Category Archives: moving

Golly. So much.

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Noah is driving up to San Francisco to pick up our passports and hopefully our visas. My stomach is going to hurt for the next hour until he tells me the results. My stomach hurt so much from anxiety last night that I vomited.

My body sucks.

I’m probably only 95% packed, but we are tossing everything in the car so it feels less important to be at 100%? Also: my family has learned how to pack! I don’t have to pack for everyone anymore! THAT’S SO COOL! Of course they finally figure it all out when we have less than three weeks of travel left. It’s ok. They will take these skills forward in life and I will feel good about myself.

30 minutes till Noah calls me with results. I feel like I may puke between now and then again. Ugh.

It’s a great day!

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We got an email telling us to come get our passports because the decision is made. Did they tell us the decision? No they did not. Our solicitor says that the way they are giving us the results is promising but we won’t find out until we can make it to the office during business hours tomorrow.

Today is full of appointments: my last massage ever with awesome/racist/she is trying to be less shitty massage therapist lady, kid dentist, dry cleaning pick up, and a manicure because the manicures suck in the UK. Tomorrow I have a follow up appointment with my GP. She removed a mole a week ago and she will give me the results of the toxicology tomorrow. I assume I am fine because I genuinely have no other signs of anything like cancer. It’ll be no big deal.

Tomorrow we will drive back to Portland. We will find out if Dad wants to see us this weekend or not. He ignored my last email. I don’t blame him. He thought we would be spending the whole summer with him and… yeah no. For lots of good reasons. It’s ok if he feels rejected or upset. But I am not going to change my behavior.

We have 9 days till we get on a plane for Bangkok. We will hopefully spend 8 days in Bangkok. Then we will go home.

Fremont is not home anymore. It’s kind of interesting how being here for a week solidifies that for me in my heart. This is not my home. It’s brown. It’s dry. I heard on the radio that California is 40/50 among the states for being friendly. That was slightly worse than I expected after driving all over the country… but not much? I think Alaska is one of the friendliest states. Alaska really is amazing.

I am moving somewhere where I don’t have to feel like my presence is a colonization. I have spent my entire life being aware that I am the descendant of colonizers and that’s a problem. Well, maybe not my entire life but certainly a very high percentage of it.

What will it be like to be white in a place where that doesn’t make me evil? Frankly it’s fucking awesome.

Not long ago a Black woman I am blessed to learn with said she only travels to places where people want to see a face like hers. I understand why she said that. I am not saying that all of Scotland wants me. But… I get why she said that.

The thing about things

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I am hanging out on Pinterest because I’m building vision boards for the new house. I won’t buy 99.9% of the stuff I’m pinning. That’s not the point.

I’m trying to not think about all the things I can’t control. My friendships. My kids. How fast the visa process happens. Whether Noah gets to keep this (ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AMAZING) job. The things I can’t control are kind of cock blocking the things I can control. I can’t make a whole series of plans until some stuff moves that is out of my hands. Like getting an actual quote for moving our shit.

I have a whole bunch of potential quotes in my inbox about shipping right now. I genuinely can’t go respond to them. I will cry. I don’t want to cry right now.

And I’m on day 29? of my cycle so hormones are fun and all that.

It will all get done. Mostly I’ve been hanging together with pluck and good cheer. Tonight… I stress.

But there are an awful lot of things I will never say. I shouldn’t even think about them.

Sleeping pill kicked in.

Countdown already.

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142 days until we will come back and do the beginnings of setting up house and paperwork and all that fuss.

The road trip was 167 days and we were so done with that. To the best of my knowledge we will only be separated from Noah for a 3 week stretch and a 4 day stretch. So 25 days alone with the kids in that 142 days. That’s not so bad.

Looks like the former owners are not up for the fuss of renting temporarily from us. They have a lot going on and that makes a lot of sense. They want 8-10 months in one rental without more issues. I totally understand.

That means that we will try to have our stuff shipped directly to the UK from California because we will take possession of the keys (our solicitor will at least) and when we have to come to the UK to handle paperwork in October we will spend a month starting to set up house. I won’t cry about this. (Really 3.5 weeks.)

207 days until we get to move into our house permanently and we won’t be traveling for quite some time.

We will get to go see Pam and her family in Taiwan for a month at the end of traveling there.

So many things keep changing. I feel like keeping track of the plan is hard. That’s because the plan keeps changing.

Luckily, when we go to Taiwan we will only need to bring the bare minimum of stuff we need for a month in warm weather. Golly that sounds so restful and light.

The plan has changed a lot as we have had to look at the realities of dealing with laws and visas and processes we don’t control. I’m a bit sad that we aren’t going to be traveling for the 18-24ish months I had hoped for.

I AM NOT THE TINIEST BIT SAD MY CHILDREN WILL BE ENTERING SCHOOL A LITTLE EARLIER THAN PLANNED.

I mean, things have gone ok for the past couple of weeks. And we have set up a summer full of Outschool classes that will mean I don’t feel like I need to do almost anything for their academics for a solid two months. I won’t be on vacation but I will have a reduced load. Ahhhhhh.

They have a bunch of classes set up in Minecraft where they will be doing a variety of learning activities through the game (it’s actually incredibly well done, we have tried such classes before and they learn a lot) as well as classes on healthy boundaries in relationships, being savvy consumers and ad aware, how to socialize with new people (kiddo said he really wanted this class–ok), and cyber safety. The kids will keep up with their Duolingo too because they like it and that’s on the list of chores they earn money for and they really like that part.

Middle Child never has more than one class scheduled in a day and Eldest Child only has two classes scheduled on a day for a couple of the weeks. I told them that I want them writing notes for the classes as their academic writing for the summer. What do you plan to do, then after the class write up how it went, what you changed, and what you think you might like to change in the future. Then get up and try again with the next day.

Plan, do, reflect.

