Well, we have decided to stick around one more week. Hubby has not quite recuperated enough to make the long journey. They did successfully blast the planet sized rock out of his system but they had to insert a stint to help the remaining particles pass. The stint was just removed, but they still want him on the painkillers for awhile which means no driving. As he drives the moving truck with my car in tow, and I drive the pick up, we've set it all back a week. Maybe winter will actually be over by the time we leave.

Happily, I get to spread the torture of the next two days, making sure that all is packed, labeled and ready for storage, while keeping the daily, weekly and monthly needs readily accessible, over the next nine days. Oh Joy! I am glad this is happenning now. I remember when my parents last moved they were 67. I was on the west coast and couldn't help them. It must have been hell! At least now I know that I will never become one of those pack rat people that your read about. You know, the ones that the rescue squad can't find in time because they have stacks and stacks of magazines all over the place so you feel like you are walking through a maze when you visit. I have learned my lesson at a young(er) age. From now on it's just not going to get saved for any reason. Zilch! Unless it's a book. Can't throw them away. I just may read it again some day. Haven't yet, but I might. The 20 years worth of National Geographics went to the local library. They don't do much other than let some child do some exploring of this world the old fashioned way. The same way that I got my curiosity tweaked and piqued. Did wonders for that! Pictures that speak a thousand words, and easy to read print. Great stuff. Computers are creating a dinosaur there and I am very sad about it.

I never post this late in the day any more. It seems that when I do the spam like comments show up. Oh well. I'm in a time warp right now so I'll have to take my chances.

SHORE LEAVE

Well, it's only 2 weeks to this day that we plan on packing up the moving truck and hooking up the car and heading to Ohio! That is the plan anyway. The husband has some hopefully minor surgery to be performed on the 21st where the Doctor will go in with a laser gun and try to blast this rather large kidney stone out beyond the blogosphere. If the laser doesn't take it out then some kind of stint gets placed in an appropriate position, to help the boulder pass naturally with somewhat of a lesser pain than the usual giving birth analogy. He also has had a problem with water retention and his Doctor put him on some diuretics. He lost about 25 lbs of water rapidly and thought that was great. We (me) were watching his sodium intake as the Doctor had requested. I had to nag a bit because he loves eat those processed meats like ham and polish sausage, etc. Next thing I know he is tired all the time. He refused to get out of bed one Friday morning to go to his appointment with the urologist to see about the rock. I managed to talk him into going and rescheduled his appointment for a later time that same day. Come Monday he was really out of it and I drove him to his regular Doctor's. His blood pressure was so low that they sort of panicked and he was told to stop taking the diuretics. I was told to make him drink gatorade, which he hates, to get his electrolytes back up. He is back in fine form now. Man that was scarey. And so we move along.

During the aforementioned 'my husband's fallen asleep and he won't get up' panic, I busy myself with packing and cleaning, cleaning and packing. I took the Murphy Oil Soap to all the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Then I went over them with some stuff that is called Re Stor and smells like nail polish remover. Brings back memories of why I stopped painting my nails, way before I read that the stuff (polish and remover) was so bad for them. So far I have only done the kitchen cabinets with the Re Stor and they look really good. The smelly stuff works!

Another project that I have been working on is the shredding of documents. There are some things that I hang on to for sentimental reasons and some things for documentation back up purposes. I suppose that once I was Naturalized I didn't need to save things like bank statements, rent receipts, gas and electric bills, etc. etc. I have these things going back to twenty years ago. I am shredding them all. Take my word for it and don't save too much crap! It's never been needed and it's a tedious process to deal with it en masse. Shred as you go. It's much easier to deal with it as it happens. You've got to save those important receipts for things that add to your home equity, like that new garage door or hot water heater, or for things that might break, like the shredder, or things that you might want to take back because you couldn't figure out how to make them work, like that new router:)

Once we are out of here, the painters and carpet layers get to work, and the house goes on the market. We know that is backward to the approach that most people take to moving but we feel that if we get all our stuff out and make the place turnkey it will ultimately sell faster. That is the idea and our Agent is quite okay with it. We trust him to do the best that he can for us and as he is the guy that found us this house in the first place we want him to share in the proceeds.

So any day now this computer will get shut down and packed up and probably won't be back in action for several months. I will suffer a slight withdrawal crawl and then I shall be on the road. We have a laptop too so I may check in from time to time, if we stay at an up to speed hotel. We won't have a connection in Ohio until we buy our new home which will probably be after our old home sells and closes escrow. Unless I manage to take advantage of my exceptionally good college grades and get a good job with good health benefits first.

I DIDN'T SEE THE OSCARS! ARE THEY RELATED TO THE PIT BULL?

I've been waking up every night at about midnight in a hot/cold sweat with the same song going through my head. Johnny Cash singing "And it burns, burns, burns, that ring of fire, that ring of fire." So I lye awake listening to the rain falling on the roof. It's the kind of thing that doesn't happen often around these parts. I try to do my meditation exercise of slowly putting my body to sleep. I do this almost every night. Have done since I was about 18 when I learned the technique from my friend, Squakenbush. Start at the toe; no it's actually more like start in the toe, and let my whole mind sink into the very essence of what, why, when, and where it is to be my toe. One at a time, telling them to go to sleep, as I slowly work my way through each toe. When I get to my little toe - and believe me, my little toes are extra short - not even half the size of their neighbour toes, when I get to that little toe, I feel the work out that I give them every day. I swear this little toe does the lion's share of keeping me upright and moving all day. They are totally wiped. I can feel the effect of relaxing them going clear up the outside muscles of my calves. Suddenly the mellow turns into nightmare as I hear "I fell into a burning ring of fire, I went down, down, down, and the flames get higher". So much for mind control. Even the self-imposed kind is not working. I decide to enlist the aid of the falling rain and the Beatles. I call to mind "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering, where it will go oh".... "and it burns, burns, burns". Alas, I am doomed. It didn't work. So I try another Beatles number. "When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads, they might as well be dead" This, I am happy to say, actually did the trick, and I fell to sleep until morn.