Two way communication

The day before Halloween. Grayson is beside himself with anticipation.

The dogs got me up early this morning: About 6:15. There's just nothing quite like the tongue of a small dog up your nose to get you right out of bed.

I took them and one of the walkie-talkies out for a walk. The other one I turned on and lay on the pillow next to Grayson. About 6:30 the radio came to life in my pocket: "Crrrssshk. Mom. Come in mom. Over. Crrrsshk"
(Yes, he makes the Crsrrshk noise himself.)
"Good morning sunshine," I call back.
"Crsssrrrshk. Good morning. Over. Crrssrsshk"

I'm so glad we have the radios. Susan gave them to Grayson this past summer when she and Bill were visiting. We hadn't used them much at the old house, but they are very handy for the morning walk. On the first morning, Grayson was scared when he woke up alone in the apartment. This way he can get in touch with me if he wakes up and is worried about my whereabouts. They have had a very practical application. Plus they are kind of fun.

"How did you sleep, angel?"
"Crrrssshk. Good. Over. Crrrssshk"
"Good, we're just about finished with our walk. I'll see you in a few minutes. "
"Crrrrsssk. Okay. Over. See ya. Crrrssshk."

Last night I spoke with Eleanor on the phone (Hi Eleanor!)
It was good to make contact. I'm relieved to know I'm not losing family. I think it's my sense of family that suffers most in all this. I love Gray, and it hurts to lose him, but it's as much the break up of my comfortable little family and home that is the most painful. I have made a comfortable little nest in the apartment for Grayson and me and the dogs. We are establishing our routines. But without Gray, our family isn't all there. It doesn't feel complete. I feel alone.

That's a ridiculous thing to write. I am alone, of course. But it's more than just missing Gray. I miss my little family.

And I was fearful of missing the extended family, as well. I think of myself as belonging to this family, and it made me sad to think I might not belong now. But talking with Eleanor last night I am comforted that I will still be welcomed and still thought of as part of their family, even if my own is broken in two. I am grateful.

My own extended family here is grappling with what to do next, regarding Gray. They love him, and they are sad and confused and disappointed. I think they are trying to get to a point where they can see him without needing to ask "why?" ... just letting it all sink in and waiting to get used to the new Way Things Are so they can still love him without needing or expecting some kind of explanation. It takes time.

On Monday when I was so sad, I came home to the apartment and I told myself, "that's it. No more crying. No more asking why. Gray doesn't have an answer, and he's not coming back. He's made up his mind. Now you have to make up yours to just get on with it. Crying isn't helping."

Of course that littlel pep talk didn't fix everything, but it did give me something to hang on to and strive for. I have to let it be okay to get over it. Not to hang on to the sadness to prove to myself that I still love him. Not to be the drama queen. I can love Gray and miss him without being damaged by what has happened. I can go on and be okay.

Here's good news. Yesterday my mom got The Recipe. Since his daycare days, Grayson has been missing the fabulous tuna casserole the cooks at McFarlin made for lunch. I have tried a couple of tuna casserole recipes, but none of them were right. So on one of her quilting days, my mom marched down to the kitchen and asked the cooks. It's the easiest thing in the world: tuna, cooked rice, cream of mushroom soup, cheese and some buttered breadcrumbs on top. That's it. So easy, as my mom says, even I can cook it.

So I did. Last night I made it for dinner and Grayson ate it up. Sweet success. We desperately need to expand our repertoire of dinner items. A boy can only eat so many fish sticks, chicken nuggets and bowls of macaroni and cheese. So, now we can have tuna casserole! Eureka!

Rat Race

Starting to get the hang of the new routine. It's busy, but manageable. I get up at quarter to seven and walk the dogs.

By 7:05 I'm back in the apartment and getting Grayson out of bed. Turn on the coffee pot and slurp down some coffee while Grayson has breakfast, then send him off to get dressed while I get in the shower.

