long will I keep these rocks and other bits of nature?

Aaaaanddddd… the April Spotted Box! A lot of people seem to think doing these sample boxes has become a waste of time / product / money, but this one has been featured in Mothering magazine a couple of times recently, so I was excited to take a gamble and try it again. Besides, sending in enough samples to get a full-sized box for yourself is totally worth it. My box contained stuff from:

Moonlodge Medicines
Small Wonders Wipes
Mama Marsh’s Creations
For Crying Out Loud
Polkadot Pickle
Monkey Butt Designs
Knot for Ewe
Happy Booty Boutique
Amy’s Blankies
FOE Your Diaper
Carver Creations
Sugar Chills
Cat and Ace Creations
Mama’s Bug A Boo
Southern Belle Charms
Wee Ones
Creative Cupcake
Frost Fish Cove Soaps
Joyful Rose
Lil’ Outlaws
Jenna E. Krueger
Custom Candy Creations

So many good creations! In addition to lots of generous gift certificates and discount codes, I got candy, stationery, accessories, body products, cloth diapering stuff (diaper stuff, cloth wipes and solution, diaper pail powder, etc.), craft supplies, a full sized bag of herbal infusion, nursing accessories, soaps, cleaning supplies… the whole box looks and smells overwhelmingly delicious!

I might do another one towards the end of summer, depending on when we move. It looks like the end is in sight, and we’ll be moving at the end of June or in September. We’ll know in… June. Eek! We’ll live with Mikey’s mom until next summer. Sound familiar? We’ve gone around and around and over and under and through it and temporary cohabitation seems like the only solution that will keep Hazel in full-time Mommycare and Mikey in full-time school mode. Those are the two most important things to us for the time being – not (gasp) living in a place of our own or avoiding more debt or any of that silly stuff. Hazel at home. Mikey working on his degree. Must. Finish. Phd. Must. Finish.

We really hope it happens in September and not June, because summer in Morgantown is fun. And summer up here on this mountain will be beautiful and shaded and relaxing. And we’re close to Pittsburgh, where Mikey just started recording a new record. And we’re close to university libraries. And it wouldn’t mean moving twice in seven months.

But… yesterday I packed a box. Just in case it’s June. Now I’m going to go see if the Budget Rentals giftcard that you can get for Coke points can be used on a moving truck and not just car rentals. Edit: you can’t, and two free magazine subscriptions is enough (for now!). I will use my points for ordering prints of photos :)

Listening: Belle & Sebastian
(I am) Reading: Jesus Land, which I’m having to take slow since it’s gut-wrenching
(Hazel is) Reading: Strega Nona
Working on: everything but preparation for a week in Toronto is at a halt

Units of love for PJ & Kelly, who had welcome home signs waiting on our bed when we fell into it at 3:00 a.m. (with some help from Ella on that one), who cooked us breakfast, who had groceries and beer in the fridge, who helped us move all of our stuff in and fed our whole moving crew, and who are just generally awesome: immeasurable
Units of love for my mom, Ben, Walt, Kate, Dan and Maggie, who also helped haul stuff inside: 372894732904872389423
Paisley’s degree of excitement about our reunion: 372894732904872389423372894732904872389423 yips & wiggles were displayed
Number of people it took to lift and then push my brother’s car out of the ditch: 5
Things delivered by my mom: new baby houseplants to replace all the ones I gave away; 1 cheery afghan crocheted by my grandma (which I’d already claimed for myself); 1 cheery quilt made by my great-grandma (which I had no idea I was getting and am still freaking out over); about 200 altoids tins for Etsy packaging (which my dad took up when he quit smoking, but they are parcel-shipping-cost-thickness in Canada, so they have been waiting patiently for my return)
Adorability factor of seeing Ella, Xavier, Jonah, and Hazel playing together: 372894732904872389423372894732904872389423
Failed attempts at finding the Uhaul return place before we called them for more accurate directions than google maps could provide: 2
Times we’ve taken Paisley out to pee and it hasn’t happened because she’s heard a gunshot off in the woods & panicked: 5
Times Paisley has gorged herself on compost: 2
Times I’ve gotten totally creeped out looking at the black black black windows at nighttime, despite the fact that I grew up in a house just like this: 372894732904872389423
Times Paisley has barked at her own reflection in the deck doors and scared the heck out of me: 3
Amount of time it’s going to take for me to get used to the fact that running four errands takes up the entire afternoon: hard to say – I’m guessing several months
Amount of time it’s going to take for me to be able to listen to our Canada friends’ music without crying: also guessing several months on this one
Random thing that has made me cry: only one – found a loonie in the washer tonight
Amount of time it’s going to take for me to not be afraid of running into a bear outside in the middle of the night: this is never going to happen
My degree of excitement about having a dishwasher and our own laundry and outdoor AND indoor clotheslines and a temperature we can control and the ability to sleep with lots of blankets again: immeasurable :)

