It’s been a long time.  I’ve missed my site and seven readers so much!  It’s like when you go somewhere all the time and then a long time elapses where you aren’t going there.  When you return, you just feel like “Wow, I didn’t realize how much I missed this place.”

We’ve been moving over the past couple of weeks.  You never realize just how much shit five people are capable of accumulating until you move.  At first, I was being very organized with our move.  By the end, I was saying “I don’t give a fuck.  Throw it away.  We don’t need a dining room set that bad.”

Everything feels really overwhelming now and I’ve been battling a serious wave of depression.  I spent a few days toying with the idea of shutting my sites down.  I had goals and dreams and initiatives set for this place and I feel like I can’t accomplish anything.  I don’t know how to get there and it all feels hopeless.  But then I wildly rally, unwilling to give up the dream even if it never materializes.  It’s safe to say that I’m flirting with schizophrenia or at least a hormonal imbalance.

Speaking of feelings of futility, I look at the piles of boxes that need to be unpacked and it just feels impossible to me.  Special K has been off on vacation this week which has been a huge help, but it’s still just … so much.  To motivate myself, I started watching episodes of Hoarders.  I always swore that I wouldn’t do it because that show gives me such anxiety.  After each show, I turn to K and say “See?  Our living room looks just like the Hoarders people!”  He rolls his eyes dismissively; I am prone to bouts of exaggeration.  On one episode, this couple was fighting in their RV — the RV they owned because there was no longer room for them in their house.  The wife said “We’re in a pickle,” and the husband thought she said “Do you have a pickle?”  She started screaming at him, “I didn’t offer you a pickle!!!!  I said ‘We’re in a pickle!’”  I immediately burst out crying and hysterically shrieked to K that this was representative of what we are going to be.  ”It’s only a matter of time before we’re in our own RV fighting over pickles because we can’t walk into our kitchen, for the rats!”  K just gave me his “Dude, we don’t even own a RV” look and wrested the clicker out of my hand.  There’s a slight chance that I’m being mildly dramatic lately, but after each show I unpack at least two boxes so I still consider this to be effective therapy.

There is another silver lining:  We don’t have cat skeletons trapped under our refuse and as of the last inspection, we don’t have any expired food in our refrigerator.  I’m not saving empty shampoo bottles because “I might need these some day” and we don’t have roaches.  This is what my existence has become:  celebrating a lack of vermin and full-out squalor in my life.

Yesterday my mom came to visit and when I say “visit” what I really mean is “get wedged in between a stack of Boston albums and a pile of snow pants.”  The kids were happy to see her and Jack mounted her as eagerly as if she was a Big Mac with extra cheese.  My mom commented that he seemed a little bit warm.  He’s been of totally normal spirits lately so I didn’t think too much of it, but he did end up having a 101 degree fever.  To make a long and not very interesting story short, his ear drum was on the verge of rupturing and he has a raging case of strep throat.  I, Mother of the Year, had no idea and really wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for my mommy telling me so.  So, you know, when the pediatrician gives you the one-brow arch and says “Uh, he has a severe ear infection and has had it for a while” there is no other option than to feel like a low-life.  I feed him, I clothe him, I bathe him and now I’m expected to be aware of the condition of his ear drums too?  Parenting is SO hard.  Life is SO hard.  You know what’s not hard?  Writing. Other than eating Bugles and improving my parenting, it’s all I really wanna do.

It was a tough day for everyone.

It’s official.  We’ve found a new place to live and all the fun of moving starts this weekend.  Pray, y’all.  Pray ’til your hands and  knees are calloused.  For real.  The kids are flipping out, we have no living room furniture, and I’m trying to convince everyone that eating picnic style is so much more stylish than having a dining room table.  Isn’t Bohemian chic in?

I was pretty impressed with myself and the progress I’ve made this week.  I packed a few boxes in Grace and Cory’s room — oh, did I never mention that these two have shared a room for the past four years?  Yeah, that situation is ending now, thankfully .  I walked into Grace’s room a couple days ago and all the boxes I packed were empty again with their contents strewn all over the floor.  I was about to bestow my complete “What the fuck are you doing?” meltdown on my kid when she smiled so sweetly at me and said “Mommy, I emptied some boxes so I could help you pack.”  Who can be mad at that?  Actually, I can.  But I didn’t get mad.  I just smiled.  That’s progress, folks.  I expect that Dr. Phil will be knocking on my door very soon to tell me what a bang-up job I’ve been doing on the parenting front.  Speaking of Dr. Phil …

