Moving Forward

Once again, I have let quite a long time pass between posts. Fortunately, this time it’s because things have been generally going well.

Zoe is sleeping better – for the past several nights she has only gotten up once per night, Rachel has settled back into school – yes, Putnam County schools are starting Week 4 on Monday, and I … well, I’m really far behind.

You see, all summer long I have focused my work attention on my research project for TDOT. It’s gone fairly well, but because it didn’t get the attention it deserved back in January-April, it was way behind. Well, now it’s about caught back up to where it needs to be, but now the summer is almost over for me (classes start the 25th) and I haven’t done squat to get ready for class yet.

Not that this is unusual – it seems like it happens every summer. I have great plans, and very little gets accomplished until the week before class starts. So, hopefully I’ll get bunches of work done in the next 7 days.

On the home front, things are also behind where I wanted to be. I had planned to take a day each week and work on the house. For the most part, the house still reflects Michell much more than it does me – she was the collector and the decorator. Don’t get me wrong, I was not upset (in fact enjoyed) the way that she displayed her collections around the house, but for the past few months I have been wanting to make the houise a little more reflective of our new family life – which means more reflective of me.

I do have some plans (lots of plans, very little time or energy to carry them out). My first goal is to do a makeover in the downstairs family room. Dad is going to help me build some bookcases that will match the built-in desk, and I’ve bought a new TV stand and plan to make some matching shelves.

The difficult thing is deciding what to do with the things that were “ours”. The things that were mine, for example my turtle collection, are simple. The things that were hers, for example her porcelain dolls, are reasonably simple – I will keep a few to pass on to Rachel and Zoe, and ask Michell’s family about the rest. But the stuff that was ours – like our collection of playing cards from our trips – these are the hardest to decide what to do with. Do I keep them? Do I display them? How? Where? Are they a permanent fixture? Or can they be taken down if, at some future time, I begin to date or even remary?

In the end, I think I’m going to have a lot of boxes full of stuff in the garage. I feel bad for Rachel and Zoe for when they eventually have to go through them all and decide what to do with the stuff I didn’t know what to do with.