I can’t write lately. Not just blog posts, but stories and lesson plans and my many other writerly things are all gummed up. It’s not exactly writer’s block… that’s being stuck for ideas isn’t it? I’ll know exactly what I want to say and in a fuzzy way that’s hard to explain I even know exactly how I want to say it but then I start and… eh. Same for drawing anything. Can’t do it. It feels like a traffic jam.

Early last week I passed a kidney stone. It wasn’t as exciting as the last couple of times, no ER visit required. Just a basic trip to the doctor’s office to make sure I hadn’t been inhabited by illegal aliens like in that one science fiction movie. The doctor didn’t do much except confirm that it hurts and check for infection by whapping me in the kidneys and stomach until I told him he shouldn’t do that to people. To punish me for criticizing him he banned me from drinking caffeine and then demanded that I give him the thirty dollars I would have spent on Cokes during that time.

I’m not saying this to apologize for the long time between posts. I’m apologizing for the crazy deluge of posts that’s going to hit this blog once I go back to drinking soda and tea.

There’s a fly in the house. The boys resent us for not building a cabin for us in the woods so we can live surrounded by insects. But a fly is in our house! Eeeeeek, ew get it awayyyy from meeee. And so on. While I caught up on a little work, the boys ate their breakfast and talked about what to do about the fly situation.

Nicolaus showed Graham how to properly shoo a fly away from your food. That kid can turn anything into a formal cooking-show type of lesson.

At one point they tried to trap it under an empty bowl but I fussed at them to sit back down and eat. The did but boy, this little bug was a distraction.

Graham finally handled it. He went and got a clean cup and filled it with water. He drank some of the water, then put the still-almost-full cup on the table.

“It’s okay, I got it!”

“You caught the fly?” Nicolaus was relieved and impressed.

“No but I made a TRAP. The fly will find that cup of water and he will go in it…”

“And drown?”

“No! He will go in it and drink that water and he’ll get so many Graham germs that he’ll DIE IMMEDIATELY.”

The part where nothing is settled or in the right place always puts me in a bad mood. It’s overwhelming. Nothing here is painted turquoise, all of our framed artwork is leaned against the walls, and I still can’t find the box of legos and where is the good vegetable peeler? and so on.

The strategy so far has been:

Step 1. shove boxes of things into the room where they’ll go.
Step 2. Take everything out of boxes, stack it all up sort of in the part of the room where it might need to end up.
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Admire results.
Step 5. Become the kind of person who keeps things clean. Buy a label maker and never be disorganized ever again.

During step three I start to freak out and usually end up buying a bunch of matching Sterilite bins. Those help but I can tell there is supposed to be something else to it. Like the times when Nicolaus was a toddler and he insisted that he knew how to drive because he had steered his grandfather’s truck. He didn’t know that pedals existed. There’s something to keeping a clean home that exists that I don’t know about. Some kind of daily effort or I don’t know… gear shift maybe.

YES, I know about the broom. Wise ass.

So I’ve been stressed this week. All of our school stuff is stacked up on and around the shelves; we can’t find most of what we need without pawing through it all. Still needs step three. Everything is like that and I know it is temporary but still, it’s been making me feel very spikey. The kids pull toys out to play with them and it makes me cringe. NO no what are you doing? I just unpacked that and found a place for it. You are undoing my work!

So. The weekend was devoted to me trying to stop being like that. It’s been a success I think. We went out for lunch. Kevin helped me cut the boys’ hair. We picked mulberries. The dog finds ones that fall on the ground and he rolls in them… so by the end of the day yesterday he was covered in purple spots. Last night I scrubbed the spots off and he looked great until first thing this morning when he ran outside and did it again. Now I’m thinking maybe there is nothing wrong with a spotty purple dog.

Now it’s late Sunday night, the weekend is over and it’s sad… I am tired, but in such a good, healthy way. Today I helped the boys transplant three baby pine trees which were never going to make it unless we rescued them. We read about bonsai trees and now everyone in the house has a little tree in a little pot. They will probably die, won’t they? I hope not. Nicolaus loves the idea of making tiny landscapes.

Then while Kevin cooked a whole chicken on the grill, I did useful things like dishes and a load of towels. Then I raked leaves for no reason other than wanting them to be gone. Nicolaus volunteered to take over raking and I was glad to let him do it but still, you just don’t know how unlike me it is to even see that leaves on the ground are there and might someday be raked. Me going to find a rake for any reason other than to film a funny short film about the time my dad kept stepping on a rake and hitting himself and saying cuss words is just weird.

I also killed a spider the size of me. I wasn’t going to kill it but it had an egg sac. You outdoorsy people can go ahead and laugh, but I saw Charlotte’s Web and one of the morals of that story was that spiders have a thousand babies. The thought of hundreds of giant black spiders running around was too much for me.

