It's Hard To Type In Splints

Somebody remind why I'm doing this, 'kay?  I always compare moving to childbirth.  It's all so thrilling beforehand.  The excitement...the anticipation....Then you experience it, and you swear it off forever.  But as time goes by, your psyche blots out the misery and your memory becomes sanitized and you think: That wasn't so bad.  I could TOTALLY do that again! 

The worst part about this move is that it is completely 100% voluntary.  I have done this to myself.  Right now I hope to have our house on the market by mid-week.  I am making myself nuts trying to get it ready.  In the past two weeks, I've completely decluttered my house which involved renting a storage unit and making daily trips to Goodwill.  I'm a pretty decent housekeeper in general, but getting a house "show ready" is a whole different ball game.  Despite all our moves, this is only the second house we've owned, so I've only been through this once before.  At least my kids aren't 5 and 2 like they were last time.  But last time, I cleaned my house within an inch of it's life and we headed out of town for Passover. The house sold while we were gone. 

This time, the kids are 4 years older and so am I.  The only one traveling is Ritu who went to a conference in Nova Scotia and left me to obsess over the state of the house.  (I never did re-write my cleaning product post but let me extol the virtues of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.  In this case, I do believe "Magic" is a factual term.  Harry Potter himself couldn't get my surfaces cleaner.  One afternoon I went around and took all the marks off my painted walls, including some baseboards where other paint had splattered.   How the hell can that Magic Eraser take paint off of paint without harming the original paint?  How does it know which paint you want to keep?  Magic, I tell you!  Today my mom (bless her heart) came over and we went through 4 Magic Erasers on the downstairs alone.  I need to see if Costco sells multi-packs of them.  I need to buy stock in them.  I need to be their official spokesperson.  I am so hot for Mr. Clean right now.)

ANYhow, whenever I'm home, my blood pressure rises about 50 points.  All I see is what needs to be done.  On the one hand, I think every square inch of the house needs to be perfect.  On the other hand, I think that if you can't see past a dusty window track then YOU ARE MISSING THE BIG PICTURE AND BY GOD I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO LIVE NEXT DOOR TO YOUR HYPERCRITICAL ASS FOREVER ANYHOW.  It doesn't help that I've developed some sort of carpal tunnel/tendonitis/shoulder tumor that leaves me in constant pain and wrist splints.  If only I had prehensile toes, I could get a lot more done.

With Ritu gone, I've had to do all sorts of things that he would normally do.  Like go to Lowe's.  (I don't want to say that our family is susceptible to advertising, but when I pulled into the Lowe's parking lot, Juliana said, "Why don't you go to Home Depot?  You can do it.  They can help.")  Or fill out online forms to get our house listed.  I consider myself fairly intelligent, but there is some information that simply never sticks in my brain.  Which is why I had to call Ritu in Canada to ask if our water heater was gas and what kind of furnace we have.  (For the record, it is gas and we have forced air heating.)  I nearly had to ask him which county we live in, but was able to find that on some paperwork. (And yes, I am quite aware of how pathetic that sounds.)

Oh, and in Klutz Watch 2006, on Friday I was standing next to the van with the door open.  I leaned in to put something on the passenger seat and whacked  my head on the door frame.  To complete that special moment, I had my sunglasses up on top of my head.  The impact ground them down into my skull so far that  I think it may have left a dent.  Is it any wonder I can't remember what county I'm in?