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Mondays are hard enough. But today is already harder than normal because Stef left. She came up for the weekend (first visit by a PA kid since I moved – yeah!) and we just chilled. Took her to buy cheese curds. We ate curds and loads of veggies and watermelon. So we chilled and vegged. We lived in the vegetable crisper of life.

Yesterday we actually got into a vehicle. Paid a king’s ransom for a tank of gas. Drove 93 miles to Ithaca where Stef’s godmother aka my best friend aka Aunt Beth just moved with her handsome and debonair husband, Paul. To any of you Ithaca College students, she’ll be known as Professor Bleicher, and you can find her in the English department. If you have a chance to take a class with this woman, take it. You will learn more than you thought humanly possible and you’ll laugh the whole time. So yeah, we had a great time in Ithaca.

Did not see any bats all weekend!

Now it is back to work. Another one of our brood is due to arrive tonight. I like this empty nest thing because the nest is so rarely empty!

Oh, and this is just ack.

This is the first morning that I’ve been able to sit and write, so this will be short. (The deadline clock is ticking and making my stomach jump.)

I am officially Moved North. There were several amusing adventures along the way I’ll tell you about in the next week or so. Some not so amusing, too, but we survived, and that’s the best you can hope for when you’re moving. My office is almost finished…. totally stoked about that. I’ll have pictures soon. I’m looking for an old door (barn or house) to make a desk out of. If you live in Central or Northern New York and you have one to sell, write to me at comments @writerlady.com.

What else? I have to get some updates for the website to Theo in time for the SPEAK movie showing on September 5th. SPEAK jumped back on the NY Times bestseller list again last week… probably because parents are forcing their kids to do their summer reading. I feel very guilty about this. Somehow the concept of forced reading doesn’t seem like a practical way to encourage kids to love books. It smacks of forcing children to eat overboiled turnips because it’s good for them. I hope SPEAK (and any other of my books which have strayed onto the lists) go down better than overboiled turnips.

We’re also busy making plans to bring my parents North. That might be a novel all on its own.

But I can’t tell you about that now. I have to write.

(Remind me to tell you about the adventure with the bat. The bat with wings.)

My Top Ten Reasons To Move North To the Country (aside from the gushy romantic stuff mentioned in yesterday’s post):

10. Life is slower and people are nicer up there.
9. Cheese curds.
8. Clean air.
7. You can see a million stars at night.
6. Cows.
5. I love snow.
4. Coyotes, wild turkey, and foxes… in the back yard.
3. Lake Ontario.
2. Peace and quiet makes it easier to write.
1. It’s home.

Mer emptied out her room last night (thanks for the help, Michael!). Today I have to pack the dishes and return library books. Once that’s done, I’ll be ready to go. I’m giving myself until Tuesday to unpack everything and settle in, then I must dive back into the writing of my next book. I figured out what was bugging me about the plot and am psyched about fixing it. I would love to have a draft to show my editor by the end of August.

Much of the publishing world takes the month of August off, which is rather civilized, if you think about it. I am taking a two-week break from this journal (I think). I love writing here and corresponding with all of youse, so I might not be able to stay away. But don’t panic if I don’t post between now and August 15th.

Now go outside and play!

I have to return the cable box on Friday. We pick up the U-Haul Saturday morning. Everything I own is in boxes. The cupboard contains a can of green beans and a box of pasta. It’s almost time to move.

I came to Pennsylvania in 1989. I like it here. The people are brash and honest and hard-working and loving. The history geek in me adores all the old stuff in the museums. My kids have grown up here and received excellent public school educations (thank you, teachers!) in the North Penn and Hatboro-Horsham school districts.

Random things I will miss about suburban Philadelphia: Wawa, water ice, tomato pie, cheese steaks, the people at my post office, the Doylestown and Horsham libraries, Channel 6 Action News (action!), my writer’s group, Lou’s Bagels, people who really understand basketball, City Tavern, the accents, hysteria over two inches of snow, the train ride to New York City, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, marching band competitions, feudal municipal governments (entertaining to watch), soft pretzels with mustard, close-by Amish, strong urban art influences, Washington Square Park, and the word “Yo” (which translates roughly into “Hey”).

But my daughters have flown the nest (sigh). The nest is ready to move. Why?

1. The people here are nice, but there are too many of them. Google map Horsham, PA, where I live now. Then Google map Mexico, NY. See a difference? The population density in Montgomery County, PA is 1,553 people/square mile. The population density of Oswego County, NY is 128 people/square mile. I rest my case.

2. All those people mean stress and hassles. Traffic around Philly is an obscene nightmare and the drivers are getting more dangerous every year. (Longtime readers of this journal have heard me rant about people running red lights.) I hate, hate, hate, hate crazy drivers and wasting my time stuck in traffic.

3. I can only afford a small, dark apartment here. Everything is cheaper up North.

4. I have lots of family up there. (This is both good news and the bad news, depending on the day.)

5. I’ll be visiting Pennsylvania A LOT, so I’ll still enjoy the things I love. Stef and Mer go to college down here, and lots of schools have invited me to speak. So I’ll get my Wawa and cheesesteak fixes, I’ll get stuck in traffic, and at the end of my trips, I’ll be happy to head back to the country.

6. And last, but not least, the best reason to move is my Beloved Husband. We started dating three years ago and we knew it would be a long haul. Why? We lived 300 miles apart. We didn’t want to move any of our kids away from their friends or their other biological parents. We also didn’t want to abandon them while they were still in high school. So we’ve driven tens of thousands of miles and spent countless hours on the phone. (We got married last year – just couldn’t wait!) I don’t regret a second of it, because the kids have all benefited from our decision. But now that they are off to college, the wait is over. So, dear readers, I am moving for love.

Beloved Husband and Me

I dreamt last night that I was Kenyan, that I lived in a village and assisted a husband-and-wife team of doctors who brought medical care to people way out in the countryside. It was a very good life.

I was startled to wake up and find out that it was not my life at all.