So, I’m moving two weeks from Friday.

My calendar this week is dotted with appointments:  sports physical and haircut for one kid, dentist for another, a trip to see my sister, an eye appointment for another kid, a birthday party invitation . . . I have to take my (stupid) three cats to the veterinarian to get rabies shots and health certificates so they can fly to California next week.  I have to wash and turn in the lacrosse equipment.

And, of course, I have to pack.

I’ve done quite a bit of packing already but now I need to get busy and start packing all the stuff it seemed too early to pack before.  Hello, Board Games, I’m talking to you.  I’m also admitting that I’m not going to get my photographs any more organized than they are . . . so I may as well pack them.  I did have to slice open a couple of boxes to find some beach towels for yesterday’s final visit to Wild Waves.

I’m spinning in the Let’s Procrastinate stage of packing.  That’s why my recipe box is organized for the first time in at least fifteen years.  (Who even has a recipe box these days?)  I intend to graduate to the Let’s Panic stage of packing in mere moments.

Meanwhile, piles of papers have mysteriously appeared on my desk much like crop circles in wheat fields.

This can’t be good.

My life is one long “to-do” list which I am trying to cram into the spaces between my job and sleep.

Here are a few things I’ve done since I last wrote about the peaceful lives of monks:

1)  Moved entire contents of storage unit back into my living room.  Assisted by my three teenagers, plus three other teenage boys.

2)  Left at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning for a lacrosse game.

3)  Had two different moving companies assess the weight of my household goods and give me an estimate for moving us.

4)  Had refrigerator repaired.  Is it weird that I already owned the two replacement gaskets the repairman needed?

5)  Drove two hours for the final lacrosse game in Port Angeles.

6)  After the game, took my two youngest kids on the Port Angeles ferry to Victoria, British Columbia, and spent almost 24 hours there visiting my (ex)stepmom.

NOTE:  Crossing the border is tricky!  I have an enhanced license to allow me to cross the border both ways.  However, according to one very stern official, I should have had a signed document from my husband giving me permission to take the children to Canada.  Who knew?

ALSO:  We happened to ride the ferry along with hundreds of middle school and high school band students who were traveling to Victoria to march in the Victoria Day parade.  Great, except for the incredible noise level.  Furthermore, every student appeared to drop his or her backpack in a seat and then abandoned said backpack to wander the ship, leaving people like me with NO SEAT.  It’s a ninety minute crossing, so this was rather unpleasant.  I did finally find a seat, but only one and hello?  I had two kids with me.

7)  In Victoria the kids swam until 10 p.m. in the condo pool.  We went on a horse-drawn carriage tour.  We sped through the Royal BC Museum, which was awesome, except for the fact that we had to speed through it.  Victoria is a really beautiful city.

8)  Rode ferry back to Port Angeles, then drove over two hours home.  Arrived forty-five minutes before my work shift.

9) Went to dentist for cleaning.

10)  Had hair highlighted and cut.

11)  Took daughter to dentist at 8 a.m.  Took son to dentist at 11:30 a.m.

12)  Got estimate from house-cleaner.

And tomorrow?  I’m getting a routine mammogram.

We move four weeks from Friday.

On Easter Sunday, I watched a CBS special about the monasteries at Mt. Athos.  (Transcript is here.)  I was riveted by the lives these men lead, the quiet lives of unceasing prayer and discipline and simplicity.

Women aren’t allowed at those monasteries.  Not even to visit and certainly never to live.  Why?

The irony is that while the Mother of God is revered there, no other woman is permitted to even set foot on Mount Athos, a ban that’s been in effect for a thousand years.

The reason for the ban, according to Orthodox doctrine, is that Christ gave the peninsula to his mother and all other women are excluded so as to fully honor the Virgin Mary. It’s also said that in the days before the ban, when women did come there, the monks became distracted and couldn’t devote themselves entirely to prayer. They say it became a lot easier after the last lady left . . .

. . . Mount Athos may be the last all-male bastion in the world.

And Father Arsenios says it has to stay that way. “Here we’re concerned solely with purity and our elevation to eternity. If women are permitted they would bring their families and children – this place would become a tourist attraction and (no) longer a place (of) silence.”

Bold font added by me . . . to point out that women and children are distracting and noisy.

Boy, you’re telling me.

I am in a constant state of distraction and chaos.  I blame the children.

Is it more pleasing to God to live in a state of unceasing prayer in the seclusion of a monastery?  Are the monks closer to Jesus?  Or is the bigger challenge to live in the midst of cacophony without losing your faith entirely and faltering as you attempt to string together a few words of prayer before you fall asleep again only to wake up too early to start all over again?

