A small update and a stupid brain.

T minus 11 days.

At the very end of my college experience I decided that I was definitely ready to graduate, since--for the first time in my life--I had finally gotten the hang of staying on top of my work. I even used my time so well during the semester that I turned in a huge project ahead of time, and when all my work was done and BYU classes were over I had so much time on my hands during student teaching that I startled my supervising teacher by demanding things to do during prep periods. It was a novel experience.

Moving this time around kind of feels the same way. Our move to Washington last year came up so suddenly that I felt like I couldn’t get a handle on it and so I just shut down and didn’t really prepare well. This time around I’ve known about it for nearly a year and I was determined that it would go way more smoothly. So far I think I’ve been reasonably successful in that. The movers come in a week and my to-do list has been winnowed down so far that today there’s nothing on it for me except put sticky notes on things in the apartment to mark what shipment they go in. This is both good and bad, because in the last month I’ve learned the usefulness of suppressing panic through productivity, and a lack of work tends to lead to a meltdown. Also, this sort of sorting is the absolute worst part of packing. I have to say “This box will go in this pile!” but then I can’t actually put it in a pile. I mean, I probably could, but there’s only about three square feet of open space in my apartment to begin with, and it would quickly become unlivable. So I just have to tag it with a sticky note, which is great and all, but doesn’t keep my brain from mentally categorizing things every time I look at them. That picture will go in HHE. The spatulas will come by air freight, and the knife block needs to stay in the apartment! Shut up brain, I already know.

Honestly I’m just ready for the movers to come and be done with it. If they were coming tomorrow, I could make my piles of things and shut up my stupid brain. But alas, that will have to wait until next week.

In other news, I don’t really have any other news. I’ve probably bought more clothes and shoes in the last two weeks than in the entirety of my marriage, there are new suitcases lurking in odd corners, and I actually finished all my unfinished sewing projects (Mike has three pairs of newly hemmed pants and I learned how to put in a zipper). I get great satisfaction in crossing things off my to-do lists and I’m planning on buying 800 pounds of food and supplies from Costco next week so the government can ship it to China, where it will probably inhabit one of the spare bedrooms like my very own convenience store. I’m terrified by the thought of going grocery shopping for the first time in China but I’m excited to see what the bathroom in my apartment will be like.

I’m not sure what I expected my life to be like, but it most certainly wasn’t this.

Cheers (?)

Mrs. Hawsmo