It's official!!!!

This is not an advert for Budget, I just thought the tip was funny. 

We have contract in hand, and I told mother.  I’m actually really proud of the way she’s handling it.  It’s no longer a secret that this is going to happen, and it really IS going to happen.  Oh, the unbearable lightness of being!!!!  Someone better tie a string around my ankle to keep me firmly on the ground because I might drift uncontrollably (but very gently) into the stratosphere and hang there for a while.  

I’m not a very good secret keeper.  Well that isn’t strictly true.  I’m fantastic with other people’s secrets.  Because they aren’t mine to tell.  I know where all the bodies are buried and I’m not telling.  It’s keeping my stuff quiet that I have trouble with.  Any time there is something major up with me there may as well be a neon sign over my head that says “ASK ME WHAT”S GOING ON!  PLEASE!”

So, with that off my mind I can turn my attention to packing and working and blogging... 

To comply with the rules of both awards they each require that I tell 7 things about myself and I’m not sure I have 14 interesting things.  So I’m going to cheat and tell you 7 things total and pass them along.  Because we have a fairly incestuous close knit blog community, most of those that I would normally award to have already been a recipient.  So I’m going to have to work harder to find new blogs to bestow these awards upon.  Isn’t there a loophole that we found to giving awards back to those who gave them to you?  Hmmmm...

Okay my 7 things:

1- I can never buy big bottles of shampoo or conditioner because way before I get to the end of them I determine that I don’t like the way they smell anymore and must have something different.  

2 - I am a sniffer.  I sniff candles, potpourri, deodorant, fabric softener, detergent and hair care products.  If it is for sale and has a fragrance I will sniff.  In fact, I have this one awesome friend who has no sense of smell and I’m all the time forgetting about it so I’ll smell and hand it to her so she can smell.  She is so funny that she just sniffs and pretends she smells it too.  

3- Because I work from home, some days I don’t get a shower until up in the afternoon and some days it just doesn’t happen at all. 

4- I don’t like to mate socks.  So much so that I will do several loads of laundry and leave the clean socks in the basket until one of the children tells me they are out of socks which then guilts me into action. 

5- Cold water rinse for extra shine - you know the direction on some conditioner bottles - is seriously overrated especially in the wintertime.  Just sayin’. 

6- I used to be able to apply lipstick with my cleavage like Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club. 

Okay, so I’m seriously cheating but I can’t think of anything else even remotely interesting about me that you all don’t already know.  

Just one more thing before I start giving away awards.....

Thank you again to Bruce from Bruce Johnson JADIP , you can also find him at Dreamodeling, Stupid Stuff I See and Hear and the guy book .  Please go by and check him out at one or all of his blogs.  They are funny and sure to delight. 

Also to Mrs. Hyde at A Bitch Called Mom  and The Well Fed Spirit, the blogs are quite different but both completely worthy of a look.  

So, without further ado....

The LOL award goes to....

Sherrilyn R at Laughing my abs off

Andie Goddess of Pickles at Inspriation Strikes. In the Kneecaps.

Sharon at Its Random but Important to Me

Vinnie at As Vinny C's it

Melanie at One Hot Mess
Nicole  at NinjaMOM
Sam at Rot du Jour

All of these are definitely worth a look, follow, etc.

The Stylish Blog Award shall be forwarded to the following:
Mad Housewife at Confessions of a Mad Housewife - she's brand new but I'm expecting really great things from her so go check her out.
The Chunky Mama at Chunk and theGang
NJ at Fourth Grade Nothing

Okay,  I probably haven't fulfilled all the rules but fuck the rules.  I'm good with it.  I have to go to bed now because I'm typing with one eye shut.  I'll notify the winners in the morning.

Love yous guys!

Packing iz hard and I haz awards.....

Thanks to Bruce at - Good Lord do I have to list them all????

Just kidding.  If you had 14 dozen I'd still list them.   You can locate Bruce Dreamodeling, BruceJohnsonJADIP and at his saltiest Evil Bruce/Stupid stuff I see and hear.  What?  I've forgotten one?  Seriously?  Right then....and The Guy Book.  Clearly I'm entirely too lazy this evening to list them by name but please, by all means check them all out as they are all different and sure to show you something you'll love.

Many thanks to Mrs. Hyde over at A Bitch Called Mom

Seriously you guys!  No idea I had that much funny in me.  But it makes me exceedingly happy that at least one other person on the planet, other than Darling Husband (and usually when I'm not meaning to be at all) thinks I am.  I think there are rules that go with these but not sure what they are yet.  I'll get back to it.  I swear!!! 

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Mrs Hyde also has a second blog The Well Fed Spirit which is the kinder gentler Mrs. Hyde and completely worth the read.  I learn and feel something every time I see a new blog.  I'm so fortunate to have her in my blog world.  

As a follow up to last week's announcement that we are moving.  I spent the weekend packing some shit up.  Deciding what I couldn't live without and getting rid of the rest.  However I've learned a few things about myself along the way. 

