"There...

The Husband: "...you got your house. Now stop complaining. And don't ask me to do anything else."

PM: "Absolutely. I said I'd move down here if you bought me a house and you fulfilled your part of the bargain. You're totally done now and it's all up to me."

[....]

PM: "So...hypothetically, of course...how hard would it be for you to move that thermostat over to that other wall?"

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On Your Mark...Get Set...

Oh, we are so close!

Close to closing that is - we get the keys to our new house on Friday at 9 AM sharp! Tomorrow night is the full-costume dress rehearsal when we have our final walk-through (I guess just to make sure the sellers haven't made off with my sweet, sweet gas stove or something). The kids get to see the house for the first time tomorrow night, and they're pretty pumped.

I know I'm pumped, because I'm ready to get this whole house party started. Procrastinator that I am, I have packed exactly ONE box since finding out that I would be moving this spring. I'm really hoping that seeing the house gives me inspiration to get a few more boxes packed.

Of course, packing would probably have been easier this past month when I was twiddling my thumbs. Once we get those keys, it'll be a mad dash to the finish line as we try to cram in a bunch of quick upgrades before we move in. Nothing huge - although the cherry-red-church-sanctuary-circa-1970 carpet in the master bedroom is definitely not staying.

We got renters for our current place (did I tell you that?) that are moving in on June 1, so we have a perfect window of a few weeks with both houses so we can pack one up and ready the other. Not sure when moving day will be - kinda depends on how long the list of things we want to do ends up being, and how many of those things we actually can do.

Oooo - it's so exciting!

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"Mom, It's Delightful..."

...that you have the Harry Potter movie for me!"

(A personalized viewing of the first Harry Potter movie. The HP rule in our house is you can't see the movie until you've read the book. Who woulda thunk that it would be The Boy who made it through first?)

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My Cadbury Creme Egg Is Bittersweet This Year

What a strange day. It's ostensibly Good Friday around these parts, but you'd never know it.

The Husband and I both had to work. The kids were off, but it was a plain ol' teacher inservice, and they just hung out at their Kids Club all day. Then I quickly hit the grocery store on the way home before picking the kids up in time to greet The Girl's BFF who is here for a belated birthday sleepover.

So different from where we usually are on Good Friday. Usually we boot it out of the cities as soon as possible after work on Thursday and head north, trying to get a jump on traffic and buy ourselves some time so we can do back-road detours around Emerson because the 75 is always closed. We get to Grandma's house in the wee hours and head straight to bed because we're up early the next morning to head to church.

We celebrate Good Friday with our Canada church friends, and there's always a bit of homecoming mixed in with the coffee and singing. Then it's off to a family gathering, knowing we get to hang out with the other side of the fam the next day.

But there's a heavy price to pay for all those good times, namely arriving back home after a long, floody drive late on Sunday night, knowing that we have a whole week of school and work ahead of us.

So this year we decided to stay put. And I won't say that I wasn't sad this morning, sitting at my desk reading developer notes while I knew my nears and dears were singing Were You There. But I was also happy, remembering last night's Maundy Thursday supper at our US church.

It was so great - a simple meal of soup and bread interspersed with communion, singing, and readings. All generations around the same table. The Boy and The Girl each doing a reading (he almost got "Gethsemane," although with his permanent retainer, his "th's" all sound like "s's" anyway). I loved the children's story, where the kids gathered around a real seder platter and shared the elements of a Passover meal. And how they each got unleavened bread (aka a pita chip) and some wine (aka a grape) so they could participate in communion, too.

I expect Easter Sunday will be the same. I'll be missing my family and my Canada friends, but I'll be loving up a new tradition of an Easter Breakfast (oh yeah - we're totally Mennonites. There's always food). And eating chocolate - because that's the same no matter where you say "Christ is Risen."

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Vendredi V - Set It and Forget It Edition

Guess what I'm doing!

Ummm...blogging?

YES!!

[???]

Guess what I'm NOT doing!

Ummm...painting The Boy's toenails?

