{ a swoop and a dart }

Dear Photograph, Revisited

When I was working for Ella Publishing Co., I was invited to participate in a project to promote the release of a wonderful book titled Dear Photograph by Taylor Jones. I was looking for my submission last night since we're moving back to F.E. Warren AFB, and I wanted to remember what I had written back in 2012:

Dear Photograph,

I stood here on the hotel steps on a house hunting trip to Cheyenne in April 2000, wishing like anything that I could live in one of these beautiful historic old houses (but knowing the two year waiting list made that impossible). I never could have imagined that 12 years later, my home would be the house with the side porch peeking out from behind the cottonwood trees on the most beautiful circle imaginable. Even though it's only temporary until the Air Force sends us somewhere else, I am grateful.

Thank you,

Elizabeth

I now have a p.s. to add:

p.s. 16 years later, we're moving into that house next door. (!!)

Seriously—the odds of me taking a photo of not just one but TWO places we'd be living in the future? That's pretty far-fetched. And yet, there you have it.

You can check out the many wonderful submissions to Dear Photograph here, and follow along on Instagram, too. I am excited for the many opportunities to run around and take some new Dear Photograph photos since we'll be living in a place where we have an actual history again : )

 

Moving/Moved

We have officially been in New Mexico for two weeks and three days, which means we're not moving anymore, but rather, moved. I'm not sure we have recovered yet from this third-move-in-three-consecutive-summers business, however. I had some things to say about moving this time around but once it all set in motion I forgot them all.

Thankfully, it doesn't look like this anymore. We're at the same point we always are at the two weeks and three days mark: only picture boxes and detritus are left. And an over-abundance of wine-colored accent walls. Nothing makes an over-abundance of wine-colored accent walls more palatable than this, though:

The walls of Maddie's bedroom when we arrived... there was more where this came from in the other bedrooms. YES, it's all gone now and YES, I will have the best before/after photos soon. We can't even. 

That thing I said about how renting sight-unseen is always an adventure? Mmmhmmm.

I'm hard at work figuring out how to put the puzzle pieces back together in this new house with no attic and no basement but two of the finest master bedroom closets we've ever come across. The piano needs tuned but has an interior wall to live happily on. I got rid of enough stuff in my craft room before we moved that the new space is already set up and awaiting pictures on the walls, which is a bit of a small miracle. There are mountains and clouds and expanses of mesas everywhere, though the scary coyotes in the distance freak me out at night. The dishwasher works like it's supposed to (!) and we've already returned our first batch of library books in exchange for new ones. There is way too much driving, but there are also places to go and things to do at the end of those drives.

Which is all to say, we're adjusting slowly to make our old selves fit into this new space in ways both figurative and literal. Every single time we've ever moved to a new house, there comes a moment where I look around and think to myself "oh! This is home, and this is normal." Here's to thinking that sooner rather than later.

Moving Participles

Crossing things off the Moving List of Doom v.2015—almost done crossing, actually, which makes me afraid we're probably missing 30 things. (There are only two things left since I took this picture)(Gracie thought it said "power sleeping" instead of "power steering" and quite honestly, I should add that as a separate item and cross it off for successful completion, twice)

Dreading driving across the state of Texas.

Wondering how I could have gotten rid of so much stuff this year and yet still be so precariously close to exceeding our moving weight allowance.

Feeling glad that we decided to apparate to Hogwarts for a few days last week, even though we cut it a little close to the first day of packing.

Feeling strangely sad about leaving Alabama. Who knew we would find a corner of the south to love! Except for the humidity. And palmetto bugs. And I-85. And news out of the Alabama State Legislature. But other than that, we have many good things to say.

Feeling predictably sad about leaving the friends we made here. Siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Repeat after me: our hearts are bigger now. Our hearts our bigger now.

Feeling absolutely, positively miserable about the Cavs losing in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. We didn't miss a single playoff game and it was building up our good attitude reserves in the face of this move. Wah-waaaaaah.

Feeling ecstatically happy that we don't have to deal with another single showing in this rental house. It isn't sold, it isn't rented, and it isn't our problem anymore.

Feeling the tiniest bit excited to see our new rental house for the first time. Sight-unseen renting is... an adventure! Or something like that.

Feeling a lot, clearly. As one does in any move, and as one does x3 in a third-consecutive-move-in-three-summers move.

