PANIC

Exactly one month from today, the big truck will come, and the men will begin to pack us.
I am so very not ready for this...and I don't mean emotionally not ready (although that is also true).
I mean, my house is in NO shape to be packed. There is so much to do here, and really no forseeable time in which to do it...if I mapped out our family calendar for the next 4 weeks, you would understand. There are no free weekends to spend time organizing and getting the place ready to pack, to delineate which of our goods are "precious" (I still don't understand what this is supposed to mean, but it means something to the movers...something about being worth more than $1 per pound...your guess is as good as mine), to go through the storage nooks & crannies and decide what we keep and what we don't, to figure out what furniture we aren't taking with us and getting Goodwill to come get it, to get my furniture and files and books moved out of my office, to go round up all of our medical records from various doctors all over town, to get my cholesterol checked again b/c it was high last time I did it, and on and on...

We just got back from a fabulous long weekend at the beach with Erin, Troy, and baby Jack, and I was planning all day to sit down tonight and post about that, until I had lunch with Norma and John today and someone said OUT LOUD that we leave a month from Friday. I have been spiralling ever since. Is that how it will be from here on out? The fun and wonderful will be overshadowed by this crazy and frantic spinning to get it all done? I really need it not to be that way.

The calendar, for those of you who have been wondering and asking, looks something like this:

Thursday 5/24 - last lunch with Callie, sweet friend of mine; Lucy's tae kwon do testing at 4:00
Memorial Day weekend - Michael works 48 hrs in Vicksburg; pool opens (not that we'll ever get there...)
Tuesday 5/29 - Michael & Mel fly to St Lou to close on house, eat dinner with BJC group, tie up loose ends w.r.t. home occupancy and renovation
Thursday 5/31 - return to Jackson
next weekend - various birthday parties and Michael moonlighting and inlaws here on Sunday for 3 days
Friday 6/8 - to Birmingham for sister's wedding until Sunday 6/10
that week - crazy packing and other work on the house so we can close on it
Wednesday 6/13 - Michael's fellowship graduation
Thrusday 6/14 - Alison Krauss in concert (we so love her)
Friday 6/15 - Lucy's 5th birthday party (early, so she can have it with her friends here...sad)
that weekend - Michael moonlighting and more crazy packing and house fixup
Friday 6/22 - men come to pack house
Saturday 6/23 - men load house onto truck
Sunday 6/24 - clean house to get ready for closing on
Monday 6/25 - 8:30 a.m. close on this house and hit the road for the Lou...
Tuesday 6/26 - truck arrives in St. Louis to unload.

Wow. It still seems so surreal...will it always?