Well, that. But also...I'm NOT cooking. Or cleaning. Or doing any of those bazillion mundane things that suck my time in this witching hour between getting home from work and suppertime.

Know why?

Because they're already done!!!

Now, while I generally don't mind most household management tasks, I do find their quotidian nature somewhat wearying at times and get very tired of performing them day in and day out. However, I also get very antsy when things are left undone, so just not doing them isn't an option for this recovering perfectionist.

The solution, I've found, is to front-load my effort. Do a bit of extra preparation while I've got the time and reap the benefits later. To wit:

My Top 5 Go-To Make-Ahead-and-Make-Your-Life Easier Solutions:

1. Kitchen equipment with timers.

Behold the triune awesomeness:

My* breadmaker, crockpot, and coffee maker all come equipped with timers. Well, the crockpot technically doesn't. Since I leave for work far too early to start it when I leave and hope for non-totally-overdone food, I leave a "please set to low before you leave" note for The Husband. This version of a timer works 99% of the time.

(It didn't work once. [It won't happen again.])

It's rare that I don't have something bubbling in the crockpot at least once a week (there's beans in there right now! Homemade refried beans for Taco Fridays, hooray!). And I set the breadmaker before we leave for church every Sunday so I can come home to fresh bread for Sunday lunch. And the coffeemaker? Nothing entices me out of my warm, cozy bed like the drip-drip-drip of fresh coffee that I got ready the night before.

2. My** pasta maker.

Our family is pretty big on homemade pasta. The Boy constantly requests my famous fettucini alfredo, and we've had it for Christmas dinner three years running. So Monday night is pasta night. (Not alfredo sauce each time - that much butter and cream isn't good for anyone. Although, it would be very good.) As easy as it is to mix dough and crank it through the machine, it can be a bit time-consuming. So I hit upon an even better idea.

Once a month, I pull out a dozen eggs and the bag o' semolina and make a ton of dough. Then I make two meals' worth of ravioli. One we eat that night, and the other goes into the freezer along with two leftover balls of dough that are each big enough for another meal. One mixing bowl = a months' worth of pasta Mondays!

3. Sacrifice Thursday night.

As hard as I've tried, I can't figure out a way to clean the house without actually cleaning it.

So, knowing that it's got to get done, I try to get it done in one fell swoop. Thursday night is NOT a good night to call me (heh - who uses the telephone anymore?) as I'm usually pretty grouchy storming through grocery shopping, toilet scrubbing, laundry folding, floor mopping, etc.

But the carrot awaiting me once I've run the gauntlet of that stick is walking into the house after work on Friday and knowing that I've got nothing that I have to do in terms of home maintenance over the weekend. My cupboards are stocked, everything is shiny, and we will not be naked. (At least, not because we didn't have clean clothes.) That, my friends, is a rocking feeling. Definitely worth going through the grocery lineup at 9 pm on a weeknight.

4. Lay it out the night before.

How is it that showering/finding clothes/making a lunch/making coffee takes 45 minutes in the wee hours of the morning when it takes only half an hour the night before? I don't understand it - something about the time/space continuum, I suspect. Jean-Luc Picard would know. All I know is that if I get my stuff together the night before, I don't miss my bus. And that is a good start to a day.

(Except today. When I was there, but the bus decided it didn't feel like stopping and cruised right past a lineup of 20 people. But at least I was on time).

5. Get the homework done and in backpacks on Friday.

I hate homework. But it needs to be done. It's so, so, so hard to haul those kids upstairs every night and tell them to figure out what needs to be done and make sure they do it. (They're pretty independent once they get going, but it's tough to get the momentum going.) I would far rather just leave them happily watching TV.

But if I don't, then we end up doing it Sunday night, tears flowing, clock ticking, "I'll do it in the morning" bargaining. Which is a fantastic way to finish off a weekend.

So, one of my most difficult, yet important, disciplines is to make sure we do a little bit each night. That way, by the time we sit down to homemade refried beans in our clean, clean house on Taco Friday, we've got Monday morning already figured out:

* As I've mentioned before, the breadmaker belongs to my mother. But possession is 9/10ths.

