It is March, but you wouldn't know it from the weather. It's been in the high 70's this week so far - far warmer than it should be for this time of year. I'm wearing short sleeves and it's not even spring. This does not bode well for summer.

I'm sitting in the computer room and I've opened the window because it was a bit stuffy in here. There are a number of tiny bugs that have darted inside the room and keep alighting on my monitor. The cats find them fascinating. Sebastian is sitting on Richard's desk, crying piteously each time he tries his futile best to capture one of the little critters. Allegra is creeping up behind him in that cautious awkward way she has when she's intent on a target, and Rebecca has taken over the windowsill, nose pressed to the screen, bugs ignored because she can smell Outside through there. Azzie - not too sure about all of this - is watching from Richard's chair, patting at Sebastian in puzzlement, and otherwise ignoring the bugs.

I'm going to regret letting the bugs come in, I know. The cats will probably tear the computer room apart to get to them and there will be a mess to clean up tomorrow morning, plus random crashes tonight that will be of the sort where we lie in bed and debate if it sounded breakable. But for now, they're happy - excited to have something different.

They'll have something different very soon - something far more exciting than a few random bugs crawling on the window screen. We've an end date now - just a bit less than four weeks left to go. Once tax day has passed, Richard and I will move into our new home.

It's hard to imagine that it's this close. Now that I have a date - even though I've been wishing for one for so long - I'm not sure if I'm more excited or scared. It's going to be a big change - living in a house that's truly ours. So many things to think about. So much to do to get ready. We've barely begun cleaning the garage. We need to start gathering boxes and packing things. We need to talk to moving companies. We need to talk to someone about landscaping the front yard. We need to call the bank and lock in a mortgage rate now, while it's still low, while Alan Greenspan is being so kind as to drop it bit by bit. Two full points it's fallen since we began this project five months ago.

I'm not ready. I've been so impatient all this time, waited so many years to finally have a place of my own, and I'm not ready for it to happen. I keep waiting for the ax to fall. Somehow, someway, this isn't really going to happen. It can't be this close - just around the corner.

Sebastian has succeeded in capturing one of the bugs, hooking his paw around it and pinning it to the wall. In just a moment, he'll begin the game of lifting his paw slowly and looking for the bug, which will - unless he actually managed to squash it - have escaped. He'll ponder this turn of events for a few long moments, staring at his paw in puzzlement, and eventually give up and go leaping for another victim to start the cycle all over again.