Never before having bought one home while simultaneously preparing to sell my old one, I underestimated the stress and money involved. It's a whole lot of both.

Betwixt school holidays and snow days, I've gotten floor, paint and moving estimates, helped T clear out an enormous amount of stuff from our garage, sold some, tossed much and started boxing things we won't need in the next three weeks.

I have lost my appetite and three pounds which is really crimping my style in the kitchen. I drove over a screw and this morning needed a tire patch. Tuition is going up at the boys' school. We are supposed to get an arseload of snow this weekend. I've been itching to write but the well appears dry.

It's all been a bit intense, and while I know both that there is much to be done in the coming weeks and that I want to enjoy the time we have left in this home, part of me hopes the days whiz by as if in a fairy tale slumber.

Right now, the kids and T are watching a Myth Busters, and I'm on the couch in the front room watching the snow fall. I'm tired -haven't been sleeping well- and chilly, Percy's back is rising and falling with his even breaths, and the boys have already eaten all the cookies Oliver and I made earlier.

To my left, through the front room's entry arch into the dining room, I can just see the branches of a sugar maple through a sliver of window. That tree is perhaps what I'll miss most about this house. It and being a two-minute walk to both the kids' pediatrician and CVS.

The maple must be at least sixty years old. It is a stalwart marker of place and time, helping me track seasons and the number of backyard birds and squirrels that visit too. At the same time, it is the steadiest root, largely unchanging when everything else seems to swing madly in flux.

Every year from what appears dead emerge innumerable buds of new life. Those leaf out in the spring and grow and thicken during the summer and early fall, ultimately forming a fluorescent yellow canopy that covers much of our yard. Through it, the sun's rays filter golden; it's hard to think of anything that looks more alive than our sugar maple in the peak of autumn.

After a few glorious weeks, the awning folds in for the season, blanketing the yard with a technicolor tarp. This is good news for those who enjoy raking, and a terrible to-do for those who don't.

I'll miss leaf piles into which my kids throw themselves with joyful, youthful abandon, and the fine exercise it is to rake countless bags of leaves when they're done. I'll miss the beauty of that tree and the home it provides for so many little creatures. I'll miss laying under its boughs on cool spring nights, a glass of rosé in hand.

Even with this awareness and knowledge, I am impatient. Eager to move onward and out. Eager to leave some of the stress of the process behind. Eager to make a new house a home.