No Sleep

Today was the first day of second grade for Erin. I cannot believe she is so old, and also that I still have three kids at home. New state, new school, new teacher, all new friends--that's a lot of new. I always thought it was normal to feel a little apprehensive and jittery before a big day like this in an unknown environment, but this has not been the case with Erin at all. She could not have been more excited to start. I am so happy that she has always liked school and hope that it will be a good year for her.
Because of overcrowding, they divided the classes up into "early birds" and "later gators" and stagger their class times. I could not decide whether I wanted to have more time with her in the morning or more time after school, but in the end we went with the later 9:15-3:30 time. Is it weird that I want her home more? Maybe I'm selfish, but I'm sure this will be a good schedule. This morning she was up and ready long before 8:00 and could not understand why I would sign her up for the late class. Again, selfish reasons. I felt it would be easier for me to get all the kids up, dressed and fed by 9:15 rather than 8:00. And it certainly was. We had a leisurely morning with reading time, piano time, be like Christ time... and we were still almost 15 minutes early. Yep, I think this time will work out great.It is a little weird that Alex is not in school yet. Last year, the preschool he was going to go to discontinued their program, so that fell through, and this year we had him all signed up for 15 hours of preschool a week in Florida, and now he still has nothing. Compared with Erin's two years of preschool and her being the youngest in her class versus him being the oldest and getting no school. Totally different experiences. And he keeps asking when he's going to be starting school. I feel a little conflicted about preschool for him. It probably wouldn't matter either way, but I don't really think he will gain too much from it. We may sign him up after we move, but for now I think it is nice to do a little reading and writing with him and Marissa at home, and call it good. What can I say, I'm selfish and want to spend more time with them.

I could not sleep last night, even though I was tired. My brain would not turn off. Thoughts about selling our house in Florida, and being stuck with payments for several more months, and all the unknowns are indeed stressful. The good news yesterday was that the people who were going to buy our house still want it, and enough to come up with $3000 more themselves for closing costs. We will still be losing more than originally thought, but not as much. What a huge blessing! We should be closing on Monday, but the deal is not done yet. There is still a hurricane that could possibly hit before then. I will feel so relieved when we are finally homeless.

My poor brain kept jumping from Florida house worries to our new house here. As in I would go through the new house in my head arranging furniture, painting walls, building shelves, finishing the basement, and landscaping the yard. I'm very excited for the new house. Yesterday when we checked on our hole we didn't expect anything to be done, but to our surprise, all the footings were poured... and all in the right places too, which is a good sign.

(Yes, I realize I'm in a weird position. For some reason I was thinking I would barely be in the picture.)

Okay, this is probably really boring for normal people, but I find these construction pictures really exciting. Maybe it dates back to my first Materials and Methods class where I dragged Erin around in her baby car seat to countless construction sites taking pictures for my final project. Maybe it dates back to my history of walking through unfinished houses, which is still a favorite hobby. I just love this stuff! And it's even more exciting when it's our own home that we've studied and agonized over. See that footing in the middle on the right? That's the load bearing wall that we had moved to make two bedrooms instead of one. (Yeah, I'm a geek.)
I don't know if I mentioned this before, but we are extremely close to our neighbors (as you can see in the previous picture). One of our neighbors just put in a fence and our hole only left one foot or so between it and the fence. Crazy! Of course some of it will get filled in and we will have 5 feet on one side and 6 feet on the other, to the fences that is. Both of our neighbors oriented their houses as close as possible to our house, so it will be pretty tight. We would have had more room if it hadn't been for our third car garage. One of our neighbors came out to talk to us and we absolutely love them, so I suppose it's okay being close.

People probably think we are crazy for wanting something this tight; this was one of the issues we considered when looking for a house. But here's our logic (besides liking the location and the plan): 1. We had a fairly big yard in Florida and never did anything with it--meaning we do not actually like a lot of yard work, so a smaller yard is a plus, 2. We could have bought a bigger yard with a smaller house that we didn't like as much, or a bigger house with a plan we love on a smaller lot (obviously, I like houses more), and 3. This neighborhood is a close knit community, due in part to their proximity to each other, and we love the idea of being part of this kind of community. These people have ice cream socials and BBQ's that the entire neighborhood goes to. This only happened once in Florida and that was after hurricane Wilma. So in a sense, assuming we like most of our neighbors, we are looking forward to being close to people and having less yard work. Lest you think we only have a patch of grass to call our own, we will still have a backyard with a patio, room for a garden, some grass and a future play set that will no doubt be amazing--it is in my head anyway. Designing the play set, another reason why I couldn't sleep!