The Fourth and Going Forth

Here are see e a couple of updates about the past few days:

July 4th – It was overall a very good day! We went down to my brother’s house and got there about 3:00. I didn’t mention it before, but the park where the fireworks are set off also hosts a rather large fair/carnival during the Fourth. The boys had a great time. Several of their cousins were there, and they just played and romped around the place for many hours. We got L a wristband for the carnival rides, unsure of whether or not he’d go on enough things to make it worth the money, but with his cousins there he was much more willing to be adventurous. He did end up getting our money’s worth, which I found surprising. A did not get a wristband or do any rides. He said that he’d rather play some of the carnival games, instead. He won a couple of prizes, but didn’t get a goldfish (thankfully; it never would have survived the trip to the cabin, and I didn’t want to pay a babysitter to come care for it in our absence.)

The fireworks themselves were pretty amazing. They put on a good show down there. They lasted about 45 minutes, and we had the best seats in town for them.

On a personal note, several of my cousins were there as well, and it was pretty great to see them. They all live relatively close to where we’re going to be moving to (within a 35-40 min drive), so I’m looking forward to spending more time with them all. They have a standing Friday night Game Night, which I hope to attend as frequently as I’m able.

The drive home was a nightmare. It was SUPER late for the kids, already. And then L threw up in the car. All of the food/drink at my brother’s house was just out in his kitchen, buffet style. And that kid has zero self control when it comes to eating sugary things in an unsupervised environment. I don’t even know how many cookies he likely took while his grownups were looking the other way. But the slight jostling of the van as we got underway was too much for him to take, and he threw up about 10 minutes into a two hour drive. We had ti stop at the first gas station out of town to get Febreeze, an air freshener, baby wipes, and Clorox wipes to take care of things. And while this was happening, A was just crying and sobbing: “I don’t want to sit next to him! He’s going to throw up on me!” Looking back on it now, it was probably a rather humorous scene. But it was quite the frustrating experience in the moment.

July 5th – This day was pretty much spent solely on business related to the move. I tried to contact a lawyer I know in town, because that’s really the next big step before we can move forward. I talked to him as he was in his way out of his office, but he hasn’t called me back yet to set up an appointment for a sit-down discussion.

We also went to our bank and gave our current situation to a mortgage broker, who gave us a slew of paperwork to go through.

M took the boys to the pool for the afternoon, while I spent pretty much all of those two hours searching for things in our file cabinet and uploading them to the bank website. Not a very fun afternoon.

At her normal time, M went to the gym to workout. And then, literally minutes after she left, the mail came which had some of the vital paperwork we needed to supply to the bank. So that kind of stunk. If it had come a little bit earlier, we could have gotten it all uploaded before the end of the business day and been one teensy step closer.

The time crunch of this whole thing is starting to get to her. With each passing day, it becomes a little less likely that we will close on a new house before the start of the school year. It is very stressful, but I’m trying my best to deal with it for her sake. She broke down a little bit yesterday, and needed a fair amount of reassurance that yes, in fact, things will be okay and yes, in fact, they are going to suck real bad for a while before we reach the equilibrium that we’ve had for the past many years.

On an even more personal note, I was really hoping that M and I would get to be intimate last night. It is almost impossible for intimacy when we are at the cabin, because it is not large and everyone can hear everything that goes on. But it didn’t happen.

With all of the arguing and fighting over the past month (mostly my fault, I realize), she hasn’t really wanted to touch me. We ended up going to our separate bedrooms (more on that some other time, because that’s a VERY long story) with just our normal kiss goodnight. Then, as I laid there unable to fall asleep, I’m pretty sure I heard her pleasuring herself, which made me even more unable to sleep.

According to my FitBit, I did end up falling asleep sometime around 3:00. But then I woke up at 6:30, and had to start the business of the new day.

July 6 – Today we came to the cabin. But before that, there was much business to attend to.

As soon as 8:00 rolled around, I started making phone calls. First, I tried my new district’s Human Resources department. M and I both have to set up appointments to turn in paperwork, get keys, etc. before we can get letters stating that our employment is no longer “conditional.” We need that before we can officially get a new mortgage. What a pain this whole process is, by the way.

Well, nobody picked up. I’m guessing that everyone in the office is taking the whole week off for the 4th of July holiday. That’s great for them, but it’s really making my existence miserable. There is so much that I need to do and have done, in order to reach some level of normalcy. I’d really like it to all happen before school starts, because I REALLY don’t want to live at my parents’ house for a period of time while things get worked out.

Anyways, I also tried my lawyer friend again. No response.

So I then called the local hospital to schedule a TB test. Finally, a bit of success! I got through to someone and got it taken care of for a few days after we return from the cabin.

After that, I called the realtor I’ve been working with to update her in the various thing that have been going on. She said that as soon as we have accepted an offer officially that we could start putting bids in on new properties. Hopefully we will accept an offer on the 17th, but we need to speak to a lawyer, first.

Ugh.

After all of that garbage was taken care of, it was in to prepping for being gone a whole week. There was a kitchen to clean, a van to pack, plants and a yard to take care of, and numerous other small items to attend to. In addition to making sure the boys were fed and entertained in the interim. In all honesty, I cheated on that last part and just turned the timers off of their tablets, so they had free YouTube Kids and Minecraft time for a few hours.

Eventually we were ready to leave. It takes about four hours to get to the cabin. Sometimes the boys are great travelers, sometimes they’re not. It was a mixed bag today. We had to make a couple of stops: first for lunch at McDonalds (A is exceedingly picky and will just about ONLY eat McDonalds chicken nuggets when we travel) and a special stop at a random Starbucks where they actually had the Mocha Mint Chip Frappuccino. This has been a summer-long quest of M’s, to find and get one. They are so elusive and exclusive, that I guess I feel like I’m part of some special club, now.

It was okay.

Anyways, we made it here, got settled, got the groceries we needed, picked up bait for fishing tomorrow, had a campfire… It has been pretty relaxed and chill since we’ve arrived. I mean the boys were absolutely out of their minds with excitement, but that is always anticipated on the first evening here.

And now I’m laid down in bed with my wife, hoping that we can survive the night together sharing a bed (again, much more on that some other time), because the couch that I get to sleep on otherwise is about the most uncomfortable thing in existence.