The Land of Chaos

Hello.  My name is Amanda.  And I live in the land of chaos.

Or so it would seem.

Or is it the land of "absolutely nothing is going to go right because that would be much too easy and the universe is out to make sure my anxiety levels never go back to normal ever again"?

To be fair to the universe, it was me that chose to move.

But still... when the police shut down the moving truck rental place the day BEFORE you're due to pick up your moving truck because of a zoning violation, it gives one pause to ponder.  3 1/2 hours to be exact.  And when my husband goes all over town trying to track down the truck that is now being managed by a new (and seemingly incompetent) fool... errr.... I mean manager and then gets charged double what he should have instead of being given a promised discount... you shake your head.

But to be fair to the universe, the move went relatively smoothly  - even if all the boxes got dumped in the garage instead of in the rooms they were labeled with because it was so late and people had places to be and so I've had to continue to move full boxes and we still can't park in our garage now that there's snow (or almost snow) outside.

Then on the very same day, when I order pizza for everyone and the person taking my order even insists on calling me back to confirm the order because it's a pretty big order and then it's made in the wrong town, 8 hours away, just because our street name shares the name with the town, one may sigh an exasperated sigh because it was 7 o'clock before we finally fed our poor kids and hungry people that helped us move.

In all fairness, however, we saved 50% off our order when the mistake was discovered.

And when my husband calls me downstairs and points out a huge puddle of water on the floor thanks to a leaking facet in our laundry room, I'll admit I let out an expletive or two.

But to be fair, I find myself to be a lucky lady because 1) my husband knew how to turn off the offending water and 2) he fixed it lickety split after buying the needed supplies and I now have a much nicer faucet.  And I am terribly grateful that I have a sink beside my washing machine cuz I've never had one of those before... now I just need to buy a plug for it so I can soak things in it.

Then I tripped on my driveway and scraped my knee and hand.

I can however still walk.

And when I hurt my hip trying to help my husband move his long coveted pool table into the basement  because all the men we knew already had plans that day, I let out a tear or two and then called my dad who (hip hip hooray) now lives only 5 minutes away (if that) and happened to be running a couple errands for my mom who was packing to catch a plane in a few hours and was able to stop on the way home to help my husband carry that blasted slate.

And again I say, I can however, still walk.

And the carpet downstairs smells really awful.  We need to get it cleaned.

Speaking of getting carpets cleaned, I may have almost nearly lost it this morning as I was trying to madly clean our old house (or as Nate says - previous house) before the new owner takes possession on Friday when the carpet cleaners did not show up this morning as expected.  After two phone calls to the esteemed place of business, we found out that the person who was supposed to clean our almost-no-longer-ours carpets was in the hospital.

How can I be mad at that???  The guy's in the hospital.  At least I'm not in the hospital.  And we now have an appointment for Thursday at 3:30.  And they promise the carpets will be dry in time for possession.

I practiced my breathing today as I was on my cell phone to our telephone service provider, looking to see if we would ever get phone service to our new home.  It was supposed to be changed over on Friday and on Monday, they were still unable to provide it and now we must wait around tomorrow - sometime between 9 and 5 - for someone to come and physically fix it.  Except that since we have appointments tomorrow we won't necessarily be here.

But to be fair, it's not all bad.  At least we have cell phones (even if mine keeps shutting down on it's own and I miss all sorts of calls) and we can check our messages from those cell phones.

And were that not enough for my already full brain to comprehend, I ran into the vice principal at the end of the day today who had a paper for me to sign regarding an appointment for Finleigh tomorrow at 4:30 with the developmental pediatrician who we've been waiting for since June.  I had no previous knowledge of this appointment, but luckily Will's counseling appointment ends at 4:20 and is only 5 minutes away, so we should be able to make it okay.

To be fair, that should work out well.  Or it would except that my beautiful, darling daughter fell asleep just before supper and refused to wake up until 11:30 pm just as I was lying my head on my dear, dear, underused pillow.  So, now who knows how tomorrow will go, especially since she has swimming in the morning with the school.

But to be fair... I was the one who kept her awake when she could have been napping because we were at our "previous" house trying desperately to make it clean enough to meet the expectation set in our contract of sale.  And my husband, who had been asleep, offered to get up with her but I told him that was silly because tomorrow was his last day at home before he had to got back to work for 6 12 hour shifts and he needed his sleep.  To which my husband told me that I am a wonderful wife and a really great mother, which feels nice to hear even if I doubt it's accuracy.

The cleaning is still not done, by the way.

Really though, the kids seem to be adjusting well.  Even if Willem, who has some sort of skin irritation on his face and won't let my put some cream on it to help it because he wants his skin to heal it naturally, threatened last night to secede (his word, not mine) from the family if I did not consider changing his bedtime.  And even if Nate is peeing very often and making me wonder if he has a bladder infection or something worse, which means a trip to the doctor soon, me thinks.

Finleigh, despite crying and waking up the entire family the first night we were in our new house, actually slept all the way through the night last night and didn't get out of bed before 6 am.  That hasn't happened in months and months.  Our new neighborhood is very quiet.  Our old one wasn't.  Maybe that helps.

And now, Complainy Complainerson here will stop her griping and go sit with her daughter and watch her as she watches her 500th episode of Toopy and Binoo , which would be a much more pleasant endeavor if I could find the novel I'd started reading before the move.  But I can't.  I can find the novel that was sitting on top or the novel I was reading before we moved, but I can't find the actual novel.  And I believe I may be missing a review book too.  Huh.  I'm sure I'll find it eventually. (I had to get one more complain in there)

Good night, sweet friends.  Good night.