On the Other Side...

In my next life, I hope to come back as---well, some species that doesn't accumulate a lot of crap along the way. So that if I'm ever in the position of having to move dens or nests or hives, I can do so with minimal effort, no boxes, packing paper or bubble wrap & definitely no moving company. Just me and the stripes or spots or feathers on my back, my family or my pride or my flock, setting off to our new location. Because if there's one thing I've learned over the past 4.5 years, its that packing & unpacking an entire household sucks.

It's been almost a week and unfortunately the house is still aflood with boxes; mainly because I had to spend so much time at the old house packing up odds and ends & cleaning. And there were the little glitches along the way, like when I walked into the new house and found a gaping empty space in the kitchen where the refrigerator had been. Nothing cuts into your cleaning and unpacking time like having to bounce from appliance store to appliance store looking to drop an unbudgeted-for several hundred bucks on a new major appliance. And let me assure you, dragging an exhausted 5 year old just finished with his first week of kindergarten around with you to appliance store after appliance store? That's a special kind of family bonding right there.

But the good news for the 5 year old? His room is big enough to fit every last toy he owns! So now instead of the house being overrun by toy sprawl, all of Ethan's cars and dinosaurs and super heros and train goodies fit in his room. My living room and office space will no longer be a makeshift play room!!!! WINNING!!!

The house itself is great--old and totally unrenovated (the toilets were clearly installed at a time when people only grew to be about five feet tall because they are so teeeeny--think one size up from preschool sized toilets. That's only the slightest of exaggerations), but great. The kitchen screams 1950's (except for the new stainless steel refrigerator. ooops) and has the layers of unmatched white paint on the cupboards that don't all quite close just right to prove it. Also there's the vague smell of grandma's old kitchen which is at once nostalgically comforting and also twitch-inducing. The office room has wood paneling on the bottom half of the wall (okay, so perhaps it was renovated once. In the 70's.). So, that's awesome.

But the backyard is a total oasis of awesome. Vegetable garden right in the middle of producing a whole crop of tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplants. I'm trying to harvest them as much as possible before I kill every last one of the plants with my gardening incompetence. The whole yard is enclosed in a giant privacy fence and the fence is covered in flowering vines & gorgeousness. Hummingbirds galore and a slight view of the mountains behind us. Doesn't get much better than that (and totally makes up for the fact that our master bathroom is the size of a postage stamp and has a barely functioning shower).

Seriously, though, all my complaints are in jest because I realize how incredibly lucky we are to have found a house, ANY house, in such a great location, close to so many great friends, and that we have everything we could possibly need, even if not all of it takes the shape we'd prefer. The house is full of character in the way only a house with 15 layers of paint on kitchen cabinets can be. I fully intend to add my own layer of a different shade of white, just to make my mark on the house, too.

In other news, HOLY CRAP, PEOPLE!!! The Susan G Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure?!!!!! IS TOMORROW!!!! I will be getting up at three freaking thirty IN THE MORNING! And driving myself to a teammate's house; her husband will drive us up to the city to the starting point. We will be getting there at FIVE AM! Nothing like walking those first 20 miles on four hours of sleep!!!!

But I cannot wait--I'm walking with some amazing women and feel as ready as I could ever be. I know I could have trained more (one of my phenomenal teammates logged 500 miles of training. FIVE HUNDRED!!!!!), but I know I'll be able to do it. Of course, I did notice that the pair of sneakers I've been training in for the past 6 months have started to fray on the inside by the back of my ankle--so that should be awesome around mile 40. But I've decided to power through with that pair of shoes, and have purchased all kinds of blister deterrents and special foot wrapping stuff to make a good barrier between my ankle and the inside of my sneaker, so hopefully I won't be hobbling towards the finish line on bloodied stumps that used to be feet.

And can I say, in a moment of totally losing sight of the point of the whole experience, I canNOT wait to get a pedicure after this experience---the hobbit-foot state of the callouses on my feet are horrifying. The other day I inadvertently stepped on broken glass....and I didn't even feel it. Because my feet are layers thick with nasty callouses. That is all kinds of nasty, but necessary for the walk. But come Monday afternoon, I am taking a Ped-Egg to those suckers until my feet feel newborn-feet-never-touched-the-ground soft.

So, my team has raised close to 40k and I am so hopeful that somewhere, one of those dollars will be put into a study that will lead us to a cure. And that some of those dollars will go to provide a mammogram to an uninsured woman in my area, or to treat someone in my community who would otherwise be unable to afford to save her own life. One in 8 of us will receive a diagnosis of breast cancer in our life times; everyone of us will know someone diagnosed. Just since starting to train for this walk, I have learned of a friend being re-diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, and several of my teammates have had friends or family members diagnosed as well. We are walking for them. And all kidding aside about blisters and monster-hoof feet, nothing this walk can throw at us will be remotely as difficult or painful as the fight against cancer has been and will be for these people we love.

So I'll see you next week, on the other side of the walk. If you follow me on Instagram, I'll be posting a lot of pictures of the walk as we go. My name on IG is "Sarahndipity71"

xoxoxo