Adieu, Hobbit Hole

As of Wednesday, the Hobbit Hole will belong to someone else. I have the annoying bits of odds-and-ends to cart out (and about half of the kitchen), then a deep cleaning, and we'll close the door on our first year in The Frontier forever.

I'm surprisingly nostalgic about the Hobbit Hole - perhaps because it was Baby Girl's first home. Perhaps because of the lush backyard. Perhaps because I cannot yet locate the salt and pepper.

To listen to Himself, however, one would think the Hobbit Hole was a palace. Um, what?! Remember last year? When Himself spent days moaning about the low-ceilinged luxury digs (complete with 8-legged house guests) I conjured up for us while he was still in VA?

Fast-forward 12 months. Now he is moaning about the move to the house next door. Never mind the fact he forgot to tell work were moving on Saturday the 12th fate would have it, they scheduled him to work his once-a-month Saturday shift on ... you guessed it, Saturday the 12th. We are grateful for the mattress, box springs, bed frame and box of damp laundry (we had to move the dryer before the last batch of laundry was dry Saturday morning)he managed to move over.

Saturday morning brought a parade of comedic proportions. Enter Sara, with Baby Girl in the backpack on her back hauling boxes from one house to the other, Son lugging some odd-shaped box or another, and five neighbors - three of whom were under the age of 22 - all parading back and forth from The Hobbit Hole to the new house. The parade was so successful we wore a path in the patch of grass separating the two houses. Hopefully the new occupants of the Hobbit Hole are friendly, since we've already created a shortcut between the two houses.

Sunday morning brought more comedy as we discovered that the breakfast cereal was at the new place (it has yet to be christened with a name), but the milk, bowls and silverware were at the old place. All of Baby Girl's things were at the new place, but most of our clothes were still in the Hobbit Hole's closets. All personal hygiene products were at the new place, but my makeup was at the Hobbit Hole.

You get the idea. Today, it was slightly better. I only had to run over to the Hobbit Hole for the loaf of bread and the trashcans, as I was getting tired of the pile of Baby Girl's diapers in the corner of the dining room. The rule is now, if you return to the Hobbit Hole, for any reason, you MUST return with a laundry basket full of items.

At this rate, we might be out of the Hobbit Hole by sometime mid-winter.