Witches

I am a tool of the dog house makers. This phrase from the Simpsons has served us well over the years. It means being susceptible (or buying in) to advertising. Like when you see a commercial for the new burger at McDonald's and you have to go get it immediately. So when I saw they had made a TV show about my favorite books from tweenhood I had to DVR it. It was the Secret Circle trilogy by L.J. Smith and I was a geek for them. All my friends read them and we even started up our own "coven", worked with crystals and had matching necklaces (mine was red) for what elements we identified with. We were lame. But still super excited to watch the show. I put on the pilot and was very confused. Stuff was happening that I didn't remember from the books. So I put it on pause and reread the series. It took me three days, probably only 9 hours or so, they're pretty short books. They were definitely more juvenile than I remembered (Sasha says it's me that has matured, same diff) and a little disappointing. I wanted more from them a depth of character and plot that was lacking. I want to follow the coven as they grow and mature. I kind of want to write a follow up book. For my own entertainment of course. But could I do justice to the story? I know books must have conflict. No one (but me) wants to read a book where everything is sunshine and roses, there must be some conflict to give depth. But still good premise on the books.
The show, however, fucked it all up. It's supposed to be based in Massachusetts, near Salem, which has just a bit of history with witchcraft. On the show it's based in Washington...maybe they thought Salem, OR was close enough? They also messed with the characters, and the plot and the everything! I almost gave up after the first episode. But I didn't, I've seen 3 episodes now and it's alright. As long as I don't compare it to the books, it's a fine show.

Honesty

If I'm being honest with myself, I can admit the real reason behind my newfound desire to clean up. It's not cause I've been watching Hoaders. It's not that we're moving to Prague. Or I should say it's not only because of those things. About two months ago I had a follow-up with my doctor. It was supposed to be checking up on my thyroid medication but it happened to be a rough day at work and I ended up crying, complaining about my life. After speaking with me, he suggested I start taking an antidepressant. I wouldn't have said I was depressed, just that work sucked, other drivers on the road sucked, my kids sucked sometimes, etc. But looking back now, I think I've been depressed for years. Maybe since Dacian was born. I think the change happened so gradually that I didn't notice. Dealing with mom definitely made it worse. I've just been letting life pass me by for the last four years.
But all that's changed. I feel energized to clean, to organize. I'm cooking more than I have in years, trying out new recipes, perfecting old ones. I've had a binder filled with recipes I've printed out that I've been meaning to hole punch and get organized...for the last 3 years. Somehow it's never gotten done. So now, I've bought an app for the Mac that I can type them all in, categorize and rate them. I've been doing a few a night and am slowly plodding through. I've been meaning to clean out the closet forever. I got that mostly done last weekend, still organizing but it looks better than it has ever. I ended up donating 12 bags of clothes to Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
I feel better about being a mom. Dacian is very irritating, like most four-year olds I'm sure, but I've been more patient with him and more willing to get down on the floor and play. We've been doing more activities as a family too. I think Dacian notices and appreciates the change in me.
And work...? Well, work sucks. Let me rephrase that...WORK SUCKS!!! I thought it was horrible before, when I felt like shit. Now that I feel so much better, it's amazing how crappy work is. I feel underappreciated and harassed. It's to the point where I don't even care if I get fired. I like the work I do, I do a good job, I am pleasant and helpful. But I couldn't care less. My doctor actually told me to look for a new job because mine was stressing me out too much. Not very practical advice in this economy but I appreciate the sentiment.
So I feel better in all aspects of my life, except work. For now that's acceptable. I'm willing to sacrifice 40 hours a week to being (not miserable, not even unhappy) let's go with grumpy. I will take pleasure in my home, my husband, my children, cooking good food and reading.

Pantry

So in the spirit of clearing out our life in order to move to Prague in a year (and also to feel better about our life/house/world), I started cleaning out my pantry. This is something I normally do probably about twice a year usually around Thanksgiving and in the spring. But since I was pregnant last year and had a newborn this spring, it's been about two years since I went through the whole thing. As would be expected I found lots of expired food, some recently expired, some that expired last year. Yuck. I also found an opened bag of goldfish crackers from Costco. I can't even remember the last time I bought goldfish from Costco. Unfortunately I made the mistake of smelling it to see if they were still good. Yeah, some things you smell and can't ever unsmell them. Not cool. I also discovered Sasha and I have a problem. It has to do with cereal and chips. I found at least five bags of chips that had nothing but crumbs and probably ten boxes of cereal that had less than a bowl left. So instead of throwing them away we put them back in the pantry. So we have a new resolution that will hopefully keep our pantry clean. If there's less than a serving left in the bag, just throw it away! It shouldn't have to be said but I guess I had to say it. I'm also going to try not stocking up on dry goods. I will only buy pasta and soup when I run out. I will only buy what I need to cook for the next week. I feel like I'm in SA (squirrels anonymous) cause I'm stocking up nuts for the winter. Thankfully I'm a human and I can get food anytime from the store. So I will cut down and it will be good.

