Finishing Up

Dearest Friends and Family,

Seven days left. Things around here are just bizarre. I cleaned out our junk drawer. Who does that?

We have boxes everywhere--big boxes, little boxes, filled boxes, empty boxes, boxes to ship, to pack, to store, to donate, to unpack, to hide, to wrap, to mail. Boxes are my life.

I keep saying good-bye to people but I'm not crying. I'm a crier when it comes to good-byes but I'm not sad this week. That's bizarre. I'm so excited to leave and I keep picturing reuniting with everyone when we come home and I'm excited about that too. I do, however, have this strong feeling of wanting to push pause on all your lives so I don't miss anything. One friend of mine just brought home her new baby and I won't get to see her baby and her love for her baby grow. Another friend of mine is about to quit a job that I've been waiting for her to quit for a long time and I won't get to be here as she figures out what to do next. Another friend of mine is getting married a week after I leave town and I won't get to celebrate that with her. Another friend of mine who is out-of-state is going to have a baby a month or so after I leave and I won't get to talk with her on the phone to hear all about it. And then there are all the other things that will happen that we don't even know about yet and I'll miss being here for all of that too. Why can't we have it all??? My mother told me once that we can have anything we want we just can't have everything we want and I guess this is an example of that.

Anyway, Jordan is doing much better. Thank you all for your thoughts about her--they were very helpful and reassuring. The other day I asked her to go get her shoes. She said, "Okay, Mama," and started to walk away. Then she turned around, came back to me and said, "Did you hear how I just said that? I said 'Okay Mama' instead of 'Nooooo, I don't waaaaaannnnnaaaaaa'." My heart bulged when she said that. I squatted down next to her and said how exciting that was and asked how that felt for her and she said "good!" with a big smile and I asked if that was easy or hard and she said "easy!" with the same big smile. I was thrilled--not just because she didn't whine but because she noticed that she didn't whine and that it felt good to her not to whine. We've had a much easier go of it since that day though there have still been some setbacks. If she was functioning at about 30%-40% a week ago, she's up to 70% or 80% now. Phew, we're out of that dark place, for now.

Speaking of Jordan, here she is at the Butterfly Pavilion with her Grandparents. She's in heaven with butterflies landing on her nearly hatched from their cocoons.

For those of you who have asked how the kids are doing as we get closer to leaving, I took a survey this morning at breakfast. They both raised their hands for excited, scared and sad and kept their hands down for angry, confused and 'I don't care'. Neither had any feelings to add. Seems right to me!

My parents and brother were here for a week and I thought that if we got all our stuff done by the time they got here, we could just relax and enjoy our time with them. We did get everything done that we planned to get done before they arrived. But I forgot to account for everything that I didn't plan to get done that still needed to get done so we didn't have a very relaxing time. It was a very busy time and it was great to be together and more than anything, we are grateful for their help with things and their company while we got the things done. My car is all set to leave sitting for a year, my and my children's teeth are clean enough to last a year (I wish I could say the same for Mark--though his teeth issues aren't due to a lack of cleanliness but about their lack of staying power), our wills are in their final draft form and waiting to be signed, our tax info is off to the accountant, most of my office furniture has been sold, etc...

So this week is about finishing up. Finishing up with my clients, Mark is finishing up with his students and co-workers, we're finishing up packing, storing, shipping, we're finishing up with all our friends for the last time, and the kids are finishing up school.

Oh, and we think we found the car we are going to buy to drive while we're there. It is a car that another exchange family from Canada used in Australiathis past year and they are selling it before they come back home. The bad news is that it is old and the good news is that it is cheap. We're hoping that we are buying a worthwhile car, sight unseen. We're trusting that this exchange person has enough sympathy for people on exchange that he wouldn't sell us a useless car. He says it is in great condition and that he's fixed all that needs to be fixed. Here's a picture of its outsides. We'll let you know when we get there about its insides.

I think that is it for now...have a wonderful week before Christmas everyone!

Love, Nancy


P.S. These pictures were taken by my mother, the photographer--I'm taking advantage of the fact that she was visiting and we got some great pictures out of the deal as Mark and I will be the photographers from here on out and there are no guarantees with us that you'll even see pictures much less good ones.