And they have unlimited time on their kindles so they will hopefully go through a lot of books. I bet I could do some sort of reading challenge to encourage them to each be reading more. (EC doesn’t really need the push, but MC might benefit. He’s a fairly standard little boy–he’d much rather be doing than reading.)

MC will be receiving a pedometer watch when we get to Portland. It’s already arrived.

I think our summer challenges will be: whoever has the highest step count for the week gets to pick a family movie over the weekend. And for reading…. maybe for every 10 books you read I will add… £20 to your start of room budget? (I was going to give each kid £500 to start with for furnishing their rooms.)

We’ll talk about it at lunch.

Illness and packing and life oh my.

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This is a sick house. Which means so much laundry I am losing my marbles. The tiny washing machine can wash a twin sheet + a twin comforter cover or a twin sheet + 2 towels. Or about a day of everyone’s clothing at a time. This means I am doing 2-3 loads every day right now. Each load takes about 5 hours. But when folks are having to wash bedding nearly every day + going through a week of bottoms in a day… it adds up fast.

I am trying to feel gratitude that my kids got sick like this with over a week to go before we left. Now we are at 6 days to go until we fly and I am biting my nails with worry. Oh, and I’m on day 28 of my cycle. Cheers. Just waiting until my malaise turns into bleeding. Just my luck that is when I will get my turn to start vomiting with terrible diarrhea at the same time. Two thumbs up, would bitch about again.

My kids are trying to maintain a positive attitude, but feeling like this sucks. We haven’t had a proper fall-like-dominoes illness in a very long time so I guess we were due. I think one way or another we are traveling with breathing masks on so we don’t infect other people. Ugh. ALL THE HAND SANITIZER (in addition to washing our hands hourly). I am hoping Her Sweetness misses the worst of it. But I ordered carpet cleaner from Tesco because she had a diaper leak because she’s not in a perfect place right now in terms of her functions. I think this is her first poop diaper leak… maybe ever? My older kids had them but she’s been so normal and regulated it just hasn’t been an issue. Illness sucks.

I caught up on ancient emails from my inbox. I’m down to 10 emails and the oldest one is from May. Huzzah! I feel embarrassed about how far behind I get, but that’s life.

I am so glad I mostly packed stuff up already. I feel like a wound down clock. I’m still ticking but its coming slower and slower. Being sick sucks. I don’t have a fever, but I’m weary and depleted. At this moment our household stuff bag is around 40 lbs (a little bit more will go in here, like the laundry basket) and I think it will absolutely max out at 45 lbs. Maybe even more like 42 lbs. My personal checked bag is 33 lbs and I only have a little left, I think it will be around 35/36 lbs. Noah’s bag is sitting at 33ish lbs too. Eldest Child’s bag is about 25 lbs. Middle Child’s first carry on bag is under 20 lbs. Her Sweetness’ carry on suitcase is under 20 lbs. Noah’s backpack is greatly reduced in weight/objects but I haven’t checked it yet. I suspect it is going to be in the 15 lb range. My back pack is still going to be annoyingly close to 20 lbs (I have all the kid electronics). Middle Child’s rolling backpack is practically empty, it weighs under 5 lbs. Eldest Child is just carrying a purse onto the plane. I am shoving my purse in Middle Child’s backpack for the sake of not carrying anything more than necessary in my hands. And we have a stuffed diaper bag.

THAT’S SO MUCH LESS STUFF. Thank you for the loan of your garage, Jenny. This will be so much easier. Also: we will have room to get some stuff in the States where prices are lower. Yayyyyy. Such as: the thigh seam in my long johns gave up on me last week. I have been wearing them for like three years almost constantly. We picked up some Keen walking/waterproof sandals through the REI sale because walking in Bangkok in monsoon season is going to be festive. (My leather sandals hurt like a motherfucker in the wet.) I should probably leave them here to wear on the handful of days when they will work out. Ok, maybe I’m going to find another backpack worth of stuff to leave. I am trying as hard as I can go lighten the load. Every ounce counts, yo. 3.5 months of maxing out the weight limits has gotten stressful. Now I will KNOW that I don’t have to spend time frantically crying trying to rearrange where everything goes. I have space. I have 10-20 lbs of space left in a bunch of bags. That’s so easy!

I am happy that I have a waterproof heavier coat, and a warm baby-wearing coat in storage for when we come back. We have a coat that will probably be inherited by Middle Child by then in terms of size. Noah has a mid-weight coat that is not at all good for rain.

Eldest Child, Her Sweetness and I already have lightweight rain coats that are coming with us to monsoon season.

I think we need to acquire: a proper set of rain gear for Noah and Middle Child that is lightweight for the heat. Noah could use a jacket that is a bit heavier that will keep rain off him, but Inverness rarely drops below freezing so he isn’t going to need a super heavy coat almost ever. He’s just not the sort. We will need a slightly heavier water proof coat for Eldest Child for when she comes back. Long johns for everyone except for Her Sweetness? Luckily we have gotten/will get so many more hand me downs from our little cousin that Her Sweetness will mostly be set. I don’t think that will remain an option long term because my children are huge and Jenny’s children are fairly petite. But she hasn’t quite passed up the little cousin yet.

I might look for a pair of serious rain boots in Portland. I suspect my children should wait and get them after we see what size they are come next winter here. When I can talk Noah into wearing shoes at all it is a victory so he will probably not get real boots for walking in the rain. He just likes to leave me things to worry about. He’s kind like that.

I am sorta hoping that buying things off season means I’ll find some deals. *Cross fingers*

A bit less than 7 months until we move into our next forever home. Will this one actually last forever? I don’t know. Jenny is already talking about moving away for retirement. Maybe I’ll have to follow her again. But this is going to be decades of peace and security.

I’m tired. I’m going to go lay down again.

 

Coming to California

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I have already scheduled appointments with: dentist for Noah and me, chiropractor, haircuts for all four of us, and pediatrician for all three kids. I have emailed and am waiting for responses from the pediatric dentist.

I have requested medical records from everybody and I’ll be picking them up all over the bay.

