This 'N' That (whinefest)

Once AGAIN, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. It has been one week since my last blog post, and I have stamped nothing new. LIFE, however, has given me much about which to talk, so please grab your beverage of choice, and let the blathering begin.

It all started when my Dad decided to move from his 3 bedroom house to a smaller place. My Brother was left with the task of dealing with the house and all the content therein that my Dad didn't take with him. Let's just say there was more left behind than not.

We've already established I live in a teeny tiny condo, and don't have room for the crap I already have, much less room to take in more. So I agreed to take what would fit in my car. (The Forester, not the Miata. That just wouldn't be right.)

Then my brother sent us pics of everything in the house, and I started to get weepy and sentimental. I needed the furniture. This meant I needed to get rid of my current stuff to make room for the new old stuff. That was taken care of last week.

To get the new old stuff here from Ohio, I needed transportation with lots of room, so I rented a cargo van. Now, as a crafter, I must tell you that the ability to drive one's vehicle in reverse without the use of the back window since your car is packed to the gills with craft show stuff is a well-honed skill, and one I do not possess. I cannot drive my car in reverse. I cannot. People take pity on me and back it up for me. Truth.

So let's take a look at this cargo van:

There she is, right next to my Miata, just for comparison purposes. Let's try another angle:

I am convinced that Miata would fit INSIDE that van. Seriously.

So there I was Saturday morning (when I took these pics, just in case I never returned), and I backed that baby out of my parking space in 8 graceful motions and headed West to Ohio. It took me 9 hours to get there instead of 7-8 hours, largely because I spent all sorts of time at McDonalds and Burger Kings looking for parking spaces I could pull INTO and not have to BACK OUT OF. Sigh.

On the last leg of my trip to OH, this was sunset:

It was actually way more dramatic than that, but *I* was the photographer and I was driving, people!

Sunday I spent the entire day with my Brother at the house packing boxes and packing the van. To the gills. NOTHING was going to move on the trip back. I had an 8-foot couch, and in a last-minute emotional moment, I agreed to take the dining room table, 6 chairs and the buffet. I also filled 12 boxes with books and photo albums and all sorts of other stuff I NEEDED. What part of "packed to the gills" was not clear to you?

Oh, and my brother commented, "I thought you were getting a BIG van. This is just a REGULAR van." Shaddup.

After that packing adventure, I laid down on the now-empty dining room floor about 4 pm to stretch my back and I couldn't get up. My brother laughed at me as I rolled over and attempted to crawl to my knees. He LAUGHED.

Monday I left at o'dark thirty to drive the van back to Maryland - another 9 hours. Then a friend stopped over and we unloaded the van into my teeny tiny condo. Then I moved furniture and boxes until I could actually sit on the new old couch. Then I fell into the couch and couldn't get up.

The next adventure this week was Wednesday. Snow was predicted for the DC area. Most of the time the forecast of snow will close the schools before anything has fallen from the sky. Having lived in the Midwest for the first half of my life, I find this not just comical, but ridiculous. As of 3 pm, people were downright panicked and nothing. had. fallen. from. the. sky. However, by 4 pm, it was really nasty out. The rain that fell diluted the preventative salt treatment on the roads so that when the temps fell and froze the rain, it turned to ice. Then the snow fell on top of that at the rate of 2" per hour. Then I left for home.

I left at 4:30 pm, and got home at ... wait for it ... 10:45 pm. It took me 3+ hours to drive about 4 miles just to get TO the beltway. By the time I got close to my exit much later that night, my left foot was numb from being in 1st gear for 6 hours. When I got to my street and my beloved reserved parking space, I noted it had 6-8" of snow in it, plus there was a barrier of heavy, wet, icy plowed stuff in front of it. By that point, nothing was going to stop me from parking my car, so I gunned it and got stuck in my own parking space. I back-and-forthed it enough to get it out of the street and called it good enough. Then I stepped out of the car and into the 6-8" of wet snow. Whatever.

Please note that 10:45 pm is waaaaay past my bed time if I'd had a relaxing evening. I didn't start shaking until I got into the house, and then I just about fell apart. I drew a hot bath, poured a few fingers of tequila into a glass, and sat in the steamy bath until I started to relax. I got to bed about 12:30 and decided to wake up when I woke up, and turned off the alarm.

This morning I was a mess. Plus I still needed to dig out my car and shovel a path so I could get into it without stepping in the 6-8" of wet snow again. I know this looks like NOTHING now, but OMG, last night ...

You can see my footprints from where I escaped from my vehicle last night. You can also see the poor, buried Miata to the right. The Forester is clean because I was driving it the whole time it was snowing, and the heat of the engine melted it all. Yes, I am grateful for the little things.

Here is the bush next to my front door that has been weighed down by the heavy, wet snow:

Poor thing.

So that is my tale of woe. Here it is - Thursday night, and I've done nothing crafty ALL WEEK. I've missed Tiff's sketch challenge 3 & bonus sketch challenge 4, and all sorts of other stuff I've wanted to do. Sigh. So today I did laundry, disassembled my old dining room table, assembled my new old dining room table, did some paper work, and hopefully tomorrow will be a more normal day. I need to get CRAFTY!

Thanks for stopping by.

PS: Did you see the Jingle Belles chose my Week 4 card as one of their faves for this past week? Seriously. I still don't like that card, but everyone else seems to. Hmph.