In 4 days my middle child turns 9.
In 6 days we leave the country; Noah has plans to come back for work… the rest of us don’t. Hello Bangkok!
In 9 days we legally own a house in Scotland and my wonderful, sweet, helpful friend will be collecting keys from our solicitor so there is no delay!
In 16 days we arrive in Inverness and the fun truly begins.
Jenny really wants us there. I can tell. She has offered to let us borrow (possibly keep) a very large number of items, including: dishes, a kid bed, an adult mattress, duvets, a crock pot, sheets… It’s like this woman wants me to stay and feel comfortable!
She’s got a 10 year head start on me, but we get to learn how to be Scottish together. This’ll be grand.
I slept meh last night. If I hadn’t missed the night before it would have been plenty, instead I’m still tired.
Ikea then a housewarming. Wake up, Little Susie.
Noah sent out a goodbye email to pretty much everyone we have ever sent an email to. Now folks are coming out of the woodwork wanting to say goodbye. Uh, we left the state already. You missed your window. Where were you all those years we lived there? Busy? Ok. We will take one more possible obligation off your plate.
I want chill. I want green. WHERE IS ALL THE DANG WATER FROM THE SKY!? My body hates this heat wave so much.
Noah and I are making plans. We are going to be living on a much reduced income so we can’t spend money the way we have learned to in the valley. Our food budget is getting cut in half. Really… a bit further than that. It means cakes, cookies, candy, and drinks are going to be very rare treats. Bath stuff and random things can no longer “sneak” into the grocery budget. It’s going to take us a bit to start properly having a tiny savings so that we can make more interesting purchases.
Fitness stuff is going to be a lot of what we do. We are definitely people who like to spend time on our computer but we are also keen walkers. And our house has lots of space for the exercise equipment we favor. I have a TRX set up (it’s a strap system) that helps me through all of my PT and Noah heavily favors kettle bells. We can set these things up in the lounge as a permanent installation and then we won’t have the excuse of “there is no where to do the work”. I’m up a good 25 lbs since we started on this journey and I’d like my clothes to be more comfortable again. Given that I do not intend to waste money on a scale that means I want to start exercising so that I fit my clothes better and I have no idea where I will end up.
Health at every size. Right now I can’t do my exercises (both logistical reasons and strength reasons) and that’s bothering me.
Besides we have more fun fucking each other when we are in better shape. We both hope that with all of the increased access to privacy our sex life might reemerge as a fun hobby we share.
Sex has come a long way. Right now we don’t have sex very often. Like, once or twice a month has been our average for a while. We have no privacy and that’s a big barrier for me. But I’m thinking about sex more than I have for a while. I am not sure it will take a full five years postpartum this time for me to be really interested.
I am 99% certain that my next period will be in my own house. That sounds really wonderful. If it is not too freakishly cold (we’ll see!) I sort of intend to spend several hours on my “Oh my god is that a period or a hemorrhage” day sitting outside with no pants (or trousers!) on. I’m going to bond with the earth, yo. I hope it will be the most relaxing cycle of my life. And less laundry. Bonus.
I am going to get family cloth and a little bucket for every single bathroom in the house. Septic systems are no joke, yo. (With some supplemental paper for getting poop.)
Her Sweetness is absolutely talking up a storm. She tells us “no!” and “stop!” when she doesn’t want something. She says, “Help!” and “please” and “mine”. It’s so funny. She is starting to get colors. She can talk about her getting dressed and clean process in a combination of words and signs. She is super keen to communicate and be part of the pod. She likes carrying a bag when the rest of us are doing so. She loves to laugh.
I am so very grateful I got to have a third child despite the challenges. She is a really wonderful person. It’s so lovely to break the “my kid/your kid” assignation of behaviors and traits and personality bits. She’s like all four of us. She’s completely herself. We all have to work on our petty jealousies and pissiness because she’s a baby and we chose to bring her into this world. We need to be nice about it.
Middle Child has confessed they didn’t know what they were getting into and sometimes it is hard to not be the baby anymore. That makes a lot of sense. They are still so wonderful with their sister. They try hard to be gentle and helpful. They play together. Kiddo is trying so hard and I am so full of love and respect for the efforts.
My kids are growing up and it’s pretty amazing.