Check all the boxes.

I need to message massage therapist too, but I’m waiting until some other stuff falls into place first.

We need to find out what day we need to go to San Francisco to start the visa application process. Apparently we must do it inside our home country and that means we have to do it in August. Then we will bebop over to the UK in between Bangkok and Taipei to process documents. We won’t land in our permanent home until January.

Things shift, yo.

Seems wise to do all the basic maintenance stuff in the US with our old providers so that we have a runway of not needing any services for a while as we figure out a GP and all the other providers here.

And more logistics are incoming. Woof.

That was… way less worrisome than expected.

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Well, we got the house. And we need to hand over money by August 26th. We literally don’t sign anything. The previous home owner signs it over to us and we pay to have that registered with the government and… they hand us keys and we continue on our merry way. It’s not like California where you need to sign like 37 pages in front of a notary. Like, whoa.

We still have negotiating to do with the home owner. I am not 100% certain they will be out of the house on September 2nd (our official purchase date is our 13th anniversary–that’s so awesome) because they might rent from us for a while. We will be exchanging lots of emails to communicate because that’s how we roll.

I need to sit down with my OmniFocus and write down lists of tasks. Like getting copies of all of our medical records. Oh goody.

But it’ll be great! Do the things! Then we will be free! Free to move to the next stage of life where we live in beautiful Scotland.

The reality of depression

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The thing about depression is it casts a pall on everything. I am excited only I’m not. I’m happy only I’m not. I feel kind of dead inside only I will absolutely keep marching forward. I miss pot. Pot allows me to feel more in touch with feelings of happiness instead of viewing them through a screen.

Just keep swimming. Fake it till you make it. It’s not about how you feel it is about what you do.

I want this house. I want this house for a bajillion reasons. Are there things that I would do differently if I were building a house from the ground up? Probably. But this house is quite lovely and will be a great canvas for all of our needs.

If we rent out the annex for a couple of years to students at the local university we could get them to pay 2/3 of our mortgage. Noah has mentioned that he might talk to his parents about helping with the mortgage. (I have mixed feelings about this, but them helping us with a mortgage on another continent means I definitely won’t have to spend time with them to thank them.) If Noah can keep his California job (looks quite probable) and we keep paying our California rent we can have this house paid off in less than 6 years. If his parents helped… we could be mortgage free quite quickly. Then it wouldn’t be such a big deal for him to work.

I would really like for him to not have to work for rent money.

I suspect that our food costs will be similar in terms of money, despite translation. So our CA dollars won’t go as far. One good thing about not having a car: eating out all the time is more work than cooking. Also, having four people in the house who are competent to make food really changes the dynamic. When one person isn’t in the mood to cook… someone else probably is. We will definitely need to figure out where we can put a big freezer. There isn’t a ton of space for that. It might have to live in the kitchen where they currently have the table. I might want to have an island in the middle with the freezer against the wall, then we will have more space for working and setting stuff that is in transit. I don’t think there will be room for a chest freezer in the utility room and we won’t have a garage. (EC saw the reference to a big freezer. She says: “It will be important for our ice cream tastings!)

I wonder how water proof the outdoor shed is. Hm. It looked snug enough.

Of course when we did a walk through Middle Child declared that the room he wants is the master bedroom. Offfff course. It’s 2.23 sq m bigger than the next largest bedroom on that floor. (Master (has bathroom): 14.4, son room (no bathroom): 12.23, additional bedroom (has bathroom): 11.18 , daughter room (no bathroom): 10.34, downstairs (with bathroom): 20.62, annex (has bathroom): 11.38)

I think the very smallest bedroom is bigger than the master we had in Fremont. That’s funny.

Son bedroom and smaller upstairs room with bathroom overlook the burn. Master and smallest upstairs room overlook the road/city. You can see all the way out to the firth (Moray).

(I’m just calling them son/daughter room because of current inhabitants. I am not sure I need to assign them to my kids to keep up the tradition.)

The burn is kind of southwest. The firth is mostly northeast. I think if we manage to move in during January it would be fun to have a year of charting where the sun hits different parts of the yard before I start planting anything. I would like to grow some food, but getting used to doing so in this climate will be tricky.

Now we have appointments with mortgage brokers. Eeep.

Questions for the current owners: is the shed waterproof? Where do you store your holiday decorations?

Gosh. Today is going to be lovely.

 

I am in love

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The house was better than it looked in pictures. The grounds aren’t extensive… but that is probably for the best. Yes, there are a fair number of stairs but there is also a self contained apartment with a wheelchair ramp and wide doors. There are so many ways this house will be configured over time. The bedrooms are much larger than the ones we had in Fremont. THERE ARE 6 TOILETS. *swoon* 5 showers! A bathtub I could share with Noah! There is an exterior studio room that was SOUND PROOFED FOR A DRUM SET. I could scream in there and nobody would notice.

There is so much light. It’s a very bright, happy house. The ceilings are much higher than almost any others I’ve seen in this area. There is a tree in the corner of the lounge. There are beach logs used as the barrier next to the staircase.

It’s really nice. The yard is very private. The yard has decent borders and lots of central space where I can plant a really nice cottage garden.

It’s going to be important for us to replace the fence next to the burn (a small creek). We will have a small creek as the border of our property. (Insert heart eyes emoji) We will need to change the entry gate so that it is less easy for a toddler to climb right over. There are a couple of sections of fence that we will want to make a bit taller. Possibly trellis with plants?

I won’t need to do anything to this house for years. But when I want to, I have small easy to compartmentalize projects.

The current owners need to sell the house, then wait a while so their next house can be built. They are getting a modular place put together. It will take around six months. We asked about the possibility of them selling to us then renting it back from us so they don’t have to move twice in a year. The lady had never considered such an option and her eyes got about as wide as dinner plates. That would make her life a lot easier.

So tomorrow… we contact a mortgage company. Then call the solicitor back.

I love the utility room. There is a great shed for gardening tools and bikes. There’s plenty of storage for holiday stuff.