So This Is What It's Like

So this is what it's like to move all the time:

Lots of people you know and love will look at you and tell you they think you're amazing for moving so much. That they don't know how you do it. That you must be super organized and totally on top of the clutter and build-up of the years both in terms of dust and school papers.

Once you've heard it a few times it makes you want to scream.

Not because you aren't appreciative of the compliment, but because it couldn't feel farther from the truth.

There is nothing amazing about being surrounded by so many boxes of stuff when you thought you worked hard to sell/donate/toss. There is nothing amazing about not knowing how to solve the puzzle of where to put your things, even if your house is bigger than the last one (and especially if it's smaller). There is nothing amazing about not being able to find X, Y, or Z for weeks on end. There is nothing amazing about imagining your friends in other towns enjoying their summers like normal people—swimming lessons, plenty of summer groceries stocked and ready to go, flowers in pots and birdfood in feeders. And there is definitely nothing amazing about setting up internet service with a new company.

Instead of running outside to play with friends, your children watch too much TV, bicker at the smallest of imagined injustices, and cling to each other while missing their own friends. They aren't feeling all that amazing either in those early days, because they know that NEW is HARD. New schools to figure out, new library culture to learn, new neighborhood boundaries to navigate, and the "new kid" badge to wear. Their new teammates are sizing them up, extra-watchful of skills and judging whether or not they'll be a threat. It's tiring, all this newness, when all you want is familiar. Even if familiar was new just one year before.

Meanwhile... it's easy to fall into the trap to believe that you're the only one struggling. Your amazing military friends who are moving too? They actually do have it together, you think. Their dust and school papers are managed. They're navigating their new Targets and commissaries without standing in the aisles ready to burst into crazy lady tears because the cereal is in the wrong place. Their boxes are unpacked and recycled by the seventh day and most likely have friends their kids actually know lined up to be emergency contacts. They're showing up and smiling and have already invited the neighborhood kids over for ice cream and lemonade, because they have a full house of groceries. That, by the way, they didn't pay for with the credit card because they aren't sure for another month exactly what the cash flow is going to look like.

It's exhausting to be friends with all these perfect people.

And then: the stories start to spill out. Like the one friend who ended up driving a billion miles in the wrong direction in crazy San Francisco Bay traffic because she accidentally got on the wrong road when all she wanted was to go to Costco. And another friend who lost her cat on moving day only to discover it stowed away in the moving truck for five whole deathly hot days (but survived to see another). Or the friend whose one chance to pull cold weather gear out of long-term storage after a stint in Japan resulted in a mis-labeled box of outgrown children's books that will not keep her children warm for the upcoming year in a new place (where the bulk of the stored stuff stays in storage). Or the new friend whose overseas shipment just never showed up, lost in a port somewhere. Slowly, it begins to occur to you that the stress of moving has caused you to have an active imagination about how your military friends are experiencing their own moves.

And suddenly, you realize that you all really are pretty amazing, because you've all managed to survive these tales you're telling each other. You remember that new is often exciting, and brave adventures can bring a family closer together. Eventually you'll have flowers in pots and birdfood in feeders too, and you'll eat outside on a perfect summer evening and wonder what all the fuss was about a few weeks ago. You'll get the last of the boxes to the recycle center eventually, and use your amazing powers to erase all memory of their existence.

Until next year, when you get to do it all again.

: )

Top Ten Moving Tips

We're about to move for the tenth time this weekend, and while we are NO EXPERTS, we have learned some things along the way. That doesn't mean it's any easier, but at least I know what we're up against these days. Sometimes.

So far Maddie has lived in five states in her lifetime; Gracie claims five as well, while Bridget comes in at four states in seven years. Don't let this sweet photo fool you: this was the move in which Gracie acted like her Muppet equivalent (Animal) for hundreds of miles from Colorado to California while the rest of us were reeling from food poisoning.

 1. The unexpected will happen, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Everyone wants to believe that a move can take place without incident if only you follow every single one of Martha Stewart's or Buzzfeed's or U-Haul's tips/checklists for moving, but I am here to tell you: there is no perfect move without incident. The unexpected will happen, and there's nothing you can do about it. It might be food poisoning in the middle of the desert, or the worst ground hornet sting imaginable while escaping from a realtor showing, or 35 library books specifically marked DO NOT PACK that get packed and hauled across the country, or a couch that won't fit through a doorway and must be sold for a fraction of what you paid for it to the moving truck driver, or a shower door that explodes into 23,000 shards of glass when you're getting ready to move out, or wildly painful emergency dental procedures the same day the packers arrive... it will happen. The only thing you can do is laugh. Because if you don't laugh, you will cry. And there's a pretty good chance you will do both, so the sooner you accept that some crazy stuff is about to befall you, the better.

