Downsizing

We've talked to a realtor. So I guess this means we're serious. And we're seriously considering getting a motor home.

Huh?

Maybe this is our way of tapering off from having two houses. We'll have one in Mexico and one on wheels.

Couple of reasons. One, we had a great time on our road trips to Mexico and back. The dogs seemed to have as much fun as we did -- and we didn't have to worry about them being left behind, wondering where we were. Two, we're going to want to come back to the States a lot. We talked about renting apartments for a month or two at a time -- but then you have to plan way ahead and find one that will take dogs. This way we'll be able to be much more flexible.

Last weekend we went to the RV show and looked through dozens of motor homes. I talked Ross into considering a bigger one than he was thinking about. It wasn't that much more expensive, and it has a lot more to offer. We won't be able to buy it until we sell this house because we don't want to go into debt -- so that gives us a few more months to think about it.

I finally finished unpacking. I had packed nearly everything I have (clothes and bathroom things) in boxes so Todd and Linda wouldn't have to work around my stuff. I've been living on what we brought back from Mexico for the last month. While I unpacked, I took the opportunity to throw things away and set clothes aside for Goodwill. I have two large Hefty bags ready to go.

I see that Ross has a large box of books to get rid of, too.

It looks like 2009 will be a very different year for us!

Celebrate Life!

I took this picture at Saturday's Celebrate Life! Dragon Boat Festival. (By the way, did you know you can click on these photos to make them bigger?) Ross and I paddled in three races with the Steele Dragons. It was a gorgeous day. And our team barely came in second to last in our division. Oh well!

I was so sure we'd do great this year, since I spent all winter practicing and I was so obviously the worst paddler last year. But -- surprise! -- I guess it's not all about me after all! Go figure.

The cool thing is that Ross has decided to try going out with my regular team, Vintage Sake.

Summer's over.

Yup. Those three nice weeks of Seattle summer have come to an end. I was out on the water tonight with the Steele Dragons (Anita's volunteer team for the Celebrate Life! Festival) -- and it was cold and dark and threatening to drizzle. But it was good to paddle. (The photo is from Flickr -- not mine.)

Ross left today for Sacramento. He's back on Wednesday. Maybe that accounts for the dreariness.

Da boyz managed on their own till I got home at 8:15.

I haven't been keeping up with this blog because work has been cRAzY! I'm so far behind I can't imagine catching up. It's clear that out of sight is out of mind. Now that they can see me, I'm late with all the projects they have for me. The best thing for me now is to go to bed and rest up, because tomorrow is another wacky day.

Recipes to die for.

Read this in The Week, one of my two favorite magazines, for August 15:

British celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson said in a magazine article that “the weed henbane is great in salads.” Thompson later said he had confused henbane with a different plant that does not cause convulsions, vomiting, and death.

Think what he really wanted in his salad was rue?

Summer fun.

There's nothing better than the three weeks of summer we get here in Seattle. It was a perfect day today. Highs were in the mid-80s, but you could always catch a breeze. I had that lunch with a coworker that I mentioned yesterday . . . and we sat outdoors.

Tonight I went to my first dragon boat practice in three months. It is an exercise in public humiliation for me. But it feels so good when I stop. The "endolphins" are what make me do it.

Plus, it's a cheap way to get out on the water on a beautiful day!

Ya load sixteen tons and whaddya get?

This working thing cuts right through the middle of your day.

I'm exhausted! No siesta today.

I have to admit that it's fun to get to go to a new work space. And I like the idea of working downtown, but I haven't had a chance to get out at all. It's energizing to be in a different place. Still just settling in. Tomorrow I'm going out to lunch with a coworker, so that will feel a little more like I'm actually in Seattle. Do you know that I haven't even looked at my car yet? Ross says he saw it in the driveway, so I know it's here somewhere.

Ross got a lot of unpacking done. I haven't been at all productive at home. I'm just hoping I have enough work clothes available to make it through the week.

