Wanted: Lost Box of Underwear

...I'm back!

I'll start by saying I don't know where to start. I think this will take a few chapters. But not all in one sitting. I'm using freaking dial up, afterall. This really cramps my Internet style! It's been several years since I had to use dial up, and I forgot how annoying it is. It's like having a commercial break at every new page load. Thank God it's only temporary until we get the wireless up. Husband exhausted all other options. DSL? Nope. I think they probably laughed at him when he asked. We live in the sticks now, after all. Nearest town is only 1,000 people. Cable modem? Nope. Air card? Probably better than dial up, but apparently the service is pretty spotty. Fortunately our cell phones work from the house and the yard as we do have a cell tower a few miles away, and because we are on a bit of hill crest, we have a straight shot to it over the top of the woods at the back of our property. Last option was wireless. I tried to do my billing last night with dial up. Before I got started, I did a little math. I figured I had to do a total of about 75 page loads. It usually takes me about an hour and a half with high speed Internet. I managed to finish it in two hours with dial up. That was better than I predicted.

Right now Husband is out on the 5 acres with his new lawn toy. A fancy mower that cost six times more than my first car. One of the reasons I wasn't sure I wanted this house when we did the first drive by is because I didn't want to have to spend every free minute mowing. I also didn't want to fork out the dough required to buy a mower that would allow us to achieve the goal in a more reasonable amount of time. Alas, we loved the house, and for the price, we decided that the added cost of the lawn mower was still a better deal than anything else we'd seen. Husband's been at it for 2 1/2 hours, and I think he's about done. I imagine it took a little longer this time than it usually will, as the grass was up to Son's knees by the time we got the mower delivered this morning. Also, we will be planting a bunch of trees in the fall and sometime down the road we will be building an extra two car garage and shop, which will replace some of the grass.

The move was a nightmare. I came down with the flu bug Son had three days before we were to move. The next morning Husband got it too. With both of us sick we were doing well just to manage the kids. Forget about packing and preparing to move. The next day my mom had it. She was supposed to keep the kids for us while we got the moving done. Amazingly, we were all able to function and do our respectful duties by the time Moving Day arrived, but none of us were functioning at full capacity.

The move was interesting for other reasons as well. There was flash flooding and tornadoes happening in the middle of all the moving, so that was fun. The movers we hired to help turned out to be two pre-pubescent punks who probably weren't that much stronger than me. They dropped Daughter's dresser and broke the drawers. Other than that, it went pretty well. Though I still don't know who is responsible for collecting all this crap we had to move. Seven years ago we moved out here cross country with little more than the shirts on our backs. Something about seven years in the same home and the addition of two children during those seven years led to some serious crap collecting. I realized the other day that our new home is nearly four times bigger than our first home (the one we moved out of when we moved cross country with little more than the shirts on our backs). With the additional new room-full of furniture for our basement family room and the extra full size refrigerator in the basement kitchenette, we just fill in the space perfectly. The kids have an awesome play room/rec room to spread out in, and every space is well used, but not crowded.

A friend who recently moved assured me that when we look back on this, the last couple weeks of misery will all become a blur. I'm looking forward to that. Husband and I are just almost beginning to feel human again. We've even had a few moments to begin enjoying our new digs. After day two of moving, Husband and I were competing to see who was closer to Death's doorstep. We were sore and grouchy and tired and stressed and tired and tired and tired. Our first night at our new home we'd put a second 13 hour day in and we were drenched in smelly sticky sweat, as the weather was as equally muggy as it was hot. I didn't get the kids home until after 9pm that night and I finally got Son to bed by 10pm and Daughter to bed by almost 11pm. All I wanted was a shower, but it took until midnight to find the box that held my underwear. Turns out Husband mis-labeled it "Towels" when he should have labeled it "Wife's Underwear."

I've never so deeply longed for my underpants or so thoroughly felt relieved to be reunited with them!