Excitement All Around

The last few nights we've spent time with many of our friends in Bozeman. Sharing meals and stories, saying goodbyes. It really doesn't seem like this is the last time we will see these people but for some it is for others it will be months or years. I'm not feeling sad yet but I know that's coming. We've made some amazing connections here in Bozeman.

Now that we're staring our roadtrip to California square in the face (we're leaving tomorrow) I'm starting to feel excited about so many things. The trip in and of itself is going to be fun. Very long, with a box truck pulling our little Honda we'll cruise at 55mph for 1200 miles. Oh yeah! That will take a few days but we're seasoned roadtrippers and know how to get through. Along the way we're looking forward to things like In N Out Burger and Chipotle (we don't have these things in Bozeman) for good eats. Also within the first couple days of the trip we'll be enjoing substantially warmer weather (although Bozeman has been beautiful for the last week or so). :) All in all it should be a good trip. We'll keep you posted. :)

Dazed and Crazed.....

This morning I went into campus where I entered grades for Intro and passed my records off to our administrative assistant. I walked out of Traphagen Hall for the last time. I turned in my keys that I've carried around for the past 3.5 years. It all felt strange.

Then I proceeded to run 800 errands, most of them to change our address so the important stuff will follow us. All the while, for reasons I'm not quite sure of, I felt panic creeping up on me. I know that we are almost ready to leave Bozeman and have enough time to tie up loose ends. And still I felt uneasy. I love it when I know something but knowing it doesn't change my emotional response to what is happening. (chuckle)

Just ten minutes ago our beloved couch was swept away by my former officemate, Katya. I'm glad to know that it will have a good home but now I'm sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room, typing this post, feeling stranger than ever.

"Would you like to put that on your Macy's card?"

I uttered those words for what I hope to be the last time yesterday. That's exactly what I thought when I left my employ at Macy's two years ago. Never say never. I spent my last shift in Linens, my favorite department, and felt strange when the time rolled around to clock out. It was like any other shift, no fanfare, no drama (despite what is always provided by the customers...). But it wasn't like every other shift. It was my last. It felt strange and abrupt. Ok, done! Now what? I can't wait for it to suddenly sink in..."oh, yeah! I don't have to don an all black uniform and calculate which coupon would be best". :)

This week has been a strange mishmash of 'lasts'. I gave my last lecture to my big intro class on Monday. I met with my seminar class for the last time on Wednesday. I worked my last shift at Macy's. So far none of this seems real to me. I know that we are leaving Bozeman in, count them, eight days, but it's not resonating with me yet.

I spent hours this week in my office going through papers, cleaning out files and trying to find homes for my collection of text books. The light green walls - illegally painted - are bare and sad. Black and white photos that decorated the place are now at home pilled against a wall. I moved out a pile of paper to be recycled that I'm pretty sure measured 24" tall. I moved out another pile of paper to be shredded and was thankful that the department has undergraduates employed in our main office to help me recycle and shred all these papers. Otherwise, I can't imagine how long it would take!

With that said I've spent the last week writing exams and the makeups to go along with them. Don't misunderstand me here. I. Love. Teaching. I'm also ready to not write another exam for a very long time. After being incredibly diligent to not repeat questions from previous exams on the exams and makeups, I'm done. Done.

Turkey Day with Chef Tim...

Outfitted in his "Butter Me Up" lobster apron Tim set to work on Thanksgiving dinner. All of this started the night before. We had just come home after watching the Wild win against the Predators and Tim started whipping up what would be our pumpkin cheesecake dessert. It came out of the oven sometime in the very early morning. I don't know why but Tim likes to bake at night. :)

By the following afternoon we had continued to cook, bake, clean and watch some of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. While watching I couldn't help but think about the ten hour shift I had at Macy's on Black Friday. I. Was. Not. Excited.

My mom, Linda, and her husband, Paul, arrived in the afternoon and we sat down to an amazing meal from Chef Tim. He spent the better part of the day scurrying around the kitchen and all the work paid off. We enjoyed a scrumptuous meal of turkey, stuffing, gravy, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, acini de pepe salad, along with sour cream biscuits, and brocolli casserole. Many compliments to the chef. :)

That night I went to bed early in an attempt to offset the shift I would be working the following day from 5am to 3pm. I figured, "ok, no problem, I'll probably be a little tired but I'll just get through it". A little tired. That's funny. For no reason whatsoever I could not sleep. I tossed and turned for what seemed like an eternity before finally falling asleep for less than two hours. I woke to the alarm and before I got out of bed knew that I was totally delirious. Oh. Joy.

