Second Grade Photo!

Our girl is in second grade and I love that our KRECR community includes a parent who gets conned into taking great school pictures:

Brrrrrrrrrrr!

It's been unusually cold here on the far North Coast. As you can see, we've had very hard frosts the last three or four days and they are claiming that we might actually get accumulations of SNOW tonight. IN TOWN. On the coast of the great and mighty Pacific Ocean.

I think this has caused some problems here and there. This water-whatever-it-is shares a campus with Darcy's school and there was a worried looking plumbing person looking at it this afternoon when I arrived to pick her up.

Luckily for us, this weather did not arrive until after our Thanksgiving guests had come and gone. The nights were chilly, but the days warmed up nicely. This allowed Darcy to introduce her cousin to some of her favorite things:

Playing on the beach

Finding tide pool creatures (in this case, a BIG sun star)

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year...

And I'm not talking about Christmas, although I love that, too. It's the last day of November and therefore, the last day of NaBloPoMo. I shouldn't have undertaken the challenge this year. Between blogging every day for work, moving, Thanksgiving, and everything else that was going on, I just didn't have time to do it properly. But I hope you liked a few of the pictures along the way at least, and it's always good to get back in the habit.

Here's one last picture of Darcy for the month. It represents what she missed so much when we were in Pennsylvania:

And The Move Is Almost Over...

Hurray, hurrah! The movers came today just after ten, and four and a half hours later, they drove away, leaving behind all our stuff. If there were enough moving trucks and people for everyone to have all their belongings delivered the day after Thanksgiving, we could cure the unrepentant consumerism that is Black Friday. Even though we always try to cull before a move, I am still overwhelmed (and not in a good way) by how much stuff we own. And while I am glad to have it all in the house we will now call our home, I wish there was a lot less of it.

So there it all is, in the place we will be calling home. For having a place to call home, I am truly grateful. 

But how do I cull so there is truly less stuff, permanently? I feel like we have gotten rid of all the easy stuff and even some small pieces of the hard stuff. I have dreams of scanning some of the grad school paperwork I feel I shouldn't/can't get rid of, although I have gotten rid of a LOT of grad school stuff already. I have streamlined my book collection -- even my cookbook collection has been weeded through twice! I got rid of a few kitchen things I was hanging onto more for sentiment than for the actual use I get out of them, and there might be a few more things I could give away or sell from kitchen cabinets (well, boxes, at this point).

I've pared down my closet, gotten rid of all my high-heeled shoes, and we aren't knick-knack people, so there aren't many dust-catchers that are being hauled from place to place.

We held a garage sale in PA, Michael sold stuff on Craig's List and gave stuff away via FreeCycle, and we have a few pieces of furniture at an auction house in Delaware Water Gap, waiting to be sold on our behalf.

SO HOW DO WE STILL HAVE THIS MUCH STUFF??

I Am Full

That's the overwhelming feeling for now. I am thankful for being with family today, and for having a bounty of delicious food to cook and share, and for a gloriously sunny day.

But now I am tired and full and too sleepy to write about all the wonderful things in my life. But they are legion.

So TIred...

Woke up at four this morning. I didn't mean to, but I did. By five, it was clear there would be no more sleep for me. I got up, drove to the back house and did the last bits of cleaning there. Then I went to spend time with my cat, who was needy and still anxious about being in a strange, empty house.

I'm now close to comatose and so this is the post you get today.

I hope you all have delicious menus planned for tomorrow.

Out Of One House And Into Another

We now have stuff in three different houses at the 
same time. What is wrong with this picture?

We are comfortably housed in a vacation rental for the next several days, anticipating the arrival of some family for Thanksgiving tomorrow. The dishes I hauled in my car from Pennsylvania are still at the house we've been living in for the past two months. So is a little bit of food. Our clothes and Darcy's books and animals and a LOT of food are in the vacation rental with us. 

But our sweet cat is in our new house, which we sort of, almost took possession of today. She's got her food and water bowls, her bed, the shirt off my back (literally), a scratching post, and a bunch of the stuff that we hauled from Pennsylvania in our cars. I worry that she's lonely, but Michael says she's a cat and she'll be fine. I hope he's right.

On Friday, all the rest of our stuff from PA will be delivered. We tried to pare down our stuff before this move (again) and I hope I will be less stunned by how much stuff comes off the truck. 

But mostly I hope that by the time we leave the vacation rental on Sunday, we can crawl into our very own beds for the first time in three months (for Darcy and me, anyway)!! I'm ready.