Photos - Weekend in Pictures

Micah, Bill, Me, Jay, Mom, Thea

The Wedding Party

Bailah

Micah enjoying the wedding cake made by his cousin, Lynn

Thea

Yes, she's wearing a dress.  Just don't tell her it's a dress.

She thinks because she has shorts underneath, it's not a dress

The Treasure Hunt

or how the adults finished eating in peace

Mom, can I walk Chelsea?

The refrain for the weekend,
and then he walked her and dropped the leash.

I never knew that 50 year old cellulite could move
fast enough to catch her.

Bailing Out. . .

. . .leaving the cardboard kingdom behind tonight and heading down the NJ Turnpike and I-95 to my mother's.  Steve gets left behind to work on his own unpacking, getting rid of all the cardboard boxes that have been emptied and whatever.  Today the upstairs hallway is clear for the first time and I managed to store in one bathroom cabinet what we formerly had in three or four under the sink cabinets - and I replaced the door handles on the bathroom sink cabinet.  Pedestal sinks suck, new conclusion, alert the media.  And I emptied the last of the wardrobe boxes, except for the one that has my wedding dress (and who knows what else); the entire container has been exiled to the extra bedroom/office's closet, Scarlett O'Hara style.  I'll think about that tomorrow or the day after or the day after that.

Saturday we're headed to Frederick for a family event.  Sunday we might take my mother to see a friend in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania and Monday we head home to New Jersey.

Addendum:  Thea conked out by 9:00 pm while we were on the road, Micah is showing an increasing aptitude for staying awake at night while in the car.  He hung out with me, singing and talking - unfortunately much of the talking was of the "are we at Oma's yet?" variety and pithy observations of which cars had GPS systems and DVD players in them.  Both made a brief stop in the bathroom and shuffled right off to bed. They are such awesome little travelers at times. Granted, they will be up at between 6:00 am and 7:00 am and I'll still want to be dead to the world, but for now, it's all good.

Glad we weren't on the northbound side of I-95 tonight, just north of Big Gun Powder Falls.  It took me more than a few seconds to realize that I wasn't seeing any northbound traffic, then just before the Big Gun Powder Falls sign there were multiple police and fire/rescue vehicles, and all lanes were closed.

Me vs. Cardboard

The boxes are still winning, or it feels like they have the upper hand.  Just a few minutes ago, the remaining pillows for our bed emerged (from the one box I unpacked upstairs.)  We still have not settled on a place for Coy Boy, the betta fish, so his aquarium is lingering in the styrofoam box in our bedroom.

This afternoon after I got home from work (which was the world's best Saturday, nine patients only - and even though #8 was having some major issues (visual hallucinations of his wife in a 25 year younger version, and only occurring at home), it was all in all a good morning mostly thanks to the staff keeping things moving smoothly), my goal was boxes, boxes, boxes and more boxes.  In the middle of working my way through the garage, on a mission to find my wok and frying pan, the neighbor from 52 Krebs came over to introduce himself.

He's 85 year old, a World War II veteran (D-Day plus eight), has lived here 26 years and moved in a few days before Thanksgiving, his wife unpacked the entire house and had 32 guests for Thanksgiving dinner, his wife died eight years ago, a son lives down the road on Silvers Lane and moved here before my neighbor did, another son lives in Brooklyn, he spoke Italian with his mother, he drove a fellow soldier named Rausch who had immigrated to the US at age 15 and was then 38 at the end of WWII to a farm outside of Marburg to see his family for the first time in 23 years.  He's quite a character, but by the time we were done chatting, I had had enough of the heat and gave up on the garage and went inside to cooler air and other boxes.

Still no wok or frying pan.  No lamp from Thea's room.

Kids and husband went to the beach at Mantoloking today, so I had time to work on the house without little helpers.

Moved or Bye-Bye Brookline Court

Three days of pack/load/unload are over and done with, the only casualty (other than sleep and sanity) is the living room carpet which has a two-inch tear from the TV armoire being lid instead of lifted into place.  The kids' rooms are mostly unpacked, a lamp yet to be discovered for Thea's room, our room is lined with boxes still.  The down comforter is missing-in-action and we may need to start scouting the boxes in the garage.  The fourth bedroom/office/computer room is a disaster, and probably will be for a while.

Micah had a fabulous time with the mover, despite their not being the Imagination Mover, and they were all very kind to him.

The new owner of our old house, once known as Demon Spawn Home Buyer from Hell, mellowed a little around the closing date, then resumed her evil persona already in progress.  I hope a meteor strikes her home the day after she's finished her renovations and remodeling.  She is about the only person on the planet at the moment that I really would want to see reduced to a smoldering heap of carbon.

Meanwhile, with the unloading of the moving van going on, Micah and I had an appointment with the new school district to see about getting him enrolled in the preschool program.  Everything went very well.  Micah got to play with a big bin of cars and trucks, which was nice since most of his have been in boxes for awhile.  The WW-P school district is not a friend of the working parent:  the integrated preschool program is a half-day afternoons only program for four-year olds.  So Micah would need to go to a preschool program locally, be picked up, taken to Wicoff Elementary School and then returned to the preschool program for after-care.  Which to me sounds like he'll be spending as much time on the bus as he did traveling to and from Summit School.