I dress, put my heels in my purse and my sneakers on my feet for the daily drag down the stairs to the car. I learned the hard way that heels when walking Flower are not a good idea. It's gradually becoming more walking than water skiing, which is good, but she still has a tendency to pull.... okay, JERK. She's getting better, but I don't like to take the chance that she'll drag me head-first down the stairs. Grayson takes Kobi and we do a certain amount of circling each other because G is not that great at keeping Kobi from circling around me and binding my legs together.

Load the dogs and the kid in the car. We get to Grayson's school in time for the morning pledge of allegiance and then I go back to the old house to drop the dogs off in the back yard for "doggy Day Care." For now it's easier to take them there and let them be outside all after than to trust them in the apartment all day.

After the dog drop I'm back in the car and off down the highway at 8:30, the same time I would have been leaving the house before The Change.

Problem is, so far we're not that great at remembering everything. Friday it was Grayson's homework that got left behind, and I had to bring it to school at lunch. Yesterday Grayson had a school field trip to the museum and we didn't get out the door in the morning with his sack lunch, so I had to buy him lunch in the cafe while he was here. Today we got to school without his backpack so I had to circle back to the apartment and pick it up and bring it to him. We're 1 for 4 so far. Tomorrow I hope to actually remember everything.

I think I'm going to enroll Flower in Dog School to break her of the pulling habit, and so I can open the front door without them rushing out into traffic. Kobi has been very good, but so far will still not go poop while on a leash. This is fine as long as she is in the yard at the old house all day, but when the house sells and she's in the apartment she's either going to crap on the carpet (or is that crapet?) or explode. So we'll have to work on that, too.

All in all we make steady progress toward the goal of living like regular people. There are still boxes of pictures that haven't been hung. I did hang three on Monday, but yesterday we got home too late after shopping for Grayson's Halloween costume. He's going as "zombie Elvis." Don't ask me where he came up with that. It's hysterical, though. We got him a black Elvis wig and gold aviator sunglasses, some gold chains and a microphone. He'll wear his skeleton T-shirt under a jean jack that I'll stick some rhinestones too. He's practicing saying "thank yuh, thank yuh verry much." It makes me crack up.

Okay, so yesterday Grayson's class came to the museum for a field trip and I got to be a chaperone. Let me tell you, they don't pay teachers enough. I had only three boys: Grayson, Tyler and Tymane. They were pretty good, but I was worn out by the time they got back on the bus at 1:00.

Still, they all had a good time, and it was fun for me to be with them. Here are a few pics.

Home Sweet Apartment

We are in. Sorry to be so out of touch over the weekend, but things have been, as you may have guessed, a bit crazy.

The move went very smoothly. I had a great moving team from All My Sons. Three sweet funny guys who outdid themselves hauling all my crap up and down stairs all day. They were so cute I took their picture before we left the house.

I'm almost all unpacked. Grayson has waaaaay more stuff than he needs, and I think I may have to purge some of the junk toys that are just tossed in a box. But everything else is put away. Over the next few days I will get the pictures hung and then I'm all set up.

There were a couple of casualties. The computer power source died for some reason. Gray has taken it and ordered a new power supply. That's why I have not been online. Grayson is going through Spore Withdrawal, but Gray says hopefully the new power supply will come in today.

The TV is also on the fritz. Not sure if that's a symptom of having been bumped about too much in the move or a Cox cable issue, but my guess is that it's the tv, not the cable, which is too bad because I definitely can not afford a new TV.

The moving crew broke a leg off of Grayson's bureau, but my dad was able to build a replacement for it, and it is just fine.

The last casualty was Lenny. Grayson's goldfish. Gray brought the 10 gallon aquarium over and set it up for Lenny on our first day in the apartment as a sort of housewarming for Grayson, and we moved Lenny into it that evening. Guess we moved him too soon. He died the next day. Well, my mom and dad were at the apartment helping me hang some pictures, and my mom and I ran out to Walmart and picked up a replacement Lenny PDQ. Fortunately, Grayson did not notice any difference, so as far as he's concerned, Lenny made the move just fine.

Saturday we went to Petsmart and picked up another fish to keep "Lenny" company. One of those bug-eyed black goldfish. Grayson hamed him Popeye. Popeye seems to be thriving and he and Lenny get along "swimmingly."