I LOVE THIS HOUSE.

The outside studio could easily be for classes of 4-8 people.

I think that I wouldn’t have there be a lounge next to the kitchen. I think I would just use that as a dining room.

So many thoughts. I loved the house. It is so versatile.

Eeeeeeeek.

PT

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I did it. I haven’t done the dilation yet. It takes privacy. I should have done it in the bath tub but frankly I am feeling overwhelmed with all the “must do” stuff. I made seven phone calls today. Only four of them turned out to be useful. (Two important confirmations; two appointments with solicitors.)

I feel on the verge of tears. I go through cycles of dealing with my feelings around disability. But the plain truth is I have been in pain for almost 30 years. I need to give zero fucks what anyone else thinks about how I live with that. But I’m not there. I feel ashamed. I feel like I am stupid and pathetic and I should shut up and just work harder.

But I would be this degraded if I had stopped working harder years ago.

It’s a Catch 22.

When Her Sweetness wakes up we will walk over to Jenny’s. I will put one, maybe two plants in the ground because that makes my soul feel better. I will decide after the first one how my arms feel. Middle Child will get to play with his cousins. We will get in our daily walk going one way and we will take a taxi back. We shouldn’t stay very many hours. Tomorrow will be an incredibly long day going to Aberdeen to meet a solicitor. But, this is the process.

Do it.

The light at the end of the tunnel is not a speeding train.

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H’okay. Looks like I have a way to wrap my head around how this is working.

Now- June 16 Inverness, Scotland

June 16- Aug 31 PDX, USA

Aug 31-Oct 30 Bangkok, Thailand

Oct 30- Nov 26 Wellington, New Zealand

Nov 26- Jan 3 Taipei, Taiwan

Jan 3- Feb 20? Uruguay (city TBD)

Feb 20?- May/June in the US while we mail our passports off to apply for a UK visa. Figure out shipping our stuff to Scotland.

June/July- move to Inverness, buy a house, enroll the kids in school (to start in August) and figure out starting to get household stuff.

The kids think this sounds like a plan.

Fuck nursing

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Ok. The minute I get to Scotland where I will no longer feel as bad about baby girl screaming I am night weaning. I. Cannot. Do. This. 10, 11, 12, 1, 3:30, 4:30 and 5:30 wake ups to nurse are not. fucking. ok. Hell, I turned her down the last two times. If my down stairs neighbor objects I don’t fucking care. I barely get back to sleep and she is waking me up screaming in my face or kicking me in my face.

I am so fucking enraged.

Why don’t you act niiiiiiiiiicer to everyone. BECAUSE FUCK YOU. THAT’S FUCKING WHY.

I am up to over 3 years of my life lost to this bullshit. My pain levels are back up to a 6/7. I hurt. I am exhausted.

But be more giving!

Be kinder!

Be more gentle!

No. I have nothing to give. Today I am going to sit still until I go do everyone’s fucking laundry then I will sit still again; I ain’t taking care of any other shit. The big kids can get away from me.

I can’t deal. I can’t be patient. I feel like dog shit.

And I think I am getting sick based on the volume of crap coming out of my nose.

I have already started working on packing. The airline we are flying to leave here has much tighter restrictions than the one we used coming here. We can’t check as many bags. We can’t have as many carry ons. So I am already working hard to pack and figure out what to get rid of. Luckily all three of my children have grown so maybe their bags will get lighter and I can shove a bunch of stuff into their bags. It just occurred to me that the pants that EC has outgrown might fit MC and I should have him try after I do the laundry. That would be hecka smart. He’s outgrown so much in the past few months. He looks much thinner than he did when we arrived in Japan. He was deliciously pudgy in Hawaii and now he’s stretched again.

Growing like consciously planted invasives.

We each get one checked bag and one carry on. The “personal item” can’t be bigger than a purse. Fuck. We arrived here with 6 checked bags and 8 carry ons. I will probably pay to check one extra bag. I don’t want to but I might need to. Noah will be carrying more crap to Minneapolis and then Scotland than is strictly necessary for him to have and I don’t care. He is carrying the maximum weight limit for his bags, not what he needs. I get to carry the absolute maximum when I travel by myself with three kids. Nothing is fair. Nothing is easy. He will cope just bloody fine.

I will be moving very very slowly and using a lot of trollies.

I get to have three 50.5 lb bags that we check, four 22 lb bags that I *think* all need to be carried on, and the stroller. I suspect we will all be wearing extra layers of clothing that we don’t really need to wear and we will take them off and put them in a grocery bag on the damn plane. Ha. Tell me I can’t have an extra carry on, will you? I’ll get around that nonsense.

I am already packing all the grown up clothes we won’t wear in the next week. I will just do laundry slightly more often, that’s not a problem. I just about flipped out in Hawaii trying to pack because getting it all done in the last few days when we wanted to be “having fun” sucked. I can’t do that again.

I’m hoping ECs knee heals fully so we can explore in the last few days we are here. That means everything else needs to be ready to go.

The biggest suitcase currently weighs 36 lbs with the high chair inside it and most of the big stuff I would want to get packed in there. That’s promising. I will find more clothes to shove in the nooks and crannies. The kids are getting rid of clothes/books that already total like 8 lbs so far; more will have to be culled. Several of the baby toys are ready to go but they need to be washed first. I have used up many bottles of bathroom stuff so the volume is greatly reduced. I am ditching all of the medications that will expire in the next three months because I will need to replace it soon anyway. I am considering combining the very different looking kinds of vitamins into one bottle so I have less to carry.

I will get us there.

Frankly, this will be easier anyway. I have been trying to reduce weight and volume. This is an excellent spur to truly get that shit done.

I may decide that it is better to ship gifts to the US from Japan instead of sending them in Noah’s bag for him to ship from Minneapolis. That may be important. This is why I am starting to pack nine days in advance this time.