Tim was nice enough to drop me off at work and I proceeded to stock shelves in Homeworld as was specified by the shift I had picked up the week before. Much to my chagrin I was told that, "by the way, the schedule has been changed, we need you over in shoes". Right. Because that would be the best use of my time (I've worked mostly in Homeworld for the last few years and therefore have the most product knowledge for Linens, Housewares and Lugguage). To be honest I pouted a little on the way over to Shoes and then proceeded to ring for the remaining 9 hours of my shift. All I can say is that I'm glad it went fast. On two hours of sleep I felt as though I could barely keep my eyes open and didn't trust myself to do simple math without a calculator. Customer after customer asked the same question, "which coupon is better, $10 off or 20% off?". Simple math for no fewer than 800 customers on less than two hours of sleep = homicidal thoughts. I would say that my patience started to wear thin almost immediately but I don't think I started with any that day.

Somehow 3pm rolled around and I clocked out on the dot. Tim, mom and Paul picked me up and upon getting home I crashed for an hour. It felt like two minutes. Not really refreshed but more functional I spent the rest of the evening hanging out and relaxing.

Despite working shifts on Black Friday and on Saturday the long weekend was good. Mom and Paul pulled our trailer back to their place with some things they're going to store for us. Although we've had the house torn apart for what seems like months now the strangest change the removal of the TV. The house seemed to look and feel different without it. If that makes any sense. I guess we got used to turning it on for some background noise. I do miss What Not To Wear but other than that I've been content to, finally, get to a pile of books that have been waiting on me for months. Happy girl.

A Blizzard, A Meltdown and Plan B....

Two weeks ago we had a plan that looked good on paper. We were going to load our trailer and pickup with belongings to store in Fresno with Tim's family. And thus preparing for this trip had us ripping the house to shreds in order to sort, organize and pack the things we wanted to put into storage.

After weeks of traipsing through rooms littered with piles of stuff we were finally ready to load the trailer. We lined it up with the garage and starting loading. I really hate that this sounds like a small task when in reality it was hours of carrying things outside as the sun went down and the temperatures dipped lower and lower. At about midnight we were exhausted but had the trailer closed up and ready to go. We then drove out to the machine shop to drop off some materials and picked up a pizza on the way home. Spent, we collapsed into bed, mind you our bed was now packed away in the trailer so we were crashing on an air mattress. Being so tired I don't think we noticed one bit.

Early the next morning we woke up to eeiry, howling winds and set to the task of packing up a few remaining items in bed and cab of the pickup. Then it started to snow. With the winds gusting the otherwise gentle snow was whipped through the air in a horizontal direction. I was growing more and more worried about Tim driving in such weather even if it was only for the first few hours of the trip. I was almost in tears at the thought of him on the road, alone, with a fully loaded trailer and pickup.

Tim pulled the pickup and trailer away from the house and immediately we knew something was wrong. The wheels on the trailer were not only "squatty" but the axle looked precarious at best. It was bowed in a unnatural direction toward the ground. Despite our seemingly careful efforts to pack the trailer the load was obviously too much for it.

We were unsure as to what to do at this point. I mean, "Should Tim start driving and see what happens?, Should we wait until the next morning for the weather to clear? But then the roads would have hard packed snow which would still be dangerous??". In the end we decided to move some of the heavier items out of the trailer to ease the burden on the axle. Mind you this was no easy task when the snow is still whipping sideways, the ramp to the trailer is a veritable skating rink from the wet snow and the item you're trying to move is a table saw that weighs 300 pounds. After much wrestling and slipping on the ramp we rearranged some of the items in the trailer but to our dismay the bowed axle looked unchanged. What? At that point we were both anxious and truly unsure as to what to do. We walked back into the house and Tim said, "Ok, I should get going". He gave me a kiss on the cheek and walked out to the truck. I immediately starting crying because I was so scared about the weather, so tired from loading and unloading and not much sleep and so worried about the safety of the trailer. What if something happened out there? Would there even be cell service or any passersby to help Timmy if something happened?

