I can't believe it's been around six months since I've updated this blog. There's really no good excuse I can come up with for the absence, other than 'time flies'. Here's a quick summary of what we've been doing for the last six months:
Most of April was beginning to finish up one school year, while enrolling for this fall (high school for the boy, and middle school for the girl). The high school program is very different from the middle school program. There were lots of choices for him to consider, and lots of thought put into the amount of courses to take for eventual graduation. We also had to take into consideration courses that were more successful 'land based' and ones that would work whether or not we were on land. In the end he chose a very large load of courses in hopes of jump starting the necessary credits and making the later years easier at the same time.
May was the mad dash to finish the school year. Both children has massive end of year projects to complete. Between end of course exams and year end projects, everyone was kept fairly busy. We were more than ready for summer break when the month finally ended.
In June I had shoulder surgery. I sustained an injury a couple of years back that tore my shoulder and blew a disc in my neck. Last summer I had neck surgery to repair the damage to my neck. We had all hoped that the neck surgery and time would take care of the shoulder, but alas, that didn't happen. By the time I went in for the shoulder, the tear was bigger and I would never have been able to sail with it. With the shoulder being the most complicated joint in the body, the recovery is quite lengthy. I am currently still in physical therapy, but the shoulder is already impressively better than it was pre-surgery. With a couple of more months of strengthening, I'll be able to use it one hundred percent.
July was spent hiding indoors. Texas in July is an inferno. The daily temps exceeding one hundred degrees saps all energy from you. The children were brave enough to endure going to the water park, but I will admit I dropped them off and picked them up when they were done. I hid inside in my air conditioning dreaming of, this time next year, being somewhere that didn't exceed the upper eighties.
With August came the realization that we were four months from leaving this place, and would essentially be homeless. We spent most of the month planning our departure, finding temporary places to stay, working out the finances, and preparing for a new school year. I had the children begin their new school year a few weeks early (mid-August) so that we could take extra time off in December for the relocation (more details on that to come).
September the first arrived and I had a small panic attack as I realized I had only ninety days to somehow shrink the contents of our household to fit into a ten by ten storage room and a four by eight trailer. Currently the children are on their fourth week of school while I start culling out the contents of our apartment. We've decided the downsizing begins with five piles: throw away, donate, sell, permanently store, and pack to take with us. It's an odd feeling to be manic and stressed, but excited at the same time.
Our deadline is fast approaching, and I am determined that we will meet it. When we drive out of here on December 1st, we'll be towing a small trailer, listening to a yowling cat in the back of the SUV, waiting for the children to begin "are we there yet," and grinning from ear to ear that our adventure has finally begun!
-more details on the adventure will follow soon!