Now it is eight days in advance. I am going to do laundry today and I am going to put all of our extra cooking stuff in bags. We aren’t using all of it here. We will be more likely to use it in Scotland. I think the kitchen alone in Inverness is bigger than our entire apartment here. Then there is a living room bigger than the second apartment here. Then there are multiple bedrooms.

Space sounds so nice right now.

And the house in Portland! It will feel FUCKING PALATIAL! (It’s a fairly small house. It’s about comparison.) The first thing I will need to buy there is a baby gate so that baby girl does not fall down the stairs into the basement. According to truly the house is 892 sq ft. So it is almost as big as the house in Fremont minus the third bedroom and expanded bathroom. Awesome. It’s really funny that we started this journey partially because the house wasn’t going to be big enough for the long run. (None of these temporary lodgings are for the long run. But my kids all want to have their own bedrooms by the time they hit high school. Ok.)

The refrigerator in Bangkok will be three times the size of this one. There are many more kitchen cabinets. The counter space still isn’t extravagant, but at least they have a rice cooker (up on a shelf so it doesn’t dominate the counter), a convection oven, and at least twice the prep space as we have here. I will make it work. We have a separate living room there. The kid room is much smaller and they will just have to deal. We will be in Bangkok for three months. The entire booking will only cost $3,138.

Portland for 2.5 months is $6,731. Inverness for two months is $5,850. Fukuoka for three weeks: $2,820. Thank goodness for Bangkok bringing the average down. And Japan is by far the smallest, most difficult to live in space. I suspect folks will be more friendly to us every where else too.

Not that everyone in Japan has been unfriendly–that’s not true at all. But this is not a multiple cultures promoting place. I miss seeing a sea of different kinds of faces. Kuala Lumpur was incredible for that. But their government is persecuting LGBTQ+ folk. Can’t go back.

I want to go to South or Central America. Asia has turned out to be way better than I imagined; pero yo quiero hablar español.

Pienso en español. No todo, claro, pero mucho.

Noah really is heading towards New Zealand in his heart. Turns out he has cousins there (through the queer/trans branch!!) and getting work visas would be a cinch. He has already been approached by a tech company that would be happy to sponsor him while he keeps his current job for US dollars so he can start the immigration process. Their goal would be for him to ultimately found some sort of company there.

He’s thinking a code school. I can’t think of a better thing for him to do with his personal goal of helping to “build the railroad”. He wants to help people learn. He wants to help people get into the ability to work with computers. Opening a code school in semi-rural New Zealand sounds pretty fucking rad towards that goal.

But maybe it would work in South America too? Let’s go find out.

If we move to New Zealand I want to learn Maori. There is an interesting cross cultural psychology program at one of the universities that requires knowing Maori. Hmmmm.

But first… I need to fucking sleep. *glare at baby who is once again nursing*

fuck my life.

We will be ok.

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Everyone is expressing worry about the future. Each member of my family is expressing different kinds of fear and and anxiety. Where will we end up? What kind of job will Noah get? How will our lives be different?

I think this is why my anxiety is going down. Do you know what I have complete and utter faith in? My ability to adapt to a new environment. I’m good at that. I can do that. No problem.

Will we live on less money? Almost certainly. Will that be a problem? Well we will have moments of feeling irritated, but mostly it will be fine.

Noah is really worried. I’m just not in a way that might be stupidity but I don’t think so. I will be with the people who make me the happiest in the whole world. We will figure it out.

I won’t be able to be profligate with money anymore. That will be ok. This is a new set of habits in my life. I have done it because I can and it really doesn’t matter. When it mattered I didn’t run up debt.

We are halfway to Noah’s cushy retirement goal. The US does look like it’s about to melt down, but if it doesn’t that means we are probably 10 years away from where we want to be financially if we don’t add any more money. We are capitalist pigs. Our money will grow. And if we only have as much money as the top 60% of people in the world…. uhhh we will cope. Maybe I’ll have to get a job to fill in the gaps. *faint* Oh no…. qué horror!

Maybe the big kids will have to babysit to earn money for their extras. We won’t die.

Well, therapy isn’t an option. Try to talk it out.

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Why am I so depressed? Well. I built a lot of my sense of self worth around my value to people. Quite some time ago Sarah said that she was tired of having me publicly humiliate her when she made mistakes so I didn’t write as much about how she was treating me. I gave too much. I hate feeling like I am one of those assholes who justifies treating people badly or stalking by saying “I just love too much”.

But I went and did physical labor for her when it was literally causing me physical damage. I spent thousands of dollars helping her. Because I was trying to give her the kind of support I wish someone wanted to give me. She had me block out lots of time for her on my calendar and she showed up when she had nothing better to do.

Dad only offers help (that I have to pay hundreds of dollars for because I have to buy the plane tickets and send food money for my kid and send money for activities…. why aren’t I just sending her to sleep away camp–that costs less money?) when he also wants to ask me if he can borrow $25,000. But he doesn’t invite me to Thanksgiving or Christmas unless it is an Orphan/Leather Friends event. When he has holidays with his family I am not invited. I might be able to crash it… but he doesn’t invite me. Years ago when I asked him if he was willing to have a relationship with my kids he told me that I needed to know that all of his investment properties, all of his ability to help in this life is going to his kids. But I should loan him $25,000? Uhm. No. That kind of loan is for family. And you are letting me know that I am a Leather Family member… not a family member.

The folks we came to Hawaii to see talked about how much they missed us and how much they wanted to spend time with us. They have been begging us to visit for two years. And the daughter has totally flaked (she’s 20 and going through some shit… I get it) while the mother is manipulative, whiny, and cruel to my children all while asking me to fund her lifestyle. “I want to throw you a vegan feast to show you how much I care about you… but you have to pay for it.” Well a vegan feast is only welcome if it comes from t&T because their household is the only vegan household I fucking trust to make me food that will taste good. Your offering sounds like I am going to leave hangry and mean. And I get to pay for it. You will hang out with my kids and tell them that if they are not demonstrating enough gratitude that they don’t deserve to have as much food or money from their mother for play. WHAT THE FUCK? She mocked the size of my daughter’s ass because it didn’t fit in a climbing unit designed for fucking 5 year olds.

