So, how's the MOVE coming along?

People ask me. They mean well, those many and various people. The truth is, it's almost here. It's a good move, without a doubt, for many, many reasons. But, SOMETIMES, when things are stupid or someone says something stupid, or lacks in common sense, or you get the drift, I have found that my patience and tolerance levels are substantially reduced at the present moment. No allowance for that which makes no dang sense. But, it works out, kind of like when you ask for absolution at catholic confessions, because in the very near future, we are figuratively dumping all negativity that has ever creeped up on our family or home as we leave NM. We will ONLY take our good memories, good friends, and good feelings with us. It's ALL good, that which we keep and love.

And, being such an emotional one, I'm on the verge of emotion at varoius times of the day or week, depending on whether the person speaking to me is clever enough to find a trigger question or word. Not that I'm asking them to, sometimes it just creeps up. Like, for example, the moving guys actually labelled a couple of boxes as "nic nacks" (they couldn't spell, apparently)...don't they know them's fightin' words. If I repeat, then that must be a trigger.

So, we have decided to have a moving in sale, that will work for me.

But, perhaps most importantly of all, I want to thank our dear, dear friends and angels out here. They have saved the day with their support and generosity in helping us get everything ready. And thank you also to our extended location support system. Between all of you, we are moving right along at mach speed, and somehow maintaining our sanity and senses of humor along the way! Thank you!

As for the MOVE, we are almost ready to head out of town. Of course, I didn't get enough time to visit with all my friends that I wanted to see, so hopefully those that are in town will come by one of two places where we'll be on Saturday. After that, we're pretty much done and will be chillin' the last night in preparation of starting the driving journey, or as Winnnie the Pooh called it in the Heffalump movie, "The Expedition!" We begin on Aug 4th, to arrive in VA on the 14th. 2,220 estimated miles, with a few stopovers along the way, that will be a lot of fun!

We'd include pictures here for fun, but that ain't happening until after the weekend of the 16th or so. Probably. I'm just too dang tired!

We accomplished a lot to prep our house, but it reminds me that we should have done some of this earlier in the year or years, so we could have enjoyed it more. We did get a lot done for ourselves in the past, to make our beautiful haven out here a warm place to be, but there's always more. Like the rounded rocks on the to layer of the back yard so they felt good on the feet, vs, the assorted flagstone and sharper edged rocks, and misc. plants trying to come up. Now, it looks great! Windows are clean, walls are ready to be painted, most of the "stuff" we still had has been farmed out, with 3 more pickups or deliveries planned to complete the mission. Handyman friend of our friends is working steady to fix a couple doors, put in baseboards, and some minor repairs, all before Friday afternoon.

House goes on the market on Saturday, Aug. 2nd. Wow.

It'll be a lot easier to leave our home here, which we all love so much. It's just been such a place of love and comfort, not without challenges, but a place that we have just really enjoyed to be in since 1998 (minus the stint in CA, which we had to do in order to go find our little guy). Anyway, it'll be easier, now that there's no comfortable furniture left behind, no tvs, telephone to be turned off in a couple days, and separation from Mike for a month now. We look forward to getting our family unit back in one place, and that will be soon, thankfully.

Of course, we did gather with our NM family yesterday to purchase and prepare green chiles to bring some back with us. It is literally the beginning of the green chile roasting season, and we got some of the first batches from Hatch, NM, which is the place you want to get your chiles if you can. Despite calling in advance about who had them for what price, all of our preparations fell thru when we went to make the purchase. We ended up buying them from a very small market store on 4th Street in the North Valley, from a guy who advertises on his store for "Rabbit meat $4.99 lb" and "Goat meat $3.99 lb" and "Fresh Goat Meat, inquire inside", and also "blunt papers 2 for $1.50"

We bought 5 burlap sacks of green chile, had them roasted, then took them all back to our friend Lee Annette's house. We started the day at 8 AM for our search for chiles, and finally had them ready back at the house by around 11 AM. Her two sisters, daughter, and Mom showed up, so between all of us, we finished peeling, de-seeding, and bagging them by around 5 PM. Chiles are now in a freezer, ready for loading into a cooler with dry ice and shipping via Mike on Sunday when he returns to VA by plane. If you've never had green chile, then you are welcome to come by our house and we'll gladly let you taste test. They are addictive, and a staple in our household.

Okay, now, I think I can sleep. Long day, but many accomplishments today and all week. The "light" is now in sight, just need to maintain focus and keep moving forward.

A week from tonight we'll be sleeping in a KOA campground on the first night of our journey. Woo Hoo!

Pictures later....