(duck duck goose) x 2 = ?
Well, according to the GG, the four ducks and two geese we saw on one of the Argo Pond docks this morning were, “duck duck duck duck goose goose.” He may have a math minor in his distant past but I could once say that algebra was my favorite subject, so I factored that statement. Or maybe I did the opposite of factoring. Or maybe I’m just mangling this. You guys, I use algebra on most days but it has been a long time since I have had to talk the talk.
I love this summer. It was in the mid to upper 50s this morning at 6:30 or so when we left the Landfill. We hoofed it over to Bird Hills Park and then down to the Huron River and along the Border to Border Trail (more or less) to the Northside Grille. A certain mouse taxi frog-hopped over to the Northside to join us for breakfast and then we hitched a ride home in that taxi, aka, the Cute Little Blue Honda Civic with the Yellow Flower in the Blower. We could easily have walked but this is a Work Weekend, don’tcha know?
I don’t feel like I did a whole lot of work but the GG continued his prodject (intentionally misspelled) of converting Lizard Breath’s room into… Well… I dunno exactly what yet. Liz, he packed a lot of your stuff *safely* into boxes and, other than that, the place is still messy and the beds are still not bunked, so no pictures yet. Mostly I was just staying out of the way today. He was on a roll and when someone is willing do de-cluttering type work around here, I almost always try to get out of the way. (And I am sorry Liz for reporting this stuff on these tubes. I think you are okay with it or I wouldn’t have. <3 Moom)
This is not an attempt to cut our beloved independent adult daughter out of our lives or our house. Fer kee-reist, I still remember when she was a baby and I was freaked out thinking she would leave someday. It’s just that she did leave home and life goes on and it is time to morph our living space a bit. It was not time a few years ago when she graduated from college. Not because of her. She had offered to pack her room up a couple times beginning when she went on study abroad during her junior year. It was because of me. That was the year my family lost Grandroobly (my dad) and The Engineer (my brother) and I quit the job that, admittedly, I had a love-hate relationship with. Make no mistake. I was not sitting around crying on most days. I was just totally, utterly, completely unfocused. Drive? Yes! Clean my *baby’s* room? No. I could not move forward. Not yet. I did finally get her room cleaned up and arranged enough so that I could bring The Commander down for a visit and provide her with a comfortable and private room. But I didn’t box anything up. It is now two years later and with a full-time job on top of being out of town probably two out of every five weeks, I have made no further progress.
My parents moved house the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college. They moved out of the only house that I had ever lived in. They only moved up the hill into my late grandparents’ house and although I only have a couple of sharp albeit hilarious memories of that whole thing, I know I was given every chance to move all of *my* stuff into “my” new bedroom. Eventually, The Commander got rid of whatever I did not take away from the house and that was okay with me. I did not have as much crap as my kids do but that is not their fault! It is mine, for being a member of the baby-boom meeeeeee generation. You know. Us folks that *invented* parenthood and all of the useless crap that supposedly goes with it. Yes, I loaded my kids up with all kinds of cute clothing and educational (or just cute) toys and the whole blasted kaboodling works! What the heck have I saddled them with?
So. Did your parents move after you went to college? If so, was it traumatic for you? And if you have kids who’ve left for college and beyond, have you moved? If not, what are you doing with their bedrooms (and all the stuff that *you* bought them ’cause most of us did)? If your kids are younger, do you have plans for when they do leave? This is hard stuff to answer because every family has a unique situation.
I have a duck duck goose picture but I didn’t post it because it was a crappy picture and because it doesn’t include the 4th duck so technically it is an incorrect photo. But if you click here or on the photo of the Barton Dam in the mist and sunlight of an early early summer morning, you will get a short slideshow.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
I left for college in September, and when I came home for Thanksgiving it was to a different house. I have never felt like the new house was really my home, since I only lived there during a few summers. I still have one small box of things left there, just because. My stuff was pretty well moved out by Mom, who never has seemed to have the sentimental need to keep too much stuff around.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
My parents still live in the same house–but my old bedroom is now a TV/computer room. It used to be the sewing room, but they moved that downstairs to my brother’s old room. (what happens in a 5 bedroom house when the kids are gone) My kids are still coming and going, so their rooms remain the same. When they are at school or away, the rooms are neat and when they’re here, they are chaotic. I’ve learned the art of keeping the doors closed, better for my BP. I think my kids like the security of coming home when they need to and as long as that’s happening, their rooms will remain the same. We have enough bedrooms to go around.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:15 am
As Jay says, our parents moved when we were in college. One of my roommates gave me a ride home for one of the winter holidays. I was a little confused about where to turn b/c the snow was piled high enough that it covered the reflective eagle on the mail box that was my signpost. She thought it was very funny that I didn’t know my own way home. I had to explain that it hadn’t been “my” home for very long. Anne, that was Cheryl who gave me the ride, if memory serves.
Regarding the move itself, it wasn’t too traumatic, except for seeing Alice the cat and Jay’s dog and some other stuffies in the plastic bag up on the closet shelf. They looked like they couldn’t breathe!!! I think that we’d probably taken most of our “stuff” with us to college, and the books and toys and games probably stayed w/ Jane, or were moved to the basement.
It was more emotional/funny/indignant when my parents moved my stuff from one bedroom to another in the old house. I had the solo bedroom and my sisters shared the bigger bedroom when I was in high school. I went to England for part of the summer after I graduated. My mom and sister(s)? moved me out of the solo room while I was gone. I didn’t mind the move, too much, as it was planned, and I’d be going to school in the fall. What made me indignant was the note Mom left, saying “I threw out some of your underwear, b/c it was ratty, why did you keep it?!” Of course, I would have pitched it before I left from college, but if you take on cleaning my room while I’m gone, then you might have to deal with the ratty underwear. It was emotional b/c everyone was at the cabin when I came back, so for 24 hours I was the only one there. It was funny b/c Jane had left her guitar and a song on the bed. The song was something about putting beans in your ears, and after several verses of the singer telling different adults about the beans in her ears, “That’s nice, dear”, she concluded that all the adults must have beans in their ears too.
July 13th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Kids are supposed to leave?!
July 14th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Of course, when I left for my first semester of college, the GG rearranged my room, which didn’t go over well. I guess now he’s scared to touch anything 😉 Nah, rearrange all you want.