Getting Ready for a Move

Here we are again, packing boxes, wrapping up dishes, eating all of the food in the ice box.
Moving is so overwhelming, you carefully decided what you can and cannot live without for a week or two, and you pack up the rest. Fingers get sticky from all of the tape that is sealing all the boxes of prized possessions. Dust appears from thin air. And the ice box and pantry look like you have been neglecting your grocery shopping.

Our house is going through its changes, and each day it looks less like my home and more like a storage yard. Trash bags filled with things to toss, things to donate and give away and boxes, lots of boxes, of things moving with us. Each time we have moved we have downsized enormously! I have a rule, if you have not used it in two seasons then it is time to let it go. Many of the things I thought I needed or thought I really wanted are heading to the donation center, someone somewhere will be able to use it.

It is hard to realize that we are moving again, the silver lining is Tommy will stay at the same school, the same den, Annaleah will stay in the same ballet class, and we will move before the new baby arrives, and we will be settled before the fun events of the summer take over the calendar. I look around each place I have lived and I always get sad. Even if I have lived there a short while, I get sad. Yes, moving, and getting a bigger location or going somewhere new is exciting, but a part of me misses what I called home. I remember moving out of the Fullerton house when I was a child, we were moving to Yorba Linda, and I remember how we got to sleep in the new house as we were moving in, it was exciting. But on the flip side, I remember walking down the long hallway to the girls room looking in the closet remembering how my sisters and I would climb up the built in closet shelves and pretend we were 'swimming' in Ariel's grotto and singing all of the songs from 'The Little Mermaid' . I remember the pink shelf unit that had a little cut out so you didn't have to reach around into the shelf to turn on the light. I remember the boys room and my parents room(I loved the corner windows in my parents room). I remember the living room and the amazing brick fireplace and hearth, I love the fire place. there was a little area where my dad's desk sat in the living room but off to the side, and the piano right by dads desk. I remember the tiny dining room and the gallery kitchen, the enclosed patio, and the big but not too big back yard with a deck and a tire swing. I remember when my dad built the deck. There were great memories in the little house in Fullerton. But we closed that chapter and started a new one in Yorba Linda. I love my parents house in YL. HUGE backyard, swimming pool, our pony Cookie, the girls lived in the 'off limits to boys' upstairs, the great kitchen, living room, and family room. I was sad when I moved out. I secretly was excited that I was able to still visit. Now, I have lived in a handful of locations since then, and here I am again getting ready to move.

I do wish that someday in the not to distant future I will be able to ground my roots and stay planted somewhere. A place that my children can build memories, and have a fun childhood, and be free. Free for their imagination to soar, free to run around and stretch out, and free to remember their happy childhood. After all, you only get one childhood.

I know that this next location will last a little while, and while it lasts I know we will make the best of it, but I cannot wait to have a place to call 'ours' again. With all of the dust, the tape, the carpet cleaner, the bare cupboards, and tons of boxes and trash bags everywhere we will make the most of it. Hey, anyone up for jumping into the box with packing peanuts??