D-Minus 1 Day-Pencil Shavings

Warning: Graphic images of arboreal carnage, may be unsuitable for vegans and my friends who work for FWC/DEP.
Above are before and after pictures of the lot across the street from our apartment. Thank goodness they cut down all that unproductive timber to build more apartments! I hope they build a strip mall too. We need more tanning salons and smoothie shops.

Okay, you know I'm joking. I was really hoping to be gone before the construction of The Evergreens Phase Two. Every day I walk out of the apartment complex to walk Chuck and I have refused until now to raise my head. The jack hammers going all day to sink the poles for the hurricane fencing broke my resolve. I have to face up to being a hypocrite, as I've lived in The Evergreens Phase One for the past seven months.

What, you ask, does this have to do with moving to Hawaii?

Today was really long, and would have been agony except for all of my great friends who made countless trips from the 3rd floor lugging blenders, warped cookie sheets, and those coffee cups I mentioned yesterday. I tried my best to be organized and efficient, but it was really Howard and Joanne Steele who ran the show (thank you thank you thank you!). Then David Arnold showed up and played with Dash, walked Chuck, vacuumed for about an hour, hauled trash, and let me run out for stove drip pans and another suit case at Wal-Mart ( I think he did my laundry too). Chris Williams scrubbed sinks, discovered the joys of the industrial size trash compactor, and took away all the pizza. Thanks also to Charlotte Keeney for giving a good home to my cannister of King Arthur flour and various and asundry kitchen items. Everyone looked really red and sweaty so they must have been working really hard.

Alyson stopped over and gave me a beautiful anklet. I'm going to miss my swim group so bad!
Brad and Sarah(who was kind enough to take some shoes) and their friend Keith stopped by.

We almost lost Chuck this afternoon. We let her off the leash to run a little and she said, "See ya!" Guess where I found her? In the dried up retention pond digging for cat poop. I'm an idiot. This almost made us late for my last supper at Sonny's BBQ with Karen and Monty Stark. It was wonderful, but very bittersweet.

I'm crashing now, we leave at 4pm Monday for Jacksonville. We'll be at a hotel for the night near the airport. I hope the forest fire smoke doesn't close off I-10. If there's free WiFi I'll post again.

Signs you've been working too hard:
You carefully pack a 99 cent pencil sharpener, including the shavings.
Walking from room to room trying to decide if you will throw away or pack a 1/4 full bottle of moisturizer.
While deciding with complete confidence to throw out a scanner and CD-burner. (thank you Chris for stopping the madness)
Lying on your back for five seconds, you wonder what the crunching sound is and realize it is your spine settling into place.
Trying over and over without success to make visitors accept boxes of jello, jars of turkey gravy, and bottles of V-8. Like you're doing them a favor. At least it wasn't Clamato.
You burst into tears when large furniture items are taken away.

Hot item of the day (who knew?):
Shoe tree

Number of times I've burst into tears today:
Three

Number of Extra-Strength Tums or slugs out of Maalox bottle:
Three

Vegetables eaten:
does fried okra count? or the tomato paste in BBQ sauce? dessicated mushroom on pizza? is this perhaps reason for increasing rate of antacid consumption?