October 28, 2010

A new place to live

Don’t get me wrong. This has been a wonderful place for us to live, a real blessing. I knew as soon as I got the email about it in June that God had prepared this place just for our specific need these past 16 weeks. I am truly grateful for the house and for our host couple next-door. That is absolute.

Having said that, and avoiding complaining in any way, I am definitely looking forward to certain features that our next home will hopefully have in contrast…or not have in some cases.

I’m looking forward to

  1. a home that is not already infested with 2-inch cockroaches.
  2. windows that open.
  3. being able to use curtains or blinds in my living room so that I’m not living in a fishbowl and can actually wear pajamas at night in the living room and kitchen.
  4. plumbing that does not leak excessively.
  5. air conditioning that cools down the whole house, not just the bedrooms.
  6. having empty closets, drawers, cupboards, and shelves so I can actually use that space myself.
  7. taking baths again instead of just showers!! (Timothy is also looking forward to this, to be sure.)
  8. a stove at countertop height instead of low-down for wheelchair accessibility.
  9. grounded outlets.
  10. having a carpet that does not show every single crumb that falls.
  11. paying my own bills and not feeling beholden to anyone.
  12. having doors that seal and thus keep out geckos and crickets.
  13. not constantly having to worry about Timothy’s damaging something that is not ours.
  14. getting regular Internet!

and 15. being able to decorate with my very poor taste and minimal skills, not to mention nonexistent budget! :)

Moving on again

I wish it were really true that rolling stones gather no moss. Somehow, no matter how short a stay we have in any given place, we always seem to accumulate more stuff! I think I really need to figure out a filing system and actually use it at our next house for all these miscellaneous papers… Too bad I can’t use a filing system on all this other stuff. Fortunately I have enough sense never to end up like one of the people in those Hoarders shows. I worked for a lady one day a week after college for several months, and she definitely could have been on one of those shows. I honestly think she needed a psychiatrist. She hired me in about September to help her pack for her move to Florida. Well, not only did she not have actual plans to move to Florida, but she also would not let me pack anything. Oh my goodness. It was a nightmare, every time, for perhaps six months that she had me come. There was barely enough room in her house to move around, between bookcases, portable closets, and heaps of papers and books. The kitchen was a mass of clean tins to be recycled, piled three high all over the counters. I will say this: She was not dirty, which is actually rather significant. But she would not throw anything away that could possibly be useful again to anyone. Oy! Lord, please keep me sane and remind me that I can’t take anything with me when I leave!

Well, Timothy’s birthday cake is out of the oven and smells great! Several months ago he requested a Mickey Mouse cake for his birthday, and someone had suggested I go to Dairy Queen or Baskin Robbins to order one, but in my usual procrastination, I realized yesterday I still had not done so, and his party is tomorrow. Boy, am I grateful that there are other idiots out there like me. There must be, for there in the party section at Walmart – where I was gathering balloons and favors all at the last minute – was a disposable Mickey Mouse cake pan set with a plastic overlay of Mickey’s face. Perfect! Timothy preferred that to the idea of cupcakes, so we grabbed it. I only got Timothy one birthday gift this year, so I figured we could pay a little extra for a cake he really wanted to take to a party that will be very brief anyway.

(He also asked for a pinata, but having seen how little ones handle a pinata at my cousin-once-removed Madeline’s birthday party last year, I thought maybe we’d wait a couple years for that.)

So we are having a very low-key 3rd birthday party tomorrow, a week early. Why? Yes, it’s because we’re moving again next week. And I figured Timothy would rather have a tiny party here with the few friends he has made (mostly adults, sadly enough) than celebrate on his birthday in a motel somewhere. With whom? Daddy is not a real birthday person. And with what? I couldn’t have made a cake in a motel. So we’re going to the park tomorrow to meet a handful of friends for an hour. I can’t say whether the other kids will have a good time, but I’m pretty sure Timothy will. All he needs is some cake and a playground to keep him happy. Oh, and the “Happy Birthday” song, of course. We’ll see what happens anyway.

We’re moving to a town about an hour away from Savannah, Georgia, where we can hopefully stay for at least a year (unless God has bigger and better plans for us, which is our constant prayer!). We leave Wednesday and will get to visit my grandma on the way, arriving Friday evening – on Timothy’s birthday. I should be packing and concentrating on how we’re going to fit everything into our car (and throwing out everything else), but I’m trying to get through tomorrow first with a lot going on besides Timothy’s party. One thing at a time, right? It’s not as though I’m packing up my whole house, since we’ve been living in a furnished place.

…And actually, I’m going to write another post about this furnished place – or rather, the things I’m looking forward to about being somewhere else. :)