Time's Tickin' Away

If John Hendricks were here, he'd say, "Oh God, Sheribomb, it's your last Sunday in California." And he's right. It's coming down to the wire here.

After an amazing 4 days in Boston and 1 day on my couch with a chest cough and a codeine induced lethargy, the stress finally hit me this morning. At 5:30 am.

The movers are coming either Wednesday or Thursday, and although I am saving the kitchen for them to pack, I have decided to do the rest myself in an effort to conserve some Benjamins. So before the sun even came up, I was being productive and getting a plan of action in place.

What I always forget about moving is what a pain in the ass it is to move the "little stuff." It's not hard to pack books, or CDs, or clothes even. What I abhor packing, however, are the odds-and-ends one acquires through life that can't easily be separated into its own box with its own simple title. Knick knacks, candle holders, and various seasonal items are the worst. So are the endless supplies of fancy gift boxes and bags that I have been given that are just too cute not to pass on in the future. And while I've been well above board in my Goodwill donations, there is also a large amount of "stuff" that didn't make the final cut and have ended up in my dumpster.

I would like to say that I'm "almost done," but because I've done this whole moving thing a number of times, I know that the final items are the most tedious to pack. So conservatively I'll say I'm halfway done.

Tomorrow will, hopefully, prove to be just as successful today. In addition to packing, I need to get an oil change and car wash, go to the Vet, and head up to school one last time to pick up a few forgotten items from my classroom as well as return this laptop upon which I am currently writing.

It's the home-stretch people, and I'm really ready just to be done with this whole nonsense already.

Happy Father's Day!

Let's get this party started

My productive Sunday turned out to be, well, anything but.

While I managed to do 45 minutes worth of dishes (did I tell you how thankful I will be to have a dishwasher for the first time in 4 years?), that is about where my productivity ended for the day.

Around lunch time I decided to eat, and eating requires television. More specifically, I thought to myself, a netflix movie. It will only take an hour and a half, I told myself, and put it in and settled in on my couch.

Netflix recommended the movie "Bella" to me, and like all Netflix recommendations, I accepted.

Bella is the story of Nina, who recently found out she is pregnant and subsequently fired from her job because of morning sickness tardies, and Jose, a pro-soccer hopeful who is the head chef at Nina's workplace. Their paths cross when, upon hearing that Nina has been fired, Jose takes off after her to find out why she is late to work and, ultimately, takes it upon himself to be her "shoulder" for the day.

It's a story about letting down your guard and trusting a stranger, and looking at all possibilities when given an unfortunate situation.

I happily give it a 4 out of 5 stars. Plus the lead is uber-attractive (minus the homeless-man beard he sports for 95% of the film).

Anyway, halfway through the film my dear friend Melanie texted me to tell me that my long-lost friend Kristi (with family in tow) was over at her house swimming.

Well, I never pass up the opportunity to see dear friends, especially when they bring their children who are, quite possibly, the most awesome children on the planet (Zoe, Ian, and Tyler make my top ten list of people under 5'). And while I didn't intend to swim, I eventually gave into the peer pressure and sported one of Melanie's bikinis, complete with legs that haven't been shaved for weeks.

Gotta love your true friends.

So now the night is wrapping up and I'm hoping that more productivity is had tomorrow. And if not, well, it's Boston for me for the next few days, so packing will have to wait. Again.

Only one more weekend left in California. Let's see if the next is as quality as this one was.

Timelines and Deadlines

So it's official: the next two weeks of my life are going to be insane. But I did it to myself. And honestly, I quite like the pressure of filling everyday with a list of want-to-do's and need-to-do's.

To break it down for you, here is the timeline of events in Sheriland:

June 13:

• 1 - 5 Graduation
• 5 - ? Graduation Party

June 14:

• Pack and discard

June 15:

• Pack and discard
• Fly to Boston

June 16 - 19:

• Visit and celebrate with Justin in Bean-town

June 20 - 24:

• Pack and prepare for movers to arrive

June 24:

• Movers arrive and finish packing, as well as load and begin the transport of all of my belongings

June 26 - 30

• Drive to Houston with Melanie, J, and Danger (my cats)

June 30:

• Arrive at my new/old home

I'm not so stressed about the front end of this deal, but between June 20 - 24 I will be a nutcase. And I'll be pre-menstrual, so you might want to be extra nice to me.

Happy Saturday.

TMI

I get a lot of traits from my mother. My OCD tendencies clearly come from her, which clearly come from Granny. My independence comes from my mom, as well as the overwhelming feeling that I "don't need a man for anything."

