Goodbye Pierceville!

Saying goodbye to the house today was more gut-wrenching than I ever imagined. Memories of driving the dump truck to Ikea with Sawyer in a infant carseat to buy kitchen cabinets, finishing the nursery first then building the house around him, finding out I was pregnant again, racing cars up and down the halls, wonderful dinners, nights on the deck . . . I lay in bed last night with tears streaming into my hair and onto the pillow thinking about this being the last night I would spend in the house we built, board by board, together. It isn't easy to walk away from. But the memories belong to us, not the house. And there are new memories to be created, elsewhere.

Goodbye Baptists!

Sawyer said goodbye to his friends at the Baptist preschool today. Tomorrow, Colorado!



Addendum: When we left my parents for the airport this morning Sawyer said: No more hugs. I don't have time. I have to go to Colorado. Wonder where he got the idea that hugs take a long time ;)

Rocky Mountain Hi

This is one of those 'Where do I even begin?' posts. I've sat down multiple times to write it, as evidenced by the three drafts in my folder. It's just too much to digest and regurgitate in one quippy little blog entry. This topic demands the time and attention span of a really juicy Vanity Fair article. Since I've been pondering how to write this post, people have gotten pregnant AND had their babies, so I need to just get on with it. This is the Reader's Digest version, and it's still long. So get yourself a glass of wine and your reading spectacles.

I've basically had a one-third-life crisis, as opposed to a mid-life crisis, which I'm postponing until 50. I woke up one day a few months ago (coincidentally not long after Scott lost his job) and said: I don't want to do this anymore. 'This' being living in a place that doesn't feel like home. 'This' being my marriage, in its current state. 'This' being the person I've become, who I don't even recognize when I look in the mirror.

Seven years ago, we came here from Colorado for a four-month vacation. We stayed because of a golden shimmer on the horizon, the promise of easy money thanks to a booming real estate market (insert sarcastic laugh here). We always planned on going back. The four-month plan turned into a one year plan which turned into the three year plan and that became the five year plan. I'm here to tell you that, seven years later, I've seen a lot of rainbows, but never have we found that pot of gold. Truth be told, I don't really give a damn about the gold. Certainly not at the expense of my family.

Having Scott living two hours north of here, seeing him for 24 hours on the weekend was not what I signed up for. I never planned to move back to Northern Virginia. I grew up there and left, decidedly, when I graduated high school. After he lost his job, Scott wasn't even looking for work in the Northern Neck. So, what was I doing here? As Scott continued chasing job opportunities in Northern Virginia, two hours away from home, I started sending my resume to every job opening west of the Great Plains. I got a hit in Granby, Colorado, scraped together the world's most meager travel budget, visited, and landed the job on the spot. I had four weeks to move.

I can't tell you how much my stomach churned after I walked out of that newspaper office. What do they say about being careful what you wish for? The reality of the situation set in. I worried about uprooting the kids and taking them out of good schools and away from friends for the unknown. I realized how much I love this house. I have a stable job. I have AMAZING friends here who I, maybe, underestimated at times. And, most importantly, I have Mimi and Pop Pop. How could I take the kids away from them?

Joining the Granby paper wasn't going to be a major career move in the up-the-ladder sense or the making-more-money sense either. Even they acknowledged that. It would be different, though, in a lot of good ways. It's a three-times-per-week community newspaper that is gearing up to be five-times and there is quite a bit of growth potential for me within the company. Really, it was about shaking life up and trying something new.

I realized that for these past seven years, I've just been along for the ride. I had to do this. For me. The kids are resilient. Mimi and Pop Pop travel. It's time for a new career challenge. The house had always been an investment, not a dream. The kids are young enough that this move won't permanently scar them. It was time to grip the wheel.

One foot in front of the other, I began by walking into my boss's office and resigning. That lifted an amazing weight off me. Now, there was no turning back. I took out ads to sell all the extra gear and stuff we had accumulated over the years. Three boats, two trailers, a step van, four computers, two crossbows, about two dozen fishing rods (never caught a fish), a partly built wooden kayak kit, clothes, outgrown baby gear . . . oh wait a minute - THERE"S THE POT OF GOLD!!!!!

We sold all that stuff for a song. Scott - to his credit - bargained his little heart out and then cried about it later. We made enough money to make the move. I started packing up the house. Meanwhile, Scott was STILL applying for jobs in Northern Virginia, because he hadn't really gotten IT yet. He was totally focused on getting back what he'd lost. The job. The stature. The money. Without seeing what he was losing.

Sometimes us women folk have to slap our men across the face and say: This train is leaving, Buddy. Get on board, now or never. We have to do that prepared for the possibility that in the next moment we'll be hanging out the window waving our handkerchief at the man we loved, standing on the platform as the train pulls away. I really had no idea which way it was gonna go for me. I'm still not completely certain.