Shower door explosions are real.

Related: it is OK if you show up on someone's doorstep and burst into tears because something pushed you over the edge. If they're worth their salt they'll give you a hug, or invite you in and call for pizza, or show up at 10 pm at night with a vacuum cleaner and a good attitude.

2. Make a Moving List of Doom and keep it in a centralized location. 

And regularly add things to it that you've already completed. It's the only way.

 3. Put like things with like things.

The more of this you can do the better—from Legos to paper clips to books to tools... you name it. I didn't really do much of any of this when we moved from California to Virginia in 2007, and I ended up paying for it the next year and a half or so. Biggest fail: our closing papers from selling the house in Colorado Springs did not get put back with other financial papers in California and did not turn up again until they were found in Wyoming stuck in a box with Matt's clarinet music. This cost us some money the year they went missing at tax time. SERIOUSLY. 

Sometimes your driver will be great and sometimes your driver will take your household goods to a sketch countrywestern music festival in Arizona for a few days before hitting the road. Just try to go with the flow. Things usually show up in one or two pieces no matter what.

4. Say yes to help.

What is it about people? We honestly love to help our friends when they need it—I am often despondent when I'm hundreds of miles away and cannot provide the help I know a friend might desperately need—but when it comes to accepting help... that's a lot harder for some reason. When you're moving, though, SAY YES. A friend offers to help you finish cleaning your basement? HERE'S A BROOM. A friend offers to take your wild monkeys for the afternoon? YES AND YESSER. Do not turn down these kind offers of help, because fairy godmothers (and fairy godfathers) don't just exist in books. And turning down help is a surefire way to crack your sanity right in half. I mean, it's probably going to happen anyway, so you might as well have a friend nearby to hold your hand. You will no doubt replay the favor when it's their turn to move. 

Melissa, one of the best neighbors ever, who didn't make fun of me or kick me out when I drooled on her couch while taking a nap during our move in 2006.

5. Be strategic.

Moving is basically a game of strategy, with the goal being to not fall over from stress at any point along the way. If this means a strategic plan to throw away a few of one's belongings after they've ceased to be useful in a cross-country move involving airline travel (yes, that was me throwing away pillows in the Oakland airport in 2007) then that's what you do. If it means you have to cook with absolute whack-job ingredients for a few weeks so you end up with zero food to give away, so be it. If it means taping off your no-pack area with crime scene tape to prevent the packers from packing it all up anyway, go buy some. (I haven't done this yet, but after I had to dig through a ton of boxes last night for all the things that were in the no-pack corner, I might try it next time).

All dishes are heavy. Try not to take your possessions' inconveniences personally.

6. Invest in all sizes of Ziploc bags.

Ziploc bags are the Duct Tape of the moving world. There are regular old snack, sandwich, and gallon storage bags, but Hefty also makes great 2.5 gallon bags (perfect for putting all the contents of one's nightstand or junk drawer in for ease of dumping it again once settled)(because let's be honest, no house is home without a junk drawer) and Ziploc has Large, Extra-Large, and Extra-Extra Large bags that are perfect for everything from light bulbs to school papers to bedding. Home Depot and Lowe's often carry the full range of sizes vs. Target, which only has one or two.

I have never looked lovingly at my possessions when they're stuffed inside one of these Ziploc bags, but I still think they are a good idea. Not a good idea: putting ice skate blades on the bottom of a plastic Ziploc bag.

7. Have a project!

You might think that you can't handle one more thing during a move, but I disagree: it might be the only thing that sees you through. My moving projects are generally of the photography variety, for obvious reasons; I'm currently participating in the color/colour challenge on Instagram organized by fellow Phone Photography Project instructor Andrea Jenkins and her friend Xanthe Berkeley, and it is providing all of us a much-needed distraction from moving details. It doesn't have to be a big project (like, I don't really recommend the having-a-baby + finishing up writing a book project as your "moving project") but it really can help you survive a move when you have some creative thing to cling to.

