Vendredi V - Packing Tape Edition

Friday already? Yikes, this week went fast!

If it's Friday, that also means it's only five weeks until we close on the new house. We're almost there, but there's still some final paperwork that needs arranging; I'm a nervous Nellie about it and so will worry my way to the finish line, but The Husband assures me there's plenty of dots for the I's and crosses for the T's.

In the meantime, I'm going to help the time fly by getting the packing started. I'm a pro at it, given our many (many, many, many) moves, but I will admit I'm a bit rusty. Plus, we haven't done it for awhile, so there's a lot more stuff to go through than usual. I think I need some incentive:

Top 5 Reasons Why I'm Excited to Move:

1. Purging. I'd like to pin exclusive blame on the kids for this one, but truth be told, the entire PM family is pretty good at amassing stuff, despite our avowal to live simply. (Well, maybe that's just my vow.) There's nothing like having to touch every single item you own prior to putting it into a box to help you decide whether it's worth paying two strapping young men good money to take it to the new house.

2. New bus route. As upset as The Girl is to leave her current bus route, I'm excited to get onto a new one. Or, more accurately, back to the one I had before. I currently have to leave the house no later than 5:45 AM to make it to work on time (closer to 5:35 if I want to leave my car at home). Our new house is closer to work, which means I can still take a direct bus AND get onto said bus at a much more reasonable time of 6:05. That's 20 minutes of snoozing!

3. Painting. I hate white walls. With my whole heart. Years of rentals will do that to you. I've painted the odd rented wall in the past, but knowing that you're just going to leave in a few months gets pretty old after awhile and I get less and less inspired to pull out the ol' green painter's tape every time. But now? My own walls? Better buy some stock in Benjamin Moore.

4. No more landlords. This one isn't really all that fair, as we've lucked out and have had fantastic landlords pretty much across the board. And I know there's something to be said about being able to call someone else when the sink backs up and go along my merry way. But it's wearing always having someone else out there - someone that you have to answer to when your son tries to pry the frost off the windows with a butter knife and breaks a hole in the brand new, restored heritage windows. Now? If something breaks? It's totally my call as to when/how/if we fix it.

5. My dream house. All of this pales in comparison to the fact that our new digs are pretty much perfect for us. It's not huge, but I've always said that I would rather have a good layout than square footage, since I'm not awesome at cleaning but I'm also OCD about neatness. It's got more character than any house I've ever lived in (and I'll take old over new any day, even if it means I've lived in fire hazards and sieves-for-windows). And the location...honestly, I didn't dare dream we'd ever make it anywhere close to that neighbourhood, much less smack dab in the middle of all the action.

Wow. I feel better already. Now where are all those great boxes from the last move?