six word sunday: Bye, Swoop. You've served us well.

six word sunday challenge

Leaving, on a jet plane...

Not sure what to say at the moment... It's the completion of our last full day in Silicon Valley, in California, in the US.

Zach and I got up early this morning and continued our process of packing things up, and sorting everything else into "Goodwill" or "storage" piles. The cleaning crew came right at 11am and took only 2 hours, and everything in our apartment sparkles like new now. Sierra seems to have recovered from the trauma, emerging from the closet 2 hours after the cleaning ladies left. We also took some stuff to Cy and Julia's, who were having a garage sale, and made $25 off our stuff. Woot!

Zach and Cyrus took a load of stuff to our storage space and stopped by Fry's to get some power converters, and Zach surprised me with noise-canceling headphones so I can listen to my zen micro on the plane tomorrow. =) I would never have thought to buy them for myself, but have often been annoyed at the difficulty of listening to music on a loud airplane. I was really pleased that he thought to do that for me. =) Then again, he also said that if I didn't want them, he'd be happy to use them himself. ; )

Tonight we went down to Santana Row, our usual hang-out, had a nice dinner down there and then wandered around Borders one last time. Now we will sleep in our apartment, empty aside from our 5 suitcases and our mattress on the floor. Tomorrow morning we sell the car (hopefully), and the Fostinos were gracious and thoughtful enough to lend us one of their cars so we'll still be able to run some errands before we have to take off.

We really have some great friends, y'all. Seriously.

And so, tomorrow we get on a plane. I'm not sure how I'll react to it all... when I flew to Geneva in January, I got teary-eyed as I walked off the plane and into the Geneva airport just from thinking "In one month this will be home!" I may be somewhat of a mess this time. Or perhaps I'll be too worried about Sierra and how she's doing. I don't know. Last time I went through a move like this I was 11, and had even less of a clue as to what was really happening. But I've got Zach with me (and Sierra) and we're doing this together, this dream of ours. A year ago we used to say "Wouldn't it be cool if we could go live overseas?" Funny how much your life can change in one year.

I'm not sure if I'll get to post tomorrow, and I'm not sure what the internet situation will be like when we get there. I'll be sure to post as soon as I can, to let y'all know that we (hopefully) will have arrived, safe and sound.

Love y'all.

Poor Sierra =(

Poor Sierra. She's been dealing so well with all the changes of the past few months, all the moving and disappearing of random stuff, all the commotion, everything.

Then, the cleaning ladies came this morning to clean our apartment. There's 3 of them, and they're making all sorts of noise, and I think they were the straw that finally broke the poor kitty's psyche. Sierra is currently hiding in the closet, terrified, using the same body language she does when she's at the vet. She won't even acknowledge my presence, just seeks solitude in the dark.

At least this way I know that the one place she'll prefer to be during our flight (TOMORROW!!!) will be in her carrier, curled up in a ball, down underneath the seat where it'll be nice and dark.

T-minus 2 days and counting...

So we loaded up the air shipment and off it went this morning. It'll get to us in 1 week. Now we're left with whatever fits in our suitcases, and the rest goes into storage or to Goodwill... or the dumpster. I've been throwing so much crap away the past 2 days, part of me feels guilty for contributing so much to landfills when I'm sure people elsewhere would possibly want our stuff, but at this point I'm just doing what's easiest. That said, Zach and I dropped off about 3 boxes worth of stuff at Goodwill this morning, plus my old computer monitor which is like 9 years old but still works.

Poor Sierra's just all sorts of freaked out. She keeps running around from one side of the apartment to another, then spend the rest of her time hiding out in a dark closet. Or meowing at us pathetically, begging for attention. She's gonna have a rough next few days...

Tonight is our farewell dinner. I'm not entirely sure what it'll be like, there's been some minor drama involving the party planner lady. But, we'll be there with 25 of our closest and dearest friends. I'm charging up my camera at the moment to make sure it lasts through all the picture taking. Carolyn has already told me I'm not allowed to cry tonight. I'm not sure what to expect... None of this really feels that real yet, and it probably won't hit me till we're there already. Hey, the way I see it, we'll see everyone soon enough... when they come out to visit us in Europe. ; )

Less than 2 full days left... EEEEK!

Google Calendar

Hey all, I created a Google Calendar to keep track of visitors over the next year. This way y'all can look and see when people are coming and be able to plan your trips accordingly. You can either send me the tentative dates you're thinking of, or I can add your email address to the list of contributors which allows you to edit dates yourself. There's a link to the calendar in the sidebar on the left side of the page here.

Pictures...

As I got a couple loads of laundry going, I figured I'd post some pictures I've taken recently. You can see them below. You can click here to see more pictures, including pictures from last weekend.

In other news, I'm continuing to get things ready around here... finally returned the cable box to Comcast today, that's been a few months overdue... I'm also washing laundry, have started packing my clothes, and should go clean out the car, too. Tomorrow we get the container for our air shipment, so we gotta figure out what will go in it.

Tonight we get a bit of a break, will be having dinner with Julia & Cyrus. Yay. =)

The Vet's Cat

Tulips at Yerba Buena Gardens, SF

I love this picture =)

Mr Stinky Fuzzy Butt