Clothing

I started purging my closet today. I was motivated by yet another episode of Hoarders. I have a lot of clothes that I haven't worn in years. A lot that doesn't fit, which was easy to put in the bag. But also a lot of clothes that do fit which was also fairly easy to throw away too. I decided if I haven't worn it in over a year, it goes to charity. I guess my style has changed over the years because a lot of the stuff that I could still wear looked horrible on me. Hopefully it used to look better! But on the plus side I found some new old shirts to wear. And I freed up some hangers too. Next to tackle is my "dresser" which is actually some dorm-room like metal cubes that I have my shoes and fold-y stuff. I have a problem hoarding pajamas. I don't actually wear them to sleep in but for lounging around the house. I'm hesitant to give away a big, loose shirt if it has potential to be a "jammy" shirt. But I've got to cut down. I don't think anyone needs 20 different lounging shirts. I usually end up wearing the same two or three anyways. Same with tank tops...I really need to stop shopping at Old Navy. And then there's my shoes. I'm saving some super cool shoes I've bought over the years just because they're super cool. They haven't fit since I had Dacian and my feet grew half a size. So it's time to let go of my silver tennis shoes and burgundy bowling-type shoes that I bought in Paris. So sad...but really what am I saving them for? Chiara when she grows up? Yeah time to let those go.
I have to say it feels good clearing out the closet. I'm enjoying freeing up space. Sasha is also enjoying it because it means he'll have more than 2 feet of hanger space!

Sharing

So we've started to share the news with friends and family about the big move. We've had a lot of different reactions. Lots of positive, not really any negative and some cautionary. Most of the ladies I work with aren't even interested in traveling out of the country let alone living somewhere else so they're very resistant to the idea. I think most people are concerned for us moving somewhere where we don't know anyone.
We don't have the biggest support net here in Reno. Most of our friends have moved away, mom is "gone". We mainly rely on my father-in-law Rob (aka Baba) and WAX (friends of ours). So we get out more than some parents but certainly less than others. Sasha plays music with his band twice a week. I have no life but I still get two nights a week to have some quiet time by myself. We go out a lot as a family. Dacian and Chiara are fairly well behaved.
So moving to Prague where we'll have absolutely no net isn't as big a step for us. We've always had to travel to see family for holidays, etc. We do have friends in Europe in general, though and my uncle lives in Berlin which isn't horribly far away from Prague.
I know it's going to be a huge change. We'll be going from a two story house to a probably two bedroom flat. It'll be a lot less space but we'll have the whole city to explore. Just going to the store will become an adventure. It might not be comfortable, we might hate it but that's part of the experience. I don't know if we'll be there forever, probably not, but it's something Sasha and I want to try.

Shopping

So in preparation for moving to Europe one of our goals this year is to change the way we buy groceries. Both Sasha and I have spent time living in Paris and Europeans approach grocery shopping differently than Americans. Usually I'll go to Winco once every payday and stock up on all essentials and then go to Safeway or Raleys if I need anything in between. Winco tends to be cheaper but I often end up wasting food because I can't eat it in time. Europeans shop on a daily basis (or every few days) to get the freshest food available. Maybe it has to do with living in a flat that you don't have a lot of room to store food? Or not having a big enough freezer to have an entire pork loin cut into chops just waiting to be eaten? Regardless it seems a more efficient way to do things and it's my mission over the next few months to accomplish it. I say this after just spending $150 at Winco stocking up on meat and fruit and veggies. I'm not a food hoarder but I like to have options. But what sounds good for dinner while I'm making a grocery list or at the store isn't always what I want to cook or eat later in the week. I have, in the past, created a menu for the week. It helps to quantify what I need to buy and how much time I'll need to allot for cooking dinner. So that's an idea, reinstate that system. Then I would need to shop just once a week. I also need to work on my, and my family's, mental approach to food. We have to learn to eat what's in the fridge/pantry. That means that I need to be more creative with my meal ideas. I try to be, I have a million cookbooks, magazines and recipes I've printed offline (or off online? they both sound wrong) and I have grandiose ideas. But when Wednesday evening rolls around it's usually steak, chicken or the aforementioned pork chops. We eat a lot of meat. Always once a day and sometimes for every meal. Not that that's a bad thing. But I don't know how affordable meat will be in Prague so I'd like to decrease our culinary dependency on it. As of now our "vegetarian" meals all consist of some form of pasta, which is delicious but I'd like more of a variety. I also find myself wasting a lot of fruits and veggies that go bad before I can (want to) eat them. So maybe instead of buying 5 bananas at once I buy 2 and go back to the store every few days. Some things to work on...

