i'm being so bad

I should be packing and I'm not. Yesterday I packed almost all day and I thought I would die of exhaustion by 3 pm. As a sympathetic friend said, (who survived an international move last fall) it's not the putting things in boxes that it so tiring, it is the constant stream of decisions you must make for every single object in your entire house. Toss it? Take it? Store it? Give it away? Many people have offered to help but I don't know what they can help with. They can't be the ones to decide what to do with my stuff. And yet I'm getting worried that J and I won't be able to handle it on our own. We supposedly leave for Maine is less than two weeks.

My son's next-to-last seeded baseball team beat the number one team last night. He looooves baseball. He would play all day every day if he could. I'm sad that there will be no baseball for him in Spain!

And here's what I'm all-out crying about: Guthrie's 2009-2010 season.

more free stuff

Solid maple dresser, needs to be refinished and missing some knobs. One drawer does not slide very smoothly, but that can probably be fixed.


We're taking these two lovely ladies to Spain, but the Christmas tree behind them is free to a good home. It's old, but we would still be using it if we were staying. It's VERY big. Probably 7' high or so, and large circumference at the base. The tree does look pretty good. People were still asking me if it was real last Christmas.


Also included: MANY strings of Christmas lights.

i should be packing but here's my procrastination post

We found a renter and he seems perfect. Too perfect, in fact. Mama Ava and I were hoping to get back at my persnickety neighbors by finding someone loud and obnoxious. This guy is everything opposite. He wants to move in August 1st, so we're going great guns trying to get rid of our stuff. At least we're renting the house furnished, so we won't have to deal with much furniture. Anyone want an old computer hutch?
A king-size mattress?
A full-size bed?
A mini pool/air hockey/ping pong table? (It's small, like for 5-8 year olds.)

At the end of this month we're heading to Maine. We'll come back just a few days before our flight to Malaga.

I never posted about lunch with Mama Ava and Karen. So fun. What an idiot I was to not take photos! What's wrong with me? I should have at least got one of Frodo loving Karen. She picked him up and he snuggled right into her like he never ever wanted to leave.

I hosted my last book group meeting--Age of Innocence. The discussion was great! I've read it thrice now and I never saw Archer as a jerk. But now I'm considering him to at least have some jerk-like qualities after hearing him torn apart in our group. Who here thinks Archer would have been happy with Ellen if he'd married her instead of May?

I'm in denial that we are leaving behind so many awesome friends. I refuse to say good bye. I'm saying, "See you in Spain" since we have quite a few who are seriously considering coming to visit. Yay! So please don't be offended, Minnesota friends, when I don't say good bye. I don't think I can handle it.

We turned in our visa applications to the Spanish consulate in Chicago. We got to see a couple things while there--Sears Tower (did you know they changed the name to Willis Tower?!) and Millennium Park. Stay tuned for photos from our new Canon Rebel T1i! We love it!

happy fourth!

happy birthday, little mister!

Yesterday, Marcus's actual birthday, was way too busy to post this, but here's a belated birthday tribute to my favorite boy.

oh my gosh the british museum

I never finished my museum series. Why do I continually forget to post about our trip? I do want to have a record of it.

J and I went to the British Museum. We only had a couple hours and we missed out on an entire floor--Africa, North America, and Mexico.

The British Museum is free. You just walk on in. It's unlike any other museum I've experienced in its accessibility. Everything is just there, much of it not roped off, not behind glass. There are hordes of people, of course, and they are all snapping pictures. I don't know about you, but in pretty much every museum I've ever been in, that's a big no-no. It took me a few minutes to get over my camera inhibitions, but then I started snapping away like every else.

The British Museum is controversial. They have many priceless artifacts from the ancient world (ah! the joys of Colonialism!), and some of those formerly-ancient countries want their stuff back. Greece has been especially insistent. The British Museum told them they didn't have adequate facilities for housing artifacts like the Elgin Marbles, so they built a new museum. The British Museum then came up with another reason they should hold on to the Greek's stuff: In Greece it would be enjoyed mainly by the Greeks, while in London the entire world can enjoy them! Funny coincidence, when I was in London in April I did happen to see the entire world. So they may have something there.

Whose side do you take? (You may want to read more than my silly, simplified synopsis of the issue.)

the mystery of the iced mccafe

I'm not quite ready to switch to my other blog. It seems so abrupt. I'll let you know when I start posting over there.

Yesterday morning, I left the house at about 8:05 to run an errand. About 20 minutes later, J called. He was on his way to work, and he'd found an iced McCafe in his car, nearly finished. Also, some gum he keeps in the glove compartment had been taken out and left on the passenger seat. Yes, he had left his car unlocked and outside the garage. When he found the McCafe, there was still ice in it, but the ice was nearly melted by the time he got to work. It's been very hot here.

J's business partner suggested that someone in the neighborhood might know he has the car for sale (he has not advertised yet, but I did tell someone I know is looking for that same brand) and wanted to check out the inside. And then they might have forgot the McCafe when they left. The problem I see with that is, why wouldn't they have just told us they wanted to look at the inside of our car? Also, why would they have taken the gum out and left it on the passenger seat? It's not just one package of gum, but many packages in a bag, like you would get at Costco or something. J is positive he didn't leave it there.

Another scenario is a joke. Some neighbor was just having fun with us, like "Haha you left your car open so now I'm leaving this McCafe here and taking your gum out haha." But wouldn't they have said something later so we could laugh about it together? And wouldn't that be a little weird? And, as I have noted in a previous post, we don't have that kind of relationship with our neighbors. We do with friends who often walk by our house, but they are fellow Mormons, not likely to be drinking McCafe.

One J and I thought of last night is that someone was in our car, some McCafe drinker with bad intent. S/he rifled through our things, opening the glove compartment to check for valuables, when I opened the garage door to leave for the errand. Mr./Miss McCafe bolted, leaving behind the drink. Sadly, I think this is the most likely scenario. It's rather unnerving because it was not that early in the morning. It must have happened either right before or just after I left at 8:05 because there was still ice and it was already really hot out.

Isn't that creepy?