Walking and Tripping...

This will probably be my last blog before I leave for London. Even though I don't leave until Wednesday afternoon, I know myself well enough to know that I will be busy with packing and organizing and trying to prepare for missing eight days of work and won't be able to work in a blog.

Even though the focus of my weekend has been to get ready for my trip, I also managed to participate in the Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure walk on Saturday. Our company president wanted our office to sign up to participate and so we did. Thanks to my generous friends and family, I managed to raise a nice little sum to contribute.

The walk actually ended up being a lot of fun. Even though I had to get up earlier than I do on a workday and even though we ended up getting quite wet in the rain, I enjoyed both the exercise and walking with my teammates.

It wasn't supposed to rain. In fact one of my coworkers and I were waiting for the rest of our group to arrive and we spotted Mr. Weatherman- Frank Marzullo from Fox 19 news. My coworker called out to him and he said hi and assured us we'd have nice weather for the walk.

Less than ten minutes later, it started raining. I'm not kidding. By this time, Frank Marzullo was up on stage, doing some grandstanding and he didn't say a word about the rain. It didn't help that I had stupidly listened to him the day before when he promised it'd be dry for the walk. Thus, I came wearing a t-shirt with a thin hoodie over it. Had I known it was going to rain, I would have brought the umbrella I keep in my car or I would have brought a windbreaker. Silly Captain Monkeypants!

Still, in spite of the fact that we were dripping by the time the walk started, the rain stopped and we managed to dry out as we progressed. As the walk started, it became pretty clear that there were going to be two paces set by our team- the slow walkers and the fast walkers. I'm a fast walker by nature so I broke ahead with the fast walker pack from our office. We ended up finished about 25-30 minutes before the rest of the team.

It didn't take as long as I thought to finish the 5K walk and afterwards, I simply headed home to figure out what I still needed to shop for to take on my trip.

The rest of the weekend has been spent making a packing list and organizing my clothes. This seemed like an excellent time to switch over to my fall/winter wardrobe and pack the summer stuff away, sad as I was to do it. I also decided to be ruthless and donate a lot of my clothes from all seasons. It's probably the influence of "Hoarders" but I decided that if I had some clothing I hadn't worn over a year or if I hadn't worn it all during the last season, I would donate it. In the end, I had two large IKEA bags full of donations. Most of it is good stuff that either doesn't quite fit me any more or just isn't my style. Having moved from California back to the Midwest, my style has changed a lot since I moved.

It felt good to purge and organize. I now have a well organized closet and lots of leftover hangers. I also have my packing list made for my trip with only a few toiletries left to get.

The hard part is that even though I'm staying in a hotel for the first half of my trip, I'm going to be moving on to my grandparent's for the second half so I have to be prepared for both legs of the trip. Even though I can do some shopping in the UK if I need to, I'd still like to try and minimize it if I can.

Aside from physically packing, I'm pretty much ready to go, I think. I'm not ready to be apart from the pups for 10 days but I'm not thinking about that. I know, logically, they'll be safe with my parents but it still doesn't mean I won't worry about them. I'm an overprotective mother, I know it and knowing is half the battle. I have their bag half-packed- I stocked up on their favourite "chompers" which is our name for the long lasting treats they get whenever I have to leave them for a while. They're partial to Busy Chewnola's which keep them busy. It also stops them from chewing things they're not supposed to chew.

So, in three days, I'll be London-bound and my pups will be spoiled rotten by their grandparents. I won't be blogging while I'm gone because even if I took my laptop, I wouldn't necessarily have an internet connection and, frankly, lumping a computer to the UK is a lot of work. I've done it before and I'd rather not do it again. I'm sure, however, I will have plenty of stories to tell when I return. Thus, for now, I'll bid you all adieu until I return. Or, as the Brits say, "Cheerio!"

Thanks for reading! Happy Monday and on!

Slush Puppies make Everything Better...

Mornings like this are muddled. I had to turn around on my way to home to run back to pick up a birthday card to mail to a friend. I hate being late with birthdays, even by a day. Then I get into work and there's a steady flow of morning visitors by my cube. There often is in the mornings: Coworkers stop by to chat. Yet today, my cubicle-neighbour is also in which means there's even more chatter.

Not that I mind but it means my morning isn't off to its routine beginning and sometimes routine is good. At the moment, I need routine because my life is so muddled elsewhere that I'm trying to not feeling like I'm drowning in the stress of moving.

I took a really full carload to the house last night and I still have several to go. I'm trying to take it in pieces, not look at the overwhelming amount of stuff I still feel like I have to do.

Yet it's Friday; I have a weekend to worry and I'm hoping once the movers have taken the furniture tomorrow, it will look less intimidating in my apartment. I'm also looking forward to actually living in my house. That happens...beginning tomorrow.

This has been a week of "lasts". That always happens when I move. For example, today was the last easy commute I have for a while. No longer will I have an 8-minute hop to the office but, instead, have a 40 minute commute again. Once the office moves, I'll be back to a ten minute drive. I'm actually not upset about the commute for now. I like driving; I like the thinking time. Some of my novels were thought up on my commutes to work. It'll be nice to have that time to just let your mind wander.

Last night was also the last time I will sit at my computer in my apartment and email, the last time I'll really make lunch for work in my apartment. I know, I know...it's small stuff but I love my apartment and I'm going to be sad to miss it.

Still, life moves forward and so must I. Last night, I started unpacking my kitchen at the house. I had a rather scary experience as I was measuring my pantry for shelves. The overhead light/fan in the kitchen has a glass globe on it; it fell off and shattered on the floor. I am extremely thankful I wasn't standing under it because, at the very least, it would have hurt. It probably wouldn't have been quite serious so I'm glad I chose that moment to measure my pantry. Needless to say, it got my heart racing a little. Nothing like a near concussive-experience to scare the crap out of you.

So I'm glad it's the weekend. Work has been busy this week. I'd like to think I'm slowly but surely finding out where I fit in my company and now they're starting to realize that my experience is quite useful, I have a lot more work to do. I'm hoping that lasts for a while.

It's nice to be busy but part of me is just longing for life to settle down again so I can be faced only with choices such as "stay here or go to my parent's this weekend?" or "what's for dinner?" At the moment, choosing things such as the height at which to mow my grass or flat paint or semi-gloss are ruling my life. Again, I ask, when, exactly, did I become a grown up? I miss the days of trying to decide which flavour of Slush Puppie to get at the local Pak a Sak.

I miss Slush Puppies. Even in England we used to get Slush Puppies. It was such a treat to get one on a hot day. The only problem I've always have is that I suck the flavour out and am left with a lot of flavourless ice-crystals. I've never understood that. My friends all got them and theirs still had flavour. In fact, that happens to me what kind of frozen drink it is: Arctic Freeze, Icee, Slurpee or Slushie. Hmm....

You know, I pass by a convenience store which has a big Slush Puppie sign in front of it every time I go from my apartment to my house. I'm thinking I'm going to stop there today. Slush Puppies make everything better as long as you go heavy on the syrup, light on the ice. I intend to do just that. Maybe it'll make me feel like a kid again, even for a few minutes.

Sometimes that's all you need. Happy Friday.