Apartment Hunting Remotely

...and other thoughts on Moving

How fast time changes your life... A few short months ago we were searching SW Portland for a forever home and here I am today....packing up the townhouse and searching online for a short term apartment to live in (halfway across the country) while most of my belongings will live in a storage unit. I am so excited to get back to T-Town and get settled in. B is starting to get excited about yet another new school and about a million after school activities she would like to do. The Mr...well, he just wants the move to be over with and get back to work.

Since we are going to be driving the car back, I have packed a couple of bags for B and myself. These contain the usual girl stuff: Tons of clothes, about 3 pairs of shoes, a bathroom bag, a traveling pillow (or a traveling Murray in her case), a hair dryer and (most importantly) my flat iron. (I can NOT travel w/o the flat iron...I even took it with me when I went camping. ---For some reason I thought I could style my hair in the camp bathrooms....yeah.....notsomuch!) Now that B and I have all of our importants packed, I am wondering where we can fit the Mr's stuff.

***I got the long lost camera back from the Mr but the battery is dead. :( I'll get it all charged up and ready to picument our trip back :)

NOT the Mamma!!!!

The baby shower I co-hosted yesterday went off perfectly. The mom-to-be was showered with gifts, love and well wishes. The kids in attendance had a blast in the play area under the watchful care of Miss B. (My little girl is working on becoming a junior babysitter and doing a GREAT job!)

When I got home after helping out with the shower, I was pooped. After checking my email I left a comment on FaceCrack about how tired I was after running the baby shower......BIG MISTAKE!!!! When I checked my email a second ago I noticed a few comments asking if I was preggers?!?!?! ...WTF?!?!?! Are you kidding me??? I couldn't believe it! One of these comments was from my own brother. Um....wouldn't they think I would do better than to announce something like that on facebook? So I made another comment just now letting them know I am NOT the Mamma!!! One of my good friends here in PDX is and I am glad I was able to do this for her before I leave for T-town.

Whew! Now that I have got it out of my system, I am kinda laughing on the inside. Really... what kind of nut do they think I am?

Coach FTW

Yesterday I had to run some last minute errands before a baby shower we are co-hosting today which included a trip to the mall :) While we were there we made a quick stop off in the Kate Spade store to get Miss B some pencils for school next year. (Yeah, I know...who gets their kid designer pencils?...I do!!! And she knows as long as she keeps doing well in school then I will continue getting her fancy pencils BUT if she does poorly then she is back to the yellow #2s.) Well, the Kate Spade store was out of pencils soooooooo B was asking to check out if the Coach store was carrying any pencils. I have NEVER seen pencils at Coach before but wouldn't you know....there was a Poppy pencil display right at the front entrance of the store!!!! B was in Big Lurve. (Coach is her fave.) A handy dandy Coach clerk pounced on what he perceived to be a potential sale. Little did he know Miss B would be the one to score. Coach Clerk asked if we were interested in the Poppy pencils so I told him of the failed KS pencil procurement and how fab it would be if we could purchase these. He then told me of how I could spend major $$$$$ to get the pencils for free. I gave him my best Not On Your Life, Pal look so he told me I could go home and become a "fan of Coach on my Facebook account print out the verification sheet & bring it back in to get the pencils at no cost." "Sorry." I told him that we were moving many states away and this would be our last trip to the mall here.

Miss B must have seen her moment and jumped at the chance. She smiled sweetly at Coach Clerk and told him of her great LOVE of all things Coach and facebook too. "I would totally become a fan of Coach on Facebook BUT ....insert super sad face..... they deleted my account a couple of weeks ago :( " Coach Clerk took one look at my sweet sad little princess and asked us to wait a second. The next thing I knew he was coming back to us with a box of pencils. The sad face transformed to sheer joy in a nanosecond and the girl about jumped through the roof. "Thank you...Thank You....THANK YOU!!!!!!!!" she squealed.

Thank you so much to the kind Coach Clerk who put a little girl's happiness above his commission.

Brownie...fail

Wouldn't you know that the Mr would get sick at the VERY MOST inconvenient time EVER?!?!?! Guess who has been taking care of him since Friday when he came down with the crud. Yep. You got that right....ME. I have been the perfect little nursemaid....bringing him hot tea, meals, and making sure he takes his meds. (He's not senile and forgets to take them....he is a man and HATES to take any kind of medication.) I tried to sweeten the deal by baking brownies. This worked fabulously until yesterday when I was down to the last two. I brought the brownies over to Miss B and told her to take the smaller one of the two because she was smaller than her dad when......she went to go for the larger one, looked at me hopefully and said "BUT I have Big hopes :)" I told her to keep on hoping and gave her the smaller brownie.

