Just two more weeks...I hope.

We're making final plans now. John has decided he wants to get tickets for the 18 of this month, still hoping for us to fly out of Chicago. It all depends on finding transportation though, the various cars have all been hit hard by the nasty winter and the vans especially have suffered large breakdowns in the form of transmission issues. Ugh, I will be SO glad to not have to worry about cars AGAIN for a couple of years.

The next two weeks are going to be both busy and stressful. I have a lot to do, very little time, and very few resources on hand. Getting myself to town is something that is VERY difficult and the winter weather is not helping. Easy simple tasks like being able to take a shower and wash laundry are being hampered by not having any hot water whatsoever because the LP constantly runs out here. It doesn't help that only so much is gotten at a time, enough to last about a week IF no laundry is done at all as the dryer takes up a lot of gas. If laundry is done, the gas lasts less than that. I'm currently washing Natalie's cloth diapers and underpants in cold water and will then have to hang them to dry. I'd wait on the diapers but one has already been sitting for close to a week and I can't keep asking people here to do anything more than what they are willing to do which, to be honest, is not a whole lot. The humans in this house are just not as important as the animals my sister wishes to collect and therefore, as of now, we have been without LP for close to a week. Again, this means not hot water, no gas for the stove, no gas for the dryer. At least there is heat because that relies on the wood burning stove in the garage but still, to go DAYS without a shower is about to drive me up the wall.

I just don't understand why anyone would want to live this way, I really don't. It also really has me thinking of the future and what would happen to Natalie (or any other children) if anything happened to John and I. I want to know that if anything does happen, Natalie will be with someone who will take care of her and take care of her in the best way possible, ie: making sure she gets good, quality healthy food and not a lot of junk. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of things that we would expect to be taken care of and respected and therefore, it will be very important for us to decide on a family who WILL have some respect for our beliefs as far as that goes. Since many of them do go against the mainstream, that will not be very easy, unfortunately. But it will be necessary.

So, in the meantime, I'm trying to get everything figured out. I'm packing and repacking our bags, trying to go through clothes and decide what we will/will not take with. What gets tricky is that Natalie is at a very odd place as far as clothing sizes go. Some of her 3T stuff fits, some doesn't (mainly because I can't button some of the jeans over her belly!). Some 4T stuff fits, some doesn't. It's confusing and it's hard to plan where she's going to go growth wise. I need to try a couple of 4T jeans on her sometime to see how they fit and then plan accordingly. And then I just need to hope I can find clothes for her once we're over there. There is a Costco's so that's hopeful but otherwise, I may be taking our tax return (whatever that may be) and buying her a wardrobe online.

Other than that, not much going on, just preparing and hoping I'll be out of here soon.