Well, the calendar rolled over, and it's no longer Forevruary! Yay!! Maybe life will move forward more discernibly towards sunshine and good times . . .

I woke up this morning to discover Charlie's furniture scattered every which way all over the house. Charlie is really moving out today; he and three friends have found a house to rent for the next six months, and today's the day. At 4 in the morning he called upstairs to ask if we had any boxes. I explained that he had to go to the grocery store to get those; luckily Meijers is open 24 hours! There are boxes everywhere - and still a fair bit of stuff in his room, too. At some point I heard him mutter, "This is a lot of work!" No kidding, kiddo . . .

The house is only a mile away. The rent is quite low, since it's split among four of them, and I think he might actually be able to afford it. He's making noises about coming to Lansing in the fall; perhaps all my discussions about how he could go to school for free (and use the money we've saved for his education for his rent) have had an impact, who knows? All I know is that at the moment he's not going far, and whether he moves back in with us or not, he knows he always can. So I'm feeling okay with this. Heck, the boy will be 19 in a few months. He should be on his own (more or less); I would have preferred he was on his own at college, but given that he's making other choices right now, it's better for him to be living with friends than living at home. This seems an essential part of growing up to me. He's pretty good with money; now he needs to understand how much it takes to live, so he can get serious about figuring out how to earn it . . .

Still, I wish Emil was here today, too, to wave 'so long' with me . . . As Charlie and I keep telling each other, "This is gonna be weird." Yep, indeed . . .