08 May 2007

Mondy's entry posted late

<> It is Monday and we made it through the weekend. It feels like a great gift of a new time. No, the house is not sold yet, but there is interest by at least one person who has been here twice and people are still stopping and taking flyers from our "info-tube." This is not like ‘96 with a sale of our Butler-Tarkington house is one day with hords of people through the house during the open house. We had about 10 groups (some singles, one young man with his parents, young couples, etc.) come and look at the house. Only two were neighbors and one of those brought a friend back which was very sweet of her.

By five when we closed up shop, I was exhausted by . . . being so nice and helpful for three hours??? LOL.

The woman, Cheryl, who returned on Monday came with a realtor (she had asked me about this prior to her coming) and they went over things with a fine tooth comb. Lots of relevant good questions and also lots of oohs and ahs. Cheryl’s timetable is perfect. She has sold her house and is in an month-to-month apartment right now. She is down to 2 houses that she likes and ours is one.

Oh, St. Joseph make it happen.

So I can breathe out after weeks of cleaning, fixing and worrying. I have been so tense that if I let me shoulders really drop my ears will get frost bite. No, it is beautiful spring right now and the outside really looks good. I am so grateful that I am seeing the garden for the last time in the spring, but it makes it harder to leave. Perennials that I've nursed along for years now look good! And there actually looks like there is some plan to my plantings. Colors are meshing together and giving each other room to shine. I feel both very attached to every plant and blade of grass and ready to separate from it. I have the idea that it is time to leave this work-intensive private garden and be more active in a community. I am not sure what that means.

Julia had a hard week last week and so I had a hard week. Think she is picking up on the tension in the house? If she isn't, she has rhino hide! Our 10 year old friend, Matthew, was with us for part of last week and at one point he told me that my job as Julia's mother was really hard and he felt sorry for me. Last week, he was right on. (I wondered what Julia was thinking, with the tension in the house, the constant cleaning, Daddy gone, and Matthew staying with us -- how confusing is all of that?)

Her behavior in school is better if you consider compliance better than fighting the system, but I don’t think she is learning much right now. There are less than three weeks of school and I have been so busy and pre-occupied that I haven't done much about it, but I plan to try home schooling this summer to the extent that I can. She is learning the names of some of her favorite dinosaurs – big favorites are duckbills right now, Maisaurus, Parasaurolophus, and Chingtaosaurus – the last was found in China which Julia seems to be very proud of. She is just starting to show some connection to China these days, very slight interest, but some. I figure I will use dinos as a jumping off place to work on numbers (she is counting! -- really counting, not just reciting numbers), colors, and her letters.

I have my CLE (continuing education for law) to catch up on and I have to do it before leaving for Wisconsin and I can do a bit of garden work just to keep it up even if the house is sold. But I want to have some fun this summer too -- traveling to see Ches who will be in Bolivia and visiting the east coast, getting Julia and a new house ready for living longterm, and swimming. Julia remembers the Florida beach very well and talks about it all the time. I hope the Wisconsin lakes satisfy her.

David is still loving Madison -- so great!!! Yes, we are very grateful that we are moving to this very cool town, but housing is more expensive than Indy and we are looking at smaller homes and smaller lots. I am over any regret about this and hope it is okay for Julia and the dog.
I hope that we can drive up and be with David for the weekend coming up. I hate seeing him do the 5 hour trip every week. And then last week, he took a wrong turn and put an extra hour on his trip. As I said before, last week was a tough week.

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