Now what?

  So, we have been furiously working and taking breaks, and furiously working every day, then trying to squeeze in quality time with people we care about.  On Friday, the movers came and took most of our basic belongings with them. They were here for four hours and between the two of them, Pedro, and I, we managed to get everything properly packed.  Only a few things did not get in, such as our dishes (my fault because I couldn't find the ones we got from our wedding and had saved for our trip) and a wine rack. During the packing/moving melee, "P" lost his keys! We have not seen them since...After living through the last few days, I now have a new perspective to what matters in my life; it seems to be an evolving concept every time I move. For example, as I started packing our office, I contemplated taking all of my books with me to SA (South Africa), I decided to bring them and I packed them into storage instead. I had a little time to select some for a friend, and a few to give away.  As a librarian's daughter, I truly value books for the knowledge, learning, and stimulation they hold, but I kinda now just want a Color Nook (hint hint) to hold all my books. I just can't see myself lugging books around anymore, especially when many get outdated through new discovery and technology.

  After the movers left, we had an empty but messy house. What a predicament! Now we are living out of humongous suitcases and have no idea when our belongings will arrive in SA. We tried to leave enough crappy cooking utensils, etc. for us to use, which is going pretty well except for they took all our knives. We are making do with using grilling utensils and leftover steak knives. The dogs know that something is up because the house looks different every day. We are trying to keep them and ourselves on a routine. Our goal for most days is to leave the house by 8:30 a.m. to go to the gym. This is going fairly well, although the leg workout we did put us out of commission for a few days!

  Okay, to get to the title of this post, It seems like we have a never ending list of things to do to the house and get done for ourselves before we leave; this in layman’s terms = more money we have to spend :(.  For instance, I was opening the front screen door two days ago, and the lock broke in my hand and fell off! Now we need to buy a new lock and because it must match the handle, we now have to buy one of those too! Then, while sitting on the throne, I noticed that there is water seeping slowly onto the tile around the base of the toilet...of course we have the time and energy to put in a new wax ring! We ordered carpet and I really hope that it can be installed in time. They said "72 hours guaranteed" but that does not mean from the time you leave the store, that means from after they come a measure the room three days later and then call you two days later to give you the estimate and charge you an arm and a leg.

  So, it sounds like we have a long list, but we have done a lot of work though! I steam scrubbed the shower and steam mopped the entire floor of the guest house. I successfully had all the pictures professionally scanned and then  I sorted through 2/3 of all the hard copies to organize them back the way they came, and organized them even better! Pedro and I uploaded them to Picasa and I single-handedly identified over 600 faces into family categories. Pedro has almost finished with squaring and securing both bathroom windows and a closet door. He put a new lock on one of the bathroom windows so that it won't blow open during every monsoon storm. Pedro, with help, has worked to build the wooden transition threshold from the living room to the master bedroom. We just have to stain it and the double doors above the threshold. We went to storage and took half of all the furniture that we need to place in a dark corner for the next few years. Today, I cleaned out my “car/office” so that I can take it to the car wash and use my Groupon that I got! Tomorrow I plan to re-grout 4-6 kitchen tiles that have fallen off and also continue to pack up or give away all the other crap that is left in the house. Luckily, it is big bulk and trash pickup next week, so we have a big pile of things in our front yard. We probably would have a pile anyways because we like to try to give things away and recycle them to people who want it and need it (items we have given away: a broken heavy duty car jack, a 35mm camera, an old iPod that won't sync, army boots, and a watering can, to name a few).

  Tomorrow, we also must go to Kinkos, print out a few important documents for the dogs (since we have packed up our printer), take the dogs to the vet for their final official approval, then FedEx overnight to the Phoenix USDA office all of the dog's paperwork. We will pre-pay to have it overnighted back to us so that when we take them to the airport on Sunday, they will have all their paperwork in order. Crazy. On a side note, we decided that it was worth over a hundred dollars to ship them Sunday night and stay in the Houston Airport kennel for a night, rather than wake up at 2:00 a.m. on Monday to get them to the Phoenix airport at 4:30 a.m. Our flight is on early Tuesday morning, so we decided that it would be too taxing on our bodies (lack of sleep!) right before a transoceanic flight.Would it have been worth it to you?

Aside: I am just getting used to blogging and need to figure out a good frequency and length. What did you think of this post? Also, I really care about having smooth transitions, but sometimes that just does not happen. Is my writing too choppy?