I imagine climbing a ladder to prune a tree while repeating the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.”) as a life of ease compared to the daily onslaught of motherhood.

Then again, the grass is always greener on the other side of the planet.

Still.  Even the monks admit that living with kids in their midst would prohibit them from concentrating on prayer.  The bedlam that children bring would disrupt their ability to draw closer to God.

Interesting to ponder . . . if I had time to ponder.

In my fantasy, we eat steamed vegetables every day.  A bountiful green salad with radishes and shredded carrots and purple cabbage appears at every meal . . . and we eat together in the dining room as a family.  At a beautifully set table topped by a tablecloth and the good dishes.  We have interesting conversations and no one leans forward with their elbows on the table and eats like a caveman.

In my fantasy, the floors are free of dust and popcorn kernels and regurgitated hairballs.  The laundry has been folded and put into drawers and closets and every sock has a match.  Sunlight streams through unsmudged windows.

In my fantasy, I walk five miles a day and fit into the clothes that are stored in a gigantic bin on my closet floor right now.  My hair is neither too short or too long or too frizzy or crazy and for once, doesn’t make me scream when I look in the mirror.  In fact, the mirror is my friend and I like what I see instead of wondering when I became old and puffy.

In my fantasy, my children are enthralled by novels, not video games.  They never leave cups under their beds after drinking the last of the milk.  They don’t put empty milk cartons back in the fridge.  They all get straight A’s.  The children laugh and sing and frolic and never, ever, ever raise their voices or engage in the enraged arguments over nothing that cause parental embolisms.

In my fantasy, I manage to get to bed early, even though I work until midnight.  I wake up with the sun because who needs sleep?  Not me or Martha Stewart!  In my fantasy, I bake bread from scratch and grow my own zucchini and have a coupon for everything I buy at the grocery store.  I throw parties for my many friends and baby showers for new mothers and watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean every night.

In my fantasy, I have plenty of time to write, plenty of time to spend with my husband, plenty of time to volunteer in my church, plenty of time to spend with each of my children, plenty of time to read my Bible and pray, plenty of time to sew and plenty of time to serve the disenfranchised.  I read a novel every week.  I plan a trip to Haiti where I will solve the humanitarian crisis made worse by the earthquake and then skidaddle over to Alabama and help rebuild homes.

In my fantasy, when we move to California in seven weeks, I will be new and improved and everything that I am not now and never have been but have always wanted to be.

Or not.

The first step in overcoming a problem is realizing that you have one.  And I realize that I have an overactive fantasy life.  Send help.

My mom has lived in my town just about as long as I have.  And on Saturday, we helped her move sixty miles north of here.

She and I picked up a U-Haul truck Saturday morning at 9:30.  I had to drive it to her house.  The things you have to do when you are a grown-up and have no excuses.  I was scared to drive that 17-foot truck but I managed not to run over any small children or mailboxes.

With the help of our neighbors (who I am so deeply indebted to now), we loaded up her furniture and boxes.  (My 18-year old sons helped, as did our neighbor’s teenage son.)  When the truck was crammed full, we resorted to loading up the back of my van and my mom’s car.  The neighbor offered to let us pack his pickup truck as well and then volunteered to drive the U-Haul through Seattle.  (His son drove the pickup.)

The neighbor went so far above and beyond the call of duty, I can hardly believe it.  I had originally asked him just to help load furniture into the truck but he took charge and loaded the whole truck and then drove it to Seattle and helped unload the whole thing.

We finally arrived at my mom’s new apartment at 2:30 p.m.  It was 7:30 p.m. by the time I finally  left after helping sort things and unpack things and try make sense of things.  Moving is hard!  (Even with help.  My sister’s family and my brother were there to help unload and unpack.)

Sunday morning–Easter!–I took my kids to Qwest Field where our church, Mars Hill, held a gigantic church service with 17,500 people in attendance.  It started at 9:30 a.m.

I thought I gave myself enough time to get there . . . but I underestimated traffic, specifically the traffic clogging the perimeter of Safeco Field.  Just when I reached the designated parking garage, a police officer waved me past it . . . and I had to circle around again.

The second time, I decided to take the easy way out and pulled into a paid parking garage.  However, due to poor planning on my part, I had no cash in my purse and the garage only took cash or checks.  (I haven’t carried around a checkbook in years.)  The attendant (God bless her) told me she’d temporarily park my car and let me walk across the street to get cash from an ATM.  So that’s what I did.

By the time we parked and walked several blocks to the stadium and the many ramps up to the 300 Level, we were twenty minutes late, but just in time for the sermon.

It was amazing to see so many people in that stadium.  Most amazing to me was how many babies I saw around me.  Those moms are better people than me for I never would have attempted that entire ordeal with a little baby.  My kids were awesome and well-behaved.

