Countdown to Departure--18 days

18 Days before we leave for our trip! We're so excited!

Paul has finished the floor! He worked so hard on it! He also finished putting all the chair rail molding in the guest bed room! Everything looks so good. I know he feels relieved to get these things off his "to-do" list. He's still working on getting all the planning done for our trip. We're not planning everything, though. We're leaving room for spontaneity.

Me--I still have some cleaning I want to do, but is cleaning ever finished? If I don't get everything done, it will still be here when I get back! School is winding down with all the end-of-year things that go on. It's been a good year! I love my kids, my job, and where I work!

Yesterday was our shopping day! We purposely waited for Memorial Day to catch the sales. It was worth the wait as we saved more than we spent! We don't buy a lot of clothes during the year anyway, so we really needed some basic items for our trip west. We had a fun day, but we were also glad to get home to our "nests". "Shop til you drop" has a different meaning for us. It doesn't take much shopping for us to start dropping!

Tomorrow is a day off for both of us. It is so good to have an extra day off to be together. Paul has a plan to make our van more "travel friendly". We'll work on that together, and he'll help me finish up a project for a friend. Maybe I'll get to some more of the cleaning projects I want to do, but...maybe not! We'll see how it goes.

Westward, Ho!

Paul and I are getting excited about our trip west coming up in June. This is a trip we have wanted to take for a long time. Little did we realize when we first started planning this trip that we would have children living there that we could visit! We've made one trip to Arizona to help them move and get settled. It was a bittersweet trip. We enjoyed being with our son, his wife, 4 year old son, and twin baby girls. They are such a sweet family. It was very difficult to leave them there and fly back to North Carolina without them. I know they are happy, and that makes all the difference. I am very thankful for Skype so that we can share in their birthday parties, Christmas, etc. But come June,we won't need Skype for a little while! We'll be there in person!

Right now, however, we are concentrating on getting the last of our hard wood floors down. It's a very hard job, but hey, somebody's gotta do it!

The new floor will make our kitchen look so much better. Fortunately, we have the whole of Spring break to get it done because one thing usually leads to another. The dust bunnies must have had babies while I wasn't looking! And who accumulated so much junk? I'm glad there's the Salvation Army that's always looking for more junk because they are certainly going to get some!

For several months I've been concentrating on purging unnecessary things and cleaning and organizing. I love my home and I want to go away on this trip knowing I'm coming home to a clean house. As much as I love to travel, I enjoy my home the most. I'm so thankful for my husband who helped build it and takes care of it for me. This is the most beautiful place of all to me!