But I feel this terrible, overwhelming shame about cutting off people who treat me this way? They are willing to be my friends so how dare I judge what they have on offer?

Being really upset about these bigger boundary violations mean that smaller things feel more threatening. I *know* the CPS comment wasn’t intended as a threat. I *know* she didn’t mean to hurt me. But CPS is a deeply triggering topic and I am already wild with upset and I don’t have the ability to process that kind of thing without flipping out on top of everything else.

I don’t feel entitled to demand better treatment. I feel like these “friends” are treating me this way because this is what I deserve. Because I deserve to be treated like an ATM. If I don’t buy love I don’t deserve to receive any.

I deeply believe that my children don’t owe me anything. It is supposed to be a one way trip of support but that means I feel used all of the time by a lot of people and that’s hard.

I am still grieving Marcie. Her wife would not allow me to visit when Marcie was injured. Marcie felt abandoned. Marcie broke up with me because she couldn’t cope with feeling abandoned. I get that. I hope her wife is treating her better now. I will never know.

I am not blameless in any of this. I wanted too much from Sarah. I could watch her patterns and guess that she wouldn’t keep her promises and she would continue to want/take money and never think about how she was impacting other people. She is consistent with lots of people. I kept making stupid choices.

But I hurt. I feel like my hurt is stupid and I should just get over it and how dare I act like I have problems when I am not poor any more.

How dare I act like I ever deserve any support at all now that I have so much fucking money. I *should* have to pay for all help I get. And if people treat me badly as they take my money… isn’t that what I have always believed rich people deserve? Isn’t that justice?

I never meant to get this rich. I really didn’t. And now I don’t know how to view myself.

I don’t feel bad about the financial help I give to a lot of people. I bought Y a car and I don’t feel bad. I gave M a car and I don’t feel used. I have paid for people’s schooling. I have helped people start businesses. I loaned a friend money so she could get an apartment when she got her first corporate job and she couldn’t afford a place in the city she got the job in.

I don’t feel used by any of those situations at all.

I feel used by Sarah. I feel used by Dad. I feel used by the lady here in Hawaii.

Feeling bad about these people does not entitle me to treat other people badly. But I’m not coping well. I feel like I have to pretend I am not hurting and I am not capable right now. I don’t feel entitled to be sad about how these people treat me.

I abandoned my mother and my aunt when they needed help. I left them with a bunch of users, abusers, and takers. I feel like that means I deserve all the bad in the whole world. That means that Sarah treating me like shit feels like justice. And I hate myself for being someone who deserves this.

When I got my accident settlement when I turned 18, my sister told me that I had to use it to buy her a house and she would let me live with her.

How can I teach my children how to be in relationships without being users if that is all I understand?

It isn’t that all of my friends are users. Not even close. And it isn’t that I think I deserve endless support or financial help or…

I babysat for a lot of people hoping for trades. I was told that it was “easier” for me. They couldn’t handle having more than their own children in the house. But me providing free child care was so nice. It worked with the Bonus Family until it didn’t. Then my kids told me that a lot of her discipline was threatening to hit them and putting them in time outs for hours. I already knew that she expected my kids to come clean up after her kids because my kids are “more mature”.

I feel like almost every child care situation I have found has turned out to be shitty and abusive. I fear that it is happening because only shitty and abusive people want to be around me.

Only that isn’t true. I have friends who aren’t shitty and abusive. Well. I have people who want to talk to me for a few minutes or hours a year who aren’t shitty and abusive.

I feel like I should have known that my children would be treated badly by caregivers, as if it is a generational curse.

I don’t want to be bitter or angry or pissy with new people because I hate how this has all gone down.

But that means I have to lie about how I feel all the god damn time because I don’t trust people and I assume people are going to use me or treat me or my kids like crap.

M came through for my last birth. I need to never ever do anything again that puts me in such a vulnerable position. Because I can’t ever again need that much help. I can’t guarantee it. I am sure that people will help me in the future but they will help me randomly and when and how they feel like it and it won’t be based on my needs or issues. It will be about what makes them feel good that day.

That has to be ok. That has to be enough.

Which means I need to not try to be bigger. I need to not try to accomplish things. I need to just sit around and do nothing and wait for my kids to have needs because they will have needs and I am the only one who will be available to help them. I can’t ever believe anyone who tells me they will help again. If someone offers to be a penpal I need to to not believe them. If someone tells me they want us to come visit because they want to spend time with us I need to assume they are a liar.

I am so fucking grateful that Jenny said she has maybe a spare hour one day a week. Maybe. That is not consistent and I cannot count on it.

Thank you.

I hate that I need to assume that people are lying to me all the time. I need to assume that people are telling me what they wish was true, not what is true.

And I wonder why I feel depressed?

I really don’t want to live near the ocean. I don’t like it at all. I learned that, at least.

Maybe less hysterical, we’ll see.

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This year… the kids don’t want to do academics. But they have lofty goals. If my kids told me they wanted to grow up and be a hair dresser and a mechanic I would not be so obnoxious with them about academics. They want to be engineers and politicians according to their stated goals and that means you fucking have to do academics.

Why am I freaked out all of the time? Because I’m never doing one thing. I’m taking care of a nursing baby (which is a lot of fucking work), cleaning up, helping with homework, being a travel agent, and I’m supposedly disabled and I should be doing many hours a day of body maintenance. Do you know what I haven’t done in a week? Any of my fucking exercises because there is fucking always three things more important. Dealing with rental cars and shopping. More baby care. Big kids refusing to do academics unless I stand over them and scream. I am back up to 121 emails (like half of them are requests for me to review every stupid company I touch. They don’t want my reviews. Y’all suck.)

I feel like I am always a day late and a dollar short.

