I'm Back!

Whew! I don't know which was worse - the internet withdrawal or the exhaustion from packing up our stuff...which begs the question: if you've been living without it for 6 months do you REALLY need it?

When we moved back to the coast we rented a house that is considerably smaller than the house we were living in, so we only packed and brought the stuff we really use every day. We figured once we sold the old house we'd get the rest of our things. Left behind were things like serving platters, other dishes and glasses we didn't use much, Christmas decorations, books...you get the idea. My job this past week was to sort the items left into three categories: trash, Goodwill and things-to-put-into-storage. I was pleased with the piles for the first two categories. The last one gave me headaches.

You know how it is - you're all Ooh, I LOVE these chili bowls! These chili bowls are the BEST! But do I really want to PACK and STORE them? Wait a minute, here's a VASE I forgot about! It's beautiful! Here are THREE MORE JUST LIKE IT! Ok, one into storage, three to Goodwill.

And then I found the box of photos and got lost for about three hours.

One bright spot in this chaos was JIMMY. We hired JIMMY to help us pack and move. The reason I put JIMMY'S name in all caps is because he is AWESOME. He packs and moves people for a living and you've never seen anybody work as hard as this guy does. He's like a little tornado only he doesn't break your stuff. He puts it into boxes! He organizes the boxes! He moves them into the storage unit! He does it all in less time than it takes you to shower!

JIMMY also knows what to do when you get stung by a wasp.

I was outside doing some yardwork so our tenants wouldn't think they were moving into a jungle, when I stepped on a wasps' nest. Holy SHIT it hurt. At first I thought maybe it was just a thorn, but the then the pain got worse and worse and ohmigod it hurts and then my whole TOE was on fire and I saw the wasps buzzing around looking for new spots to sting and I RAN LIKE HELL into the house screaming.

Then I sat down on the floor and cried a little.

That's when JIMMY showed up and told me what to do. All it takes, he said, is some chewin' tobacco. Chew it up REAL GOOD and put it on the sting and it just makes the pain go away. Hmm, only one problem with that plan...but WAIT! We have CIGARS!

My hubby wouldn't let me use the contraband Cubans that he has, but the Dominican ones, well, ok, he'll sacrifice one of those for the cause. I soaked the end of the cigar in water and pulled off the wet tobacco and band-aided it to my toe. Check it out:



It totally worked. Within a few minutes the pain was gone and the swelling had subsided, which is a very good thing because we still had two days of moving and storing to finish.

I told my husband to call our landlord and let him know we will be renting this house until we die, because I am NOT moving again. Ever.