** Also my mother's. I figure that since I'm letting her store it here, I might as well put it to use. Please also to note the Hunky Bill's in the background. It is great - it swings both ethnic ways and makes perogies and ravioli equally well.

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Sanctuary

I was between books the other day, casting about for something to read.

(A dangerous and scary place, that.)

So I figured a trip to the library was in order.

Now Reason #1,759 Why I Live a Spoiled Life is that I work downtown only four blocks away from the central branch of the Minneapolis library. That's right - I'm only a brisk walk away from a huge building filled equally with books and sunlight. I can pop over, grab whatever's on my list, and be back in time for the afternoon's Fun Times with Technical Writing!

(PM, thy name is Geek.)

And so I headed on over to fill up my book bag. As I wandered the shelves, I realized that I could feel my shoulders relaxing. My breathing was deepening (the better to inhale that gorgeous mustiness of shelves upon shelves of books). I had this crazy half-grin on my face.

Now I haven't felt stressed lately, but a quick peek at my calendar reminds me that there's been an awful lot on ye olde plate in the past while. And so, while I wouldn't have said I was feeling the pressure, being there in the library and feeling myself relax made me realize that I had been.

And it got me thinking about why I felt so relaxed. And whether there were other places where I felt that way (because I'm so about making something like that repeatable).

I think the reason I uncoil in libraries is because I am more me there than I am in other places. I think we all go through life more or less ourselves - in new, scary situations we're much, much less ourselves while in those places where we feel most comfortable, we let our guard down and allow ourselves to be ourselves.

The library is a place like that for me. So is my church sanctuary (not just my "church" as in body corporate - I never felt in our old building the peace that I do in our new one - sad as that is).

Strangely enough, my home doesn't always function as that place. I think it's because I tend towards the "to-do list" view of my home.

There are other "places" where I'm most me:

- Drinking Safeway Select Orange Spice tea in a kitty-cat mug

- Snuggling with one (or, better yet, two) of my babies, especially when we're all half-drowsing our way to sleep

- Cozying up to The Husband on a Friday night, lights turned out, opening credits rolling, hot popcorn and cold beer at the ready

- Listening to Billie Holiday

- Reading Terry Pratchett

Now these aren't just "favourite things" a la raindrops on roses. No - these are thin spaces - places where I'm so close to Heaven that I can almost touch it. I suppose C.S. Lewis would call it being surprised by joy - these places where I feel so at peace, so relaxed, so pretty near perfect that I could probably spend eternity there and consider God to have made complete good on His promises.

In other words, Heaven is a library.

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Kids, Closings, and Crafts

Phew - busy times Chez PM!

Our house made up for being one member short lately by adding a few occupants this past weekend with a visit from The Husband's parents. I'm always impressed by grandparents who can play Wii (since I'm pretty much restricted to the remakes of old-school games like Dr. Mario and Legend of Zelda where you can hold the controller like in the good ol' days - none of this fancy wrist action required).

(I'm also always impressed by grandparents who let parents escape for an evening out while they wrangle the littlekins.)

With the last of our visitors to this location of Hotel PM checked out, we're now turning our thoughts to a short appointment at the end of this month labelled "Closing" on the calendar. We've got a possession date! Well, we've actually had it for awhile, but I guess I was waiting for the paperwork to complete before I did more than mentally pencil it in.

(Which is a good thing the last of it came through today, I guess, since we are officially homeless as of June 1, when this house has been rented to someone else. Perfect timing - it gives us a one-month overlap to do a bit of painting and getting ready on the other end plus enough time to give our current abode the ol' once-over before we finally hand back the keys.)

Now that it's really for real (as opposed to the "kind of for real" imaginary state that only I seemed to be labouring under, everyone else assuming that a signed purchase order and preapproval might actually mean it could happen), I suppose I'd better start getting out the boxes and filling them in earnest.

Finally, a treat for your patience with lacklustre posting:

The Girl's latest obsession is throw pillows and Grandma obliged her with several square and rectangular ones. But she also wanted a cylinder. So one of her parents reached back into the depths of memory and resurrected some Mad Grade Seven Sewing Skillz.

