See Ya Monday

This will probably be my last post for a few days. Our internet connection here at the house is going to be turned off, and the one at the new house will be turned on. The little local company we use won't allow us to have a connection in two places, annoyingly enough, and forget rescheduling, we'd need a pardon from the Queen of England or something to get THAT done. As it is, we have the usual annoying window for service at the new place of somewhere between 3pm and the end of time.

I have spent the last few days totally knocking myself out, bringing Patrick to school, scrubbing and painting at the new place, picking him up, dropping him off at home with sinus-infected DH, and then going back over to the new place to scrub and paint some more. Then I come home, make dinner, clean up, read to Josie, and fall into bed, to have weird moving-week dreams. Today, for a little variety, I threw in a long drive to drop off Patrick with DH's sister, Jane, who I love, and his cousins for the weekend, and a mad vacuum-dusting fest at the current place so everything'll be ready when the packers come tomorrow. I never thought I'd be glad to see the day when I have 'only' one house to clean!!

Everyone I talk to says the same two things - 'Oh, that was so FAST, wow!" and 'Well, at least it's almost over.' It is all I can do not to smack those people right upside their stupid heads! We first learned of the potential for losing our house *five months ago*. Since every day I have spent looking at these walls I so carefully wallpapered imagining them being knocked down has been a long one, that's a loooong time to me, not to mention the emotional and mental 'time' I have spent dwelling on it. No, no, not so fast at all, and I would like some credit for all that time rather than a dismissively trite 'almost over' . Uh-uh.

This week in the paper, news of our neighborhood's plight has gotten out. I am not a financially secretive person - if you ask me what I paid for something, I'll tell you, no problem. But, seeing our names, address, and what we were paid for our house by the county as it's being demolished is disturbing to me. I realize that it's public knowledge, since it was purchased with public funds, but I still feel weird. Even worse, the article detailed how shoddily some of our neighbors are being treated! The poor people two doors up from us were offered their asking price on their house (which was for sale until the county told them a few months ago that they couldn't sell it), and then at a council meeting this week, after the owner had signed the offer, when it came time to do the final vote, two people on the county council *changed their minds* and voted AGAINST the offer they had previously voted FOR, one on the grounds that the offer was too high (but apparently hadn't been the week before?) and the other - my favorite - because since they've decided that only the front half of the property will be needed for the road widening, he wanted to buy ONLY THE FRONT PORCH, rip it off, and just pay for that part of the property, leaving the naked house front directly on the sidewalk. That, my friends, is a serious contender for Dillhole of the Year. What a Wipe! I was afraid of that very thing happening to us, and even reading the article made me have a nausea-inducing panic attack. Luckily, there were enough people with a shred of decency that the house was purchased, anyway.

Anyway, God willing, the movers will be here in the morning, and will pack all our crap into boxes that we can climb over until they get moved on Monday. Cross your fingers for me that everything goes smoothly from here on out!!!