What also comes from my mother, however, is my incessant nagging and my desire to be the keeper of all information. I have the desire to know ALL of the details about EVERYTHING. I don't want to be left in the dark. And if you give me an inch of the information, I'll try to take a mile.

So when Justin offered to give me his login and password to his BU Application Status account, I neglected to warn him that both my OCD tendencies and my desire to KNOW would have me checking the damn thing 4 to 5 times a day.

Well, tonight at 5:45 I checked. I checked at least a half dozen times in the last 24 hours and nothing. But tonight at 5:45 - something.

So here I am, at 8:45, and I know whether or not he got in. And he doesn't.

I am anxiously awaiting his dismissal from work so I can tell him (or wait to be told) the news.

Being the keeper of this information is painful.

My mother never told me of this downside...

I Wanna Be Sedated

Even in college, I awoke early. Early to bed, early to rise. The early bird gets the worm. Carpe Diem. All of that cliche nonsense applied to me. If I ever saw 4am, it was from the bottom, not the top.

So WTF has happened to me lately?

As Justin's shifts have changed from early to late, I've thought it almost a mission of mine to see if I could handle those late night hours. Survey says: yes.

So now I'm in this terrible habit of staying up late (not usually doing anything particularly productive, either) and sleeping-in until 11 or so. I've only noticed two downfalls as of yet. 1) My cats still want their breakfast at 7 am, and 2) TV at 1 in the morning is considerably more awful than the 8-10 pm lineup.

I called Justin tonight after he got off work because I was in a surprisingly chipper mood and wanted to share the good vibes through the cellular line. It wasn't until I was chatting about my "good day that began at 5 pm" that I realized how screwy my new body-clock is, and how much like a teenager-on-summer-vacation I am acting.

In the 12 hours that I have been awake, and the 6 hours of which I have been productive, there have been numerous "positives" to note for the day, however.

1. The new iPhone comes out next week, which is my "welcome to Texas" gift to myself.
2. I finally began packing and, shockingly enough, don't want to stop now. I'm on a roll!
3. My stashed and boxed "thin pants" all fit me again, after nearly 2 years of not even being able to pull them over my child-rearing-sized hips.
4. In exactly 5 days I will be officially done with school, and all that it entails. I will, however, probably need to spend at least one day at Buckley packing up all of the sh*t I have amassed in my classroom over the last 4 years which is, not surprisingly, heaps!

It's now 11 pm, and despite my desire to continue this cleansing and purging of all things not Texas-bound, I need to begin to wind down. My day tomorrow begins promptly at 7 am, and if I still have Season 1 of The Office to watch tonight, I should probably begin that as soon as possible.

Countdown: 18 days until the move, 46 days until Justin's visit to Tejas

See you next week, Monday. Peace out.

Something to believe in.

While I begin my final stretch in this lovely state, I am concentrating largely on my visions of my "new life." New job, new apartment, new commute, new friends - all very daunting yet exciting ideas. My goal for the next few weeks is purge my life of all inconsequential belongings. And more than that, to make room for the ideal home which I hope to create for myself. I plan on buying a significant amount of new furniture, as well as redecorating both bedrooms and both bathrooms.

And while my pocketbook is sure to take quite a hit with this new adventure, in the end it will be well worth with.

Two items that I am thinking about splurging on are the irobot pet roomba and the Kohler flip-side hand-held shower head.

I have a coworker that swears by the roomba, and now that I see there exists a "pet" version, specializing in cat hair, I'm totally in. It will clean up to four rooms, all via prior programming, and will "dock" itself back at home base either when it needs charging or when it is finished. Not only will it keep the cat hair at bay, but it will provide a bit of entertainment for the kids when I'm not at home. I'm crossing my fingers I see it sometime on Woot or HSN, because $399.99 is a bit steep for a teacher.

I saw the Kohler shower head on HGTV's coverage of the 2009 Home and Bath Showcase. The nozzle part is shaped a bit like a hockey puck. With each turn, you get a different type of stream. So there are 4 different water options all packaged in a sleek and modern design. I love it! And it's totally a reasonable price seeing as how many showers I take, and how seriously I take them.

So today I officially begin the final clean. With this final clean comes the commencement of the packing. I'm taking on one room at a time, first dividing into keep and donate, and then packing away anything that is useless to me for the next three weeks. Though I have hired a company to pack for me, I figure that any box that I pack myself is money in the bank. And more money in the bank means more money for roomba.

Trying to keep the vision of my new, clean apartment in the forefront of my mind, I now venture off into the dirty, cat hair ridden abyss that is my apartment. Wish me luck. Lord knows I couldn't be less productive than I was yesterday.

Happy Hump Day!