It's pink week! Yes, I put a little bag of pink stamps in my backpack to arrange when I had a few minutes. It was therapeutic.

8. Do what it takes to protect your sanity.

Buy a few new items of clothing at Target. Grab a few fiction books you know good and well you don't have time to read. Allow yourself two grocery store frappuccinos in a row. Whatever it takes to protect your sanity (within the limits of the law)(yes, moving makes it important to emphasize this point) is worth it.

An unedited photo that Maddie took today of the storm that blew through at lunchtime; I thought it was a nice metaphor for what moving does to one's soul if you don't work hard to find the sunshine and protect your sanity.

9. It's only money.

Moving is expensive, and no one wants to waste money during an already expensive process. It's not really wasting money, though, if spending some makes your challenges a little less daunting. For example: sometimes we suck it up and do the final cleaning ourselves to save money, and sometimes we happily hand over the cash for a hired cleaning service to do it. When we moved from California, I hired a woman to do the big stuff. She brought a friend. She charged $75 less than what I had paid to get a "guaranteed pass" cleaning on our way out of base housing in Montana seven years prior, when cleaning a house while finishing up the teaching school year would have assuredly put me in the loony bin. I gave the California lady and her friend a $75 tip and probably would have given her more had I been able to find my checkbook or had more cash on hand. Because it was worth it. There is a great deal of cost-benefit analysis involved in moving, I think.

Also worth it: treating your packers/movers to lunch every single day they're in your home. And stocking water in the fridge. So what if you spend close to $200 on lunches in 3-4 days? Budget for it and get them what they want. Packing 19 million book boxes is no treat, and it's the least you can do.

WE GET IT, WE HAVE A LOT OF BOOKS.

10. Repeat these words: If we hadn't moved to ______, we wouldn't ______.

Oh, this is the most important one. It can be read at least 10,000 ways for us. At the end of the day, the struggles and frustrations of moving boxes and people touching your stuff and water-damaged bookcases and more really does fade away, because if you didn't have to move somewhere in the first place, you would never have had the experiences or made the lifelong friends that new geography hands you. I couldn't even begin to choose a photo for it, because really? All the photos are because of it.

This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists, and I love a good project.

 

 

 

 

Early Childhood Friends

There are definitely some very worthwhile benefits to being an Air Force kid: a vastly expanded worldview at an early age, the opportunity to eat a variety of interesting foods from a variety of interesting places well before college, and meeting/making friends in places you absolutely never would have been otherwise. I am the only person in this family who can't claim "Air Force kid" on her resumé; Matt moved something like 13 times before he settled into four years of high school, all in the same place. Bridget will attend her first four years of elementary school in four different elementary schools.

There are definitely some very worthwhile benefits to not being an Air Force kid, too. Knowing where in the world to look for many of my childhood friends is a big one. There is something to be said for still being in touch with the only person who attended every single school that you did—all the way from kindergarten to college. There is even more to be said for friendships that span more than 40 years. I played along with #TBT today, which got me thinking about some of my earliest friends:

1. Nancy

I remember so clearly when this picture was taken; where we were standing in the driveway behind the house, and how mad we were that our moms made us put on our jackets before the picture, which ruined the perfect twinsie thing we had going on. Oh, 1970s Carter's clothes! You were the best.

Nancy and I have been friends since I was eight months old, which is the age I was when she was born. Because our mamas were friends, we were automatically friends, too—this doesn't always work out in the long run, but in our case, well, we're carting our families to Disney World together this summer, so there you go. Her house was the one I liked best of my friends' homes growing up; there was always something interesting going on there, to include a lack of central heating (by choice!) well into middle school (I think), a grandma with her own apartment connected to the house, lots and lots of old family photos on the walls, and pianos and guitars and singing, always.

2. Kenna

I have no recollection of this particular day, though I do remember playing on the sidewalks in front of our houses all the time.

Kenna was my older next-door-neighbor who always had a plan, and I was the younger next-door-neighbor who always wanted to go along with it. We spent a lot of time working on our baton twirling skills, and I lived in fear for years of the dead people she told me were behind the wood paneling in our partially finished basement. [Note: she does not remember telling me this, though she admits that it sounds like something she might have done.] My first record (Shaun Cassidy) was a party favor from one of her birthday parties. I once broke into her house at her mom's request after she locked herself out. She moved away somewhere when I was in elementary school, though someone must have been keeping us in touch because Matt and I went to her wedding while we were in college (a beautiful, snowy December wedding in Ohio!).

