And on into evening...

I was out the door around 9:30 this morning, heading first for the requested Starbucks stop, and then to Mom and Dad's. I got to Ikea just before it opened, managed to find someone to help me load the box I needed onto my cart, and then into Dad's truck, and then I came home.

When I got here, I opened the box still in the truck, and carried in the pieces one at a time.

I assembled the bookshelf with a bit of help from L. (and only a few mishaps - including one large lump and growing ugly bruise necessitating ice on my right calf) and headed back to mom and dad's to return the truck.

The look of surprise on dad's face when he heard that I'd already managed to successfully assemble the bookshelf was great fun. Especially since I was already feeling fairly proud of myself for managing to do this mostly on my own.

Then I spent the afternoon rearranging and unpacking.

Prayerfully sorting through altar stones and memories. Tucking a few things away in storage, and finding others new homes. The whole time our smoke detector insisted on beeping every few minutes. It would seem the battery in it was dieing, but there has been a theme of alarms and sirens connected to many of the memories those altar stones mark, and to be trying to pray and listen and unpack and arrange them, with the constant background noise of the alarm was somewhat shaking, and oddly ironic.

I think I'll tackle what's left over the next few days. Our new house has decidedly less storage than the old place, and I'm not quite certain what to do with a couple of boxes of scrapbooking and craft supplies that still remain. Our living room also remains in disarray, though I think we'll be able to bring order to it fairly quickly in the next few days.

And with that, I'm off to make some dinner for L and I, and then we're heading to church.

I have a smile list brewing in my head... I'm needing to take some time to remember the things that make me smile. This last month and a half have been beautiful and full and rich and completely excruciating, and I'm feeling strongly the exhaustion and need to refocus and rest. So, a smile list will be appearing here sometime soon... maybe even later tonight!