Like a month ago we negotiated with the kids to slash their workload massively. Much lower daily goals for work. What happened when we negotiated that? They stopped doing absolutely anything and are now three weeks behind again and I want to put my head through a window.

So they don’t get to see their babysitter until they get their shit together. They have already blown 7 possible days with her and they may not bother to work today and miss more days. We are here for 27 days.

I can’t make them care. If they don’t get it in gear by the time we are in Japan, we will have to shorten the trip to Scotland and come back to the US. Our traveling adventures can’t happen if they refuse to make any forward progress. I’m not asking for up to grade level. I’m not asking for a normal “school” work load. But you must do something. If you refuse to do anything productive at all, we are not fucking doing this. We will move somewhere cheap because I am not going to enjoy anywhere we move and it might as well not cost a lot of money. Which means the schools are going to be rough. I’m sure my kids will get the crap beat out of them for being weirdos as is the standard American experience.

Oh well. I can’t save you from you getting consequences and I am tired of trying.

I’ve been talking to a buddy who is a horse trainer. She tells me their lives are too comfortable and I need to start making it very uncomfortable to not comply. Don’t hit them. Don’t abuse them. But… they have a lot of comforts and they don’t need any of them.

She’s not wrong.

I don’t think they need to get so much choice and freedom for a while. They currently think they are the bosses of me and I don’t fucking think so.

If this shit continues I am absolutely going to kick them out at 18 and say “I don’t talk to people who treat me like shit.” And that would suck all the way around. Maybe some soap in the mouth so they realize that dressing me down all day long isn’t ok is the lesser evil.

So yesterday we talked to the kids about how things are going. The kids know they aren’t doing what they say they will do. Like EC didn’t do 1 day of work out of the 10 days we were on the boat despite spending 6+ hours a day “working on homework”. I am infuriated because this shit fucking sucks. Being stuck in the room doesn’t bother her. She has a lot of fun. My buddy suggested kneeling on rice for 15 minutes to keep her from doodling and having fun the whole time.

Today her math is done by 9:45am because I told her at 10 we would start 15 minutes of rice to help her not be distracted.

I don’t want to enact negative consequences. I want them to just want to do the thing. But they don’t. They set up long term goals, and they ask me to help them reach those goals. Then I have to be the heavy being a butthead to drag them kicking and screaming towards their stated goals. This is not fun for me.

I think we should figure out an online math tutor. Maybe if she had outside accountability and someone else saying they are disappointed in her…. she would care more?

MC has been treating me really badly. When the old babysitter arrived for dinner (I barely let the kids talk to her, she was here to visit me not you) she commented on how shocked she is that their behavior has gone down hill so much. They are incredibly rude to me and it’s not ok. The other day I was eating lunch and grading MCs homework and he sat in a chair in front of me and just started kicking me. For entertainment. This shit is his norm right now and I am about to explode and beat him.

Maybe soap in the mouth isn’t so bad.

He says he wants to be respectful, but currently he is not managing that at all. He is too comfortable in his established routines. Something needs to change.

I desperately hope these negative consequences are not going to be long term strategies. I desperately hope we can do this for a few weeks or months and change our patterns of interacting.

We’ll see. If things aren’t different in 6 weeks I’m picking some town in Oregon or Idaho or Washington and we are just moving there. Not into a fun forever home. Into somewhere cheap so they can attend public school for a year and we’ll spend that year figuring out what to do next.

We wanted to spend 2 years traveling so we could find a forever home that feels good. Maybe we can’t get our poop in a group and we don’t get to do that.

Life is complicated.

I can’t help but feel like part of this is fall out from the fact that if I had tried to hold boundaries with Sarah I would have lost her years earlier. I had to accept whatever shitty treatment she felt like giving me or I would have lost what minimal support she gave and that was too painful.

I don’t feel good about myself. But. Time to do more work.

I think I have failed at home schooling.

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Or maybe it worked for a while and it isn’t working any more. The kids don’t want to do work anymore and the effort it takes to force them is hurting our long term relationship. It didn’t used to be like this. I am feeling so sad. I’ve been waiting for the kids to turn a corner and just… do their shit all year and the only time they work is if I stand over them seething. If I sit down for a minute and stop badgering they stop doing anything.

I can’t do this any more.

I’m always happy to answer questions. I do not appreciate having to stand there and say, “What is the next number you are supposed to write down. Now, what kind of math problem is this? Write the symbol.”

EC is 10. This is bullshit. I can’t fucking do this.

I did not object to this level of help when they were preliterate or when they were learning to write. But she’s a very good writer at this point. She doesn’t make many math mistakes. She just doesn’t feel she should have to hold a pencil and write things with it unless she is under duress and I feel like shit all the fucking time. I hate myself more with every passing day. I feel sick to my stomach.

So yeah. We will move to some town. I won’t be trying to make friends. I won’t be exploring new, interesting places. I will sit in a house all day with a baby then spend my afternoons and evenings forcing kids to do homework instead of spending 12 hours a day yelling about academics.

I feel really sad and like a failure. I don’t think this is going to result in much happiness for me. I don’t know if it will result in happiness for my kids. But I can’t keep yelling like this. It’s been a whole school year of it and it really isn’t ok. I feel so bad. And I am unable to do anything to motivate my kids. I can’t make them care.

April is booked in Japan. I literally don’t have a plane ticket bought after that. I still want to go to Scotland to visit Jenny, but maybe I can only be there for two weeks.

We can’t just pick a country and start school there because of residency issues. It would take too long for us to be allowed to stay, we will miss the start of a school year. So we have to go back to the US.

There aren’t very many places in the US that I can handle living in the weather. That’s a serious limiter. Probably central Oregon.

I anticipate a black depression while we live there. I don’t think I will be capable of doing much other than keeping the baby alive.

It is so stupid for me to want things.

Plan and plan again and throw all of those away.

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I don’t think we will be able to travel. I think the kids need to go to school. I am failing and that’s not ok.