3. Jesse

I don't have a photo of our early childhood friendship days, sadly... but we were friends from around the age of 2 or 3; she lived down and across the street a few houses from where I'm standing with Kenna. She cut my hair once for me when we were 3 (ha) and I don't remember much else about playing together, though I do remember visiting her house when they moved to a different neighborhood because we spent the entire time trying to learn how to blow bubbles with our gum under the instruction of her older brother, Joel. She moved away-away for a few years and we shyly met back up in 7th grade when her family moved back, and were pretty inseparable through middle and high school. She was the matron-of-honor in our wedding.

4. Shannon

This is one of my favorite childhood photos, and not just because our 1970s sundresses are actually cute!

Shannon lived a few streets behind mine in our neighborhood, and we must have met on the first day of kindergarten. We walked to school together most days, and I remember being allowed to walk to her house and back, which I can still do very clearly in my mind. Her backyard was part of a terrible drainage catastrophe that stretched through many backyards and worked in our favor each winter when it iced over and turned into a first-class ice rink; it was also the only backyard I had ever seen with a full basketball court, built for her brothers. She is the one who called me on the phone to ask if I would sign up to play softball on the same team the summer after second grade (my primary sport through high school). I attended the tragic funeral for one of her older brothers when I was in 9th grade, and attended a number of college basketball games that her younger brother played in at Miami.

Everything in life is a trade-off: because of this, not that. It comes down to one thing: all you can do is celebrate your own experience and not dwell too much on the "thats" that you missed, because they aren't yours. I am wildly thankful that my early limited worldview and narrow Ohio palate afforded me the opportunity to develop friendships at an early age that exist on a continuum, just as I am wildly thankful for the opportunities the girls have had to live near mountains, rodeo, national monuments, and really good donuts. They've made some dear friends along the way, and it would be crazy to imagine a life that fails to include any of them.

This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists, and I love a good project.

 

 

 

 

Found in the Piano Bench

Moving poetry written by a child clearly at her wit's end. I think it's written by Gracie, though it could be even older and written by Maddie. Hard to tell. Maybe I'll commission them for a longer piece of work this summer. Heh.

House Hunting the Myers-Briggs Way

Matt recently took a free online Myers-Briggs personality test for fun. Free means not as exhaustive as the real thing that a trained psychologist might administer, but he was still a little spooked by the uncanny description the test spat back out at him upon completion. If you're familiar with Myers-Briggs, it breaks personality types down into 16 different categories; more accurate tests give a percentage of which characteristics are strongest, but even the freebie online test assigned a personality type. Matt is an ISTJ. I cannot fathom why we would need to spend a penny to have a more accurate test result.

ISTJs are faithful, logical, organized, sensible, and earnest traditionalists who enjoy keeping their lives and environments well-regulated. Typically reserved and serious individuals, they earn success through their thoroughness and extraordinary dependability. They are capable of shutting out distractions in order to take a practical, logical approach to their endeavors, and are able to make the tough decisions that other types avoid. Realistic and responsible, ISTJs are often seen as worker bees striving steadily toward their goals.

It goes on for a while, being eerie and accurate about many things. This particular passage is my favorite, because it confirms a well-known personality trait of Matt, aka The Sunbeam of Knowledge:

ISTJs respect facts. They hold a tremendous store of data within themselves, gathered through their Sensing function. They may have difficulty valuing a theory or idea that differs from their own perspective.

It is hard for me not to imagine this when I read the words "Sensing function." Heh.

Of course once he shared his results I had to go take a free online Myers-Briggs test, too. Apparently I am an ENFP. Hold on, look at that again:

I  S  T  J
E N  F  P

That right there is the dictionary definition of polar opposites.

Some of my results:

People with the ENFP personality type tend to be curious, idealistic...they seek meaning and are very interested in other people’s motives, seeing life as a big, complex puzzle where everything is connected. Not surprisingly, ENFPs tend to be very insightful and empathic individuals...

ENFP personalities are usually characterized by high levels of enthusiasm, especially when it comes to things that spark their imagination – in such cases, ENFPs can be very energetic and convincing, able to easily convince other people to join their cause. Ironically, this trait can also turn against the ENFP, when they suddenly find themselves in the center of the stage, being seen as leaders and inspiring gurus by other people. ENFPs strive to be independent and, unsurprisingly, do not always welcome such attention.