When the service ended, we made our way to Safeco Field where we had a completely untraditional Easter lunch from the various food stands.  The boys all had cheesesteak sandwiches and garlic fries, Grace had a cheeseburger and I had Ivar’s fish.

Our seats were five rows from the top of Safeco Field but still had a beautiful view.  The kids seemed to have fun . . . Grace especially liked the souvenir shops.  Of course.  We left after the sixth inning.

Driving home through the rain, I was so exhausted.  I was thinking about when I’d be able to drive back through Seattle to my mom’s new place so I can help her finish unpacking and organizing.

And then I noticed a sign on the freeway.

“Did I miss my exit?”

And I did.  I have no recollection of a good ten miles of freeway . . . and I missed my exit completely.

When I arrived home at 4:30 p.m., I put on my pajamas and stayed in bed watching television and napping until I had to work at 9 p.m.

So . . . no Easter egg hunts, so egg-dye, no Easter baskets . . . and no ham.

But at least I managed to distribute a chocolate bunny to each of my kids.

Next year, we’ll be back to normal.  I hope.  (Does “normal” still exist?)

“Today was the best day ever!” she announced when I picked her up after school.  She described how they learned to juggle during school and asked if I’d take her to the event at 6 p.m.

Wait.  What?  I may be a little distracted these days, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen any flier about an event.

She didn’t know what it was called but she knew that last year her dad took her and they brought back some toys (aka “fitness” equipment).  Oh yeah.  That.

I really did not want to go.  I’m so over after-school events.  That’s what happens when you space your children far apart.  If you did something at school ten years ago, the chances are you don’t want to do it again now.  Sorry, Youngest Child.

But I took her because of the guilt I am a good mom.

Fortunately, she overlooked the bedlam of the event and zeroed in on what she wanted.  And what she wanted was a set of juggling balls.

She picked out a purple ball, a blue ball and a green ball.  I paid and we went home.

I actually dropped her off at home in the care of her older brothers and went to my mom’s house to help her pack.  My phone rang while I was up to my elbows in kitchenware and packing paper.

My daughter was crying.

She’d lost a juggling ball in the ivy.

Oh, have I mentioned the ivy?  The English ivy was planted by the former and (one would assume) well-meaning owners of this house.  The ivy has threatened to overtake the house at times.  (Now we have an excellent yard crew who tames it.)

Anyway, my daughter and her  little buddy were throwing the juggling balls back and forth and the ball flew into the ivy and she couldn’t find it.

I promised to find the purple juggling ball as soon as I got home.

Now, I should know better than to make a promise like, but I was up to my elbows in packing paper and I really wanted to hang up the phone.

I returned home just as dusk was falling. I asked her to show me where she last saw the ball.

I began a hand search of the ivy, systematically separating the ivy in a grid search.

That’s when I found . . . the Fiskar shears:

They were new the last time I saw them.

They are rusty now.

A few more desperate minutes passed.  Then I found . . . the purple juggling ball.

It was a miracle.

Almost as amazing as the moment at Costco the other day when my receipt totaled $150 exactly.

I know.  I am a rock star.

Tonight I was sitting in the rocking recliner in the family room, a place I rarely sit anymore.  If I’m not working at my desk, I’m upstairs.  But I was sitting downstairs in the family room tonight while chatting on the phone with my friend MaryKay.

As we talked, something caught my eye.  Puzzled, I stood, crossed the room and pulled that corner chair from the wall to reveal a hidden pile of clothing.

A quick examination revealed the pile to be my 13-year old’s stash of dirty clothes.

Apparently, he’s been getting dressed in the mornings in the family room–he’s the only one awake at that early hour–and he’s been discarding the shorts and t-shirts he wears to bed behind the chair, out of sight to everyone except an eagle-eyed person sitting in the rocking recliner.

Now I understand why he’s had trouble finding shorts to wear even though I’ve been keeping up with the laundry.

Kids are so weird.

Since my last entry, these things happened:

1)  My husband arrived home for a less-then-48-hour visit.

2)  My twin sons turned 18.  This involved a lot of snack-food, a houseful of teenage boys and three games of Monopoly.

3)  My 13-year old played lacrosse in Gig Harbor.  This involved me navigating incorrectly around a traffic circle which resulted in a big loop-de-loop.  Also deja vu because, wait a minute, haven’t I been here before? I am ever grateful for my iPhone and the miracle of its internal GPS function which allowed me to conquer the traffic circle and end up at the lacrosse field.

It’s just too bad the team lost.  On the other hand, my daughter met a nice dog and spent a long time petting him.