The dogs moved in on Saturday. They are perhaps my greatest challenge. But I am determined to make it work. Walking them is no big deal, except that Flower pulls really hard on the leash and I'm afraid one of these days she'll pull me right down the stairs. She is also afraid of coming up the stairs, because they are open and she can see the ground below between them. The first few times she went up, Grayson and I had to come up on either side of her, coaxing her every step. And a couple of times she has simply stopped and refused to go any further. But every time we do it, she gets better at it, and I'm sure by the end of the week she'll be bounding up and down them with no problem. Kobi is also a little shaky about the stairs, and is hesitant about doing her bathroom business while on a leash. To say nothing of her tendency to circle my legs and wrap me up in the leash itself. I think I'm going to have to take Flower to dog school to break her pulling habit. Kobi will just have to get over her leash shyness.

She does this bizarre thing, though. There are, of course, a million dog smells all around the apartments. Kobi and Flower both are tinkling on everything to mark their territory, and Kobi seems determined to pass herself off as a much bigger dog than she actually is. When she finds a place she wants to mark, like the corner of the wall around the pool, she backs up to it, lifts herself up on her front legs, and pees on the wall. Her back legs are completely up in the air. I have got to get video of this. It's hysterical.

Grayson seems totally content. The move does not seem to bug him at all. He loves the fireplace, and the novelty of walking the dogs several times a day. He likes to lay out on the balcony in the sun in his jammies. He's a little bit stir crazy because of a lack of computer, but he's thrilled to have a tv in his own room. All in all, he seems happy with the whole arrangement.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the old house with Gray, cleaning. Grayson went down the street to play with Sam Powell. It was hard to be there with Gray. The house looked so empty and neglected. It was a complete mess after the move: dust and dog hair and trash everywhere. The rooms echoing and seeming diminished. It made me want to cry for all the hopes and dreams we had when we moved in there. Now it's just a place I want to get away from. I feel like I failed the house somehow. Or maybe it was bad luck from the beginning. Maybe we should never have moved there. I don't know. It was no fun being there Sunday afternoon, though.

I got a bunch of peppers and a couple of late tomatoes from the garden. It is still producing, in spite of my neglect. That, too, breaks my heart. I wonder how long it will be before everything stops hurting me and I will truly look only forward and not back. Right now I try very hard to be positive and look forward. But I'm fearful and worried. Worried I won't be able to keep the dogs in the apartment, fearful the house won't sell and we'll be bankrupt. Fearful I won't be able to make ends meet and I'll have to leave the job I love for one that pays more. I worry about the housing market and global recession. I worry about money. I worry about how to store all the stuff I haven't been able to fit in the apartment. I worry that Kobi is peeing on the carpet somewhere that I haven't noticed yet.

I worry that Gray will get a girlfriend and I'll die of heartbreak. I worry that I am not a great mom to Grayson right now because I am tired and sad and short tempered. I worry that I drink too much and don't eat right. I worry about the cigarette smoke smell in my new bedroom. I worry about silly stuff and big stuff and huge stuff. I worry that I am so tense I can hear the cartilege in my neck crunching when I turn my head. Seems like I shouldn't hear that sound. Is that normal? What is it exactly? Why is it doing that?

See? I worry about everything. I'm sure I'll relax in time. I should get back to my yoga classes, that would probably do me a world of good.

Seasons in the Sun?

What kind of cruel Universe causes a woman to wake up at 2 a.m. with the 70s song "Seasons in the Sun" running through her mind?

As if being an insomniac weren't enough.

Raining this morning. We had some nice thunder and a little bit of lightning around 5:30. Now just rain. I, of course, left a rug I had washed out on the front sidewalk, "to dry." So much for that.

The filming yesterday went very well, though it took all day. It must be incredibly boring to make a movie. Doing the same little bit over and over and over. It's bad enough when you're the one doing it and it's just a string of short pieces. It must be excruciating for all the cameramen, grips, lighting designers and zillions of other people on a movie set, for months at a time.

