Changes, exhaustion and Fiddling

Hi Everyone,
I know, I know, I've been gone forever. I'm getting it from all sides and everyone wanting to know what's up in my corner. I'm sorry I've been away, life has taken so many turns in the last month, it's impossible to keep it all straight.

The first and foremost thing to tell everyone is that we're moving. This has been a change we've been wanting to make for a while now and due to unforseen idiotic neighbor issues, we're feeling the time is right for many reasons. The most pressing reason is that Maestro will be starting first grade in the fall. To say that we live in a town with a great school system is an understatement, it's a great school system...for the average student. We have not been raising the average student, we've got a kindergartener that can read at a 5th grade level and can do math at around a 3rd grade level (or could easily if we taught him all the goodies he would be learning in third grade). I've been less then amused by the present school system's challenges. They just don't have anything in place for "gifted" students, which Maestro is considered to be (not our judgement, it's just the way it is). So, we wanted desperately to get him into a school system that would know what to do with his particular talents. The new school system has a program already in place for him, with peers instead of just meeting with an administrator for 15 minutes every month or so and them sending worksheets home for him to do. We already do that at home, along with much more then that, so to say I'm not amused is also an understatement. So, we feel he's got the best chance at an education that will challenge him at the new school.

One of the other big issues is that our neighbors have just gotten to be too much for us to take. After a blow up with the blow hard next door (NOT my normal course of action, I usually don't let people get to me that way), we've decided it was a great impetus to change for us since the situation in our home isn't going to change if we don't make it happen. They have a spineless landlord, tell him lots of lies and have no intention of leaving any time soon, so we're gonna be the ones to go. Which is okay since we feel it's a move in the right direction for us on so many levels. I'm thrilled with this change as it gets me closer to the rural life I love and also lands me in the same town as not only Brownie's farm (you'll remember that's where we get our milk and eggs) but also the CSA (community supported agriculture) farm we joined for our veggies. It makes my heart incredibly happy to be able to get those things even more local then we do now.

We found a great little ranch house on almost three acres. I get to have a garden and a clothesline and we have a lovely fireplace and lilac bush right outside our bedroom window. We walked over and met the new neighbors today and also found out that they have 3 and 5 year olds sons living there themselves, so our boys will have boys to play with that are almost the same age. It's a blessing for us on may levels and we're grateful and thankful for the opportunity to experience this place. We're renting the house and in turn renting our condex out until the market turns around enough for us to get out from under it. Don't want to lose all we've invested, so we're in the wait and see. Actually not 100% sure we're waiting, we've not completely arrived at that decision yet.

The exhaustion continues for me as getting up at the ungodly hour of 4:45 am is hard for me. I'm asleep very early in the evening most nights and feel like I never catch up on housework and kid time. But, I'm humbly doing the best I can to make it all work and now we get to pack and move in the process of this. Should be an interesting month!

The fiddling is in reference to Jenna Woginrich's blog. She's challenged everyone to learn to play the fiddle, a secret desire of mine for so long now. So, I may just take her up on it as she's got a whole group of people doing it together all around the country. Sounds fun and like I might make the time to do it if I just set my mind to it. I'm pondering it, but sure sounds like fun to me!

Gotta kiss the cherubs goodnight now. Peace and lilacs to you all, ~Peacemom