4)  Saturday afternoon, I took my daughter and her little buddy to see the movie, “Rio.”

5)  Sunday, I took my daughter and her little buddy to the Puyallup Spring Fair where we mingled with approximately eight million other people.  The lines were too long for rides.  That is what happens when the sun finally shines here in the Northwest.

On the way home, we were stuck in inexplicable traffic . . . made explicable once I realized that the always sluggish intersection at 72nd Street and I-5 was made impossible by the traffic generated by the Grand Opening of the Winco grocery store.  What should have taken twenty minutes took an hour.

6)  Our loan was funded for the new house in California.  Which means that tomorrow we will be finally and officially “closed” on the house.  Or something like that.  I can only tell you that the process of providing the necessary paperwork for this transaction has been grueling and also painstaking and nitpicking.

7)  I shopped at Costco today.  As I waited for my total, I thought to myself, Well, this is more than a hundred dollars . . . probably about a hundred and fifty.

And my total came to $150 exactly.  Whoa.  I am an unintentional math genius.

* * *

(That picture at the top shows the house where I lived from the time I was five until I was eleven.)

Do you ever want to pick up the phone and dial a number but you are too big of a chicken?  And then you think maybe you’ll send off an email but you remember that your last email went unanswered?  So you consider sending a Facebook message but are you really that needy?  So you don’t do anything but wonder.

You wonder if you did something but if you ask, “Did I do something?” you will sound like you’re fourteen years old and clueless and silly.

You review the past weeks and months and can’t pinpoint a specific event or moment that things shifted between you.

You think perhaps you’re imagining things but how do you imagine silence after years of regular contact?

Then you take things personally.  How else to explain the inexplicable?

But before you embrace the pain of taking it personally, you remember that you have a tendency to take things personally when they are not personal at all.

So you think maybe you’ll pick up the phone and call but you are a big chicken.

Instead, you pull up the corners of your heart and tuck them in a little closer.  You lock the front door to your life and from now on, even fewer people will be granted admission because it’s just too much to have people traipsing through or rather, it’s too much when no one even knocks at the door anymore.

I don’t know any of these people, but this photo is from 1963 and how about that car?

* * *

Oh dear.  I can’t tell you when I was here last but I can tell you that yesterday I knocked over a gigantic glass of water on my desk while I was busily scanning slides from the 1970s.  In a miracle of epic proportions, the water cascaded under my keyboard and flowed onto the floor, completely missing all the slides and other papers stacked on my desk.

Last week was Spring Break.  Also, I ran out of Diet Coke, so those two things collided in one massive headache which lasted until I got more caffeine and sleep.  But not in that order.

Then over the weekend, my 13-year old son flew to California to take some placement tests for his new school.  It was odd having only three children at home.  My daughter and I spent practically every moment of the weekend together.  On Saturday we had our now-weekly lunch at Red Robin, then went shopping the clearance racks at Old Navy.  We finished up our afternoon with some shopping at Costco.

The teenagers invited a friend to sleep over on Saturday.  So at 8 a.m. on Sunday, I was shocked to hear the shower start–the boys were up early?  Even after a sleep over?

Yeah.  No.  That was their guest taking a quick shower after staying up all night.  His mom came by to pick him up.  My son came to my room to apologize for failing to sleep and catch up on his school work during Spring Break and suggested that he and his brother really needed to stay home from church.  So he could work on school work.  (Right.)

Fine.  In a couple of months, church-skipping will not be an option for any of us.

So Grace and I drove the hour to church.  We found a parking spot directly in front of the church building.  Usually we have to walk four or five blocks.

After church, I asked her if she’d like to go to the Woodland Park Zoo, and so we did.

The last time we went, all the boys were with us and the two oldest kids are not fans of the zoo.  In fact, they have never been fans of the zoo because the zoo involves walking and the outdoors.  Oh, the horrors.

So, it was lovely to be at the zoo with only Grace.  She ran from exhibit to exhibit and we saw pretty much every animal in the zoo, including strolling peacocks and squirrels and random ducks.  Just as we finished shopping at the gift shop–because shopping is what Grace loves most–the rain began but until then, it had been an almost-warm, perfect spring day.

Yesterday, I scanned more old slides.  While I was helping my mom pack up her apartment–she’s moving to a new place–I came across these old slides.  I offered to scan them, which is a win-win for me because we get the slides into photograph form and I end up with some of the old photographs myself.

Now the week is under way.  My 13-year old is back home.  My teenagers are (supposedly) back to their school work.  Grace is back at school.   My husband’s coming home on Thursday for a quick visit to celebrate the teenager’s 18th birthday.

And so now you know why I haven’t written anything worthwhile here.