Limbo

As you can probably tell from my lack of posts, it's a busy time in our household.

I am now schooling both children, which has turned out to be more time consuming than I had anticipated and like it was when Dylan first came home, I am appalled at the gaps in Olivia's knowledge. While she is blowing through her math and science work, she struggles badly with a number of language arts concepts in spite of the fact that she is an accomplished, voracious, reader. It serves to remind me how grateful I am that I have the ability to homeschool the kids.

Interestingly, Dylan has talked with me lately about the point of it all. He wonders why in the world he is being made to study biology when he has no intention of entering any career field which requires it. He believes that it is useless information that he won't retain because he has zero interest and frankly, he has a point. Lately, I have been researching the "unschooling" movement pioneered author, John Holt, who believed that children would educate themselves naturally, learning what they needed to learn, without coercion, if they were allowed to pursue their own interests. A lot of what I've read lately makes sense to me but fear finds me on Sunday nights, writing biology lesson plans for the following week. I guess I'll just keep researching...

Work is mental.

Again, in spite of how overwhelming it can be, I am profoundly grateful to be this busy. Business is good. Projects are moving along nicely and we have managed to get our corporate infrastructure in place without much trouble. Captaining my own ship is a completely different animal from being an employee and I'll never look back. While hugely more stressful, I wouldn't trade my status as owner for anything in the world.

The biggest challenge these days is our upcoming move to New Zealand. We're currently interviewing international moving companies and weeding through all the bullshit. The transportation industry is filthy. I understand that everyone has to make a profit and I have NO problem with that. What irks me is the garbage that some of the account representative spout before they realize that both Dallas and I are well versed in logistics. They deliberately throw around terms and acronyms that they know most people won't grasp and use that position of confusion as a profit center. I have listened to more wanks babble on about this upcharge and that fee until I get a break in the diatribe and ask if I can send them a bid sheet. That usually stops them in their tracks and opens the door for a meaningful conversation. I had one guy from New Jersey tell me that I was smarter than the average bear, which for some reason, made me want to club him to death. Anyway, what it all means is that we will have about five different companies traipsing through our house over the next two weeks taking inventory and submitting bids.

We will also be starting the process of divesting ourselves of all of our electronics. Seriously. Everything from the TV's to the refrigerators, the toaster, lamps, steamers, crock pot, etc. have got to be sold. New Zealand works on a 230/240 volts which is double ours. I suppose we could get converters and we may for some things like Dylan's XBox but for everything else, it just makes more sense to sell now and buy new when we get over there. It is amazing how much stuff one accumulates over the years. I've started taking pictures of everything with the intention of listing in Craigslist or on eBay because I'd rather gouge my eyes out than have a garage sale.

Finally, there are all the medical and dental appointments over the next 10 weeks or so. My dysplasia issue continues to be an annoying thorn in my side and it looks like I may have to succumb to the idea of surgery. I cannot express how unhappy I am about that but I've had enough. I just want it fixed. We'll see. I'm going to give the alternate, less invasive, treatment two more weeks to work.

Yeah. So....

Like most of you, we've got a pretty full schedule these days. This is one of those times in life where I'd like a crystal ball so I could peer six months into the future and ease my twitching right eye. I have no doubt that things will be exactly as they should but still, a quick peek would go a long way to quelling the anxiety associated to living a life in limbo.