vacation: an under-rated activity

I miss London, but I'm sufficiently distracted for now!

Maybe it's because I don't do it enough...but totally switching off and enjoying more than just a long weekend away is SUCH a refreshing break. I'm not quite halfway through my holiday, and I'm already settled in nicely.

It's going to be really hard to get back to real work again.

last day at the office

wow. that was hard.

the movers

They came...they packed...they loaded up their truck with all my stuff. It took less than 2 hours.

Now it's really official: I *have* to leave...all my stuff is gone!

Tomorrow the cleaners are coming...you're pretty much required to hire professional cleaners before check-out with your landlord...and for what I'm paying them, I'd hope that not even a CSI could find any traces of me or my dirt in this place when they're done!

more lasts and sorting mania

Today was my last:

• full day in the office
• work-out with Jacky (my e-ville trainer)
• night to prepare and eat dinner in my own flat

It's finally all starting to feel real!

Sadly, I didn't get started on all the sorting I need to do tonight quite as early as I'd hoped.

See, I almost forgot to pack up my office (yeah, it's all going away tomorrow as well), so I didn't leave the office until 8:30 (after the aforementioned session with my e-ville trainer).

The movers are coming at 9:00am.

After the commute home and a little dinner, I started sorting out my junk at 9:30pm...less than 12 hours before the movers come to take away everything I own in this country.

However, thanks to a few key executive decisions, I finished all sorting needed tonight by 11:57pm.

I rock.

no surprises here

I've left most of the hard work of packing until the last minute. This will come as no surprise to those who know me well.

The sad part is that I actually don't have to do much packing. For one thing, the movers won't let me pack...because if they don't do it, they won't insure my shipment. No complaints here!

So really all I have to do is SORT. One pile for the movers, one pile for my suitcases, and one pile for the charity shop down the street.

Why is this so hard? Well...a few things conspire against me.

1. I'm very definitely a get-lost-in-the-details sort about this kind of thing. When I clean my flat, I start in one room and make a little progress, but when I pick up the watch I left on the sofa and take it to my bedroom where it belongs, I end up doing some cleaning in there...and eventually I somehow end up getting lost in the gratifying work of cleaning the grout between bathroom tiles with an old toothbrush. And so it goes.
   
   
2. I'm a perfectionist. See note above regarding toothbrushes and bathroom grout. There are countless hours of my life I've dedicated in similar attention to the minutiae that I'll never get back.
   
   
3. I'm the queen of procrastination. If it were an Olympic sport, I'd have multiple gold medals.

So, knowing myself as well as I do...I figure waiting until the last minute may still demonstrate an awful tendency to procrastinate, but at least I won't have spent my last two or three weeks in England thinking about things like whether or not I'm ever going to wear that pink sweater again.

I have enjoyed my last few weeks in the Big Smoke, and I'm confident I'll have PLENTY of down time Stateside to sort out my world.

But I am starting to think I've left it all just a bit TOO late now...!

rollin' out

Today is the first day of all my "lasts". It's my last full Sunday in London. This time next week, I'll be halfway between Heathrow and Houston.

On my way to meet a few friends for lunch and an afternoon of goodbyes, I saw this beast pulling out of the bus stop across the street.

It was one of those moments that made me sad I don't carry my camera with me at all times...this fuzzy one is from my mobile.

The other guy who stopped to take a photo told me it's a city bus that was all over the streets of London until the early 1950s.

So, that was a first for me, but a last as well, I'm sure.

finally sorted

For those of you who have been asking repeatedly only to get a fairly vague response from me...let the record reflect that I have finally booked my flight home. I will be returning to God's country West of the Atlantic (aka Texas) on Sunday, August 17th.

(God's country East of the Atlantic is aka Scotland.)

It still doesn't completely feel like I'm 12 days away from leaving this small island, but I'm not in a mad dash for Heathrow, so that's fine by me.

It's still very bittersweet, but mostly sweet.