The movers are coming...the movers are coming!

I have officially moved from nervous to actively twitchy in the last several days.  And yet I am still choosing to spend time with friends and family rather than go through cupboards and other areas of the house that need to be sorted.

I keep repeating the phrase shared with me by my handsome husband: "If the movers pack up and store stuff we don't really want to keep, it's not the end of the world".  Maybe not the end of the world, but it just might be a harbinger of doom.  However, that could just be me.

Today marks just 4 days until movers come, and just 12 days before we fly out of Portland.  Now many of my interactions with friends are the last for a long while and are thus a bit weepy.  All my friends will remember me stressed and teary.  That's why they all need to visit us - to erase that memory and replace it with a better one.  Hopefully of us settled into our new Irish home, ready to host and share the beautiful country with visitors.

So save your pennies people, we mean it when we say we want you to visit.

It's all coming together now

Just one month to go. A friend came over yesterday to help me sort and remove.  We've only just scratched the surface and yet we came up with 4 bags for Goodwill, 3 bags for freecycle, a bag of toiletries for a shelter and plenty of good old fashioned trash. How did we manage to accumulate so much stuff? I must remember this feeling of drowning in belongings and not let it happen again.  Oof. So, plenty more to do.

That said, we are making a point to do all the stuff we love/haven't ever done here in Portland.  We went to Kruger farms for the concert for the first time last night.  Such a great time!  How have we been missing this every summer? Jeez.

We also plan to do at least one movie in the park - although I've got to say that keeping my kids up in public until 10:30 or so could be problematic.  Both for them and for the public...but, we only have a month left so it's now or never.

Sadly we will miss two of my favorite summer events in Portland - so you should go for me.  The Portland Festival Symphony is awesome, the very best performance is the first one in Cathedral Park.  Really anything that happens in Cathedral Park is great.

http://www.portlandfestivalsymphony.org/schedule.html

And Trek in the Park is perfection.  And they outgrew their previous park home, so now they perform in Cathedral Park.  See, everything that happens in Cathedral Park is great! Here's the link to Trek - and if you think you don't like Star Trek well....where do I start?  How about I just say to try it live - it's a whole different animal and is not to be missed.  Honest.
http://www.atomic-arts.org/

TTFN

A change of heart

One of the most difficult parts of this huge change for us has been my fear that our children would not thrive in Ireland.  Audrey in particular was filled with anger and sadness at the loss of her friends, community and close relationship with family here in Portland.  Well, something has shifted and she is feeling excited and ready to go.  She filled her backpack with Ireland stickers and is thrilled with the house that we've committed to in our new home:

(22 The Arches, Maynooth, Co. Kildare

http://www.daft.ie/searchrental.daft?id=1344719)

I don't know what made this change come about (perhaps lots of prayer on my part helped), but I'm so glad for it.  Audrey credits her 2nd grade teacher Erin Quinton with her change of heart.  We stopped in at our old elementary school yesterday afternoon and Audrey and Ms. Quinton hatched a plan to correspond while we are away.  Audrey will be Ms. Quinton's class pen pal.  She also tells me that learning about families on the Oregon Trail gave her some perspective.  What those kids went through made moving to Ireland look pretty good to her.  Thank God for covered wagons.  

How much does your history weigh?

Odd thing to realize that all of our worldly possessions need to be whittled down to 1000 pounds of air freight and a 200 dollar a month storage space.  In case that seems like a lot, it's not.  Trust me on this.  We, like most people, have way more stuff than we need/want/realized we had.  Some of it is really hard to part with, some of it I can't believe we've had this long.  There is a mental toll in simply having things.  You have to tidy them, or dust them, or just use energy and time figuring out where to put them and where they are should you actually want to find them again.  Ahh, how much better simply to not have the stuff in the first place.

But then I think of heirlooms and how few of them I really have.  Does that matter?  Do I and my family have a less than rich history because we don't have belongings attached to that history?  Weighty matters folks, weighty matters.  About 1000 pounds worth to be exact.

And I will leave you with this last thought: in Ireland a boot is the trunk of a car and a fanny is not a person's backside, it is "lady parts".  If I misuse the first one, people might be confused.  If I misuse the second, people will be offended.  I'll need to learn this stuff soon.

63 days and counting

It is a strange feeling to know that our lives are going to be moved to a place that is almost entirely unfamiliar to us.  On the one hand I'm looking forward to seeing our country from the outside for the first time.  It will give us all a perspective that not everyone in the U.S. has the chance to gain.  We will likely learn to appreciate some of the things that we have here, particularly here in Portland that we have taken for granted up until now.  For instance, just the other evening I had the chance to see a world class symphony performance and I could afford both the tickets and the parking.  Will that be possible in Dublin?

On the other hand I'm dreading some of the little things.  I worry about driving on the wrong side of the road and on the wrong side of the car.  I worry about crossing streets and looking for cars coming from the wrong direction.  I worry that I won't be able to find the grocery store, fit our laundry in the Lilliputian sized washing machines (that generally reside in the kitchen), or find my favorite toothpaste.  In short I'm worried about the stupid stuff.

But I'm also worried that our children will feel isolated, out of step and unwelcome.  So, I'm faking it.  Because that is what a good mom does- worry and pretend not to.  So, I'm telling you that I'm scared out of my mind, but just don't tell anyone that I said so.

I know that in the long run this will be a fantastic opportunity for everyone in our family.  But it's not the long run that worries me.  It's the little stuff.  And the not-so-little stuff.  It's the short term that's keeping me up at night.  But, with just 63 days to go, the short term gets shorter every day and soon we will be there, settled and LIVING IN IRELAND.  So, short term be damned - bring on the experience!

got to stop spending our days having fun
it is time to start getting shit done