Daily 5 - Day 197

Today's Daily 5:

1. With help from my roommate, the majority of our kitchen is now packed.  Just a few cupboards and a shelf with foodstuffs left to go.
2. My bedroom is also now 95% packed.
3. Reworked my budget (slight change in paycheque, plus changes in rent amounts) and am very happy with the numbers
4. Managed to pull off about an hour of quieter time tonight too.
5. Loved watching Joannie Rochette skate for a bronze medal tonight, especially knowing that her mom passed away very suddenly early this week.

Award - How fun!

Tea at Homemaker's Heart gave me an award last week, and I'm just now getting around to doing something about it.  Thanks Tea!

Here are the rules:

 

•Be polite, say thank you to the blogger that gave this to you & give 'em a linkback.

 

•Pass it on to about fifteen other beautiful bloggers that you've recently discovered.

 

•Link 'em.

 

•Notify 'em.

 

•Say seven things about yourself

Okay, here's the deal.  There are way more than 15 of you out there that I'd love to link to, but I'm short on time all around, so I'm just going to list a few absolute favorites, and if you want to jump in and play along, even if your name isn't listed, go for it!  If you're interested in having an award, take it and share it - just leave me a comment saying that you jumped on this one.

My favorites right now include:

• Tea (I know, you gave it to me, but I've been loving reading your thoughts.)
• Allie Dearest
• Susan at A Rewoven Life
• Renee
• Faye
• Hope
• Dana
• And so many more!
   

And... 7 Things About Me:

1. I'm allergic to oranges, but occasionally eat them anyway.  Mostly at Christmas.  Because what's Christmas without mandarin oranges.
2. My all-time best and worst trips are actually the same trip.  There are things about that particular trip that made it one of the best and also one of the worst times of my life.
3. The move this weekend will be the fourth one for me in 3.5 years.  This from someone who hates change, and had never moved at all for the first 23 years of my life.
4. One of the bloggers I listed above is a long time "in real life" friend.  And one is someone who I've now had the privilege of meeting "in real life."  It was crazy how quickly that second conversation went to the deeper more personal stuff, just because we sort of felt like we knew each other and had been reading each other's blogs for years.
5. I think the most perfect job in the world would be something that involved travel, writing, long, deep conversations over tea, and praying for people.  If you figure out what that job is before I do, let me know.
6. Though it doesn't seem like I would, I actually use my history degree every day in my current job.  I specifically studied groups like the Mennonites, and now, working for a Mennonite company, that knowledge has been invaluable in understanding the clients and some of the other staff that I interact with daily, in terms of understanding the five hundred years of history that have shaped their particular cultural traits.  Plus, really, not that much has changed in 500 years for some of them.
7. On a related note, my proudest accomplishment yesterday was managing to bit my tongue on a sarcastic retort when a particular Mennonite man whom I interact with regularly as part of my job informed me that he "didn't know what it was, but he just doesn't really like change."  I managed to stop myself from bursting out laughing and telling him that I knew what it was - it was that he was a Mennonite!

Beautiful Thoughts

I read this post from To Write Love on Her Arms last night and thought it was lovely.  I suppose I particularly identified since it was written in honor of National Eating Disorder Awareness week (as I've mentioned, I've struggled with disordered eating over the last several years.)  But the thoughts were most definitely worth clicking through to check out.

Stirred Thoughts

My thoughts are rapidly reaching that stirred up level that seems to come when I move.  That "won't slow down, can't slow down, even if I don't really need to be in a panic about this" level.

This move is by far the most under control that any of them have been, and I'm still feeling that panicking.  I'm hoping tonight will alleviate that.

Tonight is the big push.  I told my roommate that she needed to help me with the packing of the kitchen, as, even though I'm the official owner of most of the stuff in there, she has used it as much or more than me.  So tonight we'll pack up all but a very few kitchen essentials.  I'll also pack up my bathroom "stuff" (that drawerfull of products that get used occasionally), and a few last things in my bedroom.  I'm hoping that I can move one more load of stuff tomorrow evening after work, before the final move on Saturday, where all the furniture will go with me, and I'll then return to the apartment, and clean it out, before heading to Grandma's to begin the sorting and unpacking process.

I'm actually hoping to purge and pare down a bit as I pack the kitchen tonight too.  One of my "green" or "healthier living" goals is to slowly switch all of my plastic food storage to glass.  I'm going to put all of the plastic containers that aren't higher quality in the recycling, and keep only the ones I've regularly used.  Since I'm moving in with grandma, and won't need most of my kitchen goods for quite a few months (with the exception of a few things that I know Grandma doesn't have), I'm going to pack thoughtfully, purge the things I really don't use (or at least set them aside in a box to go to a thrift shop post move).

So, that's tonight.  Packing, sorting, purging.  Hopefully a trip tomorrow night to move some more stuff, and then the big final push, and some cleaning on Saturday.  Ideally, Saturday will only be a couple of trips at most, and will only take a couple of hours.  I feel like that's actually an attainable goal this time around.

In the meantime, I'm coveting your prayers.  For peace and the ability to rest (sleep was rather fleeting last night in the face of my overactive thoughts).  For the move to go smoothly.  And for health.  I seem to be catching a cold, and, while my shoulder and back had finally been feeling a bit better post accident, I think I've been tensing up while asleep the last few days, and I'm in quite a bit of pain again - not exactly ideal when the next few days are going to involve a lot of bending, lifting, and carrying.

And with that, I'm off to dive into the work "to do" list for the day, before heading home to it's own list of "to do's"!