The kids are in a funny place with money and chores. They are still doing chores but they keep forgetting to write it down. I tell them that they can work for free or they can get paid for keeping track of their work. Lately I’ve been getting a ton of free work. So they are sad that they are not accumulating more money. Dude! WRITE DOWN YOUR STUFF ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS AND I’LL BLOODY PAY YOU! We sat down yesterday and priced out a basic back-to-school-kit and uniform selection. Now they feel nervous. They kind of slacked off over the last month. They would have been in a great place for all of these purchases but… they stopped writing anything down. Whoops.
It’s a learning experience.
School won’t give you credit for doing your homework if you bring the math worksheet home, do all the work on the separate piece of scratch paper then throw away the scratch sheet and try to turn in the blank worksheet. “But I did the work!” Yeah… that’s not how it works. If you have a job and you neglect to clock in… you can’t just go back at the end of the week and say, “Yeah I was totally ontime every day; you should pay me all the monies!” “But surely I did all of my hygiene this week, pay me.” “I clearly remember you skipping it on day A, B, C, I had to yell at you 7 times on day D…”
Write it down on the day you do it. That’s why you have a day planner. Are you choosing to skip that step? Then you are choosing to make the work free. Cheers and thank you so much for all your hard work. You are definitely working.
It’s a process! Follow through is hard for a bunch of unstable ADHD folk.
Thus Eldest Child is on Pinterest trying to learn about organization systems so she can get one started right when we arrive. It’s glorious.
I am tired and the day is just beginning. That’s ok. I don’t have a lot of proper work to do. I’m day dreaming lists of stuff I will want in the house. Here is a possible list. (We will not show up and buy all of these things instantly, I expect we are going to be Good Customers at the charity shops and we will buy things new as we have to.)
Obviously we have a long way to go.
| Kitchen | Dining room | Family bedroom | Bathrooms | Noah office | Krissy bedroom | Shanna bedroom | Orion bedroom | Lounge | Jennabeth bedroom | Laundry room | Miscellaneous | Hall | Garden Studio | Kitchen stuff | |
| Refrigerator | Table and chairs | mattresses | toilet paper | Kettlebells | Bed | Bed | tumbling mats | Detergents and soaps | Kid school uniforms | baby gate | Seating? | 2 large frying pans | |||
| Cleaning tools (sponges, mop, broom) | Additional silverware/dishes | Blankets | soap | Monitor | clock | alarm clock | alarm clock | couch | Shoe rack | Lunch boxes | Shoe rack | Grill | 1 small frying pan | ||
| Dish soap, dishwasher soap, hand soap | Pillows | Printer | coat rack bars for the wall. | chest of drawers | chest of drawers | Personal water bottles | Coat hooks? | nanny cam | 1 wok | ||||||
| Food storage devices | Clock | Plungers | Caffeine brick | Bed | Tables and chairs | Vacuum | Replace fence along burn | drafting table | 1 large stock pot | ||||||
| child safety locks | Sheets | Toilet brushes | Standing desk | Desk w/ ergonoic setup | Desk w/ ergonomic setup | Desk w/ ergonomic setup | Projector | bed | Replace driveway gate | easel | 1 medium stock pot | ||||
| Knives | whiteboard for calendar | Toilet paper holders? | Monitor stand or swing arm | WiFi Router etc. | paper | 1 small sauce pan | |||||||||
| tea pot, sugar bowl, milk pitcher | Towels | whiteboard | dresser | electric drill | art supplies | 1 large roasting pan | |||||||||
| Clock | black out curtains | black out curtains | black out curtains | black out curtains | black out curtains | 4 cookie sheets | |||||||||
| shampoo/conditioner | 2 bread pans | ||||||||||||||
| rice maker? | |||||||||||||||
| insta pot? | |||||||||||||||
| eggcarton and curtain soundproofing | cutting boards | ||||||||||||||
| Crock pot | Lighting for video | potato masher | |||||||||||||
| Big soup/stock pot | grater | ||||||||||||||
| Roasting pan for turkey | veggie peeler | ||||||||||||||
| collander | |||||||||||||||
| KitchenAid Mixer | mixing bowls | ||||||||||||||
| Ice cream machine | measuring spoons/cups/pitchers | ||||||||||||||
| Deep-dish pizza pan |
Obviously I have not accounted for everything. It is going to take many years to accumulate this stuff at the rate we plan to spend money.
It’ll be ok. We have time and patience. In my experience it is a lot easier to do without if you are living with joy in the meantime.