This morning I will be bringing Rich Cifelli, one of our vertebrate paleontology curators, up to the city for the media announcement that "Walking with Dinosaurs," the traveling arena show, is coming to Oklahoma in January. It's just a short media splash to announce tickets are going on sale, but they are generously partnering with the museum to let us get some of the spill-over publicity, and one of the things we provide is a pet paleontologist. So Rich and I will drive up for the shindig. If the weather cooperates, they will do this fun publicity stunt in which they put Rich in a scissor lift and send him up 35 feet to demonstrate how tall their brachiosaurus model is.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to www.dinosaurlive.com and see the teaser for their production. It's very cool. If they do the publicity thing with the lift today, I'll take some pictures. Rich should get a kick out of it.

I'm in better spirits today. I guess being a TV star for a day perks you up. Or maybe you just can't stay that blue for very long. We humans are hard-wired to Get Over It, I suppose. We're adaptive, or we wouldn't have survived this long.

That's as philosophical as I can be this morning, with only some 4 or 5 hours of sleep.

Thundering again. I'm going to go let Flower and Kobi in. The thunder stresses Flower out.

Countdown

This morning I am sad to the point of inertia. I feel weighted, as if my very skin pulls heavier on my face than usual. Everything is an effort.

The countdown has begun.

Today is the 21st. Two more nights in my home with my family. That's all. Just two nights and two days. Then it's over. I feel as though watching it slip away is killing me. I can't stand it, and I can't stand for it to be over, and I know I can't do anything but just survive these days and believe it will be okay on the other side. But it doesn't feel like it. Not today.

I had terrible dreams. Woke up in a sweat over and over. Then Grayson had a sinus problem that brought on an asthma attack and he had to be nebulized and dosed with decongestants at 5 a.m. I of course, put off packing his medicines until last night. So I had to tear open a box and rummage through to find what he needed. I got him to bed at 5:30 and half an hour later he woke me crying that the cat had bitten him. He just wanted me near. So I grumpily crawled into his little bed with him and we slept together until 8:30.

Then Gray got up and griped that I had let us all oversleep. I not to graciously told him he'd better get used to setting his own damned alarm clock. My feelings about that are probably best left to the old paper journal.

I am filming for Frontier Country this morning. (See "I am the all-knowing woman of mystery" from last December) They need a few more takes to fill in some gaps and make a few changes to the storyline. The problem is, that I need to dress the same way I did for that shoot last year, and I have NO IDEA where I've put that gray skirt. I packed it away in the spring, and all the boxes with my fall clothes are in the POD somewhere. So when I'm done here, I get to go out and rummage around in search of the skirt.

I packed my closet and Grayson's closet last night. One good thing about the apartment... even though it's small, the closets are comparatively huge. I've lived in old houses for so long, I can't imagine having even average closet space, much less these luxurious and spacious mini walk-ins with rods on both sides, top and bottom! I'll have to post pictures of the closets on Thursday. I'm sure they will seem laughable to any normal person. But to me their the freakin' Taj Mahal.

Out to the pod I go...

>>>> Hallelujah! The skirt was in the box under my bed the whole time. Life is good, after all. Nice to notice, too, that it fits better this year. I've lost ten pounds since that shoot.

Now what?

Looks like Gray took the camera, or I would share here a photo of the conditions under which I am currently living. I'll use this image of the living room from last week as a reference. It hasn't gotten any better. The kitchen, if anything, is worse. All the appliances are pulled out into the center of the room and the place is half painted. Gray cut in before he left, but that was it. Looking at it makes me want to rush outside and take long deep breaths.

So today, after the ritual of morning coffee, I must choose my next undertaking. The rest of Grayson's room needs packing. My clothes need packing. The bathroom as well. But the kitchen needs painting, as does the stairwell, the crack over the fireplace and the second floor hallway. These I think of as Gray's jobs, but I do believe he had hoped I would at least finish the kitchen over the weekend. Can't decide which will make me feel more irritated: Not doing it and dealing with his frustration with me that it didn't get done while he was gone... or doing it and feeling irritated that I'm not getting the other things done. Tough call.