Change

It's funny how everything can change in a week. Sasha was hired to teach French at Sparks High School. It's only a year contract but he's starting up their French program that has laid dormant for 7 years. It's going to be a lot of work, fairly monotonous since he only has first year students. But it puts our future in question. If they offer him a position for next year will he be able to say no? Will he feel obligated to give them two, three, four years? Will he even like full-time teaching and all the stress and responsibility it represents? But the biggest question of all is what will this mean for our future? As of now we're still on schedule to move to Prague in the fall of 2012. Who knows what this year will bring or if that will change. I think for all our sanity's we're going to assume and plan for moving next fall and then if it gets pushed back by a year or two at least we'll be prepared. I feel that the longer we stay here the less likely it is that we'll move. Dacian starts kindergarten next year and how hard will it be to uproot him from that? I know people move all the time but this is only the second time I've moved since I was an adult and the first time the kids will go through that. Dacian's very sensitive, I can see him having a problem adjusting. But let's not dwell on the negative. Next fall we'll be in Prague!

Hoarding

I have been watching a lot of hoarding shows lately. They've got me in the mood for declutterizing. I started watching them a few months ago because my mom was a hoarder. Well she would probably still be a hoarder but she's lost her mind and doesn't know anything anymore. She was diagnosed with a form of dementia about two years ago but we'd noticed a problem around our wedding in 2005. She started forgetting words, names for things. I thought it was cause she was getting older. She wasn't old, only 60, but you start forgetting things you know? She used to be able to describe the thing she had forgotten the word for but in 2008 she stopped being able to do even that. I stopped letting her watch my son by herself then. I asked her what she would do if Dacian started choking, she said "oh that's because he eats gluten". Yeah not good. She was forced into early retirement because her disease was affecting her work. In 2009 her drivers license was revoked. She couldn't read signs and would get confused driving someplace new. In 2010 her behavior had escalated to the level that I and my siblings didn't think she was safe living at home by herself. It was when we got a call from the Truckee police department that we knew it was emergent. My mother had tried to walk the ten miles into town to go to the grocery store. When she got tired of walking she hitchhiked. The young girl who gave mom a ride was so concerned that she called the police to do a welfare check on her. The officer found mom lugging grocery bags down Donner Pass Rd. That was one of the scariest calls in my life. We called a guardianship service in Reno and had them file for incompetency. It took a few months but mom was placed in a memory unit in July of 2010. Her mind's gone, she doesn't recognize us anymore, she doesn't speak much anymore. But she's determined to get back to her house. They have her medicated pretty heavily because she's an "exit seeker". My mothers house is the real reason I watch the hoarding shows. I helped my sister clean out decades of food, clothes, furniture and pictures. She had canned food that expired in 1985. She had her maternity clothes. She had every picture and craft project that all her kids had done. They say to keep tax records going back 7 years, she had hers since 1970. She had a mountain of yarn. Her garage was so packed with stuff you couldn't see the two cars that were in it.
Seeing this made me callous about my possessions. Why keep things just in case I could use them later? I'm not as decluttered as I'd like to be but watching the hoarding shows keeps me on my toes. I will not become my mother.

Division

I talked with my Dad about moving, what to do with all our stuff. He's been in our position, not exactly but close enough. He lives in Seattle and a few years ago he moved from a two bedroom house to a boat. That's right my Dad lives on a boat. It took awhile to sink in for me too. So he knows a bit about reducing possessions. He gave me a very good suggestion, divide all our possessions into three piles. One to sell, one to take with us and one to store for the time being. Some things are immediately placeable, some things will take some discussion. I'd like to keep our new dining table, we just bought it and it's super cool. We need to take the computer with us, obviously. I'd like to sell or pass on all the clothes and toys the kids have outgrown. The kitchen poses the biggest problem for me. I'd like to take many things with us: knives, pans,  utensils. It's silly to take the small appliances because Prague runs on different voltage and the outlets are different too. I don't know how much we can take with us. Will we just take what we can carry over? Or will we ship more stuff with a moving company. I think it all comes down to cost. It also depends on how long we'll be there. If we'll only be there a year there's no sense in bringing our life with us. If we'll be there longer, why not? So we've got some interesting decisions to make over the next six months. We've decided to sell things off a bit at a time. It hopefully will ease us into the lack of stuff shock rather than jumping in all at once.