Missed photo opportunities: 234723987489234 (luckily I had Maggie – she is dumping her memory card onto our computer when she comes over next week)
Tears cried: 234723987489234234723987489234234723987489234
Units of love for Chris and Ella, for putting together the most perfect sendoff: 234723987489234
Units of sadness that Scott & Alex weren’t there: 234723987489234
More units love for Chris for making sure that we got home at 3 a.m. afterwards: 234723987489234
Units of desperation to leave Toronto after riding the all night drunk bus from Dundas West to Bay because we’d stayed out until the subway quit running: 234723987489234
Units of love for Maggie, Danny, Chris, Brett, Andrew, and Andrea, who helped pack / clean / load the truck on Sunday: 234723987489234
Units of love for Danny, for driving our truck the whole way home: immeasurable
Houseplants farmed out to other people: 5
Minutes Hazel slept on the drive home: all but 4
Hours Hazel spent on my back on Sunday while I moved boxes: 4
Minutes at the border: 5
Fingers splitting open from all the box schlepping and scrubbing: 3
Units of sadness felt when Max sang the line “and this life I have is not one I thought I’d find…” and I heard it differently than ever before: immeasurable
And when he accidentally sang the same verse again and started laughing half way through: even worse
Times I had to say a heart-wrenching goodbye to Andrea: three, because I sent her home with so much cleaning supplies / toilet paper / plants that she had to make two trips across the street and back
Times I had to say a heart-wrenching goodbye to Chris: three, because he accidentally made off with my car keys and I had to retrieve them from the Local on our way out of town, which almost killed me – walking in and right back out and not knowing when I’ll go there again
Happiness/sadness felt listening to Mikey play and sing with the Canadians: equal
Happiness/sadness felt listening to Tony & Kristine sing Hazel and I a song about cigarettes & whiskey & wild, wild women: equal
Happiness/sadness felt listening to Chris play the song he always sings to Hazel after he made her cry: equal
Units of amusement that the only lullabye he knows has lines about getting drunk in the shade while his wife irons his shirts: 234723987489234
Tears cried when that song played in the car on the way home: 234723987489234
Number of dogs I could have built out of all the hair that was underneath our bookcases: at least 10
Dead-cockroach-microwaves left behind: 1
Magic erasers needed to clean all the street grime off of our balcony doorframe and windowsills: 2 (I always thought they were pale gray, as they were when we moved in – nope, they should have been white all along)
Units of sadness about leaving behind tiny, hot apartment: just a few for the room where Hazel was born.

But now we are sleeping in the room where Xavier was born, and that is happy too.

Hazel just went down for her afternoon nap, so I am taking a break from my most loathed part of packing: the very end. When there are odds and ends sitting about that you might still need, like scissors and scotch tape and Hazel’s baby journal in case something fantastic happens, and you have lots of empty wire baskets and other small storage to deal with, and you still have to take shelves off of the walls and figure out how to not lose all the hardware, and you inevitably have no choice but to just start putting un-like objects all together in the abnormally-shaped boxes that you have been passing over for weeks and weeks in favor of the “better” boxes.