Looks like more gorgeous weather today. Fall at last. The dogs are loving it. I'm feeling guilty for making them move into an apartment soon. Though Flower will enjoy having rugs to lie on. She always seeks out a soft spot to lie down and soon she'll be able to lie down anywhere. Well, in the few places where there won't be furniture in that tiny pad. It may be a case of tiptoe through the endtables. Wall to wall dog.

I'm getting nostalgic about the house now. It represents so much to me. The achievement of a certain American Dream: the big beautiful house in a nice neighborhood. Even the creaking of the old stairs twists my heart these days. The "Red Room" is red no more. The old carpet was taken up and bland beige carpet put down. But I'm reminded, by its emptiness and smell of fresh carpet, of the week we moved in. Grayson loved that room. Mostly, I think because of the carpet, which he loved to crawl around on. He had been playing in there and then came upstairs and was wandering around, asking me "Mom, where's that other room? That red room?" The house seemed so big to him he was lost in it.

Here's the view from our bed to the east window in the morning. I love the silhouette of the Virginia creeper moving across the curtain. And Skeezix will sit up there and watch it. I'll miss that window. And the Virginia creeper. And the sycamore tree we planted the year we moved in. And my garden.

It will be easier, I tell myself. Easier when we have moved out and the hopes and memories of this house are not all around us every day. There will be other houses. Other vines and trees and gardens. Another life. Coming soon. Just around the corner.

Elizabeth Bishop said it best, I guess...(Poem snatched courtesy Poets.org.

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Everything Must Go!

The sale was a success today. I didn't make as much money as I had hoped, but I did get rid of almost everything, and was able to wrap up by 1 p.m., so I count it a rousing success.

There were two ladies there at 7:30 a.m. There always are. But I had started putting out the merchandise by about ten after 7, so I was more or less ready for them. They helped me carry out the books and the secretary desk, and one of them bought several items. The early garage sale people are a society unto themselves. They seem to all know each other from other garage sales. A man came up and one of the ladies said "I know him, he only buys electronics." Sure enough, he picked up the digital picture frame I was selling and bought it.

I met a lot of nice people. Especially early in the day. by 9:30 the rush was over, and then it was just trickling through until I sold the larger outdoor furniture at about noon, and the smaller set half an hour later to the colorful woman who lives down the street. She came back a few minutes later and bought Grayson's old dragon costume.

My long-ex, Doug, came by mid-morning to see if I had bookshelves for sale (I didn't). Then stuck around to shoot the shit in the yard for an hour or so. I saw folks I knew from the Arts Institute days, Bo, my old neighbor from 40th street (and pictures of his 1-year-old daughter, who is adorable), and a trio of very nice ladies who took Grayson's first grade workbooks and left me a Jehovah's Witness tract to read. I thanked them nicely, and put it in the recycling bin after they had cleared the premises.

I took advantage of the sitting time to flip through all the remaining magazines on site and toss them, one by one as I finished them, into a pink laundry basket marked "Free Magazines! You Know You Want 'Em". A couple of ladies came and cleaned me out of those, too.

After I shut down the sale I counted the money and headed for Target. I bought a coffee-maker and grinder, a toaster oven, bathroom rugs, a shower curtain, leashes for the dogs, an iron, a cheap set of flatware and assorted kitchen utensils. It was a shopping frenzy. I brought it all home and packed it together in a box marked "New Stuff." Opening it in the apartment will be like Christmas come early.

After that I went to Zorba's and pigged out on Gyro and fries and ice cold beer in a frosty glass. Aaaaah. A reward for a day well spent.

The only casualty of the yard sale was my Obama sign. I had covered it with poster board and put it out on Classen to announce the sale, and though it was still there when I left the house at 1:00, the city had come and pulled it up when I got back around 5. Oh well.

Tonight I do nothing. I may or may not muster enough energy to take a shower. Otherwise it's books and bed for me. I'm beat.

Der

Got myself locked out of my car at the bank today. I was running around doing errands preparatory to the yard sale, and I sat in the bank parking lot figuring out how much change I would need. I had put my keys in the console, finished up my list, grabbed my purse and got out of the car.

