House Status Update

This has been a crazy summer, and I have a lot of photos and trips to post, but right now, it feels like it's time for a house update. Because we are still not living in our new home, and that is a lot of what has made this summer a little chaotic to put it mildly.

This photo above is our septic system. The septic system that was supposed to be done months ago, but that's beside the point at this stage. We're just happy that it is now almost finished. We have an inspection scheduled for Tuesday and then I think the crew will fill everything in, and we'll be able to flush toilets! One very crucial step towards FINALLY being able to live over there.

We've also been working with a couple of friends to get more of the big junk out of way--Peanut got to use the backhoe to smash a small shed and move it to the lumber pile.

The whole middle of our property has looked like a construction zone most of the summer as the contractors have finished different projects. But everyone has been working slower than promised (I can't tell you how many weeks our septic guy has told us it will be finished the next week.)

And here's the hard part. Back in the beginning of May, our landlady asked us to sign a year lease. She'd had to do some repairs to the house (some of which we did the labor for to save her some money) and I can see why it prompted this after being month to month for 7.5 years, but knowing that our house should be ready sometime this summer (so we thought), we decided we needed to explain our situation to her. We told her we didn't have a date yet, but would give her notice, as much as possible, as soon as we knew when we'd be leaving.

Well, I think she kind of panicked at the thought of us leaving after all this time and she came back a couple of weeks asking if we thought we'd be out by mid-July. We told her probably not, but that we would for sure let her know in plenty of time to find new renters. And two days later, she told us we needed to be out by the end of June because she had new tenants moving in. We tried to offer her more money for the couple extra months that we needed, but she wouldn't budge. After 8.5 years of living there and taking care of things for her (including installing a new water heater just a couple of months before to save her $2000), she kicked us out on June 28th. 

And so, we've been technically homeless all summer. We've been incredibly lucky that two different families offered to let us housesit for them while they traveled, which meant we've only had one night in a hotel between those two offers, but our housesitting time runs out at the beginning of September and we're still working out where we will move to next. And yes, it's been as stressful as that sounds. We have things stored in so many places (a Pod, the property shed, in the new house, in the old house and patio on our new property, at work, in our big van, and with us) that it's hard to keep track of things these days and having to start the school year like this has been a challenge, not to mention that our current house is 25-30 minutes away from everything, so we are all commuting and most of us aren't used to that (Daddy-o just has an extra 15 minutes or so to his normal commute.)

So, we're just waiting. Waiting for the contractors to actually finish the job. Waiting for PG&E to decide that letting people be homeless when they literally have a house just waiting for them isn't okay when it would only take them 1 hour to cut and swing the wire from the old house to the new so we can get electrical. Waiting for the go ahead that we can move in. It's so close that it could happen in the next couple of weeks, but the way things have gone, that could also stretch until the end of the year (I REALLY hope this isn't the case.)

So, who knows where we'll be in Sept--your guess is as good as mine!

In Other Happenings

Warning: These first couple of pictures are disturbing--no blood and gore, but still hard to look at if you don't like that sort of thing. So scroll past if you don't want to see!

This summer/fall has felt like it largely revolved around Bug leaving us, but we have had other things going on. Starting with the biggest thing--

Daddy-o took a nasty fall off a ladder at work and ended up spending a day in the ER. It ended up not being broken, just a severe dislocation which they had to put him under in order to reset.

The doctor told him he was lucky that he didn't die since a lot of ladder incidents end up much worse. He was about 8 feet off the ground when the ladder slipped down the wall it was balanced on so he had about 1 second to try to figure out how to land to inflict the least damage (and have the smallest chance of hitting his head), and he did fall pretty well, just got his left leg tangled up with the ladder.

Orthorpedic surgeon decided he didn't need surgery, just a boot and physical therapy. Swelling was so bad at his first PT appointment that they couldn't really do anything. Over a month later, it's still swollen, but not nearly as bad. His orthopedist is really happy with his progress (he's walking in normal shoes already!) and has hopes that he'll recover full range of motion, but he's got a lot of work to get there. We're just glad it wasn't his right ankle so he's been able to drive the whole time.

Peanut had an awesome swim meet where he got three PRs, which finally broke through a plateau he'd had for a while. He's got a new coach, and is swimming 3-4 times a week now and it seems to be making a difference.

