Coming into the home stretch**

We close on the new house on Thursday, title transfers on Friday, and we get possession a week from today. The closing company already has all of our loan docs, all of the title docs, and our money in escrow, and the "sold" sign is up in front of the new house. When we drove past the house this weekend, the garage door was open and the garage was so packed full of moving boxes I'm not sure you could actually get inside. I'm so close to being out of this hotel, I can almost taste it.

After a few weeks of not having much that needed to be done right away, I've had to throw Liza back on the Barney bandwagon long enough to make the last flurry of phone calls to organize utilities and make sure the closing and movers are all set. I spent a lovely hour on the phone today with AT&T ... yes, an hour, but now I have local and long distance for our land line, a cell phone, highspeed internet, and digital satellite tv, all on one bill. Just think of all the money I'll be saving on stamps and checks when I don't have to mail all those bills separately. And the trees! Think of the trees I'll be saving! Just don't think about the fact that I really only did it because I'm too lazy to call four different companies for services that one can provide me.

This past Saturday we went over to Sears to buy a riding lawn mower, since our new yard is actually flat enough to use one and large enough that I will only occasionally call Jason an exercise-avoiding-wuss when he's using it. We needed a new mower, anyway, so it made sense to plunk down the extra few hundred dollars now and get it over with before I decide I hate my kitchen and want to spend all of our extra money on ripping it out and replacing it.

Anyway, we decided to do this errand on the day when we had visited the zoo in the morning, Liza had taken a 45-minute nap on the way home, and we had just finished getting some ice cream and running some other errands. We were just going to stop to check the prices on our way to let Liza ride the escalators (her reward for not using her outside voice at all in the ice cream parlor), so I didn't bother with the stroller. For the first time ever, I got to be one of those parents I pity when I'm shopping at the mall - my toddler dead asleep in my arms, weighing more with every passing moment. I swear, by the time we got the mower picked out, paid for, and arranged to be delivered with the washer and dryer we bought a few weeks ago, that kid weighed at least 75 pounds. No wonder when I looked in the mirror last week I noticed that my left arm - the kid-carrier - is actually kinda buff, while the right arm - the key-carrier - is its usual wobbly self. So if you see lots of pictures from me this summer where you only see my left side, that's why. Photos from this summer are also likely to focus on the tag on my new jeans, the one that says "size 10." They're mutant 10s, and no other 10s on the planet will fit me, and I may have to go commando to zip them up once I wash them a couple times, but by god, there's at least one pair of size 10 pants in my closet.

Ahem. Back to the house. I just can't tell you how good it feels to be almost there.
- I can finally start on the lists I have forced myself to put off making for the past two months (What Stays With The House; What Is Currently In The Attic That Needs To Be Moved To the Basement Of the New House; What Kitchen Items I'm Going To Have To Get Rid Of Because, Dude, We're Downsizing, And Who Really Needs That Much Pyrex Cookware Anyway?; What Things I Need to Fix And/Or Hide So They Don't Get Moved By Accident).

- I can finally start poking around in the local greenhouses, looking for good deals on the obscene amount of mulch we'll need to fill in around the base of the playset in the backyard so that when my daughter falls off when I'm not paying attention, she'll only break something, not die.

- I can buy the plane ticket for my Sainted Mother, who is coming to take over child care while I tell the movers what to do. Did I mention that Jason will be there for the first day of packing, and after that he has to be back in Cleveland for meetings and won't be able to help again until the movers show up in Cleveland on Friday? Definitely going to need the Grandma Distraction Factor.

- I can figure out how we're going to celebrate Liza's birthday (Sunday) when we're supposed to be sorting the junk in the basement, reinstalling the crappy showerheads that came with the house, and we won't be getting to Kentucky until the day before. Wait until a few weeks after the move, when she's more likely to appreciate the festivities, but her grandparents won't be there? Say screw it and have cake Sunday? Maybe I'll have it figured out by this weekend.

- I can arrange to visit my friend in Columbus who has a new baby (who'd BETTER NOT BE READING THIS BLOG WHEN SHE COULD BE SLEEPING, SAHO!!!!). Since my mother is flying into Columbus, which is on the way from Cleveland to Kentucky, this works out perfectly. I can't wait to see her ... and the baby, of course :) I've only waited this long because I didn't want Liza to infect the poor unsuspecting newborn with something godawful ... not that Liza has been sick, but still, you don't want to take the chance.

- I can count the hours until I'm in my own bed, with my own sheets and my own comforter that's been washed sometime during the Bush administration. And the cats aren't. And the clicking, gurgling refrigerator is more than 10 feet from the bed. And Herman Munster doesn't live upstairs and get home at 11:30 every night. And the toilet will have a lid that I can shut and lock to keep toddlers from getting into it up to their elbows. And I can have a nice long cry about leaving my beautiful old home.


**When I was in high school our gym class had to do the Jane Fonda workout video for a couple classes a year, and there's a part near the end where Jane says, "We're coming into the home stretch now - buttock tucks!" with an amphetamine-fueled brightness that will turn your stomach, even if you haven't been jogging in place for 25 minutes watching to see if the video's fake classmember "Richard's" package ever peeks out of his short-shorts. It's ruined the phrase for me, really it has.