Back to school.

Today was like freshman year of high school. I'm in a new school . . . and I only know half my classmates. (Where's my homeroom? Is this French 101?) Plus, I took the bus. At least in high school, you know the stop where you should get off. And you don't have to ask how to pay.

I could at least tell I had been missed. I started meetings at around 9:30 and by noon had more work than I could possibly get done by the deadlines.

"Welcome back. You're late."

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have dreams about going to my final exams and realizing I hadn't attended class the whole semester.

Sea level.

We made it back! We arrived around 4:30 p.m.

Today we started in Montana, cut through the panhandle of Idaho and took the long tour of the great state of Washington. We saw lots of wonderful scenery. I think Western Washington is the prettiest part of the world. In August. In the sunshine.

The house looks lighter and brighter than I remember it. Possibly it's that August sunshine effect. Or maybe it's that some our stuff is still hidden in closets. Todd and Linda took great care of the place. My mail was even sorted! It took me 15 minutes to look through it. Normally, after being gone a couple of weeks, it takes three days. What a wonderful thing.

The dogs are resting between bouts of sniffing everything. I can imagine them thinking, "This place looks familiar, but it sure smells different. Is that cat?!?"

I'm doing a little laundry so I'll have something appropriate to wear to work tomorrow. Hmmm. Real clothes, not stretchy yoga pants. Real shoes, not flip-flops. Makeup.

Now I remember why I want to work at home.

I'll be seeing most of the folks who read this blog in real life soon -- so I don't know if I'll keep writing. If I do, I won't be hurt if you don't want to check in on it anymore. As long as we continue to check in with each other, I'm fine with that.

Maybe more than a mile high.

This was the fastest, easiest day yet. We're in Bozeman. It's probably a very nice city. It's a university town, isn't it? But we're at a Best Western just off the freeway . . . so we don't know. That's okay. Just happy to be here.

We took I-25 to I-90 . . . so we really must be on the home stretch. I-90 starts (or ends?) in Seattle. We saw the beginning of I-94 during the drive today. I'm sentimental. I waved to it.

Wyoming, from I-25 anyway, is more interesting than, say, Kansas . . . but stick it between Colorado and Montana and it suffers by comparison. Most of it looks completely uninhabited. I always heard that Montana had the lowest population density of any state -- but, along our route, it's got farmland anyway. Wyoming had not much.

What was very fun were (was?) the silhouettes. In Mexico, there's a (relatively) common billboard that's a cutout of an ENORMOUS bull. You see it at the top of a hill from miles away and think . . . whoa! That's big. In Wyoming, we saw a buffalo. (Um-hmmmm.) Then a cowboy on a horse. (Huh!) Then the Indian on a horse. (Awww.) Then a jackalope. (Hahahhaha!) Then a triceratops. (HAH!) A state with very few people and a big sense of humor.

Okay. I'm done with parentheses for this post.

Tomorrow, we'll be home!

Mile high.

We're in a Sheraton in Denver now. We started a little late. We drove north from Las Cruces through Albuquerque (ugly) to Santa Fe (looks kinda new) and then took a detour up through Taos. Neither of us had been there. What a pretty drive. Pretty town, too. You have to really like beige. Okay, that was sarcastic Carolyn. Down, girl.

The Sheraton is probably nicer than last night's hotel . . . but it's HUGE. The hotel last night felt a little homier. And, of course, we got to know the waiter guy quite well. The woman who brought room service tonight was very nice as well -- but she didn't come to our room three times because our power was out. She used to have a dog. A boxer.

The dogs were great again today. It's amazing how riding in the truck all day wears them out as much as it does us.

So far we've been through nine states . . . Colorado, New Mexico, a tiny corner of Texas, Chihuahua, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Zacatecas, Durango and Zaragoza -- not necessarily in that order. I've never been to Wyoming or Montana. That's tomorrow.