Bubble Wrap

Well friends, our closing is quickly approaching. Hard to believe that in three short days, we will be homeowners.   Lucky for me, I get to spend my last two weekdays as a renter in beautiful Temperance, Michigan.  And what will I be doing in beautiful Temperance? Why, checking out an alloys plant of course! (yes, this is serious).

Packing your house is a weird thing. At the onset, it is all about cleaning things out, being thoughtful when you stumble across a sentimental item (with me, that's about every third thing I pick up. I sometimes worry you will see me in 20 years on those hoarder TV shows or in the paper: "woman found dead in house among six feet of trash"....) I digress.

Packing is a bit of an art, a joy of carefully packing your beloved possessions. Then it starts. You become tired of packing - holy cow, I own a lot of stuff! No, I NEED that for my hobby, granted it hasn't seen the light of day in 2 years but I NEED it! - and the boxes start looming. You start sensing the impending doom of becoming so desperate to finish packing that you become careless or more apt to trash items because you don't know what to do with them. Or, horrors of horrors, you find a box from Dallas that was never unpacked. Oops. But I swear I NEED all those old cooking magazines. Cooking library, anyone?

Sadly, on the flip side, the  "where do I put this" drama will unwind in the new house. This will be the first time that RJB and I enter a space that neither of us have lived in or moderately set up. (RJB lived in our currently place for 2 months before I moved in.) This will be interesting.

Sylvester's short term memory is saving him a lot of pain. He has yet to start to act as the stressed kitty even though there are boxes everywhere. He did wake up us last night but jumping into a half-filled box. Somehow he got under the box flaps and was literally packed up!  His little cat brain will perk up, though, when his carrier reappears. Sigh.

Running of the Gals

I'm not sure about yall, but when July rolls around there is a lot of excitement in the B household for le Tour de France. Dedicated watchers. Provides me with more mental gusto to think "viva le tour!" when I see an idiot on the bike path in a sponsor jersey (sky or saxo bank, anyone?) speeding past so fast you feel the whoosh! Sadly neither Lance nor Schleck won. :(

Nonetheless, I finally ran my first "race" of 2010. For me, not so much racing as an organized run since I am in no way actually racing.  I once again did the women's run and it was the best organized run I've completed. Ever. And to celebrate, I then took a week off of running. Sabotage! However RJB and I are heading up to Madison next month for a race (5K for me, half for him) so at least I have some motivation to keep in shape. And yes, August - in the throes of busy season! See, trying to live that work-life balance. No pictures to share of the women's run which is probably a good thing. Promise I will start posting more photos soon - those are what make blogs fun after all!

Lets get on the big yellow dog

If you are anything like me, you have ventured into the world of Facebook and stumbled upon old friends and acquaintances. From the comfort of your home, you have had the good ole slide show (fortunately sans a slide projector and having to listen to a monologue about how wonderful a particular outlook point was) and discovered that all these kiddos from high school are, some 13-14 years later, still friends. Like good friends, not Facebook voyeurism  friends.

This strikes me as odd. My mom is BFF with one of her high school friends. Otherwise, my folks are not chummy with all those kiddos from the "fun-filled" days of high school.  I am not sure about my brother, but I'd guess he is the same.  I maintained one "solid" friendship for a whopping 7 years after graduation only to lose contact once I moved BACK to Texas and was finally in the same state as this friend.

Perhaps had my folks stayed in Texas things would have been different. Though let's be honest. I likely would have never moved back to Houston had my parents stayed. Nonetheless, I'm sure I will continue to be surprised to stumble upon who is still friends with whom. 

PS - I was going to scan a high school photo for this post but alas, all my high school photos are at my parents home...ha ha, how poetic. Instead, I'll pay tribute to Big Al.