1) Packing is hard.  Well, deciding which crap to keep and which to toss is hard.  Emotionally.  For me it is anyway.  I found things that I haven't looked at in a really long time.  Some great good things...my wedding hanky and matchbook from the restaurant where we had our first meal as a married couple.  A lot of things that I wasn't expecting.....playing cards and poker chips that have long since been gone from the set,  a gag gift vibrator that a friend gave me on a vacation to NOLA (more on that later), sadly the batteries were long dead, some board games that we never bothered to open (Singing Bee anyone?).  And also a few things that were sad like the bookmark the funeral home made when my grandfather died.  Had a poem on the other side.  Anyway, the reason that packing is so hard for me emotionally is because apparently I have to relive every memory in order to decide whether to keep an object or not.  *Do I really NEED to explain why that is exhausting?*

2)*** Disclaimer*** guys if you are squeamish about Scarlet (as the monthly is known in our house) turn away now.....really, go to  Men's Health.com...go now.  Seriously.  Okay....for the rest of us.....I woke up Saturday morning with Scarlet.  I knew she was here because I dreamed that I was in a car wreck and pinned between two vehicles by my abdomen and when I woke up...I was still in pain.....fucking bitch.  Seriously guys...Men's Health..last warning.   Also learned something.  If you are trying to insert a tampon and drop in in the toilet because your sleepy ass fingers can't work it out properly, you can hang that shit up (no not on the wall like a trophy) but that tampon is never going to leave the applicator because it swells immediately upon touching the water.  3:30am science lesson that Bill Nye the Science Guy didn't feel the need to share with us.  PSA for the guys still with me, if you hear your woman, wife, lady friend, in the master bathroom cussing like a sailor in the middle of the night you can bet she dropped the damn plug in the potty.  

3) When you start taking shit off your walls it's sad.  It starts to feel like it isn't your house anymore.  It starts to look bare.  Yes, I know, we're going some place that is new and exciting and much better, but it makes it hard to sleep when all the 'what nots' (excellent synonym use by the way because I cannot spell tchotchkies) you've gathered over time and cast familiar shadows in the nightlight (yes, Darling Husband and I are nearly legally blind and find our way around at night by navigating the shadows - don't judge *grin*) are missing.  Packed away to be seen again soon, but missing temporarily nonetheless.  

Okay, that's probably enough, perhaps even way too much information for this evening.  I'll be back soon to comply with the rules of my awards and pass them on.  

Thank you all so much for reading this silly shit.  Oh yes, I've noticed.....there are 84 of you.  Of course that number my dwindle some after my little...er...uh...science lesson above, but I see you guys over there and it makes my heart all a flutter that you are interested enough to pay attention to what comes out of my mind and off my fingertips.  Please comment if you are so minded.  I love to hear from you all!  

Stagnation....change

I’ve noticed that I’ve been thinking and saying the word stagnant or some form of it a lot lately.  Dictionary.com defines the word stagnant in the following ways:

–adjective

1.not flowing or running, as water, air, etc.

2.stale or foul from standing, as a pool of water.

3.characterized by lack of development, advancement, or progressive movement.

4.inactive, sluggish, or dull.

Monty, I’ll take doors number 3 and 4.  

Darling Husband and I have lived in the same house since right before we found out we were going to have our first child (roughly 11.5 years ago).  It was the perfect size house for a couple.  Even a good sized house to have only one child but of course we couldn’t stop with one child.  We deliberately had a second child and the house started to shrink a bit.  What with the spare bedrooms filling up and toys everywhere.  It was cozy.  By the time we had our third child (who, by the way was a surprise) it had started getting ‘tight’.  Funny how the family grows but the house does not.   

Add to this a host of health and financial problems and let’s suffice to say we’ve been really struggling for the past....well....several years.  I only go through all this to give you some background.  We have gotten so used to not having the means to make our ends meet that we fell into a thought pattern of ‘lack’.  We couldn’t find good work, we couldn’t get all the bills paid, we even started telling our children that we couldn’t afford to do this or that.  It pervaded every part of our being. It was reflected in our thoughts and attitudes about everything from our life situation to other people.  

So used to this negative feeling of ‘lack’ did we become, that we started to get comfortable with it, if you can imagine such a thing.  And it made us stagnant.  For a long time we were “characterized by lackof development, advancement, or progressive movement”.  Then it happened.  

Nah, we didn’t win the lottery or get an inheritance.  If only.... we did finally wake up one day and decide we’d had enough.  There is nothing tying us to our current locale.  Well, my mom, but really is that enough?  The answer is ‘no, it isn’t’.   She’ll be upset and likely throw a mondo guilt trip my way but I can deal with that.  Because I know she’ll mostly be upset that her perfect granddaughter will be going far away.  

It started gradually.  Darling Husband and I doing internet searches for places with lower costs of living than where we are now.  And we had some ‘ideas’ about the general direction in which we’d like to move.  Then we found it.  The perfect house.  Nearly 3 times the house we’re in now with a separate office space because we both work from home.  All for about what we’re paying now.  In Idaho.  

So we changed our thought pattern.  Started taking small actions like packing up non-essentials and really focusing on what we want and what we CAN do.  We stopped telling ourselves all the reasons why we can’t and developed an attitude of ‘why not?” and ‘who says?’.  It’s been so amazing and liberating having a positive change to focus on.  We’ve been approved for the house in Idaho we’re just still haggling negotiating all the terms.  I really hate negotiating.  But that’s a whole ‘nother post.  

Anyway, we’re breaking our cycle of stagnation and if you find yourself chronically in an unhappy, unmoving place, I would encourage you to change the way you think about things.  Stop doing what we did for so long - just being a victim of your circumstances - and start thinking about what you CAN do, and what you CAN change about your situation.  Sometimes the changes are small and sometimes they are huge...like a 2200 mile cross country trek with 3 kids, 2 pets and all of your worldly belongings.  Start small and see where it takes you.