Moving Day!

Today is moving day. Really it should be titled Moving Day #1 as it is the first of four. This is when all the big stuff finds temporary homes in triple thick paper, corrugated cardboard, and (a surprise) metal containers. These metal containers are like miniture eighteen-wheeler trailers and our couch perfectly fits right in. Kinda one of the coolest containers I have ever seen.

I have been looking forward to this day for a while. It is one more benchmark to mark off the "go to Japan list" and another tick off "days till Dustin returns home." So this is how it went:

At 8:00 AM I awaited the movers arrival. Sharpie. Check. Secured special documents. Check. Locked Zero in kennel. Check. I am ready.

At 9:30 AM I got my cell phone out to call as they pulled up in the driveway. If only I knew that trick worked earlier.
By 10:45 AM They had packed up the entire house.

At 11:00 AM They left for a two and a half hour lunch.
Finally, by 5:00 PM I had an empty house with a lone (and uncomfortable) air mattress.

Pretty cool. Especially since I just sat around and watched television. Which was very boring. How do these wives stay home all day?! I was bored and almost fell asleep after reading for two hours. I finally settled on a four hour marathon of VH1 counting down the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

...which was depressing since I hadn't heard of many of them. But, alas, the goods are being loaded onto a ship bound for our new home and will travel ever so slowly for the next 72 days.

Moving Day #1. Check.

Cable Movies are... Better!?

For those that don't know me that well, I am eternally lazy. Thirsty? Ehhh, it can wait. Gotta pee? Not until my leg starts bouncing. This is why I have recently found myself watching movies that we own on cable.

Today I caught pieces of Pride & Prejudice, The Dark Knight, and The Big Lebowski. The latter provided some of the most comedic edits ever. (And that's saying a lot. Ever seen the edited Showgirls?)

Some particularly funny edits:

"They peed on my valued rug!"

"I'll slurp your Coke for $1,000."

"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps and feed him scrambled eggs!"

It is my eternal laziness that brought you this nugget of joy. Now my leg is bouncing.

On your mark(et)

It's official. On the market.

Our first home. There is something special about that first homebuying experience. It's scary. But it was one of the best decisions we ever made. (Hmm, at this moment it was a good decision. Ask me in a year if I still feel the same way.) The searching process. The decorating process. The improvement process. All tons of fun. And now it is time to leave our first home.

Why I Don't Volunteer

Today I volunteered at the high school to be a testing proctor. I'll admit I had selfish reasons for volunteering my time to watch high school students take a test. When we (the Swansboro BOA team) were asked I nostalgically thought back to my testing days. Early mornings, a free peppermint to stimulate the brain cells, and a proctor who read mystery novels in the corner. Being a proctor sounds painless and I'm down for some quality reading time. I've been gently persuaded to read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan by multiple people. This sounded like a great time to get some pages completed for my annual competition.

Epic Failure.
No reading allowed anymore. Cheating is such a big problem that proctors are required to quietly roam the classroom. I'll admit - being selfish backfired.

I was taken into a sophomore English class and watched twenty four students read a story and write an essay. It was a very eye-opening experience.

66% spent more than an hour reading a two page story
21% fell asleep during the exam
83% had BMIs in unhealthy ranges
29% got dirty looks from me for talking during the exam
100% took out headphones and cellphones when completed

Now before you (ahem, Jacobs family) get all upset at my sampling technique, I know it was not an adequate sample. The classroom was one from a lower to lower-middle income class high school in coastal Carolina, but I was still very startled.

These children (and I apply that generally, because they don't speak like children) made me angry and frustrated. And then I just felt sad.