A little over a month ago we received the news from our landlord that he wanted his house back, so we would have to move, but to where we would be taking our happy little band of merry children, small horse, the blind-but-still-evil Cairn terrier, and Mimi The Wonder Cat, we didn't have a clue. Technically the landlord gave us nearly six weeks to vacate, but we didn't want to give him any more $$ than we absolutely had to, so we paid him through the end of July and began the quest.
Within hours of the notification the troops (the mother unit of whom can call up a frenetic amount of energy) were called into action and the packing began at a feverish pace. The daughter did an AWESOME A+ job on her bedroom, bringing great joy to the parental units. When we weren't packing everything in sight ("you don't need this toothbrush for the next three weeks do you?") we were on craigslist, real estate agencies and rental sites. We filled pages of a notebook with addresses and details of possible future homesites. And then we did what we've done for the past two summers (because last summer we had this "you-have-to-move-in-two-weeks scare" also....turned out to be a false alarm that was called off in the 11th hour when we were about to sign a lease on another house the next day), but I digress. So there we are; dragging the children (and the dogs of course) from here to there and everywhere in between following MapQuest on our quest for a new little castle. Our hope was that we would land as close as humanly possible to our other little cottage-by-the-sea, but we looked high and low; places east, places west, and places not even close to Mt. Crumpet (perish the thought), just so we could say we had covered our bases.
Some places were charging close to what we were already paying for the apparent convenenience of being able to buy crack right outside your DOORSTEP. Who could ask for more? That particular one was even painted blue; what could be better for our Aspie than a house (and I use that term loosely) in her favorite color?? A few blocks from that one, and at about the same scorchingly high monthly price we could live on a dead end dirt road. Sounds bucolic, right? Dirt road dead ends into a field. A green field with sunflowers blowing in the wind. Wooden fence lining the drive. Not so much. Think dirt road on a narrow (the big Red Sub barely fit) one-way alley where you could actually see from your cut-out-front window what your crack dealer was eating for dinner across the way (and def NOT "The Appian Way") in his hovel. But we wanted to be good sports and keep an open mind. You never know where the "road" of life may take you, right?? Besides we wanted to cast a large net and see where God would take us. We know and reminded ourselves every other second of the day that He had every stinkin' little detail of our lives in His caring and mighty hands. Trust God or go home. Oh wait, we were about to not have a home. The Almighty and Loving Father it is then!! (BIG digression here, but I just can't let this go without inserting the CALM and peace that both the hubs and I felt during that entire time. I don't want my humor to be mistaken for flippancy or irreverance. We were "happy" to have to move?? Ya, like happy you have to have a root canal--you may know it's the best thing for you in the global sense of "best thing", but no one wants to sit in the chair for three hours listening to the sound of the drill and smelling that smell......think I'm making myself wretch here.......But during every single day we gave EVERY care and concern over to the Lord knowing that it was HE who was causing this to happen and knowing that He does everything for OUR best interest when (and that's very important here---WHEN) we trust Him and Him alone. This wasn't the "Jeff & Gigi Show" on the road makin' things happen and stirring things up us to "keep it fresh". This entire scenario was from God and for His glory. So we pressed in everyday in prayer and thanksgiving that HE was (and is) in charge of every stinkin' little detail and that He actually CARES for us in every stinkin' little way. Just wanted to clear that up (and end a sentence with a preposition).
In the end, we ended up just a mile up the road at the very BASE of Mt.Crumpet in a little compound (complete with a rot iron fence around the driveway) at the end of a quiet dead end street. Total time elapsed from us seeing the photo on the real estate site to us signing the lease in the morning and then moving in the first boxes in the afternoon of the SAME day: SEVEN DAYS. Count 'em seven WHOLE days. Actual time it took to move this antique-store-guised-as-a-crazy -little-family: FOUR DAYS. We started the move on Thursday afternoon and by that Sunday we were completely moved in (no, I'm not dizzy at all---hahahaha! liar, liar pants on fire---I still can't see straight!!). Worm hole? Ya, I'm pretty sure our shorts are still smokin'!
Today marks our third Sunday here at The Mt. Crumpet Compound and like with all moves, when the dust settles and you're able to look around a little at your surroundings, you notice some things are missing, or at the very least out of sight for the time being, and we're noticing some things too. Things like:
*badly behaving neighborhood children whose PARENTS regularly called my daughter names (always when I wasn't around, of course)
*The destructive and frenetic energy of one of the neighborhood girls in particular, who could EASILY replace Susan Lucci as the Queen Of Daytime Drama, who stirred up our daughter with lies, nasty name calling and 70+ decibels of yelling and screaming everyday she was in the neighborhood to play.....when she wasn't being sweet-as-pie (ya, Sybil's got nothing on this little one).
*Our next door neighbor (if you read my FB, you know her as the husband's "girlfriend") and all of her INSANE antics like cooking all their meals everynight OUTSIDE on their back patio at 11pm, filling OUR upstairs bedroom with the ever-so-lovely stench of alley road-kill, all the "love notes" she wrote to us in unintelligable English written on the back of paper bags and envelopes accusing us of everything from causing her husband's cancer (never verified) to us staying awake all night beeping our car alarms at her (ya, because with two kids with special needs, I've got nothing better to do between 11pm and 7am everyday). Oh and we can't forget this: we miss actually NOT being able to park in front of our house!! For two years she parked two of her cars (which she never drove, one of which was covered) directly in front of our house and the house on the other side of her, refusing to move them to allow us, her neighbors, to park in front of our very own homes. We BEGGED her husband to PLEASE move their cars so we could park but he refused. Ya, we miss that daily stress like a boil on a backside.
*and last, but certainly MOST importantly, we miss the stress and blood chilling fear of #1 child walking out the front door and into the dangerous streets, which happened twice in the six weeks leading up to The Move. Having a rot iron fence was, and remains the number one selling point of this house. It's exactly what we need for peace of mind for this piece of the crazy little pie we call our family.
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