Graham cried because he really loved the spider and asked me to promise that the very next spider I see will be allowed to live. Then Nicolaus gave him a little plastic spider and man, I’m a jerk aren’t I? She was a fellow mother. What kind of woman does that make me? This is the real reason for the glass ceiling right here, moms who are so ready to take down other moms.

Normally I’m all about catch and release. (with spiders, I mean. I do not capture human mothers). If that same spider had shown up in the house I would have caught her and dumped her outside. But we already were outside. So where would I have dumped it? IN the house? See, there was no other option. I sprayed it with organic, all-natural deadly poison and made my little boy cry.

Then I worked on the garage which is where we threw all of the last-minute stuff from the apartment. I made a lot of progress tonight even though really? Jumping up and going to clean something because it was messy? Who am I?

But we’ve been living here a couple of weeks now, and I’d sort of like to park my car in the garage just for the novelty of doing that. Because I used to watch Silver Spoons.; people with ice water-offering butlers don’t park in the driveway.

Every time I start to write, I want to post pictures. But then I can’t find the USB thing to put the pictures from the camera on the computer and at that point all the romance for the idea is lost, now instead of being magical pictures of childhood blog lady I’m damn it why can’t I ever find anything scatterbrain frustrated chore aaaaaaaagh. Then someone spills something and needs help finding a cup with a top and the dog wants out and so no pictures.

That’s okay, I can write about it all with words! Words are easy. You just tap on the buttons and there they are. No cables or uploading or etc.

But words are heavy, and I’m tired. Moving is bad for tired.

But also? Moving is wonderful. I love changes and this one is a major luckyduck upgrade. It’s basically all of the things we liked about our house in Texas — cute older house with wood floors, layout that has us close to the kids (for some reason), a great yard, easy-going but friendly neighbors.

Except the floors are NICE. And the fixtures are all new. And the fridge — OMG. If I were one of those ancient peoples who believed you had to take things with you into a tomb so you’d have them in the afterlife, I’d take this refrigerator. It’s bigger than my car, and fancier. We are all drinking more water because how fun is an ice and water dispenser?? Would you like crushed ice like you get at fancy restaurants? We HAVE THAT In our kitchen. It’s like we have hired a butler with a very specialized focus.

We also have an apple tree, a mulberry bush, and miles of honeysuckle bushes. Our children now get most of their daily calories one tiny honeysuckle drop at a time. We have a deck/patio. That’s the dream! We are living the dream! I love wooden deck/patios. It allows me to enjoy being outside without having to touch anything scratchy or buglike.

You should see how much the dog loves this yard. Mouse was pretty glad that we had a yard because pooping in the house is so unseemly, and he would on hot days go out there to lie in the sun. But he didn’t really frolic in the yard. Roux zooms, rolls in the grass, he sniffs, he trees squirrels, he hides bones and finds them. He chews on sticks and pinecones, then spits them out. He chases every bird that lands on the grass. He alerts us that OMG! OMG! we have neighbors. He races with the boys, running huge rings around them so he doesn’t get too far ahead.

Last weekend Kevin and the boys built a little raised bed garden and are you laughing at what big sappy dorks we are about this house yet? Big big big big dorks. There’s still a lot of unpacking and organizing and picture-hanging to do, but it’s so much more fun to go outside and play. And/or just stand there and open and close my glorious refrigerator. The freezer is a big drawer on the bottom that pulls out, did I tell you that? It’s TRUE.

We are planning a trip to Texas, just me and the kids because Kevin’s job is mean and won’t pay him if he doesn’t go to work. Typical corporate scum, right? So it’s at the point where I’m looking for killer deals on airline tickets and figuring out dates. But every time I mention it, Graham runs off and starts packing and then I have to break his heart and tell him that we aren’t going immediately.

“But I already know what I’m bringing. And I already tinkled. And can we go to that restaurant that I like with the money tree on the way to the airport?”

“The OK Cafe?”

“Yeah the one that’s always on the way to the airport?”

“Probably. But not today.”

“But I really wannnnnted to go visit Mamo and Baba right now!”

“I know, but we can’t go today.”

“But I LOVE them. And I love grilled cheese sandwiches…” Sobbing, huge tears now.

“At their house?”

“At the restaurant we’re going to now on the way to the airport.”

“Graham. We aren’t going to the airport today. We have to buy a ticket and it’ll be for a different day.”

(big, dripping, tears) “But I ALREADY HAVE my shoes on! And they also have sweet potatoes.”

Maybe this is less about an airplane ride and grandparents and a wonderful trip to Texas and more about lunch.