The kids are here this weekend and I didn't want to pack and lose time with them. Suddenly, an idea hit me! They could help me pack pans! It'd be like killing two birds with one stone. I would be spending time with them and getting some more done. I knew Ben would love banging pans around.
When I moved in here years ago there were some pans shoved clear to the back of this deep, dark cupboard. Rather than climb in and pull them out, I just left them there and used the part of the cupboard that could be reached for my own pans. Well, Emily and I are moving pans right along in assembly line fashion so I decide I'll pull those out and see what they were. I pulled out an old roasting pan and handed it to her so I could dive in for the next one. She lets out this shriek that would peel paint off a wall and drops the pan. Keep in mind that I'm pretty much on my stomach and I've got more than half my body in this cabinet. She shrieks and I try to back out quickly without smacking my head, thinking she's got cut or something. Dead bug. We're talking dead for years, feet up in the air, dried to the bottom of the pan kinda dead. She's still shrieking like it might spring to life and get her at any moment. Too funny.
In the next cupboard Benjamin found an old perculator coffee pot (circa. 1960s) with all the pieces that had to be assembled. That kept him entertained for the longest time. He played with the toaster oven too so we had coffee and cookies and tea. It's been a long time since I've had pretend coffee. Tastes just like I remembered.
I *finally* figured out how to run Greymatter on a windows 2000 server. I thought I might go totally insane but after tweaking settings in IIS and changing some things in the Perl script, it worked. Now I'm like a greymatter-holic. ( Wanna switch to Greymatter but don't know how? I'll do it! I'll do it!) Really, I got it bad. I've done two of them today and would do more if I had more domains to play with. I would use it to update this site but I donated to the Blogger server fund ... gotta get my money's worth : )
I also packed four more boxes of living room things tonight. I would've done more but I ran out of newspaper to wrap stuff in. I'm getting more excited by the day. Hopefully we can close on the loan next week and start moving what I've got packed. It'll go much easier if we can string it out over several evenings and a couple of weekends. That way no one over does it. Todd thinks I'm overdoing it by working all day and packing all night. Wait til he sees me in true move mode!
This morning I packed away most of my cow collection. I'm thinking I'll have a garage sale after we get moved and sell off most of this stuff. When I was in my twenties I collected lots of different things. I've been too busy in my thirties to even dust the old stuff, let alone go out in search of new stuff. As I clean and wrap each thing I wonder how I managed to let life get so out of control. I used to clean a room every day, now I'm lucky to get the dishes done. I hope that new surroundings will motivate me to find the balance again.
Todd and I have discussed how much ethernet cable we are going to need to wire the new house efficiently. The more I think about it, the more I think the new house shouldn't be so convienently wired. There are times when I *have* to work at home but if it wasn't so handy, maybe I'd spend more time taking care of the non-technical aspects of life. For example, I'd like to spend time with my friend Robin. I see her when I make a flying trip into the DQ for lunch to go. Every time she says "Call me" or "Stop by" and every time I say "I will" and then I don't. Who do I see about getting an extra hour installed into each day?
