Wow, that long weekend was wall to wall adventure. Starting Thursday evening, we had cleaning and painting and packing and more cleaning and painting followed by yet more cleaning. Coordinating two sets of contractors and two sets of delivery men. An efficient team of church folk and my coworker showed up to help move our ever-growing pile of… well, I want to say junk, yet if I truly considered it junk I would have gotten rid of it by now, wouldn’t I? People were glum about the many boxes of books and CDs. We may also be the only family in history to lug a giant box of rocks through three moves. It wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t say “ROCKS” on the box. Afterward we were able to clear aside a wide enough living space to welcome some out-of-town friends for a few days, and we threw chores to the wind and had fun with them.

For me, the fun included registering a complaint at a fancy restaurant because the menu invited me to “TRUST” the chef and sommeliers. Inappropriate quotes! We also had a good time exploring the the junk/antique/sculpture shops in Cave Creek and came away with a nice 3-D wall hanging for above the fireplace, adroitly spotted by our always-in-good-taste friend Kat. I’ll post a picture of it sometime. We watched the sun set over yellow cliffs, got attacked by bees (well our friend John did), and experienced Big Lots for the first time. This store had reached legendary status in the minds of our British friends after another mutual American friend kept singing its praises. They were non-plussed. the sour gummy worms they got were not at all sour.

So here we are at Tuesday and only about 20% of the boxes are unpacked and I have no idea where my makeup might be,nor the dishwasher detergent, nor the bandaids.

Our landlord dropped by to give us our security deposit back and to give us a parting gift– a large matted and framed photo of the sunset view off of our old balcony. She took it herself and it’s beautiful.

Now is that the best landlord ever, or what?