Property news has been frustrating. There should be a house in this picture on the right, but this is still what it looks like (but at least there was a nice sunrise!) We are waiting on the final permits and they have been sending us back with something to change over and over. We've submitted the final change they asked for, so we *should* have our permits any day now, but I'm not holding my breath.

I couldn't get a great picture, but all three animals were snuggling together the other day and it was just so sweet. We kind of can't believe that the guinea pigs are still holding on. They're both about 5.5 years old which is about as old as they get. We've already started talking about what we're going to have to do for Poppy when that day comes--she'll miss her piggy friends.

Pool time ended with some weird days--Bug's last day of lessons was totally raining. I showed up to swim laps during his break, but there was thunder and lightning, which is really weird for us.

Science classes have been going pretty well. Chemistry is a fun topic with some good labs we get to do this year and a lot of the kids are pretty into it. (and shh. . . don't tell anyone, but I have a couple favorite classes for sure--it's just so nice when they can follow directions and really seem interested in what we're doing.)

Nature hikes have also been fun. We've got a smaller core group this year, but the families are a lot of fun.

We're revisiting some of my favorite topics since none of my current families were around when I first started. So we learned about woodpeckers and returned to the redwoods.

The banana slugs there were a hit. And I had to laugh, but also felt really legit when a random hiker stopped to listed to me when I was talking about the redwood root networks with my group.

I went to see the movie release of the new Taylor Swift album. After missing out on the Eras tour and regretting it, I decided I wasn't going to take any chances. I'm loving the new album, and it was fun to see the making of the music video.

And in other music news, Peanut and I went to the symphony at Temple Hill in Oakland for the Star Wars night.

The music was great and we got to watch a friend from church in her inaugural night as the conductor. 

It was fun meeting up with homeschool friends and pretending that we're still living that life. I think that once you're a homeschooler, you're always a homeschooler.

And finally, I got out for a hike after dropping Peanut off for his Ranger Explorers day today. 

It was a gorgeous morning and I did the new trail which has some incredible views. Also got to hike with deer, watch a white-tailed kite hovering and diving for food, and a red-shouldered hawk take off with a gopher in its talons! All in all, it was a really great hike and I still had time to spend the rest of the day with gimpy Daddy-o ;)

 

I May Never Catch Up

Feeling just a little behind around here, and as much as I do want to catch up, I'm having a hard time imagining how. So, I'm dropping in some current photos right now.

Spring fun meets have started again with swim team. Peanut got talked into it (he really hates racing), and dropped several seconds on his breaststroke time! Hoping he'll keep improving his times and realize that it's fun to just challenge himself each meet.

I've been scheduling as many field trips and fun things as I can knowing that this is it for our homeschool life. And trying not to think about that too much because I definitely have complicated feelings around it. We went to the Sulfur Creek Nature Center in Hayward with my nature group, learned about animal skulls, and spent some time exploring the rescued animals on site.

We've been science-ing weekly--my classes are pretty good this year, with just a little extra chaos in the middle school class (I think almost the entire class has ADHD), but we've been having a lot of fun studying ecology and the kids have been getting better about doing their homework so when I assign posters or presentations, we actually have things to look at in the next class! It's the little wins that count. . .

Part of my field trip initiative involved setting up a few homeschool ski days at Dodge Ridge.

And, on the second one, I decided I was done sitting in the lodge waiting for my people. My last time on a snowboard was 7 years ago, and it was pretty painful. After breaking my ankle, I figured I was done. But I've been doing a lot of strength training and balance work for the past year (with a break in the fall while we were on our trip), and was feeling pretty strong. And. . .

I still remember how it's done! I was pretty nervous for the first run, but by the bottom, I felt like I had it. I'm not doing anything crazy these days, but I can cruise down a blue run with no issues and it felt pretty good. And it's fun to be out there with my family. Now I've just got to get Peanut skiing on harder runs and we can explore more of the mountain. He's kind of a speed demon, but if we can get him more comfortable with his turns, I think he could handle the steeper stuff, too.

We've used the van both times we went up to the snow. It's so much easier to drive up the evening before and not have to get up at 5.

And we stay nice and cozy in there, despite the cold temps outside. Dinner, family movie, and then a solid night of sleep before a day in the snow is pretty awesome.

Peanut has gotten back into 4H since we returned home. He's doing the cooking project this year and we're all enjoying the monthly dinners he makes. Last month was tacos in homemade tortillas--yum!

We've also been pretty busy with our nature hikes. 

