Settling in

We have been in the new house for two weeks now, and things are settling down. We're in that somewhat unfortunate state where the living areas are pretty much set up and we have all of the things we need for everyday life, so we can just ignore all of those unpacked boxes downstairs and on the back porch, right?

Well, not if we want to set up the basement bedroom as a schoolroom. Currently, it's piled high with tubs of outgrown clothes and a refrigerator and dryer. We meant to put the refrigerator (and portable dishwasher, currently living on the back porch) up on Craigslist before we moved, but didn't manage it, so they came with us. We had intended to sell our washer and dryer as well, but we discovered the ones in this house are currently lacking such amenities as knobs for changing the settings and don't work well, so we brought ours over here instead. Only neither the owner nor could get the old dryer unhooked from the gas line, so we have a dryer sitting in our spare bedroom instead.

Despite the rogue appliances, we are definitely chipping away at the piles. We still need to do a big toy organization and general purge (which I meant to do when packing, but I didn't wind up doing much of the packing). And one thing I love about this house? It's so big that even with piles of boxes and crap all over the place, I'm not going crazy from the clutter, feeling like I'm surrounded and everything is closing in on me.

We're slowly getting back into normal life as well. School has not been high on K's list of priorities in the past couple weeks. Everything was in chaos, grandparents were here B's parents, to whom we are unbelievably grateful for all of the help they gave us moving and cleaning), and she's developing another fucking UTI (she scored a referral to a urologist after the last one, but that's not for another three weeks), none of which make any of us inclined to concentrate too hard on school. Unfortunately, we still have to do it. I'm hoping getting the schoolroom set up will help everyone's focus.

I keep meaning to write more. Every night, I open a page to write a post and somehow the time to write never really materializes. It was somewhat gratifying when I was recently describing my schedule to someone and from their reaction it was clear that apparently working 35+ hours a week and homeschooling IS a lot of work, so it's not just me, since sometimes I feel like I'm just malingering and I really could find time to do more.

Anyway, I'm planning on posting on how homeschooing is going plus developmental updates for both children. As a teaser: Alec's latest phrase is "Oh no!" It makes me want to engineer minor calamities so I can hear him wander around saying "Ohhhh nooooo!" like a little toddler Cassandra.