I feel like a very tired tennis ball. We're back on the island, again. Had a cash offer this morning on property #2, and could close it in one week. It's a little low, but fast money. If we can pull it all together, we may be able to salvage the big house deal (#3.) Either way, the girls and I are back out here until the dust settles, and are starting back to school, for real, on Monday. Poor G will have to deal with the remainder of packing and other logistics.

Tomorrow I will be (re)organizing the three boxes of books we brought back out. We're running low on art supplies out here, except for sidewalk, or in our case, dock, chalk, and I'm not about to restock. Didn't bring my printer/scanner/copier/fax out, we can manage without that, but I also didn't bring out my real laptop, which I picked up from the totally unhelpful computer guy yesterday, and that I do need. Phone numbers, addresses, calendars, lists, everything's on it, so G will have to bring it out next time, broken or not. Also have to go in and do a big grocery shop, so that we don't have to run in and out during the week.

Our island property is also currently on the market. That will be deal #4, only if we get into the house. With the season in full swing, we are finally getting some activity, which is great, but will require me to show the place in the meantime. It's not that it's hard to keep this place clean, but it's so small, (I'm talking, each-person-in-our-family-gets-just-under-ten-square-feet-of-floorspace-to-call-their-own, small) that any one thing out of place can make it seem messy, and all those books and papers and pencils and projects... Just something else to keep me busy.

Please keep your fingers crossed (or whatever)... This could all be over for us, one way or another, by the end of February. All this moving and change of plans has been pretty stressful for everyone involved and we are all looking forward to a little permanency.

As much as we're ready to settle down, though, we're still a bit apprehensive about living back in a regular, old neighborhood again. When we lived out on the farm, without any neighbors in sight, we worried that the kids would never have any friends, never be able to ride their bikes or rollerskate around the block, etc., so we moved into an upscale neighborhood, on the most fashionable street, just blocks from the beach. Once we started meeting the neighbors, we found out that we really didn't want the kids associating with them after all. Mostly a bunch of ignorant, shallow people. (Oops, there's that darned elitism again.)

After four years of that, we planned to opt out for Australia, and go live back in the bush. Meanwhile, we discovered the monkey wrench, I mean, the island, and decided to disappear out here. Friends laugh when I tell them that even this seems a bit too suburban for me, but it does. How will we fare back in General Population?

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Has anyone else seen Boohbah on PBS? If the Teletubbies disturbed some viewers' sensibilities, wait 'til they get a load of these. Do they actually consider this educational?

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Off to search for Rolaids. Sure hope there's a bottle out here. G'night all.