Follow your Brains.

We arrived at the house in Lansing Friday afternoon. It had been a long journey and we were very tired. Having the trip behind us was relieving, but when we stepped inside the giant barn styled house, it was obvious that a new kind of journey was just beginning.  We're heeeere!! I thought I was prepared. I really did. There is a significant difference, however, in saying the words, "We'll all just live upstairs in the apartment until things are ready." and living them.  Having James and Bucky go out ahead of time was intended to serve a couple of purposes- getting Bucky out of the way of the heavy house purging and cleaning, and allowing James to settle in for us ahead of time so that there would be some kind of home to arrive at. Being in the midst of a construction project, however, made any kind of settling impossible.  While James and Bucky were away from the area for a few days, the renovation crew took advantage and did some necessary work up on th

I had about five more posts planned out to go over all the craziness that was getting the heck out of Dodge ,and how wonderful my friends are, and how much cleaning sucks, but I think that for now I’m going to put a pin in those and start talking about the actual move over here. We have been here for over two weeks already and I’m dying to show everyone pictures of the house!  So instead of showing you any pictures, here’s an account of the drive out! We got on the road with James at the helm of the Penske early Tuesday, July 19th and set off with our three faithful pets in the Prius with Jerome and myself. It was a beautiful day to leave town. They're already having fun! Of course it was about an hour or two later than we planned to set out. I really wanted to leave the rental in good shape, even if the landlord had been very clear on their mistrust of our ability to get the dog smell out of the carpet and hinted that we would be lucky to get any deposit back. St

Decluttering is not something I have historically been awesome that. By most standards, I would be considered a pack rat. Not quite a hoarder, but if we didn't change trajectory and I were to find myself alone with nothing to do but collect cats and funny crap, it could easily go that way. It was super important to us though, that we start fresh with this move and bring as little as possible with is. For a time there, we were even considering adding a hitch to our Prius and taking a small UHaul trailer for the move. After seeing Agent's VW Golf almost scraping bottom with it's trailer, I am glad we didn't go that route. After about 18 years of living in Eugene, I had accumulated a ridiculous amount of useless (to me) crap. The mindset to get rid of it was easy enough, a good chunk of our belongings had lived in the garage for the full 3 years we lived at our rented house. But the actual act of going through and getting rid of things was daunting. The first step w

So we've been in Lansing for a little over a week now and I know there's so much that I haven't had a chance to update on my blog but the truth is, things have been so busy I just haven't had a chance to stop and write. So I guess I'm going to keep everyone in suspense and continue on with a story chronologically. Ok, here's a sneak peak- it's the view from the porch! The last post found me with my brand new work-at-home job arrangement and about 2 weeks left in our race against time to get out of Oregon. At this point I want to back up a little though. Our time line was kind of crazy when we were leaving. Bucky and James flew out at the end of May to go to the Brew-Ha-ha Roller Derby Tournament in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There, James's mom would meet them and drive Bucky and James to Michigan after the tournament. Jerome and I would stay until school was out for the summer and do all of the remaining purging and cleaning. Super Official