Firstly, moving pretty much took over my life for a while. Packing everything into boxes, buying boxes, buying more packing tape, taking one or two at a time to the post office, and so on. Finally, I remembered that Greyhound does shipping and realized it would be a lot cheaper, so I ended up doing that. I thought it would be a lot easier to take everything in one shipment anyway and got a friend to help since there were 15 boxes, plus an oversized bicycle box. Well, it would've been easier if the Greyhound employee knew how to do his job....after an hour of arguing with him and him basically ignoring me (while other customers yelled at him for doing so), he finally believed me that I had paid for the shipping already and didn't need to wait for him to tally it all up. Yes, that's why there are already labels on the boxes. A strong letter of complaint is forthcoming. He actually said, "You're making a lot of work for me." Well, [insert your choice of angry expletive], this is your job. If you don't like it....half the customers in the waiting room said they were unemployed and would do a better job than you. Some people are just not cut out for customer service.
Oh, and this was on the day of the rehearsal dinner. Had the employee known what he was doing I would've been out of there with time to shower, get dressed and get a manicure and pedicure for the dinner and wedding the next day. Instead, I had under 30 minutes to do all this, skipping the mani-pedi.
The wedding itself was amazing and so much fun. Memorably, we stopped at McDonald's and Rita's as we had time to kill before getting to the reception. Boyfriend was in Montana of course, but I had the best date ever, a fellow bridesmaid.
And two days later, Mom and I left for Montana. Isis was sedated and in a small kennel in the back seat. She was pretty mellow for most of the trip, but on the fifth and final day, she started freaking out, spilled her water bowl, and decided it was time to escape. This meant she tried to claw through the bottom of the kennel (plastic with a blanket and towel over it) and bite through the bars of the kennel (metal). She was unsuccessful and eventually gave up.
The trip was mostly uneventful. It was great having another driver for the first two days, especially since she did all the driving (thanks Mom!). Fortunately there was no snow, though most of the mountains were quite covered, and once in Montana, outside of Bozeman I think, there was some sleet. It was very strange to see signs in the lobby at the hotel in South Dakota with regulations regarding having firearms and other hunting weapons in the hotel....I've never been anywhere that hunting was clearly so important. I noticed Wall Drug even changed their sign that usually offers free coffee? free donuts? free something...to members of the armed forces, to hunters.
It is so great to be home though, even though home is hovering in the minus degrees Fahrenheit right now. We had a blizzard warning a couple of days ago, and got a few inches of snow. Not a huge deal, except that they don't clear the streets right away and it appears that they never clear the neighborhood streets. It's been interesting driving, but most of all, bitingly cold. Fortunately I was warm enough shoveling with my added layers of long johns and a turtleneck. The squall parka from Lands' End is super warm, as is the fleece. Definitely needed purchases for this winter. I've been continuing to nest, adding pictures and other decorative touches.
I've also been knitting....I am almost done with the mohair shawl, and I got distracted and decided to knit a tam with the silk/merino/bamboo blend yarn. I realized it matches the color of my parka perfectly. I think it came out very well for an impulse knit! I'm going to try to stay focused though and finish the shawl, and next start the cardigan, now that I have better needles. It should go quickly.
There is probably a lot more, but I'm hungry and the Boy brought home some novel food. We haven't ventured to the grocery this week due to the snow, and he walked down the street to Subway, which sounded way better to us than the piles of leftovers we've been eating. Yay sandwich!