I've got a solid group this semester with about 6 families signed up for the whole package, and then several others who are coming as many weeks as they can. We had 22 kids on one of them!

These are still my favorite classes and we've had some really fun topics this semester.

Some of the kids get really into it (and then there are still the ones who just want to talk about their imaginative worlds for 2 hours with their friends--I think as long as they're out in nature, it's all good.)

Peanut falls somewhere in the middle--he wants to do whatever the topic is, but some of those conversations are just too alluring. I've been impressed with his nature journalling each time, and let the rest of it go.

And the weeks when we get to really explore are fun for everyone.

Found a couple newts on one of our February hikes.

And lots of mushrooms, of course. It wasn't the best season because we didn't get enough rain in January, but there have still been some good ones.

And finally, a property update. It's getting green over there, things are blooming, but the house is slow. It should be right along the right side of the property here.

But we did get the buildings cleared that we needed to, and they've come out to do testing for our septic system, which means we're making progress. Just not sure how much or what the timeline looks like from here. I'm cautiously optimistic that we might be able to move over there by the end of the summer. We shall see how it turns out. . .

Season Greetings

Our greetings may be too late for Christmas, but that's just how cards went this year. Every single step was a struggle. I finally mailed out the batch that we were sending on Christmas Eve, and wanted to wait until people had a chance to receive them before posting. (We decided to cut back our list this year so we could use the money towards a charitable donation, but still sent to a few, mainly to friends who don't use social media much, so if this is the first you are seeing of it, it just means we feel like we get to "see you" online :).)

So, if you'd like, play along with our Mad Libs style Christmas letter.
Fill this out first, and then see how 2018 went for us.

1. Your Last Name_____________________________

2. Adj_______________________________________

3. Adj_______________________________________

4. Time Measurement__________________________

5. Past Tense Verb____________________________

6. Distance Measurement_______________________

7. Adj______________________________________

8. Number__________________________________

9. Noun____________________________________

10. Measurement of Time_______________________

11. Past Tense Verb___________________________

12. Location, Building__________________________

13. Adj______________________________________

14. Noun, Plural_______________________________

15. Adj______________________________________

16. Body Part_________________________________

17. Adj______________________________________

18. Adj._____________________________________

19. Animal___________________________________

20. Verb_____________________________________

21. Adj._____________________________________

22. Adj._____________________________________

23. Number_________________________________

24. Adj._____________________________________

25. Adj._____________________________________

26. Adj._____________________________________

Dear ​(1--Your Name)
​
 Family, Season’s Greetings! We are excited to tell you about our ​(2-adj.)​ 2018. Moving in 2016 was so (3-adj.), and we didn’t want to let another ​(4-time measurement)​ go by without a move. In January, we​ (5-verb, p.t.) ​ up our stuff and moved 5 ​(6-distance)  down the street. Even if the distance was small, the impact was​ (7-adj.)! We love our new home and hope to take at least ​(8-number)
​ year(s) off before the next move.

The kids have been busy this year. After finishing middle school as a homeschooler, Bean, 14, started high school at the local ​(9-noun)​ and is loving every ​(10-measurement of time). She ​(11-verb, p.t.) water polo this fall, attends early morning seminary at the ​(12-location, building), and doesn’t even complain too much about the early wake-ups.

Bug, 12, is our only one still homeschooling this year. He loves his ​(13-adj) art class, piano lessons, and park day with ​(14-noun, plural). He went on his first backpacking trip with the (15-adjective) scouts this year and usually has a book in his (​16-body part).

Peanut, 7, thought he would try out public school this year, so he is now a 2nd grader at the (​17-adj) elementary school. He has had mixed emotions, but likes his teacher and P.E. and has made a few
(​18-adj) friends. He was bitten by the reading (​19-animal) and loves to draw and (​20-verb) T.V.

Daddy-o achieved a life-long goal this fall and is now the (​21-adj) owner of his own business--an RV and boat storage facility. While his daily work may not be glamorous, he loves the challenge of keeping up with all the parts of a (​22-adj.) business and is happy that he no longer answers to anyone.

Since Kim is only homeschooling (​23-number) kid(s) this fall, she thought she better take on a couple more roles. She is teaching a homeschool science class for middle schoolers and is now a (​24-adj.)
​dog-walker, along with keeping up with the kids’ activities and learning.

At this (​25-adj) time of year, we are grateful for the spirit of Christmas, and friends and family, near and far.  Merry Christmas and (​26-adj) New Year!