Slam.
Damn.

I had to call Farmers Insurance roadside assistance and have the darling tow truck driver in ropers and a cowboy hat come pop the door for me. I told him he was a genius and he grinned around his chewing tobacco and said "Would you mind tellin' my wife that?"

It took 45 minutes for him to get there. So I sat in the bank lobby, reading "Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder." It makes me think and worry about getting Grayson enough outside time when we move to the apartment. Of course, we'll have to walk the dogs every day, so there will at least be that, but I'll have to make an extra effort to get him to parks to be outside. The apartment is small, and there is no playground at the complex, so there will be a lot of temptation to stay in. I just hope there are other kids his age in apartments nearby so he will have new friends nearby.

Lately I'm worried about the logistics of being there. I think it's just anxiety about whether or not I've made the right choice. I'm sure we will all adapt to the new space and the new routines it will require. Walking the dogs will be good for all of us, though I do worry about them being inside alone all day. I will find a way to deal with it, I just will. I can find a way to deal with everything.

Girls Night

Good morning. Okay, morning. Don't know about the good.
Maybe that last glass of wine last night was not as good an idea as it seemed at the time.
I went out for "a drink" with my good friend and cousin-in-law Lisa last night. She said she had heard of this great little bar in midtown, right on the roundabout at Walker. So we met there at 6:30. The little bar was about the hoppin'est place in town. Three floors of a renovated "flatiron" building, packed wall to wall with what appeared to be everybody who was anybody in midtown Oklahoma City. But we squeezed into a table and shouted our conversation over the hubbub... for the next FIVE HOURS. I was shocked when I got home and discovered it was 11:00!

It was a perfect girls night. We laughed, we cried. We divulged confidences. We flirted with the waiter. We were catty about the women on the floor below us over the balcony. We made wise observations about the nature of men and relationships. We drank red wine and cosmos and ate nothing but artichoke dip and pita chips. Ahhh. I needed that.

I'm home alone the next few days. When I got home from work last night there was a note taped to the front door with blue painters' tape: "Dear Mom: Don't forget to feed Leny at 9 p.m. Love Grayson" "Leny" is the goldfish. Grayson takes his care and feeding very seriously.

So I dutifully fed Leny before I left for the bar. A little ahead of schedule, but he did get fed. He didn't get fed his usual food, however. I had to scrounge up an old jar of bloodworms to give him. Grayson has a bad habit of leaving the top off the fish food jar and the cats knock it over and eat it. Guess it tastes fishy.

I have decided that I'm in the wrong business. Yesterday I called to get some information about doggy day care and drop-in visits, in case it proves too much to try to keep the dogs in the apartment all day. It costs $18 a visit to have them come to your place and walk your dogs for half an hour. $18!! Do the math at $36 an hour: That's nearly $70,000 a year for dog walking! Man, I think it's time for a career change.

The new carpet looks nice. Bland, but nice. It smells all clean like new carpet. Check that off my list.

Chilly

The new carpet gets installed in the "Red Room" today. Gray and Grayson will stick around here until it is done and then they'll head to Houston. I'll be on my own. I have a busy weekend ahead.

I'm having the sale on Saturday, and looks like I get to finish painting the kitchen. Gray got it started. But it will be up to me to finish it up if we're going to list the house on Monday.

It got cold yesterday. Gray turned on the heat upstairs at bedtime, but when I went down to let the dogs out this morning it was CHILLY. It's supposed to be perfect football game weather on Saturday, which means, of course, perfect yard sale weather, as well. :)

No way to start the morning

I woke up at 5-til-7 with a feeling I was forgetting something.

I was.

I was expected to be at Channel 4 at 7:30 this morning for a 7:40 interview. Aaagh!
So I jumped out of bed, brushed my teeth, hopped into a pair of pants and a jacket and headed out the door into the rain with my make-up bag in hand. I hollered at Gray and Grayson that they had to get themselves up this morning and ran to the car.

Rotten morning to have to go from 0 to 60 in 10 seconds. Raining. Cold. Dark. And to add insult to injury, though I arrived at the station by 7:15, they didn't put me on until close to 8:30! Argh. No coffee, no shower. No way to start the day.