Then something amazing happened. No, the snow did not stop. Rather Timmy walked back through the front door. The look on his face mirrored everything I was feeling - at that point we both melted down. Hugs and deep breaths followed. We decided right then and there for so many reasons that it was not safe to be driving that day. I can't tell you how relieved I was and I'm assuming Tim felt the same. Within minutes we were joking and laughing, happy to working on Plan B. Whatever that might be.

We decided to brave the weather, at this point we didn't even notice it, and drove out to a favorite breakfast spot for some grub and a brainstorming session. On some paper scrounged from my purse we laid out all the options with pros and cons. What if we sold the pickup here in Bozeman? Could we rent a Uhaul and just make one trip to Fresno with all our stuff? Maybe we could sell the Honda in Salt Lake when we finally leave?

So we spent the rest of the day talking with our families to let them know that plans had changed, researching other options and we settled on what is now Plan B. We decided to sell the pickup in Bozeman and we will rent a Uhaul to take the belongings that Tim was going to drive to Fresno before the blizzard and meltdown happened. The trailer, along with several items, would go to my mom, Linda, and her husband Paul when they came to visit for Thanksgiving.

Feeling refreshed, well kind of, we unloaded the trailer and put everything in the garage. So in 24 hours we loaded and unloaded the trailer. Looking back I know we made the right decision to postpone the trip and now all of our belongings are packed and organized. The house is empty and we are ready to go.

New Tenants

So by the time the potential new tenants came through our apartment I didn't even care what it looked like. I assumed, "No one would want to rent this place...they'll be too distracted by the piles of stuff everywhere". With that said I was shocked to learn that they came through the apartment, they LOVED it, they asked to buy our washer and dryer and then they wanted to know if we could move out early. When Tim relayed this to me I laughed. Out loud. I mean, "sure we can move out early, pitch at tent in the snow and let you move in". Who are these people?? Our property management people told them we are moving out of the country and no, we cannot vacate early.

In the end it worked out. They loved the place, put in an application and we have our fingers crossed that there won't be any other people traipsing through our place. :)

Kitchen Complications

So far the office is almost done, same with the bedroom, the bathrooms, the garage and the laundry room.  You'd think we're nearing the finish line. Wait, not so fast. There still remains one sneaky, unassuming room. The kitchen. We'd talked about breezing through the cabinets with not a care in the world - like it would take an hour or so. Right. Today I started out by clearing the four counter tops. "Perfect," I thought, "I can use each one for a different pile of stuff; one to throw away, one to give away, one to pack and store and the last for those few items I wasn't sure about". Yeah. After unloading almost all of the cupboards each of the counter tops is swimming with stuff. I thought to myself "How did we accumulate 81 glasses? (note: this is the actual count, not a silly exaggeration) there are white wine, red wine, champagne, martini, pint glasses, coffee mugs, tea cups, shot glasses, liqueur glasses, reusable cups for cold drinks, reusable cups for hot drinks.....what?!". Does everyone else have this many glasses in their kitchen??

Another room in shambles and it is crunch time. Tim is leaving with the pickup and trailer this Saturday. He's driving to Fresno, CA, where his family lives - they've been kind enough to store some of our belongings while we're away. With that said, we need to be sorted and packed before Saturday. Back to the kitchen for me. :)

To Laugh or To Cry

At this moment, the house could be labeled a disaster zone by the government. People always say that things sometimes have to get worse before they get better. Right. This is way worse. While we've found homes for most everything we own, taken an embarrassingly large pile of recycling out of the garage and filled several bags full of clothes to donate, there remains a myriad of things that need to be sorted.

Yesterday we informed our property management company that we will be leaving Bozeman the 19th of December. They seemed genuinely surprised to learn that we would actually give them our 'notice to vacate' without wanting to move out early. What? I didn't realize you could do this any other way. They then told us that they would want to show the unit to potential renters and would give us 24 hours notice.

Yeah. So, about that. I was hoping they wouldn't call before the end of next week. That is, after Tim had left with most of our stuff. Then we would have an empty apartment - perfect for viewing. Instead, Tim got a call yesterday saying that they were bringing people by on Friday. Enter the title of this post. I did laugh when he told me about this. Out loud. I was looking around at what used to be our living room; now just a room full of piles. I did laugh but in reality I wanted to cry.

