moving day

I'm moving on Saturday. It's a bit surreal. According to Google maps, we are moving our family a whopping 0.3 miles, if you drive. As the crow flies, we're talking about 400 feet. After living in our condo for close to seven years, and always anxious to get out of this neighborhood and into something bigger, we are moving; 400 feet. We are getting into something bigger, much bigger in fact. As far as getting out of the neighborhood . . . not so much. But, apparently the thing we thought we always wanted, a giant yard, turned out to be not all that important in the end. We still won't have a yard, which we were sure was the only way to teach our kids how to work. For some reason, in our minds, mowing the lawn was the only way our kids were going to develop any kind of work ethic. But when we found our new place, horticulture kind of flew out the window. The house is full of oak built ins, which are in desperate need of polishing; often. And, with 3000 square feet of living space comes, lots of walls, that will need to be painted; often. Wax on, wax off, jacob/elijah/spencer-san. I have no idea how many times I am going to change my mind about what color I will want my walls. They will be pro painters by the time we are done decorating the house. I guess I have come to terms with the fact that, as much as I hate to admit it, SoCal is becoming more and more urban, which means homes are built bigger on smaller lots, without yards. So I embrace it. In our giant garage, our boys will build and fix stuff. They will lift weights. They will play basketball in the driveway. When we need grass, we will go to one of the many beautiful parks within a 3 mile radius. They will grow and thrive, and they will do it in their own space and not under my feet 24 hours a day. I can't wait.