Hope4Peyton

Blog and you shall receive.

(Oh, hello, Frigidaire, I would love to be a Test Drive Mom, feel free to ask!!!)

However, my granted wish may not be so full of the OOOOOHHHH, WHOA! factor, yet it does come with it’s own special brand of YAY!

Because, I got boxes, yo!!

Lots of boxes.

Like, stacks of boxes so high you can no longer see my front door, lots of boxes.

Boxes of all shapes and sizes  <—because we do NOT box discriminate up in here!

And I am thankful.

The thing that truly makes me realize I have got to buckle down and actually accomplish some putting-of-things-into the boxes?

Well, it could be the fact that I spent a good portion of Saturday night asking strange men if they were in possession of a condom and if they were, would they be so kind as to blow it up for me?  It’s for CHARITY! Kids with cancer NEED you to blow up that condom!!  Some bald kid is just waiting for you to blow up the one Trojan you packed tonight with such high hopes, and it’s totally ok, dude, because you were SO NOT going to be using it anyway.  Trust me. With that unfortunate choice of facial hair grooming? Not a chance. Just BLOW UP THE CONDOM!

We were “Team Rehab” thankyouverymuch!

NOTE to self: Mirror +Words = FAIL

Team Rehab: Heidi Fleiss, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Paula Abdul and Amy Winehouse…and these? Are apparently all my REALLY white friends.

**side note just for my husband: GUESS who kicked MUCH boootay at the Star Wars/Comic Book trivia venue?  That’s right. Me. How sexy am I NOW?**

Packing instead of all THAT fun? Are you serious? Do you KNOW me at all?

Or it could be that one of the loads of boxes dropped off was from my friend Tiffany….whose daughter is going through Bone Marrow Transplant…so, nothing says Go-Getter! Responsible! Time Managing! adult like knowing that the mom of a child in BMT is trolling for boxes and has now officially done more in the way of the actual moving process than I have.

SO, I have arranged for some friends to come over, I will bribe them with coffee or mimosas (whatever works best) and tomorrow they will help me get things moving in the right direction.

THEY will be the driving force that inspires me to packing greatness!  We will move mountains of laundry and leap over rivers of accumulated C.R.A.P.!  With their help I WILL pack this house!  I will! I WILL!

Except for one friend. I will be keeping an eye on her to make sure she’s not actually drinking all my booze stealing all my clothes just unpacking the boxes as we go along, as she has repeatedly let me know she protests this move.

And she hates me now.

AWWW, sort of sweet, ain’t it?

What I Should Be Doing:

• Pack up all our belongings
• Arrange for a contractor to fix the scary stairs of death in the GA house
• Get appliances for the house here in FL so our renters can do things like…oh…say, BAKE things or WASH their dishes
• Planning the color schemes and painting plans to have a Weekend of Pretty over Memorial break
• TRYING to procure a lo cation for the going away party that doesn’t want to be thrown
• Planning the end-of-the-year party for Nathaniel’s class because WTH  was I thinking to volunteer as room parent this year…THIS year? Where was my brain?
• Find a sponsor for my BlogHer trip this summer, because who doesn’t want to throw money at the this hot mess?
• NOT lose my mind every time Peyton tells me she has a headache or is more tired than usual in the afternoon
• Keep a happy face about this move for the kids when I want to cry quite a bit because let me just tell you the sheer unadulterated JOY of PMSing and moving at the same time.
• Answer about 400 emails that need attention
• Just get through these next 3 weeks without strangling anyone for their random stupidity that, even though it would probably make the world a better place, is wrong.  Because we can’t afford bail right now. Or a lawyer.

What I’ve Been Doing Instead:

• A five minute search on Craigslist for free moving boxes turned into a time investment that rivaled any of my childbirthing experiences.  I love looking at couches and used video equipment and people who think someone will actually MAKE an OBO on a box of V HS tapes from 1984.
• I watched the season ender of LOST with a bunch of awesome ladies, who somehow make my crazy wicked love for all things Daniel Faraday seem totally normal…tell me you totally thought Gwyneth Paltrow’s head was going to come rolling out of the box.
• Getting nominated for a Nickelodean Parent’s Pick as Best Tampa Blogger AND as a *snort* Hot Mommy Blogger ….go ahead, LAUGH!  I have. But you CAN vote for me if you want to  ( My chances of winning are so ridiculously slim that I’d at least like to give the impression of thinking I am in the running)
  



• Living in a rage bubble around Grey’s Anatomy’s obsession with ruining my whole week by showing things like a terminally ill child dying painfully slowly, Izzy getting the full Hollywood cancer treatment including the bald head, the pasty white skin, the heavy sighing and sad eyes (GRRRR), and NOW? TONIGHT?  The writers get a big fat FAIL for using Neuroblastoma as a shiny HIGH point of the night AND having their screen oncologist use a phrase “and RARELY, the chemo kills the patient.”  I SHOULD have been packing.  REALLY.
• Having a dear friend tell me how she can’t believe that I’m really leaving and she doesn’t even know how to cope with the fact that I’m moving because I’m like a plunger. A PLUNGER.  Something you may not use every day, but when you need it what are you going to do without it? It’s good to know I’ll be missed.