ENFPs are also likely to have difficulties dealing with routine, administrative matters. They are more interested in freedom and inspiration than security and stability, and this attitude is usually clearly visible – an ENFP would rather try to come up with an interesting solution or an idea, no matter how difficult that is, than deal with simple yet boring tasks.

Ha ha ha. Busted.

Finally, ENFPs are non-conformists, following their own path and trusting their intuition. Their talents are numerous, but they all rely on the ENFP being given enough freedom. People with this personality type can quickly become impatient and dejected if they get stuck in a boring role, unable to freely express themselves – but when the ENFP finally finds their place in the world, their imagination, empathy and courage are likely to produce incredible results.

Very interesting indeed, but wait! There's more! Matt was reading more about all of this and came upon a list of good jobs for the various personality types; he emailed it to me, but I made a little graphic because I have other things to do:

If that wasn't so funny, it'd be creepy. Er... seriously, it's a wonder we've a.) managed to stay together since 1989 and b.) wow, maybe I do believe in destiny after all.

Anyway. We've been rental-house-hunting in earnest over the last week for next summer's move to Montgomery, Alabama. It occurred to me today after all the ISTJ-ENFP fun we've been having that our approach to house-hunting is very much shaped by our personality type. For example:

Me: Look at the charming old 1920 house bathed in sunshine!
Matt: Cracked foundation! Frankenheating radiator system! Weird closets!

Me: Well, that one has a pool, wouldn't that would be an awfully fun way to spend free time together in the summer?
Matt: researching researching researching pool chemicals

Me: If we had that house our furniture would go here, here, here and here. And our pictures there, there, and there. But if we had this house, our furniture would go here, here, and here. And our pictures there, there, and there. But then there's also that other house... [repeat 550 times daily]
Matt: Here's what x house costs over the course of a year.

You get the idea. It's all right there in the free online personality test summaries.

Even though we might drive each other crazy sometimes with our, uhm, unique perspectives on the world, at the end of the day we've always managed to pick the right home for us. I always (though occasionally begrudgingly) know that Matt's attention to detail and unflagging persistence when it comes to making the dependable choice serves us well. He always (though occasionally begrudgingly) knows that I can see things will be OK—or not OK—and that my intuition about such things is usually pretty accurate. He saved us from a glorious but fatally flawed old house on Pebrican Avenue in Cheyenne years ago, and I rightly convinced him that the 1938 House in Arlington would charm us and put us in the mix of some really valuable opportunities. We were both right. Maybe therein lies the explanation: in houses and life, we know when to back off and when to dig in, and when to admit to being too ISTJ-y or ENFP-y and agree to see things another way. Most of the time.

: )

 

 

A Few Notes About Kansas

photo courtesy of Maddie

When I was little, maybe either in 1978 or 1983, my parents traveled to Kansas for my dad's high school reunion in El Dorado where he grew up until he moved away to Ohio just before his senior year. When they came back, I have distinct memories of my mama making a Very Big Deal about how awful driving through Kansas was: flat, boring, awful, you name it. I've never been in Kansas until today (NEW STATE FOR MY LIST!!!) and as we were driving through, I realized I was driving with an odd feeling of apprehension as I waited for the terrible to present itself. And then I realized I have lived on or near the plains for so many years it just looked normal to me, and that my mama who lived in Ohio her whole life simply wasn't used to it. Haha.

••••••••••••••••

We did NOT have the urge to stop and see the Biggest Prairie Dog in the World (eeek!) or the five-legged cow (double eeek!) along the way today. Or the baby pigs and live rattlesnakes advertised by roadside sign as an exciting attraction.

••••••••••••••••

I have never heard of Fort Hays State before, but it is very well promoted throughout the interstate system. Actually, I've decided all Kansas colleges and universities are very well promoted throughout the interstate system. I have never seen so many higher education billboards in my life.

••••••••••••••••

I thought a lot about Grandma and Grandpa Rinehart today while I was driving.

••••••••••••••••

Ellie (poor sweet Ellie who suffered through five days in the kennel wondering if we were yet another family to abandon her) was a little perplexed about this drive we went on, because she associates car time with Medicine Bow National Forest, Curt Gowdy State Park, and Vedawoo. But she was so happy to be back with us she played along nicely.