My grandpa built a bookcase for me when I moved into my first apartment – it’s the perfect size for schlepping from place to place during these years. I have four – FOUR – sets of brackets for the shelves, because I have misplaced them in almost every single move since then. They are always somewhere logical, like the toolbox, but I end up going out to spend a few cents each on new ones at Lowe’s before I figure out where I put the others. Right now all of our bookcase and CD tower brackets/pegs are in a ziploc baggie right beside me on my sewing-table-turned-computer-desk. Mikey is going to freak if misplace it and he can’t shelve his books immediately upon settling into N.O.H. – the closest Ikea to where we are going is over an hour away, so we couldn’t just go get more. I have been trying to plan where to put the baggie when there is nothing else to go in it, and I think my purse seems like the most logical place for this move. I will not take it out of my purse until it’s actually time to put them back in their home.

Since we will be out this evening and tomorrow night, too, I think I will pack up some of Hazel’s books and toys to save some of my sanity – I need to put like things in a box at least once today.

Week 45 – the end. One last big haul of stuff to the freestore. Our television and microwave and probably some other stuff will be added to this tomorrow… any last minute “I don’t even want to deal with this” stuff.

The end is near.

Listening: Iron & Wine
(Hazel is) Reading: Russell the Sheep
Packing progress: I am at 107 boxes, a page full of totes and various other containers, I don’t even know how many Toronto Stars, and over five rolls of packing tape.

Thanks to everyone who helped look and spread the word – she was a few miles away at someone’s house, just like Eden said. The woman found one of my mom’s flyers in her mailbox on her way to work and called immediatly. Whew. Crisis averted.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled chaos. I spent part of the morning in a frenzy in the kitchen to keep myself busy, and the rest of the morning in a frenzy in the kitchen in a “my dog is alive and well!!!” euphoria. I excavated the fridge and every single cabinet. I think Mikey must have taken out ten bags of garbage, and I have three bags of groceries to take over to Andrea. I threw away a packet of mexican rice seasoning that was KROGER brand (making it at least three and a half years old). I even scrubbed the storage baskets that held our rags and cleaning supplies – OCD much?

I feel like I have gotten a lot done, but why does our apartment still look like this?

Mostly empty closets.

No couch!

Hazel eating her lunch of cheese, crackers, and grape tomatoes – pretty much the only food in our kitchen at this point except for beer, doritos, cereal, and frozen blueberries – in her booster seat on the floor at the base of book-box-mountain (she can’t get close enough to book-box-mountain to pull it down on her head, don’t worry).

Goodbye dressers, hello total disorder.

I did think of something I will miss about living in this apartment building: the water pressure in the shower is awesome. I have peered into every corner of my brain and that is all I can come up with that I will miss about this apartment, except maybe sometimes the view. I especially like the view when it snows really hard and I can’t see five feet out my window and it’s like there’s no city out there at all.

I feel like this day should be over. It’s not even 2:00 yet.

Today: up, ready, bank, groceries, bought blank index cards because I need them and have no idea which box of packed craft supplies mine are in, picked up a Christmas gift for Hazel, came home and made smoothies for everyone, cut Mikey’s hair, packed and cleaned all afternoon while she watched Shrek instead of taking a nap, playing for five minutes intervals here and there to keep her happy, put her down for a short powernap as soon as Mikey got home and then caught up on some emails and phonecalls, went back out for a couple more errands that I forgot this morning, came home and cooked supper, ate, took a bath and read for half an hour so I didn’t have a meltdown, used my renewed energy to pack up most of our clothes and outerwear, Etsy-ed, read Hazel about 20 books to make up for a lack of books today, and now Mikey is putting her to bed and I am drinking a mug of tea (because my throat hurts really bad) and thinking about all the errands I need to run tomorrow.

The packing is totally under control, but I still need to: pick up contact prescription at the Eaton Center and fax it to Morgantown, drop something off at YSM, pick up something for my mom, get a 304 dog tag made for Paisley, get house keys made, drop off a wholesale order of earrrings, drop off a box of houseplants to Chris (via John & Georgie’s front porch since he’s in Portland), pick up Hazel’s medical summary from her doctor, empty our bank account, return unused customs slips to the post office, get a subway pass / city map / TTC map for Maggie and Danny, who are playing tourists on their own for part of the day on Saturday…. um…..

You know it’s hectic when she has to cry to be read to, she watches at least one movie – sometimes two – every day, and her toys look like this because I have been boycotting sorting:

I might have to crochet some squares tonight after she goes to bed.