Steve, our realtor, came by last night and we are still not ready to list the house. Things are still a huge mess. Gray and Grayson are leaving for Houston tomorrow for the weekend, and it looks like it will be up to me to complete the painting and staging if we're going to list it on Monday. I have to order carpet and finish clearing things out and paint and have a yard sale. Oh, and work for a living. I feel overwhelmed and heartily sick of the whole thing already, and it hasn't even begun. Everyone we talk to looks at us as if we've gone stark raving mad when we tell them we're putting the house up for sale. There just doesn't seem to be any good news lately. I want to crawl back into bed and stay there.

I started reading that absurdly popular and overpriced book "The Secret" this week. It tells me to keep positive thoughts and feel happy and all good things will come to me. Like attracts like and the more I think negatively the more negativity I attract. Perhaps this isn't the best time of my life for this advice. Negativity is my middle name just now. But I shall try to grab hold of the old bootstraps and keep my eyes on the prize. Sale of the house, clearance of debt, a new beginning. All good things and more to come. Pollyanna me, baby.

All packed up

Yup, got all the important stuff packed up and ready to go now. Here's Grayson having a little bit of fun with the bubble wrap.

Almost everything is packed now, at least as much as I think can reasonably be packed when we still have more than a week before the move date.

I say that, but it seems like every day I open another cupboard and Holy Crap, there's a bunch of stuff I haven't taken into consideration. I found a whole cabinet full of boxes of photographs yesterday in the red room. My next task will be to get ready for the yard sale next week. For one thing, this means finishing Charlie's mosaic, so I can get it off of the table I mean to sell!

I went out to the garden yesterday. I haven't been out there in weeks because it just made me sad. We just got it built and here I am abandoning it. But I needed to go out to find my little hand spade to repot a plant. My little garden is over grown and weedy, but bless its heart, it is still producing. There are green tomatoes and lots of peppers. The basil has taken off again and there's enough mint to julep northwest Oklahoma City. I felt proud of my little garden, that it has been doing its work even under my neglect, and I feel good knowing it will keep going after I'm gone, though it still makes me a little sad.

I just have to keep remembering that we're on a journey, here. Moving to the apartment is just one step along the way, and we'll have our own house again by this time next year.

I went to bed at 9:30 last night. I was exhausted. It has been a very hard-working weekend, and there are a couple more of those ahead. The pod is stuffed full, and the sun room is filled with extraneous stuff like bikes and bookcases that didn't fit in.

The new digs

We visited the new place yesterday afternoon and took measurements. I wasn't sure what furniture would fit, and the answer is... not much. But enough. We'll be able to get the Armoire in, but not the big green chair. The freezer, but not the sideboard.

Grayson immediately claimed his room. It's the larger room, so he also gets the computer desk in there, which is fine, since that's where he is parked so much of the time.

He was pretty excited about it. The fireplace is a big plus. The kitchen is diminutive, but lets face it, I don't do a lot of cooking.

The house prep procedes at what seems a snail's pace. Yesterday we took down Grayson's bunk beds and put them in the pod so we could move the twin bed out of the sun room and up to his room, so we could use the sun room for storage of stuff like bikes and extra end tables. I'm finding more and more stuff to add to next weekend's sale. Moving is good for the spirit because it makes you analyze your stuff. Do I really need this old latin textbook from highschool? Really?

Today we will finish the main prep work. Gray bought a nice neutral paint to cover the failed red in the kitchen and to paint the upstairs hallway and stairwell. I have another big load to take to the library book sale and Good Will. I'm not bothering with selling little stuff, just big stuff like furniture. I don't want to sit there all day while people poke through our old pots and pans. Ug. Fuggetaboutit. I'll donate that stuff.

I don't know which I'm dreading more... all the work that lies ahead of me, or the Oklahoma Tourism Industry Association board meeting I have to go to at 4:30 this afternoon, followed by the kick-off reception for the Governor's Conference on Tourism. Fortunately, it's in OKC this year, so I don't have to take off at 2:00 and drive to Tulsa. But I would love to get out of it. We'll see how it goes.