I'm Getting There

Sooooooo....what was I thinking. The box free zone has totally gone out the window as well as just working on one area at a time BUT I do see progress and this makes me happy :) It is strange to see bookshelves sitting empty as well as empty dresser drawers. By the end of this week it is going to be like camping in my house. The one thing I am concerned about is what to do as far as food goes during the last few days. I really hate to go the whole fast food 3xs a day route and I think Miss B will revolt if I tell her we are going to do PB & J for every meal. Any suggestions here?

Tonight I am going to a karaoke place for a wedding reception tonight (at a karaoke place) and I am sooooo NOT prepared for this. We just purchased the gift yesterday along with wrapping paper and even MORE packing tape. The checker looked at me like I had lost my mind and said something like... "You know, you are NOT supposed to use that kind of tape when wrapping a gift???"......ummmm yeah, did this lady really think I was going to wrap this gift with heavy duty packing tape?! ....of course not I am going to make the Mr do it.

AND as if I am not crazy busy enough already I am helping to organize a baby shower for a friend to be held a few days before I leave PDX. I don't really know how much help I am at this point with all the brain drain I feel like I have. It's the thought that counts right? Let's just hope I can do more thank just think. :)

How Did They Do It?

About a year ago I was preparing for the move here to Portland and now I am making the move back...without packers. Yep, you got that right. We are the movers and the shakers in this operation. I have come to greatly respect those that can pack up an entire house in 1 day. I don't know how they did it but the three fabulous girl power packers did just that to move us the first time. Here I am today with half-filled boxes everywhere and my mind headed straight to crazy. If you have any moving/packing tips, I am all ears. For now I think I am going to just focus on ONE room at a time and then move on to the next and the next and the next because this half & half house is ridiculous. I can't wait to have one cleaned out room (even if it is my closet) completely free of boxes or things to put in boxes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed with hopes this new method will work.

Info-mercials Rock

Not much going on here right now just packing up boxes and getting distracted by YouTube. Here is probably one of my All Time Faves. You can't watch this video and NOT smile. Seriously!!!



"...It's easy. You just got one hand and chop Chop CHOP!!!!"

What Happened...

Some of you know what has been going on lately with the Kally Family and probably get why I have been unable to post for awhile. For those of you who have NO idea here is what has been going on...

The Monday after Mother's Day I arrived to work as usual at Computer Co. to find that the Mr and I along with many other's were being laid off. The Company was thinning down to a bare bones crew in a last ditch attempt to make a save. I guess I could see this coming since I have worked for other companies in the past that were forced into mass layoffs but for some reason it was still a surprise to me (not the good kind). My heart just broke for all of the people coming into the office only to find out it would be their last day. All of us just stared blankly at each other some of us with tears in our eyes wondering just what would be next and what everyone else was going to do now. I knew one thing for sure.... we were no longer on the market to buy a house.

So many emotions were running high that last day at Computer Co and for some the invisible pink slip has caused many more days of emotional upset. Am I angry about this situation? Do I blame anyone for this? My answer is simple: No. I know in my heart no one would plan this and everyone involved wish things could be otherwise. I just feel sadness when thinking of how things have turned out and how so many dreams were crushed by a beaten down economy.

After talks, tears and the weighing of pros and cons the Mr and I have decided to head back home to Tulsa, OK. Some might think I am running back with my tail between my legs embarrassed BUT I AM NOT. Many of you do not know this because I always try to keep things light but this past year has been pretty hard on me. I stopped making phone calls to family and friends back home because it only reminded me of how much I missed them. I just couldn't deal with the let down of realizing how far away I was from where my heart was. The Mr & B were not fooled by my fake smiles and the way I filled my days. They knew. The only person I was fooling was myself and I wasn't doing a very good job of that either. I have dealt with so many days of depression that I don't ever want to count them out into weeks or months. I want to move on. I want to feel happy again. I want to look forward and see this Journey Home as a new page in our lives. Things will not all be the same as when we left. We will find new jobs, a new home, new schools but thankfully all of the old family and friends will be there to welcome us. For This I am thankful and hopeful of what is to come for us.