Packing, Packing, Packing

No time to write much. There's a lot of packing to be done. Add that to the regular to-dos that a family of six that learns at home has on their plate and - WOW - there's a lot to do! We're doing minimal learning time right now, and next week we might take completely off. After lunch I've mostly worked on packing, which for the kids pales in comparison to the usual interesting learning or outings we do. Considering, the kids have been great, and even though I really don't want to with the moving truck arrival looming, I think tomorrow we'll take the morning and go to OMSI and have a good time there. Dean and I will have all day Sunday and Monday to get the rest of the stuff ready to go on the truck. The kids will go to the neighbors for a couple of hours on Monday, and I have a couple of other friends who have offered to take them for a little while. I'm actually enjoying the packing a lot. Whittling down our possessions even further, more loads to Good Will, lots of recycling going out. I would say we're probably 50% packed at this point, so not too bad. I'm trying to finish off an entire room each day.

Wow, that was a few run-on sentences! Kind of like my days. I won't even try to edit them. I'm pretty darn tired. I even dozed for an hour when I put the kids to bed tonight. I also realized I don't have to make what we don't put on the moving truck fit perfectly into our luggage. We can just mail a couple of boxes to Savannah our last day here. Being in a house with no furniture for a week will be a bit odd, and I haven't quite pictured how that will be. Picnics?? We can borrow some folding chairs, probably. Maybe even a little table. Probably a bed too. The kids *love* sleeping on the floor, though. That's their favorite kind of bed. We call it a "funny bed."

If I keep typing I'll just write random snatches of things that pop into my head, so it's probably best that I get this tired mama to bed so she can leap up tomorrow morning, make a picnic, and take The Band to OMSI.

Which reminds me... we just finished the 2,481 pages of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series on shabbat. What a *fantastic* series of books. We did not read books 9-11 in the series (that would have made the series over 3,000 pages!). I just learned that these were not originally intended to be part of the series, but rather a spinoff series. We started book 9, but were impatient to get back to the characters and story we had enjoyed so much in books 1–8.

The author, Kathryn Lasky, has also written quite a bit of historical fiction for children and we are looking forward to reading those books too. I can't say enough good things about this series - the language, the role models for good character, compelling plot, the distinctly Jewish flavor, everything. It was very, very sad that we reached the conclusion. I'm finding that good contemporary children's literature is very, very hard to find. Now, really, off to bed.