••••••••••••••••

It took all I could do not to bail on the plan and veer off the road to visit Little Sweden about an hour before we stopped for the night. Another time, Lindsborg, Kansas, another time.

••••••••••••••••

We're staying at the Homewood Suites in Wichita. It is a fabulously wonderful dog-friendly hotel. As I was explaining to Deanna, after Ella died we made the conscious decision never to stay at another cat-friendly dive hotel ever again. Dogs are far more popular on the hotel circuit than cats... Ellie even got a gift bag. Heh.

••••••••••••••••

Tomorrow: leaving the wheat fields of Kansas, driving to the humidity of Louisiana. Hopefully I won't be off the grid too long!

 

Project Downsizing Update

Back in January I wrote about the challenges of downsizing our possessions drastically as we prepare to move from our giant national registry of historic places base home to one that is... drastically smaller. I am here to report some progress on this front.

Downsizing is hard.

The end.

Just kidding.

So every year the base has a base-wide garage sale sometime in May; the last few years I have avoided it because, well, May. Two years ago I pulled out at the last minute because I was afraid it would be the thing that would actually send me to the institution, but this year it wasn't an option. I faithfully kept taking stuff to the basement storage room loosely organized as "GIANT ROOM OF GARAGE SALE STUFF." About three weeks before I spent a day I could ill afford to spend away from working on The Phone Photography Project and worked on organizing areas of stuff; Maddie and I sorted scrapbook supplies into like categories, kitchen stuff into one area, baby stuff into another, and so on. It was nearly impossible to cross from one side of the room to another without putting oneself in peril.

On Thursday before the garage sale I tidied up our loosely organized areas of stuff.

On Friday before the garage sale I started to haul it upstairs.

I vastly underestimated the amount of time it would take to haul 80 billion things (unpriced things at that!) up the stairs. I lost track at 60 times up and down the stairs, mostly because by that point it was 11:30 pm and Matt and I had a moment of utter marital danger in which we were both angrily wondering WHOSE BRIGHT IDEA WAS THIS GARAGE SALE ANYWAY. In hindsight, it was wise for him to bow out at 11:31 and go to bed, while I persevered until 3:00 am hauling/pricing/staging inside my entry way/dragging stuff to the porch that wouldn't blow away.

Because did I mention the wind? And cold? Oh, yes. Wind. And cold. I woke up at 6:05 am on June 1 to a wind chill of 33 degrees. Crap was blowing off the porch as fast as I could set it out. I had to put on my winter coat. I nearly had a meltdown in my front yard on Saturday morning. It was fantastic.

But then people started to show up. Not the looky-loos who come out on a nice day—no, those people had the good sense to stay home. The hard core people showed up though, money in hand, and bought stuff. Every single toddler thing we put out—Hawthorne House (oh my gosh, that was hard), toddler bed, play kitchen, toys, puzzles, 150 books (no lie—I sold about 150 books), furniture, the Most Annoying Lamp of All Time (worked perfectly but had a little pull chain that clinked on the base that drove us literally i n s a n e until we stashed it in the basement a few years ago), etc. The best was when the odd scrapbooker would come up on the porch and discover the scrapbook supply portion of the sale. It was almost comical to witness the wide-eyed glee—even despite the wind and cold, people hauled off boxes of stuff. A few tubs, even.

85% of what I tried to sell, sold. As for the rest: I donated over 200 books to the library book sale room, plus some more to the annual Delta something or other book sale in town (I can never remember the name). I took three van loads of stuff to Goodwill. I kept out some craft supplies to donate to Freedom Elementary's wonderful art teacher for her art room and took those things to her on the last day of school. I have another donation pile that will go to Busy Bees, our beloved preschool. We found a late buyer for Matt's router and saws, and those will go today. I drove to Fort Collins to sell our Kelty to a lovely woman from Greeley; I internet-snooped on her online before I went to make sure she wasn't an axe murderer (she wasn't) and had to reassure my friend Kelli that the exchange had gone just fine when I posted this picture on Instagram while I waited for her:

I find it hilarious that this is the ONLY picture I have from this entire process. A weirdo shot of a gas station parking lot. It nearly did me in, all this selling off our belongings, because you know I take pictures of everything.

When all is said and done, I will go down in history as a garage sale urban legend.

$1237.50, friends. $1237.50.

: )