Dear friends,

It seems that we were caught up in our daily life this past week and therefore didn’t put as much attention to our move as we would like.  Even so, we did manage to get a blog post out, make a run to Goodwill and donate two pieces of furniture to two different recipients in our local Freecycle group.  All in the name of progress.

I don’t believe we’ve formally shared this fact on our blog, but our youngest son Ben has autism. We wish to share this information to provide hope as well as information to other parents who may have a child with special needs, and are considering a long-distance move. When I refer to keeping things as normal as possible for as long as possible, he is the reason why.  We are acutely aware that this major life change, while good, will be hard on him especially.  Right now he is very excited to move to Florida; he has really embraced our dream, and it truly is a dream we all share:  Mark and I would not consider moving if it proved to be a true hardship for either one of our children.

On Monday, I met with his teachers and staff for his annual IEP meeting.   I have been very open with the school as far as our moving intentions, so they have been aware for a couple of months now that we are relocating.  We are moving forward with his IEP as if we were staying here, and modifying his curriculum to meet those needs.   Until we have our permanent residence, it is too difficult to guess what might happen in Florida.   The special education teacher has put in several phone calls to Clermont Middle School, all of which have been not responded to at this point, and I admit, it’s a little disheartening.  Our intent is to place Ben in public school, but I am also willing to homeschool/virtual school him if the public school district does not meet our needs.

Tuesday was our Ben’s 11th birthday.  We celebrated by going to Chuck E Cheese for dinner, and then back home for an ice cream cake and presents.

Wednesday was “spend a lot of money on car repairs” day.  :=)  We currently have two vehicles, but we made the decision from the start that we would only be moving one. Unfortunately, the car we are selling decided to have a flat tire, so we replaced that on Wednesday.  We also brought in our other car for a tune-up, as we had a $20 coupon to our favorite auto repair shop.  $700 later, our car is in tip-top shape :=).  We will be bringing it back in July to make sure there are no additional repairs that need to be completed.  We are using the sale proceeds from our 1st car to pay off the loan on our 2nd car.  We are excited to be able to begin our journey without car payments.  We considered trading in both our cars for a newer and bigger vehicle; we have our eyes on a Hyundai Santa Fe, but as long as our car is in good condition, we’re going to wait and save up money for a bigger down payment and look at buying a new vehicle in a year.

Thursday was St. Patrick’s Day as well as Catie’s orchestra concert.  The corned beef turned out delicious in the crockpot, and Catie played her violin beautifully.

Today (Friday) we sold a craft storage container for $5 on craigslist,  did some decluttering in the sunroom, and our Mayflower rep brought over a huge stack of boxes for us.  Right now the challenge is where to put the packed boxes.  We are still four months away from our move, and while we live in a fairly big house, there really is little available room just to stack boxes.  This is why we have started to donate/sell our furniture this early.   Catie has her solo ensemble choral performance tomorrow, but we are hoping to find time to empty out the secretary and list it on craigslist.  We are fortunate in that we have a small foyer by the front door, and this enables us to put our furniture or other belongings there while they await pick-up.    The area in which the secretary is in will allow us to place quite a few packed boxes there.

We also went to the local book sale at the Fairgrounds:  it’s our yearly tradition and we always spend at least $30 in books and magazines.  This year we spent $0.   Every book or magazine was looked at in the context of :  “Do we really want this bad enough to move it?” And the answer every time was “no!”.    It really wasn’t as enjoyable this year because of that.  While this transition time in moving is necessary and worthwhile, we also long for the day when we are settled in Florida and able to relax into routines, and yes, acquire “stuff”.  :=)

We appreciate your readership:  please feel free to add us on Facebook if you haven’t as of yet, and we love to read your comments about our adventure :=)  Some of our decisions have been made because of your feedback, so we do appreciate them all.

Enjoy your weekend!