Jack.  Jack’s world is falling apart.  He moved to a big bed.  Farewell tattered and ripped Pack & Play.  He moved to a new chair at the dinner table.  Farewell old Target brand, horrible, deadly highchair that at least three adults have broken a toe tripping over.  His trucks and trains and Yoda collections are being packed in boxes right before his eyes.  Farewell everything.  And with all these farewells and his increasing feeling of losing control over his very controlled environment, comes some hellacious behavior.  The kid is out of control lately.  I won’t even bore you, or embarrass myself, by detailing his exploits.  Let’s just say that it’s really, really, bad and if he keeps it up, I might not give him our forwarding address.  Did you ever read Walter the Lazy Mouse?  It’s a story about a dawdling rodent who is so slow that his family moves without him while he’s at school.  And if you just change “Walter” to “Jack” and “Lazy” to “Satanic” you’d have a pretty accurate representation of what our life looks like right now.

Yesterday, Dr. Phil did a show about controlling chaotic children.  I don’t go to Dr. Phil for parenting advice, just like I don’t go to Oprah to learn new (new to her, very ancient overall) life philosophies.  Many people do; I do not.  I’ve got my own sources for educating myself on the things I feel I need to know and none of them come from King World employees.  Alas, yesterday I was desperate so I turned on ol’ Chrome Dome and watched with Jack.  The show featured a family with a little terror-inducing muppet named Trinity who wreaked havoc over the household.  Chrome Dome had some ideas on how to restore peace to their family.  I don’t know if any of the tools will help here — I will certainly try — but Jack was really wrapped up in the show.  Now, a day later, he keeps asking me why little Trinity kept getting time outs.  I have no idea, but I’m thinking of contacting that brat’s parents to see if they want to set up some sort of arranged marriage deal for these two.  Because they would be so compatible.

Grace is handling the move a little better, but she’s really upset that she’ll have to leave her school.  She loves it and is so loved there, but we a) can’t drive the distance twice a day, three days a week and b) we can’t afford it with the increased housing expenses.  I am sure she will never forgive me; I found nursing home pamphlets and residency applications stashed under her pillow.

There are trade-offs everywhere in our life.  It sucks, but the price of having her own bedroom and attending a great school system in September means leaving her preschool.  I wish I could do everything for my kids, but I just can’t.  Not yet.  Not until my site starts making some money.  (Roaring laughter ensues.)  Speaking of making money …

Did I mention that there is a room in this new house that can be used as an office?  It has a door with a lock, a separate entrance and it’s own attached bathroom.  I frequently fantasize about locking everyone out and creating some sort of masterpiece in that office.  I hope my kids and husband claw and whimper at the door.  I hope they slip notes under the door at me that I thoroughly intend to ignore and kick back in their general direction.  Though, if they slip pie under the door, I may relent.

It’s necessary to my livelihood and general sanity to have a place where I can be alone with my thoughts.  Beyond my general laziness, one reason that I often cannot write is because I am never left alone with the ticker tape stream of thoughts that plague me every moment of every day.  It’s a process, dudes, and I look forward to getting some control over it.

Cory.  Cory didn’t care if we had to move to Zimbabwe as long as it meant that he got his own room.  He will have it soon.  He has earned every square inch of privacy.  I often marvel at the fact that he hasn’t smothered Grace with her own pillow over the past four years.

Change.  It’s hard.  It’s painful.  It’s necessary.  It’s happening.

Surely you remember when my daughter ended up naked from the waist up at the Boston Opera House?  God, she’s more and more like me every day.  An.Y.Way … people inquired about the dress.  It’s now for sale under the Veruca’s Closet tab which will actually be a beautiful online storefront some day.  And why will there actually be a beautiful online storefront someday?  Because we have no furniture and we’re moving this weekend.  Wait … I hadn’t mentioned this?  Ah, a post for a more decent hour later today, but we’re currently calling it “Zen decor” so we don’t feel like losers.  Oh yes, I have so much to tell you all …

I had trouble capturing the right color on this, so imagine my surprise when I was reading one of my favorite blogs a few weeks back and Matt Logelin’s daughter was wearing the same dress.  Obviously a popular frock amongst the blogger set.  If you are interested, take a look at his site for a)  a proper representation of the actual color (he’s a professional photographer … what can I say?) and b) to get an idea of what it looks like on a little one with alabaster skin, blond hair and good behavior , i.e. the exact opposite of Grace.

It was certainly a special (read:  expensive) dress purchased for a special occasion, but if you are one of the insane (read:  like me) interested parties who emailed me about it, click here.  Mama needs a couch!

You’ll have to forgive Jack’s new friend, Horace the Sock Puppet.  Apparently, he’s afraid of grownups.