Holiday Road

It's a long way down the holiday road!  Excuse the lack of posts.  I've been packing up my entire life as well as my kids' entire lives into boxes.  I'm feeling a moment of panic coming on, so I'm escaping for a few moments to catch up on a little.  Two weeks, (hahahaha! I automatically typed that and it's been barely one week -- life has been over-the-top lately) one week ago, we came back from Iowa.  We were only there for a single week.  But it was a week that I needed, both physically and mentally.  It was the last single-day roadtrip home, done in 10 hours, of course.  The drive from Doylestown will take 15 hours and I don't think that the kids, the dog, nor I could handle that drive in a single day.

While back in Iowa, we went to a Sweet Corn festival.  It was a hot day and we just stayed for the parade.  The kids weren't going to sit an extra hour for the free sweet corn.  But the kids scored huge at the parade.  We were at the end of the route and they were throwing all the leftovers.  By the end of the parade, they were both expert "wavers".

After the parade, we stopped at a local nature preserve that I used to go to as a kid.  It was nice to be able to introduce my kids to the same things that I used to do when I was little.  There were lots of stuffed wildlife.  They also have some live animals outside.  We saw a turkey, a bear, a coyote, foxes, raccoons, a bobcat, and lots of hawks and owls.  The bear even followed Finn as she walked along the fence.

We got to visit with a lot of family and Finn & Fish got to play with their cousins multiple times.  It was a great trip.  I drove up our street with a renewed sense of "gettin' shit done."  And I get a phone call from our neighbor.  Apparently, a branch fell onto our power line and the local fire company was there to ensure that no one got hurt by the downed live wire.  I walked into the house and we still had power, so I thought we were no worse for the wear.  But when the power company came, he said that he had to shut off our power and I had to get an electrician out to fix the attachment connector and the main breaker pipe.  So the power went off at 6:30pm on a Monday.  We didn't get it restored until one electrician who tried to take advantage of me as I was husbandless and clueless for $5,000 later (about Tuesday at about 5:30 and under $200).  After it was all said and done, I can't believe that there are men out there who are willing to take advantage of someone who doesn't know anything about electrical wires (same goes for mechanics).  The world is full of bad people.

So now here I sit on a late Monday morning, trying to pack up the rest of our things as the movers are coming on Friday.  I think that I'm in a good place with my progress, but my house is in shambles and it's hard to see what is accomplished when there is crap laying all over the place.  I'm going to be an emotional wreck by the end of this week as well.  I don't want to leave this place -- it's home to me and my story is here.  I spoke with my neighbor about it and she said that when she moved from their last place, she walked around in the empty house and videotaped it, but that it was so quiet that it didn't even feel like their house anymore.  I immediately started crying with her and that is exactly what I want to do on Friday after the movers leave and I could tell how sad it made her.  That'll be me in less than five days.  Ugh.