Today is THE DAY!

It's moving day! That was a line from a book and a movie, The Secret of NIMH, but it will also be our mantra for today.

My brother, his friend, possibly his wife, and our son will all be showing up here very soon to load this POD!! Mark and I stayed up until nearly midnight and set the alarm for 5:30 this morning to keep working at packing. We are getting close. We need another dozen or so boxes, which we'll pick up around 10 a.m. when we go out to get the Budget rental truck. We're hoping we don't need to load the truck, too, but if we do, it will contain totes of comics that we could easily store at someone else's house until September. I don't plan to drive a rental truck to Florida this time. If we are lucky enough to get everything into the POD, then the truck will be used to haul the things we want to donate to Amvets. There is nearly an entire living room full of that.

Thanks go out to my friend Lois! She came and took my dining room table and chairs and a TON of stuff out of the living room. The old table will get lovingly refinished and put to good use. I feel really happy about that. Lois had a good time picking out things to take to give to her grandchildren or use for herself. It was like shopping at a thrift store without having to pay!! She has paid us back with love over the years! Thanks, LOIS!! (I don't even think she knows about this blog, so it's a good thing I hugged and thanked her in person yesterday.)

Thanks go out to our friend Joel. He took multiple car loads of stuff back in the winter to sell at yardsales, craigslist, and eBay. He did a great job. We split the profits and both felt rich! He also spent several hours last week helping us sort and carry up various boxes of trash and recycles from the back of the basement, plus he came over this week to take the bench press and free weights to use for himself. Thanks Joel!

Thanks also must go to my cleaning lady, good friend, and big sister I never had, Peggy!!! Could NOT have gotten as far as we did without her tireless work for two extra days in here. She is amazing. She is also coming tomorrow and Tuesday to do the final cleaning, especially of the basement floors. We haven't seen the basement floors in years, so there is a considerable amount of dirt and dust on them. I know she'll have them shining by Tuesday afternoon! Again, she is an amazing woman.

Last night was our last night to sleep in this house. We moved in right after Passover, April of 1981 with our two year old son. Today we will sleep in the EconoLodge on route 1 in Laurel, about a five minute drive from the house. I am not sad. I'm looking forward to the next adventure of our lives together. We have had some fabulous times in this house. Like any family, there have been glad times and sad times. The glad have been more frequent, fortunately. We have raised two incredible children to become magnificent adults. We are extremely proud of both Lowell and Evey. We feel that we have done a pretty good job as parents; I hope they agree. If not now, maybe someday later.

Time to go eat the great breakfast of lowcarb pancakes Mark has made for our usual Sunday morning breakfast. It will be delicious, and it's the last meal he will cook in this kitchen. I think he's going to cook a lot more great meals in the beautiful new kitchen we will be in very soon.