Hitting the ground running 1

We knew what we wanted before we arrived at our new home. Become self sufficient the best we could. But we had other dreams that had to be woven into these thoughts. Up north, we worked so much that we never saw one another other then written notes and telephone calls. I felt so disconnected from "life" outside of work and errands. I wanted my girls to play sports, excel at anything they wanted, be popular if that was one of their dreams. That proved disastrous. First week at their middle school and I get a fundraiser packet. Second week I was begged to tears for new cell phones and the last straw was a field trip to the high school they would be attending in a two years. The high school expected us to buy each child a laptop for their usage in and out of school. This felt like a slap in the face after paying our taxes that just went up, along with our adjusted property taxes. Yet that was droplets compared to the new children that just strolled in after school. Attitudes and swears were something I wasn't prepared for in 5th grade, Along with troves of barely-there clothes of their classmates, tugging along cellphones that was suddenly a neccessity of my 11 year old that walked literally 1 block to and from school. At night, the children that stayed after school would mock my children as they passed for helping me outside. The backyard was no haven either, as the slope of the hill that faced their school adjoined our private space. Trash would be littered in and around our tiny front landscaping, meticulously done by my husbands' 69 year old mother. My car sat out front on the street, the canvas of too many vandals over the years. When I brought up our moving to the children, the only sadness was missing of a particular friend that they had become close to. They decided to become pen pals and helped us pack the last of our belongings.