  

• Starring at box after box of comic books and wondering how much money I could make on the aforementioned Craigslist for the whole lot, how long it would take for Peter to realize they’re missing and if a new flat-screen TV would keep him from hacking me into tiny, bite-sized pieces.
• NOT seeing Star Trek, Xmen Origins and Angels and Demons
• Being epically unproductive in ways unfathomable before my perfecting a level of slack usually attributed to one who has been dead for a long period of time

Most of the people who know I write a blog fall into very specific categories:

• Those who knew me before I blogged, so it doesn’t surprise them that I lay out all of my life for public consumption
• Those who met me as I was starting to blog, so it seems like I’ve always done it
• Those I’ve met because I blog, so nothing I do seems in the least bit odd to them

And all those people I’m about to meet in GA?  They don’t fall into ANY of those categories.

Will they think I’m weird?

Well, truthfully, they probably will anyway within about a week of having met me so there’s really no chance of hiding that.

Will people be freaked out that I’ll write about them?

I don’t write about my kid’s schoolmates or our neighbors now, so why would I start now?  Although. There is always the chance that there will be infinite amounts of blog fodder and I will literally have to cut off my own fingertips to keep from writing super snarky posts about minvans with gun racks.

The restraint!

The pain.

It’s too much.

How MUCH will I hate having to explain for the umpteenth time that YES, I consider myself a real writer even though I don’t have a book or a column…and NO, it’s not just a hobby…and YES, I do actually make money doing it….and NO, I don’t know Dooce.

Writing a blog is sort of ego-centric to begin with…it takes some serious balls to sit down and write about yourself and assume that ANYONE else is going to be remotely interested.  Frankly, it shocks the ever-living crap that you all read this and keep me going.

Telling other people that you write about yourself is humbling, because you’re more or less saying “HAI, here’s my soul on a platter, would you care to take a stab at it with that really rusty spoon over there?”

There’s also something a little disheartening about sharing something you feel passionate about and having it shrugged off as totally inconsequential…although I’m completely guilty of it on my end.  I will admit to NOT getting the scrapbooking thing, I just don’t, it’s really expensive and WHERE do you store all those books?

Anyway.

So, opinions, people!

Do I go in blog-blazing and getting it out there right off the bat or do I just sit quiet about it and hopefully let it come out in an natural way that won’t have all the new middle school moms starring at me as if I said I sacrifice puppies in my spare time?

**************************

And I have a post up over at Deep South Moms Blog about the best part of a really crappy field trip.

How do you cap off a perfect Mother’s Day?

If you’re me, the dessert for your special meal with your beloved only son is the up-close-and-personal experience of having the guy at the table next to you decide to puke R.I.G.H.T. at the table.

After which he does NOT do the expected thing of excusing himself to the restroom.

Oh NO!

Because that would be far too polite.

Instead he simply used his napkin and picked up his fork and proceeded on with the meal.

Did you see the movie “Stand By Me”? You rmember the barfarama scene?

Oh yeah. But with $25 worth of shrimp and crabs.

Nathaniel and I both turned totally green at the gills and got the heck out of dodge.

“I’m really sorry….”

“You know what, Mom? Let’s just never EVER talk about this again. It never happened, ok?”

I have a feeling Mother’s Day has forever been tainted for us both.

I have done really well with the whole NOT crying thing regarding this move.

I have a pretty good grasp on a number of key phrases I use when confronted with someone saying “It sucks that you’re moving.” <—which is not always how it’s put, but it all comes down the same sentiment.

Because I want to think that it’s sweet and lovely that people will miss us when we’re gone, but DAMMIT! if it doesn’t feel like a knife slice straight to the heart each and every time.

YES, I know that there will be daily email, text, Facebook and phone call exchanges.

That won’t make up for quick trips out to meet for coffee, long lunches over pitchers of sangria and pedicures filled with laughter.

YES, I know the kids will quickly make new friends and adjust to life in a new area.

It doesn’t stop my heart from aching when they realize that movie outings and playdates with THESE friends are coming to an end and their sadness compounds mine.

YES, I know that friends will come to visit.

But I also know that it won’t be as many as say they will, and not nearly frequently enough.

YES, I know that it’s a great place to make a new start for our family, free of the reputation of being the “cancer family”.

But cancer brought us relationships that are yet another family to say goodbye to.

As the days are counting down to packing the truck and bidding farewell to Florida, it’s not leaving the beach or the house or the PLACE that makes me hurt inside, it’s all the people that we love.

There are relationships that will fade over the miles.

There are some that will strengthen and make the distance that much harder to bear.

With every day that moves us closer to our move, every box that is filled and each LAST we experience, the reality of leaving behind this security net looms larger. I can’t begin to explain what leaving these people who have loved us, supported us, shared their faith and carried us through unimaginable times does to me.

This move is such a great thing for my family, we are finally going to be together the way we should after a very long seventeen months apart.  We are going to be moving into a beautiful house to start fresh.  New friends, new adventures, new challenges and new opportunities await.

But the goodbyes.

The goodbyes are killing me.

The crying is about to start…a few tears leaked out already…and once it starts, it’s going to get ugly.