Life in the Big City

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute

But first an earring update: found, just a couple hours ago, on the living room floor. Praise Jesus. I'm going to have the things surgically attached to my ear lobes. Thanks for any and all prayers/dancing/spiritual practices.

So:

* The house is going on the market (please God let it sell).
* Jack is starting kindergarten in his dad's neighborhood - a friendly urban mostly Hispanic school with questionable test scores but certainly more culture than the horrid suburban block of concrete that sits 5 miles to my north.
* The 2 little ones are moving to a new day care across the street from my work.
* We are moving to a very small house on a very big ranch where scorpions inhabit the bathtubs and goats wander around in the back yard. we're talking cacti and vegetable gardens and dirt roads and creek beds -- and no guest room for my mother to stay in. Too bad. Heheh.
* Javi, my little baby, is crawling and eating cheerios and has 4 teeth and just slays me with his grins.
* I am just a couple weeks away from being undeniably visibly pregnant.

I'm having moving anxiety. As in, what am I going to do with all my stuff, what am I going to be able to take with me, how am I going to be able to fit my clothes in that tiny fucking closet, how is it that no matter how much I pare down I still, always, seem to have more stuff than space...And I hate moving. I really loathe it. I've rarely spent more than 2 years in any single place, especially as an adult, but even as a child, and I'm tired of it. I don't like packing, I don't like loading things on and off trucks, I don't like all the cleaning and the sorting and the unpacking and the dust and the heat and the lifting and the stress, and it always seems to happen in August or September, the hottest time of year. And. This move means getting out from under a mortgage I can't afford, and away from a house in a community I don't particularly like, but I'm losing the only house I ever owned (if you can call it that), and with that I feel like I'm losing some of my independence. Don't get me wrong, this move is saving my ass, the house on the ranch is really sweet, being able to live out there means being able to actually pay my bills and even (gasp) save money and possibly (gasp) be able to afford things like health insurance and car repairs. For all of that I am truly grateful. And to be able to finally share a home with Brian -- I'm excited. Certainly nervous. But excited. It just feels a little bit like a step down, too. I'm losing all the money I ever had saved up by selling this house now. And I'm losing some serious storage space, too.

Hopefully I'll have my digital camera working soon. Today I wanted to snap a picture of the truck in front of me sporting "Get off My Ass" and "Bite Me" stickers on either side of its rear window. Sort of hard to choose between those two options. And then there was the guy driving north on I 35 in rush hour traffic this morning, center lane, going maybe 59 mph, with "go ahead and honk" and "keep honking" stickers on the back of his car. I shake my head in wonderment. So, someday hopefully soon the camera will be up and running again and I can share the wonderful stickers of the greater Austin area with you, as well as pictures of the ranch.

Since your earring prayers were so successful, I'd appreciate some incense burning/chanting/peyote eating/speaking in tongues on behalf of this house selling. Thanks again, you guys are the best.