White Christmas

Working in the Macy's linens department, I fold towels. Hundreds. Thousands. I'd be curious to know how many I've folded in the two years I've worked there. I was folding away today when I glanced over at the "home" entrance doors only to see something unexpected. I knew snow was in the forecast but nevertheless I was taken aback to see it falling. Watching the teeny, tiny snowballs drift softly to the ground brought a smile to my face. I couldn't help it - I've always lived in a place that gets snow. And although today's snow won't stick and there's sure to be warmer weather before the onslaught of winter I thought of New Zealand. Not only are the seasons reversed from what we experience here in the United States (when we arrive from our winter it will be their summer......I know, sweet) but it is very rare for Wellington to see snow. I've heard that it happens from time to time and in those instances it's front page news. No matter how much I contemplate this change I am unable to imagine living somewhere that doesn't get snow and where Christmas is celebrated in the middle of summer. Wrap your head around that one. :)

Plunging into chaos....

We were feeling optimistic after slaying the front closet and decided to go wild by tackling a myriad of other sorting projects. I braced myself for what I figured would be the biggest challenge of this move: my shoes. Now if you thought handbags and scarves were abundant in my closets then maybe we shouldn't even talk about shoes. I didn't bother to count them because I knew the number could only be described as silly. To my great surprise I was able to sort with a cool head. In the end I donated about half. Ok, somebody check and make sure that I'm still me. This is Bridget. Shoe Girl. Always looking for another pair of shoes even if they're black and I already have a similar pair in the closet. Yeah, that was strange.

Next I moved on to clothes. Since you know my affinity for shoes, handbags and scarves you would think that clothes would be the ultimate sorting disaster. However, this was not the case. When I was finishing undergrad at the U of M, Minneapolis, I lived with mom. Just us girls. During that time we got into the habit of periodically sorting through our clothes and donating what we weren't using. Thank you mom for instilling this habit in me. Going through my clothes yesterday was infinitely easier than it might have been. :)

Tim went through all of his clothes as well and I'm proud to say that between the two of us we were able to donate half of each of our wardrobes. Looking at the half empty closet I felt encouraged. I think there's something to going through what you have - a kind of "refresh" if you will. Loving the feeling.

The piles downstairs in the living room have taken on a "refugee fleeing my homeland" kind of look and I keep reminding myself that this will be the state of things until we leave Bozeman. It's about eight weeks now. Ca-razy!

The Front Closet

So if you're reading this you know that Tim and I are in the process of packing up the house and preparing to move to Wellington, New Zealand. Indeed, we are. We've been talking about plans regarding this move for months now but have just started delving into the piles of stuff we've accumulated over the years. Now I'm not saying that we have more stuff than other people - I'm just realizing we have more stuff than I expected. Hmmm. Not sure what that means for this moving process.

As a jumping off point, I took my mom's advice and started with something small so I wouldn't get overwhelmed, I could finish it quickly and feel good about it. Enter: The Front Closet. You would think that a closet wouldn't hold that much stuff, well, just so know, it can. Yup. I went for it and started trying on coats and jackets only to find several that I forgot I had. To be perfectly honest I felt silly about this. I mean, how can you forget what you have? It. Happens. I cut the herd down by two and eyed the rest still hanging in the closet suspiciously. I was thinking, "Ok, little coats, I'll only have two bags for everything I want to bring to New Zealand". This could be difficult.

At this point I was feeling good until I moved on to handbags. I'm an admitted handbag fiend and have the evidence to back it up. Guess how many handbags were in the front closet? Guess. Just guess. Grand total: 34. Again a little embarrassing especially when I know this number is down from previous handbag totals in my life. Sigh. In the end I decided to donate most of them, as they're super cute, and kept a handful to take with or store for later. But wait, it gets better. Next I moved on to scarves. Over the last couple years I've become obsessed and wear them with every outfit when the weather deems it necesary. For a girl who is always cold that's most of the year. After digging my way through the mountain of scarves there were very few I could part with and so they must come with us! They pack small, right?

Next came mittens, gloves, hats, umbrellas, bowling shoes, bowling balls (3), several pairs of regular shoes and the vacuum. With sorting done I surveyed the living room now littered with piles to give away, to keep, to throw away and even a pile for things that don't fit in any of the other piles. Ah, moving. I. Hate. Moving. However, I'm excited for this move because it's going to be so incredibly different than any of the others. So with the front closet out of the way I shudder to think of what lies ahead. Well, it's the rest of the house. :0)

Here's to my first blog post. Not even sure I have everything set up correctly. And yes, I've been playing around with this instead of sorting and packing. Fun times.