Stuff

I have never before been so aware of all of my possessions. Thinking about how little we'll be able to bring makes me reconsider every object in my life. Even though the move is a year away my day is filled with deliberations. I don't know if we'll be able to afford to ship belongings there. I don't know if we even want to. We're looking at this move to shake up our lives, as a restart. So it doesn't make sense to drag along a bunch of furniture and toys. So that's an easy decision there. No furniture, few toys nothing big. Clothes will be pretty easy, this will be a good reason to give away all my accumulated crap that doesn't fit anymore. Shoes will be problematic though. I love shoes. Not all crazy like some people. I don't have hundreds of pairs but I like to have options. You don't always want to wear the same shoes, or even the same 5 pairs of shoes. But that will probably be my limit. Five pairs of shoes. I don't think there will be a call for flip flops but maybe a pair to wear around the flat. Definitely a pair of boots, a pair of running shoes, a pair of dressy heels, a pair of casual heels and a pair of flats. That's pretty boring maybe I can make room for more? I think my biggest problem will be my books. I have a lot of books. I love to read, more than that I love to read real books. And I have probably four or five series that I'll reread every other year. Then there are all the kids books we have. I have books from when I was a kid, ones I've bought for my kids, books in French, ones that I don't want to lose. I think I'll get a Kindle for my books. That frees up some space for extra kids books. Next genre to tackle would be movies and music. In preparation for the move to Europe in 2005 we got rid of all of our CD and DVD cases and put them all in binders. Since then we've continued this practice which really helps w/storage space. The music is technically electronically stored on our computer but a back up is always good. Maybe a back up hard drive? It seems silly to cart all those CDs halfway around the world when we won't use them. The only time I listen to an actual CD now is when I'm in my car. We won't have a car in Prague, ergo we don't need CDs. DVDs are a different story. Yes there are some that we could leave behind, but that will be the main source of English language entertainment so I don't want to limit myself to only bringing a few things. We're spoiled here by cable TV and free streaming on Netflix anytime we want. But on the other hand, we'll be in Europe with history and culture right outside the window. Will we need to be couch potatoes? Will we have a couch? These are the things I think about as I go through my day. Will I need this in Europe? Can I bring it? How will this work?

Speculation

How to expatriate to the Czech Republic. I typed that sentence into Google yesterday. I was looking for advice both technically and emotionally. Logistically how do you get a work visa, how do you find a job, how do you get a bank account? Emotionally how do you leave your home, what do you tell your children, how do you shed 11 years of accumulated stuff? I got a few international moving companies, a few expat resources, one on retiring to the CR but I didn't find what I was looking for the most. I want reassurance that this is a good idea, that uprooting my families life, just to pursue a youthful dream, won't be the biggest mistake we've ever made. My husband and I met in French class in high school. I was 17, he was a baby at 15. We've always wanted to live in Paris, you know if we won the lottery that we don't play. Living in Paris is a dream an ideal that may never happen. We married in 2005 and decided that Europe was the place for us. Sasha took a CELTA course in 2004 so he was going to teach English. We decided on Prague because at the time it was a "fringe" country, not yet part of the EU, so hopefully easier to get a job. My father-in-law also has business contacts in the CR so it's not an unfamiliar city to Sasha. He took a trip in April, before our wedding in June. He met with a few language schools and actually got a position! So we were set to move to Prague in August 2005. Then life intervened. Out of the blue Sasha got a call from Mark Kalin, the world famous magician. He was responding to a letter Sasha had sent several years before looking for a position with his magic show. In the interim they had scaled down the show and bought their own theater, but he'd kept Sasha's phone number. They sat down for a meeting that ended with Mark offering Sasha an unpaid internship learning light and sound for Magic Underground. There was already a light technician and a sound technician so now there were 3 big men crowded around a board really only big enough for one to operate. He learned lights, he learned sound and then one day he was running the whole board by himself. And then one day he was in the show, assisting. And then one day he had taken over for their lead assistant and was running the theater. And then one day the theater closed. In the meantime he had turned down the job offer in Prague, we had bought a house and had our son Dacian. So Sasha went back to school and got his teaching credential to teach French and Drama. We had our daughter Chiara. Now 6 years later we are underwater on our house and have two little kids. Why Prague? Why now? We've become stuck in a rut, not a bad one, not in a negative way. But it would be very easy to live in Reno for the rest of our lives. And that is not what we want. Dacian should start school next year so now's the time to go. I'm not saying that it's not going to be hard. I'm not saying we're going to be there forever. But this is an adventure, one we'll take as a family.