Down to the wire

I went to bed last night at 8:30 and slept like a bear for 10 hours. I believe I've been a little stressed out. But I woke up feeling good. This weekend is the last long haul. Monday we list the house.

The ground floor looks like it's been ransacked by ruffians, but most everything is packed. Today we move another pile of boxes out to the pod and move some furniture around to open things up a bit.

I've been hard at work on the upstairs already, but I have to conquer it this weekend. We're ordering the carpet for the Red Room today as well. Gray's goal is to get the kitchen repainted and the entry hall.

This morning Grayson and I will go over and see the apartment. I've seen the model, but not the actual unit we'll be living in, so it will be a first for me as well. I need to take some measurements so I'll know how much furniture can realistically fit and how much has to be stored.

Next weekend, over fall break, Gray and Grayson are going to Houston for a Coldwell family event. I'll stay behind. I think I'll have a super speedy yard sale on Saturday, to get rid of some of the stuff that I don't want to store. We seem to have a lot more end tables than most people, and there's some of Grayson's stuff he no longer uses. I'm giving a bunch of stuff to Krysten, my assistant, for her nursery. Grayson's old crib and high chair and changing table, my old rocking chair from Grayson's nursery. But there will still be a bunch of extraneous STUFF. Shouldn't take long to move it in a Saturday morning yard sale and pocket a few bucks.

In the real world, which I do sometimes also inhabit, fall seems finally to be arriving. Mornings are cool. The days get up in the low 80s, but the breeze is cool. The season has definitely turned. In the afternoons as I leave work sometimes I hear the OU band practicing a couple of blocks away.

The OU/Texas game is today. Big news in the Sooner state. I'm sure Gray will have the game on while we work. I could give a rats ass, frankly. But there's something soothing about having a football game on. Feels like fall.

Grayson's school is selling bulbs as a fundraiser. It did make me a little heartsick not to be buying bulbs to plant this fall. No home to plant them in. I just have to keep my eyes on the future and believe that by next fall, we'll have our own house again to plant and decorate. Just the right size, in the right place. We have plenty of time to look and choose. It has to be perfect this time.

Meanwhile, I sure hope Grayson is excited about the new apartment. I chose a second floor place for the teensy little balcony, and we'll have a fireplace, which I know Grayson will love. There's an open grassy area just outside the door where we can walk the dogs, and the pool is right there as well. I'm hoping there's enough adventure and enough percs that it won't feel like we're really losing anything. The space is small, but frankly we don't live in that much space here. I like that it comes equipped with washer and dryer (admittedly not full size), so we don't have to move the old ones in. If we're only there for 9 months of so, I don't want to be in the business of moving appliances twice. They can go into storage and wait.

Bonus: the apartment is right across the Northwest Expressway from both Borders and Starbucks. Jackpot! They also have a gym, though I haven't seen it. And a long walking trail that goes around the Pacer gym next door, where a lot of people walk their dogs. There's a dog park less than a mile away, so we can take Flower and Kobi and let them run every weekend.

I hope it's not too tough on them to be indoors all day. At least it's during the winter, so I won't feel so bad about keeping them cooped up. Until the house sells they can spend their days in the yard here, but after that, they are inside city dogs. I figure if people can manage dogs in New York City, we can manage dogs here.

Packing

We got our POD and we've been packing and moving things out into it to stage the house. Grayson considers it his personal play house, of course.

It's amazing how many books you have when you begin to put them in boxes. As Gray was carrying some out this morning he told me "enough with the books, huh?"

Grayson has been "helping" me pack. Grayson's help primarily consists of making labels on bright colored index cards and taping them to things. His scooter, for example, bears a bright pink tag that says "Bob." I've had about all the help I can really manage. Gray is painting trim in the living room and stairs, and helping to move boxes out to the pod.

I'm going to attempt to upload a bit of video of Gray and Grayson wrestling on the bed, just to see if I can manage it. This is one of Grayson's all time favorite pasttimes. Gray's too, I think.