Tidy-challenged

Well, life got a little more interesting this week. The DH (darling husband) has moved on ahead of us and is in Boston as a fun little prelude to our trek north to New York. It cracks me up that we got married in Colorado, spent our honeymoon in the middle of the Mohave desert, moved to Maryland, moved to Idaho, moved to Texas, are moving to New York. . . kind of like having a root canal year after year. With no anesthesia. And a dull, rusty drill. Well, maybe not that bad, but I'm not looking forward to moving the kids again after just two years in Texas. They take comfort from my saying I moved all the time growing up as an Air Force Brat kind of like I took comfort as a kid from my parents telling me they had to walk to school 10 miles and it was uphill both ways and the snow was always four feet deep.

The two oldest are supposed to be helping me to get the house ready to move, but so far their interpretation of help is to empty everything we own onto the floor so it's easier for the packers to see. . .Does home owner's insurance cover packers tripping on our junk, or is it workman's comp? Do they charge extra if we leave it all inconveniently tucked away instead of solicitously strewn about in plain sight? And do I have to pay extra for 3 cartons large enough to each fit a child, a week's worth of provisions and a Nintendo DS?

Such thoughts I have as I am trying to sort through years of debris. I know of people who actually throw out everything not nailed down, sometimes even before their family members are finished with the items. Like the current newspaper, that morning's breakfast, or the cup of coffee in their hand. . . I am tidy challenged, and sometimes I think I really can't blame it on the kids. I just believe there are so many more interesting things to do than housework; ice skating (today's field trip), grocery shopping, cartwheeling through hot coals, trimming the five-year old's finger nails. . . just about anything is better than housework. I am sure it's just an attitude thing, but after three kids and the same messes day after day, and the same monotonous tasks hour after hour, it takes a better imagination than mine to make housework interesting and rewarding. Maybe I need to set up one of those token economies for myself. . .wash three dirty dishes, win a free Kewpie doll or something. Mmmm.

Anyway, as a tidy-challenged person, this moving thing is the pits. We have enough to keep us busy around here without trying to stuff everything we own into boxes and figure out what's in them after we've moved. I hope they don't mind the puppy mud on the baseboards. Maybe we'll even have the amount of stuff we own thinned down to what actually fits into our house by the time the movers really get here. Just because I'm tidy-challenged doesn't mean I can't be an optimist!