(Hint: It wasn't me.)

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Celebrating the Season

It'shere!It'shere!It'shere!It'shere!It'shere!It'shere!It'shere!It'shere!!!!!

ahem

It's Spring!

After flirting with us for a couple of weeks, only to slip coyly back behind late-season blizzards and frosty mornings, Spring has finally arrived in Minnesota. And none too soon!

And today made me think - you know those -40 days? The ones where the wind is howling and the snow is blowing and the ice pellets are cutting and you simply can't get warm? Where you huddle in your blanket and try to warm your hands around a cup of tea and think, man, a few months ago I was complaining about +30 degrees.

And then how you think, why didn't I appreciate the warmth when I had it?

Well, this year, I'm determined to appreciate it. I want to spend every possible minute outside. I want to soak up the sun. I want to breathe the spring air deep down into my lungs. I do not want to squander any above-freezing day by sitting inside.

So, tonight, I took myself on a date. The kids were at their weekly church clubs and The Husband is travelling. Did I use my "me-time" to pack boxes? Organize? Declutter? Wash the dishes? Nope. (Shocking, I know. Those tend to be my go-to time sucks.)

Nope, I took myself for a walk around the lake. It was GLOH-REEE-USSSS! Never mind that I was wearing flat-soled unsuitable shoes with wool socks. Never mind that I had to totally book it so I could get home in time for the kids to be dropped off.

The walking trail is totally clear of snow! There are patches of lake showing through the ice! And there are smiling, happy people, loving it all up just like me!

So here's to the first of many outside evenings - and to the willpower to trade in packing tape for (hopefully more sensible next time) walking shoes.

Now, if you'll excuse me, off for a long shower. I have to machete my way through a thick forest shave my winter-neglected legs so I can wear bare knees tomorrow underneath my skirt!

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I Haven't Forgotten You (Or: I Miss You Too, Margaret!)

Sorry everyone - didn't mean to leave you hanging like that! I've actually been surprised by how much blogging became part of my routine; it felt very strange to not sit down at the computer every night this past weekend.

And I have good intentions of keeping this up - probably not at breakneck speed as per March, and likely something slightly more sedate, yet I still plan on making it worthwhile to check in now and again.

However, good intentions were no match for the weekend that was. Odysseus The Husband finally returned, beat off the suitors vying for my hand, and stormed his way right back into my heart with a bag o' Tim Hortons crullers.

Then, we hit double digits here:

(No - she's not wearing a toga. Birthday cake and presents for breakfast? That's just how we roll over here.)

Just look what her mother bought her for her birthday. A girl's first Terry Pratchett is a very special occasion...and she looks suitably impressed. I'm just waiting for her to get going on them so I can read them next - I haven't read the one on the right yet.

Crazy driveway times with the neighbourhood hoodlums. Note The Girl's bare feet - why wear shoes if they're just going to get wet?

While the kids were gallivanting, we were cleaning. And polishing. And organizing. We're trying to get out of our lease early, and someone wanted to come see our house tonight, so we had to spend the weekend making it look more like the pictures.

(Oh you guys - I should totally have taken before/after pictures of my linen closet. It is amazing. I open the door and sneak looks in every time I go down the hallway.)

Of course, a house showing means actually leaving the house. So tonight we took the kids out for dinner (they were in shock. We never eat out, except for family vacations. They were totally over the moon).

And went on a date!

Recognize her? That's Sarah Vowell - one of my favourite authors. If you don't know her books, you may have heard her voice as "Violet" in The Incredibles.

(Seriously - she is one of my favourite Americans. She loves her country but hates so much of what's been done in its name, all with the sassiest and bitingest sarcasm you can stand.)

She just happened to be doing a reading at our local Barnes and Noble, so The Husband and I wedged our way into the standing room only crowd (hola fellow nerds!).

The kids kept themselves entertained, too:

(Be still my literary heart. Little reading munchkins always make me mellllllt.)

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