Boarding school would be $120,000/year for both kids. Can’t afford that.

I don’t want to go pick somewhere random in the US and I feel existential terror about moving where I know people. It’s not going to go well.

People don’t like me when they have to spend much time with me.

Stress.

20 days. That feels real.

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Eldest Child is back from her adventures. We had a long chat about courtesy and checking in and responsibility. Not because she did badly! Because she did pretty well for a first run but we need some tweaks. Everyone was happy about how it turned out.

Today I get to notarize some paperwork to finalize our forwarding address. Then the construction guys are coming back to deal with the front door; that has been an adventure in fuss. They have failed to find a lock that fits the door after a month of trying. Today they are ripping out this door and replacing it with a door that has a lock available in the store the same day.

I see my chiropractor and massage therapist. That will be good.

Late this afternoon a medical appointment for a kid. Woo. One of the very last ones. I think we only have three medical appointments left.

I have 9 more medical appointments before I go. I finally have an appointment for an Ehlers Danlos Screening. That took jumping up and down and screaming. Why do I want to find out one way or the other? Because it impacts how I should be exercising.

Noah has probably one more Japanese class. Things are winding down. Kids are done at martial arts.

I am at a fussy, fiddly, slow part of packing. Like, I’m playing with which things should go in which suitcase and I’m writing lists of what is in a bag so we can find things later. We have three pieces of furniture that we want to keep until the last day.

I have exactly one friend date scheduled, a lunch. Otherwise, I’m here. If people will miss me they know how to find me before I leave. I can’t chase people down. I’m conserving energy before my next big launch. 20 days means I need to be resting.

Although… I am looking forward to resting as we go. Boat. Island. That sounds like rest to me. I’m bringing books (that will be shed as we go) and art supplies (that will be used up and not replaced any time soon). Between toiletries, art supplies, and books I am easily bringing 40 lbs of crap I will shed in the first month or two. It will be really nice when the weight goes down. I want to read these books before I pass them on. Maybe I’ll get a bunch of it done before we leave. I have 20 days.

*One* of the bags of art supplies is 8 lbs by itself. And there is another 3 lbs bag. And then there are Noah’s art supplies in his bag. And the stuff in the diaper bag and in each of the kid backpacks. And my purse. I think that when I add paper at the very end… it’ll be a solid 20 lbs of art shit. When did we become artists? Like, that’s a huge theme for our family. That’s a thing we do. I’m not sure how this became my life.

I should weigh all the books by themselves before we leave just to amuse myself. Thank goodness the books will be a load that gets lighter as we go. None of the books we are bringing are books we want to hold on to. We will leave them in airports and on boats and anywhere we see a lending library. It’s easy to share books. Well… when you are getting rid of just of just a few curated books it’s easy to share.

Ok. We have a little bit more of a plan. For your information:

February: leave the house on the 18th. All of our stuff will either be on the driveway or in the pile for trash. We stay with friends for 3 days then get on a boat for 10 days. I am looking forward to a 10 day cruise to Mexico. I feel like a snot. I feel spoiled. I feel like this is ridiculous and I am so happy I get to do this.

March: Hawaii.

April: Japan

May: Noah will go to Minneapolis alone while the kids and I go to Scotland. Noah will join us after a week or so.

June: Mostly Scotland but trips to England and the Netherlands for conferences.

July: Mostly Scotland until we come back to the US at the end.

August: Noah needs to go to Nashville. The rest of August we will be in Oregon, I think. Middle Child reaaaaaally wants to hang out with Grandpa for his 9th birthday so we will make that happen.

September: Thailand

October: Thailand

November: Thailand/ Noah needs to go back to Nashville. I don’t think the kids and I will come to the US.

December: Taiwan with Pam?

That’s what I know about 2019 right now.

And I leave for it in 20 days. Oh my.

I have updated our address with…

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  • DVC
  • Netflix
  • Patreon
  • Voter registration
  • Barclaycard
  • Home Depot
  • REI
  • Citibank
  • American Express
  • Paypal
  • Wyndham
  • Charles Schwab

I am in progress on:

  • US Bank
  • AAA
  • TechCU

Only 938 place to go.

I now own a standing desk, dresser, and coffee table and no other furniture. I’m feeling free.

Thank you Noah for all the stuff you are updating. *gulp*

Financial shifting sucks

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Good golly I feel overwhelmed. Today Noah set up his direct deposit to stop going to the credit union and it will be split between two new banks. One international checking account and one US bank that has a safe deposit box attached to it.

The US bank will be where I funnel the donation stuff because the account has to be active enough or we can’t have the safe deposit box. I will probably also have a handful of direct deposit stuff come out of there but I will need to transfer money periodically to cover that. Ack. I just need to have enough transactions a month and I’m not sure what that will even mean.

The US bank doesn’t have a lot of money in it yet and the international account is still completely empty because deposits haven’t hit yet. We have 31 more days at this address.

We may want to save closing the credit union account until we come back after the cruise. We’ll see. We just can’t access this very well as we travel. The kid bank accounts are staying there. We will access them when we come through town. Savings account?

I need to run my credit and probably freeze it. Not today. For some reason that’s freaking me out.

Do you know how many things we can stop paying for soon?

  1. Gardener
  2. Car insurance
  3. Gas
  4. Home owners insurance
  5. Electricity
  6. Gas
  7. Water
  8. Internet
  9. US phone numbers (I need to figure out transferring to VOIP)
  10. HELOC
  11. Property taxes

That’s a lot.

Now I have to wait for money to arrive in those accounts. And I need to get a picture of my IDs in PDF form for the stupid mail forwarding company. Everything is 97 steps. Uploaded the jpgs. Now I wait for them to be reviewed.

Do the thing. Wait. Do the thing. Wait.

Hurry up. Stop.

Ugh.

Money is freaking me out.

I don’t know what to think or feel right now. Kinda numb. Ok. I’m going to stop being numbers productive. I’ve done at least 3 steps. That needs to be enough for today.