Slowly but surely (or maybe surly), my life is coming back into some sense of balance. As I said, taxes are done and the houseguest is gone. I spent the last two weekends helping my mom and stepdad pack for their big move. The move is today and tomorrow and they are in pretty good shape. I love my stepdad, but there were times in the past two weeks where I could have hit him with a baseball bat and not have blinked an eye. He procrastinates, begins jobs without ever finishing them, and gets distracted very easily. None of these are horrible vices, but combined with a deadline for packing and moving . . . not pretty.

As a result, the only packing that had been done was due to my mom. And all the jobs at the new house that my stepdad was supposed to handle were incomplete. So I took time off from work and went up there to pack. Two three-day weekends. And we got a lot of stuff done. There was just so much left to do that I wish I could have taken this week off to continue helping.

I will probably go back to mom's this coming Friday and return to New York either late Saturday or first thing Sunday morning so I can be here for the bachelor auction (website for the auction will be up soon . . . pics of the bachelors and descriptions of their prizes).

Despite the nature of the work and the hell it's played on my allergies, the last two weekends have been great. I've enjoyed spending a lot of time with my mom. And working at her place makes me feel useful, which doesn't happen very often. The only real down side of this, other than the usual lack of time to do Crash things, is that for the first time ever, I can really see how old my mother is. Between the stress of dealing with the physical side of the move, the financial burden she's had to take on, work stress, and all the other things she's having to deal with, she looks much older than she did at Christmas. Plus, with all the packing and moving, her arthritis has been particularly bad recently. It just makes her seem so much older and more frail than she should be.

Very disturbing.

I've already decided that my housewarming gift to her will be a couple of hundred dollars worth of massages from a massage therapist that is right around the corner from the new house. Hopefully that will put a little spring back in her step.

The new house is looking very nice. I'm sure that once all of traumatic stuff is done, they will both be very happy there.

Now, with any luck at all, my life will be a little less chaotic starting this week. I've still got lots to do at the apartment, and I'm really behind in everything because of losing the last two weekends. But that's okay. One thing I've gotten from working at mom's for the past couple of weeks is the desire to get rid of a lot of my stuff. Old clothes, books I have no intention of reading, useless crap that is all over my apartment, etc.; it's all getting tossed. Or eBayed if I can figure out how to.

I need to do the same thing at my office, but one step at a time.

In other news, I'll be going to hear Famous Author Rob Byrnes do a reading on Wednesday of this week. See his blog for details. I'm excited about this. I've read the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. (Note to self, write the review of it you promised to write several months ago).

The other big event is the bachelor auction on Sunday. You can expect to hear a lot about this over the next few days.