Twenty to midnight Sunday night. Just threw a load of laundry in, and am fighting my eyes being heavy and begging to be taken to rest. I haven’t been writing, and it hurts my peace of mind to not write— yet I am so weary, I fear just stringing words together is betraying my history and my desire to be considered a writer, regardless of caliber.

My house is coming down. The boxes are gathering in larger piles each day, and there is less and less to mark this building as our home. It’s not necessary to claim again what this Little House has meant to me, despite my frustration at time; it’s all documented. Just like almost everything. I am, as I cull and sort and the yard-sale pile grows, realizing I am leaving the known world, and jumping off into the great unknown.

This weekend, Mo and her crew came over to visit and to take some belongings she had dibs on before they went to the garage sale. Fakey Fakerson is now hers, as well as the giant mahogany desk at which the first 5 years of Dandelion were written and the apple-green antique swivel desk chair that was once my favorite seat. I’m glad they now belong to her. It was an emotion-laden visit, and I’m exhausted.

The culling continues.

Sets of dishes, pots and pans, appliances, bicycles, furniture… it goes on. I quietly try and chip away at it each evening after homework, after the kids are asleep, and before sleep finally overcomes me. Some nights I am successful. Some nights not.

The garage is finally drying out, as we have gone from interminable winter now straight into nearly summer heat. I have flung the doors open and the neighborhood cats have cleaned out the mice, and I am starting to try and see what I can salvage. The photo albums were a win; the kids’ baby books, much to my teary dismay, were a loss. Ditto the box of all my yearbooks. All of them.

Cake plates. How many cake plates does a woman need? I, apparently, needed at least a dozen. That number must be culled to at least half that— especially if you factor in the moratorium on gluten, and the severe lack of cake-making I do anymore.

Up this week: School, school, school, packing, algebra, algebra, algebra, packing, scouts, packing, haircuts for the kids, family pictures for grad announcements, packing, homework… and finally… picking up my graduation robes, cap, tassel and honors cords. Wow. It’s really happening.