Natasha :: 6"x6" mixed media on wood

It is time to spill the beans and let loose the now magnificently undeniable fact that my husband and I are completely off our rocker:  we are moving again.  This will be the sixth – yes, you read that correctly – place we will have made a nest in a space of about 30 months.  If you find yourself reading one of my blog entries a year from now announcing the same news, I hereby grant anyone reading within a 3000 mile radius to have us locked away for good.

This is the second time in our relationship that we have gone out on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon to check out some open houses – you know, just for shits & giggles – and found ourselves writing an offer less than 48 hours later.  The first time was when we were living in Santa Barbara and decided on the spur of the moment to buy a house 30 minutes north in the Santa Ynez Valley.  Everyone thought were nuts then, and now they really think we’ve gone off the deep end, but beyond the initial shaking of the head in disbelief, most everyone in our wacky little universe is quite happy for us.  Even though it was the last thing on our list of Things To Do In 2007, we are taking the leap  for many reasons, not the least of which is because we believe this is the house we will enjoy for a loooooooong time.  As much as we love the house we are in now and adore our neighborhood, we’ve always known it wasn’t the house; the fact that the house popped up sooner than expected is something we decided we were willing to roll with.  It creates for quite a bit of uncertainty at the moment, but we rarely shy away from bold decisions even though every once in while those decisions have come back to bite us in the ass.  For better or worse, my husband and I usually take the greater leaps rather than sit still out of fear.

I love that we are both decisive people who aren’t usually too attached to anything material, but I think I am going to need to hire a software engineer to create some kind of computer firewall or "spousal block" on our computers so my husband is no longer allowed to browse the real estate listings in his spare time.  It’s all fun & games until we’re knee deep in paperwork, address change forms and appointments with phone technicians, and of course nothing goes quite the way we try to plan it.  I was not feeling at all overwhelmed when we made the offer, when the offer was accepted, when we put our current house on the market or even when all the financing was done and the keys were handed over to us, which happened to be the same day of my show last week.  I am beginning to think now I was deep in denial, because all of a sudden this weekend I started to feel completely suffocated, willing to do anything to just turn the world off for one small day.  All of a sudden I felt like my life was spinning out of control with no end in sight and I was on a roller coaster that I knew would soon crash and burn.

I always try to live my life to the fullest, be brave, believe in myself, take risks and leap at opportunities, and sometimes the downside of this joie de vivre is that I reach a point where I have no choice but to collapse.  It is as if I try to run full speed as much as possible and then suddenly I run smack into a brick wall and I’m totally spaced out for a few days.  I hit that brick wall the instant my show ended last Thursday – an almost exact repeat of what happened after my last show, although this time around I’m just physically worn out and not an emotional wreck – but I had to keep on pounding throughout the weekend because of the new house.

This morning I had to leap out of bed and race to the new house for an appointment, but it is now mid-afternoon and I am back at home alone for the next few hours.  Home.  Alone.  For a few hours.

Time to collapse.