Serenity now?

This is what we did last night:

And tonight Mikey (who is recovering well) will play music and I will try to sell as much of this as possible:

And tomorrow we will go to our last mass at the Dominican house and clean and pack and watch lots of our stuff exit our apartment. I put up flyers of stuff we are selling at suppertime yesterday, and most of it had sold within two hours. Some little stuff already went, but people who bought big things are picking up tomorrow after Hazel’s nap. I think I will feel a bit more under control once we have lots of empty spaces to pile boxes in an organized manner, instead of just sticking them wherever they will fit.

And then it will practially be time. At least it won’t be snowing, I guess…

Serenity now.

Listening: Hazel is watching Robin Hood for the hundredth time in the past few weeks while I do a few odds & ends
(I am not) Reading: the new Mothering has been sitting in its plastic wrapper, untouched, for two days – it’s starting to make me twitch
(Hazel is) Reading: Big Little – she usually multitasks while watching a movie
Working on: what am I forgetting??? I think I still have enough time to stamp some little paper bags with my website.
Packing progress: stopped by the bookstore to fill the trunk of our car and half the backseat with (more) flattened boxes

They played a friend’s book launch tonight as the Tylenol Cold & Flu Stringband, because Mikey & Alison are both sick. The more I hear people describing their bouts with H1N1, the more I am convinced that IS what Hazel had a few weeks ago. I assumed it wasn’t a virus because her appetite never faltered and she wasn’t vomiting, but most people are saying they have eaten normally – just a fever that won’t quit, and aches / a headache. Which is exactly what she had for a whole week, and is exactly what Mikey has right now. I told our friend Brian (whose whole family just had it) that I thought yesterday was Mikey’s worst day and that he seemed to be on the upswing today, and Brian said “No, no, this is where he SEEMS to be better and then it’s going to get really bad. You’re looking at three or four more days of having to pack by yourself.”

Um, haven’t I already done that for… oh… sixty or so while he flits around between libraries and conferences and music practices? I think I can handle a few more :) I am the queen of packing up our life. And I get to do it all again in less than a year – yay!

Mikey just went to bed and I am headed there now. It’s 11:51. I don’t think our whole family has been in bed together before midnight, EVER.

Oh, I was on the phone with Kelly today when a call came in from my parents’ house. We were almost through so I just let it go to voicemail, intending to call them as soon as we hung up. Immediately after that my cell phone rang, and I had my standard “shit, someone is dead” moment. I called back right away and my dad answered (my dad NEVER calls me, ever, ever), and I realize he’s in the middle of hyserical laughter. He had called to tell me that about an hour and a half before, he’d gone to get something from his truck and Paisley got in, ready to go for a ride. She threw a fit when he tried to get her out, so he just rolled down the windows and left her there. He forgot all about it until later, when he let all the dogs into the house and she wasn’t with them. He went out to look for her and found her still sitting on the passenger seat of the truck, looking around at the scenery, where she’d been for an hour and a half.

“Well she sure does travel well! She’s having a nice long trip out there.” he tells me between fits of laughter. He wants to know how to get her out of the truck. I suggest that he drive down the driveway and back and she’ll think she’s arrived home and that the trip is over. I don’t know if he tried it or not – he didn’t report back, but I suppose two phonecalls in the same year is a bit much to expect. I can’t wait to have my dog back! Neither can Hazel. She looks all around at least once a day yelling “dog!! DOG!!”, as if expecting her to come trotting out of the next room.

May 2008

Not as horrible as I imagined. When I got home, though, Mikey said “so, um… did you cry the WHOLE way home or just right now?” Hazel (who was awake and eating a snack at two in the morning) studied my face for a second and burst into tears, too.

Hazel moos at cows in books now, by the way. Usually there is no “m”, it’s just “oooooooooooooooooooooo” in a tiny, low voice. Unbearably adorable, this child of mine.

Listening: to someone who just started hammering downstairs, which is no doubt – in about thirty seconds – going to wake Hazel up an hour into her nap for the FIFTH DAY IN A ROW
(Hazel is) Reading: Trick or Treat, Calico
Working on: craft show stuff
Packing progress: nothing today – I have been crafting all morning