But, by way of an answer, Scott announced Monday that he was going pack everything up and drive it out to Granby this week. He'd rent a house and settle things in. He'd drop the car off at the airport long term parking on Tuesday. Return here for a few weeks to get the house ready for renters (Fate kicked in and we found wonderful people to live here), finish a few quick projects and drive the last of the stuff across the country in his truck and trailer. Meanwhile, the kids and I would fly Saturday the 26th, pick up the car, move in and have a week to settle before I start my new job on Friday, Oct 2. We finally had a plan.

Two days later, Scott pulled out of our driveway. 36 hours after that he arrived, sleepless, in Colorado. He is there now, soaking it in and loving it, reconnecting with old friends and, hopefully, doing some soul searching. He has rented a place, a townhouse on a golf course. Apparently, I can walk to the grocery store AND Starbucks from the house (oh dear God help me), and I'll only be about five minutes from work.

I'm not kidding myself, the coming months are going to be hard. I'm gonna be poor. I'll still be coupon mom. The kids will probably be all freaked out. I'll have a new schedule and job to learn. They'll have a new school or daycare. And, at least for a little while, we'll be doing it all alone. But, I'm holding out hope for my little family. That we can pull it together and find happiness again in the place where we once had so much of it. Keep us in your thoughts (and prayers if you have 'em) as we depart on this grandest of life adventures. If nothing else, it's sure to make for some interesting blogs!

The new me

So last week I get a call from a producer at the Bonnie Hunt show . . . .

Oh, wait a minute. I'm not DOOCE. I don't make six figures off my blog and tour the celebrity docket and change diapers on live t.v. I'm COUPON MOM now. I seriously get a high from saving money at the grocery store. Like last week. I saved $50 using coupons and MVP savings. Just about danced my way out the door. I print my own coupons off the internet, and I even have friends leave me coupons on my desk and save me coupons they find. When the money is flowing, it's so easy to forget about coupons, to not bother. But when times are tight, I carry around an overstuffed envelope full of coupons. I become that person at the grocery store who you don't want to get behind. Particularly because sometimes I haven't actually taken the time to organize or even clip the coupons and I'm standing there in front of a line of people trying to find and neatly tear out the coupons I need. I'm YARD SALE MOM too, now. That book, yep, $2. That bag of non-washable Crayola crayons, $1. Yes, that is my infant son's mug in that picture frame. That will be $3. Poor Sawyer was clinging to his Ambulance with squinted eyes daring anybody to touch it. If only I lived in a state where they pay cash for bottles I might be digging through recycle bins too.

A.W.O.L.

Months ago, I scheduled a week's vacation at the end of August to go on a family vacation to the Outer Banks with some friends. When Scott lost his job, we had to bail out on the trip. But, I never canceled my week off. I was considering the possibility of a staycation until last Friday when I got a call that prompted me to purchase a last minute ticket to Colorado. (Air Tran only $69 bucks each way 48 hrs in advance). I decided that I was taking off for six days and promptly left Scott in charge of kids, house, dog, grocery shopping and laundry. See ya! It was the most liberating thing I've ever done. I never looked back. It was kinda unnerving, actually, to realize how easy it is to forget you even have kids. Since I was on the world's smallest travel budget, I got creative. I caught a ride from the airport with a friend's husband, borrowed a car or an old bike to get around, used public transportation whenever possible and never turned down a meal that was offered to me. And I made a $5 bag of oriental snack mix from the airport newsstand last the whole six days. I felt like I was in college. I even went to a keg party! I met up with two friends from high school, one of whom decided, on a whim, to relive 1994 and get a keg. It was the funniest thing. We barely made a dent in it, what with the adults being outnumbered 2-to-1 by kids, but my peeps and I parked ourselves in a corner and did our part. We staked out an Adirondack double chair, sat down at 5 p.m. and didn't give it up for the rest of the night. It became a challenge to see how long we could keep the chair. We would only get up one-at-a-time to get food or refill beverages or add layers of clothing. And when a campfire was lit later in the night to cook s'mores, we moved the entire 80 pound chair across the yard. I will say that Air Tran should be called Air Scam. We practically crash landed on the way in. And on the way out we had not one but TWO planes declared mechanically unfit for flight. The second time it was a problem with the battery and as we were sitting at the gate Scott asked me what they were going to do to fix it and I said: It's a battery. They're going to jiggle some cables and pour some Coke on the connections. A little while later, it turned out to be a circuit breaker accidentally flipped off. Doesn't it make you feel better about flying to know that there's a circuit box onboard, just like in your basement, that occasionally goes screwy. I'm not one of these moms who pines after the kids the whole time I'm gone. In fact, I didn't miss them until I was headed home and thinking about getting a big hug. When I pulled in the driveway, it was the oddest sensation to have my kids look at me like a total stranger. I hugged and kissed and cuddled them and relished their peanutbuttery smell. And I was ready for another three years of Motherhood. Next time I go AWOL, I expect it will be really big (maybe Mexico), and I plan to have more money. Perhaps I'll even get a massage!