SeDoNa

So we're doing this thing. This living in Arizona. This is where I freaking live now. Wow. It's weird, definitely different, and obviously will take some getting used to. For instance, we don't have our own mailbox. We walk to a community mailbox, and if we get a package, there's a special key placed in our box and we take it out and use it to unlock a bigger box. The first time we got a package, I didn't know that I am supposed to leave the extra key IN the bigger box for the mailman to remove, so Diva and I tried and tried for like 15 minutes to yank the extra key out of the box. Finally, the neighbor kid came by with Tukey and I asked him, and he explained the system to us. There's so much to learn.

Of course, it's hot. It hasn't been unbearable. Yet. OK, maybe a couple of days it has been. Like the day we went shopping all day then got to the grocery store and my car wouldn't start. That's the day I had the nervous breakdown. And last week, well, you read about last week. I won't beat a dead horse. Cuz a dead horse is just smelly and there's too many flies buzzing around it, and well, it just smells ewww, can you imagine how a dead horse smells in the middle of the desert. Oh yeah, did I mention I live in the freaking desert now? Crazy.

The kids are doing INCREDIBLE. I couldn't have asked for (so far) better adjusted kids, and I'm so thankful for this. Maybe it's because Nana and Papa have been here for more than a week and have been totally awesome at keeping them happy and occupied. Maybe it's because each of them has made a little pal already. Maybe it's because they have this pool to jump into any time they start to get sad about missing friends back home?

Whatever it is, I'm so thankful that they are doing so well and that they're happy and that's gonna keep me sane through whatever curveballs come our way. We're setting up the house to make it ours. The previous owners left it DIRTY! I didn't realize how much of a neat freak I really am, but even my kids have been a bit disgusted by how they left this place. I mean, come on, we found a half-eaten box of Girl Scout cookies left in the high school boy's closet? And they weren't even Thin Mints! I have been CSI'ing the place and have been scrubbing so much that I swear I have lost fingerprints from all the chemicals and cleaning!

I've also been drinking a lot! Not to drink away the sorrows. Just because it's easy to work around the house all day long and then go outside and have a beer (new one you might wanna try: Michelob Ultra Pomegranate Raspberry!), or have a glass of wine. I need to get back into some form of exercise. Walking and yoga. I know yoga will calm my center, make me feel more at peace with all the changes. I also want to get focused on writing again. REALLY need to find my way back to writing. And I have a lot of reading to do. I should be thanking my lucky stars that I will have time to do all this stuff now, with not much of a social calendar!

But really, things are good. Mr. Manic is happy to be back in an office, and not working from the dining room or in my old office. I have a great beautiful office in our new home here (with yellow walls!), our house is beautiful, the sun is always shining. The kids are happy, the boys are always bickering. It's typical stuff. We are all healthy. Things are just different. Thanks to all my friends who keep calling and checking in on me, and thanks to you all who keep checking in here on this ole blog, and who are kind enough to leave a comment to cheer me up, to offer me suggestions and advice on moving, to say a word of encouragement, from those of you who know what it's like, from those of you who have been through this before. It's so encouraging to hear from you, I can't even begin to tell you. So thank you is all I can say. It's never enough, but I hope it'll do.

All is well, and I'm still PeaCiNG uP!

~MaNiC MoMMy