And once all the in our face unpacking is done, there is the not so small matter of emptying out the storage unit.

I'm just happy that I found toothpaste (I used Thea's Tom's of Maine strawberry the other night and BLECH, BLECH, BLECH; if that were the only toothpaste on the planet, decay here I come) and my nightgown.  I am going to bed.

Packing Day . . . .

The landscape of the house has been transformed into some sort of sculptural cardboard wasteland.  The kids love it - perfect for hide-and-go-seek.  I love them for seeing the positive in a situation that does nothing but make me twitchy.

We had three packers arrive this morning, joined by a fourth later in the day.  Packer #4 must have drawn the short straw because he got the kitchen.  Steve got pizza at lunch for the whole group, and after lunch Micah and I took Tesh and the vacuum over to Krebs Road.  I cleaned out the refrigerator, Tesh vacuumed and got rid of some cobwebs that had been left behind.  I managed to finally pull out the metal casing from the halogen lamp in the kitchen.  At the walk-through I noticed that the bulb in one of the two lamps above the kitchen island was burned out.  The former homeowner showed me how to open the lamp and pull it out, but he didn't align the little nubs that hold it in, so the metal casing from the bulb remained in the lamp and on the first ten tries, I couldn't pull it out.  Today, it finally yielded and we have two working kitchen island lamps.

Good thing because the refrigerator light was out and I found five different bulbs in the dining room lamp.  Minor details that will have me haunting the aisles of Target and Home Depot.

Tonight the Plainsboro Zoning Board of Appeals was scheduled to hear the case of allowing Thea's Mandarin-immersion charter school to occupy space at St. Joseph's Seminary.  The school district has mobilized itself against the charter school and is trying to turn the zoning request into a referendum on the charter school itself.  The state board of education has already approved the application for the school, so the school district is attempting to hijack the process late in the game.  Mind you, there are no language immersion programs offered within this school district, and no Mandarin classes offered in the elementary schools.  And despite this, I have to still make nice with the school district because Micah needs to get into the system and start draining its resources.

Which is a fine welcome to the neighborhood. . . .I am not enamored of the political process in the Township of Plainsboro.

One More Day of Work

Tomorrow is my last day of work before the move.  Micah doesn't have a spot at a camp or in the new school district's ESY (extended school year) program, so he'll be coming to work and going off with Tesh and her daughter Mary to the water park at Great Adventure.  He'll have a blast, but he'll be toast by the time he comes back.  Saturday, just with the few hours running around in the fountain, Micah was so fried he fell asleep and all the prodding, tickling and talking in the world could not rouse him to eat dinner.

And this is fine, because tonight I packed a good number of his toys and toy bins up, so if Micah is awake, alert and mobile at home, chances are those boxes may not stay packed for long.  He's packed and unpacked and repacked the three boxes I've given him for the past two weeks.

On the other hand, as long as Thea has her tigers and her Nintendo DS, she's cool.  The boxes that are piling up in her room are not seeming to bother her.  (Audible sigh of relief from me, she's the one who hates change.)

Today the kids and I stopped by the house to hang up a shower curtain in the upstairs bathroom, put some bins for dirty clothes in the laundry room and just go through the bedrooms again to solidify where all of our stuff is going to go.  No major changes other than Thea's bookcase can't go where I originally wanted it because it will block the one heating vent.  Micah's room needs a paint job, the blue is too dark and too scuffed.  There are wallpaper borders along the ceiling of the master bedroom, Micah's bedroom and the main bathroom.  Going, going, going.   Thea's room needs some color, too. 

In time, all in time.

Holiday Weekend

Today we went to the new house to pick up the keys and garage door openers.  It was the first time seeing the house empty, the first chance to really start imagining what our furniture might actually look like.  The furniture is probably the easy part, it's all the other accumulated detritus that is going to be the problem.  At least it will be if we want to park our cars in the garage by winter 2010.

After the walk-through, the kids and I went to Sunshine and Sugar Bakery in the Plainsboro Town Center for cupcakes.  Being the little patriots, they picked out vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting topped with an American flag.  Being somewhat immune to the lure of a tiny flag on a toothpick, I went for coconut on vanilla buttercream.  Then we went to Lowe's for more boxes and Staples for labels.

We finished our afternoon errands at Panera's for lunch and then some time playing in the ground level kinetic fountain.  It has six paired spouts that are flush with the ground and that make different patterns.  The kids love running through it, around it and in it.  They were entertained for almost two hours.  Usually we get sucked into the fountain when I am not prepared, but today I had bathing suits and towels in the car.

On the way home we made a stop at Wawa for a snack.  The upgraded herself from a Klondike bar to a Dove bar - she prefers a wooden stick to hold onto.  Micah wanted Double Bubble gum.  I don't know who hooked him on that stuff, but he was chomping away long after the flavor had to have gone.

Tomorrow it's going to be 96 degrees, I think it will be a day to stay inside, in the air-conditioning, and label boxes. . . .after going out for coffee and the New York Times.  Priorities on a Sunday.