Love, The Mercers

These Days

This is what the photos on my phone look like these days. Meet Dandan, my regular dog walking client. I get to walk this overgrown puppy Monday thru Friday (in hopes that when his owners come home, he won't maul them as they come through the door.) He's a little crazy and has a bad habit of jumping, but he's also super smart and happy, which is impossible to not be affected by, so I'm loving our daily walks. And I still get the occasional dog sitting or drop-in visits, so this little side-hustle is bringing in a small, but steady income which is also fun.

These nights are now lit up by Deacon Dave's again. 

We can no longer see the lights from our house, but that hasn't stopped us from enjoying them with friends on multiple nights already, and every time we drive that direction. While the kids are a little sad about the loss of hot chocolate income, I think we've all enjoyed more relaxed weekends with time for movies.

But these days are still busy with kids' activities and church callings, and school. Bug had a practice Destination Imagination tournament a couple weekends ago. He's involved on a team that meets weekly, preparing for the STEM challenges and performance that they will compete at in February. And he is in piano and art, which just feels like part of his school day. Bean has a lighter schedule this trimester, and isn't doing a school sport, so we decided to let her fill up her evenings with art class and 2 days of club water polo. Peanut is the only one who isn't involved in anything extracurricular right now.

This feels like my second home these days. Some days, I feel like my time is broken into chunks of 15-45 minutes, between two different school runs in the a.m., Bug's classes during the day, two school pick ups, after school activities, and my dog clients. It doesn't make for the best productivity, but I'm trying to embrace it. It is making me appreciate my mom who did the same for us for years. And at least I have a new (to us) van to run my taxi service.

And these nights, I'm trying to spend as much time as possible right here, enjoying the lights and, once everyone else goes to bed (or at least their rooms), the quiet. 'Tis the season.

Bitter-Sweet

We've always suspected that this day would come, but there was a part of me that hoped it wouldn't because change is hard, and life has been good.

After almost 8 1/2 years in Charlotte, we're moving back to CA.

It's a good move, for good reasons. Daddy-o gets to make a career change and has an opportunity waiting for him that sounds like his dream job, running a conglomerate of small family businesses. We get to live within a day's drive of all of our siblings and parents (some are a long day, but still way closer than the other side of the country) and will see so much more of them. We will be living about 30 minutes from where I grew up, where I still have friends from high school, where there are so many places I love. We will be closer to the coast, to beaches, to big mountains, to good snowboarding, to where they grow almost every food imaginable. It really is a good thing.

But I am so sad.

I have loved living here. This is our family home. We moved around so much the first few years of our marriage, and those first few years with babies and business school were so stressful and exhausting, but then, we came here, and we were at a good spot and I have so many positive associations with living here (and I think I've totally blocked out the 8 months of awful that were my pregnancy here). It hasn't been perfect, but it has been amazing.

This is the only place our kids really remember as home. This is where all their friends are. We're in a good place with school these days, we have a beautiful home we love, we have lots of traditions and places we visit and places we still have made it to. Life is good here and having to say goodbye to all of this is going to be awful.

The problem is having our hearts attached to more than one place, especially when they are 2700 miles apart. Wherever we are, we're missing something. We have roots where we grew up, roots in San Diego, and some pretty solid roots in Charlotte that are going to hurt when we pull them up.

Every day, as I walk away from the school after dropping Peanut off, I have tears in my eyes because I am so sad to leave behind this community of people who have been so supportive of our kids. Every time I hear the kids laughing with their friends and watch them playing some elaborate, complicated game they have invented, speaking their own language (sometimes literally), I wonder if they will find the same types of friends again. I walk the dog, saying hi to the same fellow dog walkers I have seen regularly for years now, and miss them already. When we got an offer on our house, and I am grateful it happened so quickly, part of me wanted to turn it down because I am jealous that this new family is going to get to live in this house that we love. It's hard to imagine that there won't be any more trips to warm beaches, or Charleston, or Savannah, or our favorite apple orchard in the fall. Even thinking that I won't ever see my favorite cashiers at Trader Joes, or farmer at Latta Plantation makes me sad.

But I am grateful that we have lived somewhere we have loved so completely. We've had amazing experiences, made life-long friends, learned incredible lessons and we get to take all the memories with us. And I know we have new adventures waiting for us. We'll make new traditions, find new favorite places, and make new friends. It's just hard to embrace change.