Not the vomiting kind. Pete did that the other night though (he's okay).
Something magical (again, shouldn't there be a font that is distinctly recognized as sarcasm?) will be happening this summer. A small part of my possessions will make a trip up to Tyler where they will live for a year, and the rest will make a trip to a storage unit where THEY will live for a year.
I've been putting off getting ready for this deployment, not because I dread the deployment itself, but because I hate all of the "fun" things I
Anyways.
This isn't my first rodeo.
I told myself that as soon as May began
(I know, I laughed really hard when I saw that too)
I would begin working on everything that needs to be done before Mike leaves.
The foremost task in my mind has been deciding what goes with me, what goes into storage, and what falls into the category of "why do we even have that lever?"
Last time I moved back home, when Mike was doing all of his initial training, I took way too much stuff.
My entire collection of books??? I can't think of any situation that would've come up that would require me to reference the many assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler (although....) or needing the complete works of Jane Austen which MY MOM HAS THE EXACT SAME COPY OF (the same can also be said for my Harry Potter and Fablehaven books. Mom's a real nice person, I'm ALMOST positive she'll let me read her books if I really want to).
And why did I take my favorite cookie spatula when my mom has a plethora of perfectly fine spatulas? (And let's not even start on her wooden spoon collection. Although the size of her wooden spoon collection isn't her fault. Grandma gives them to her nearly every Christmas.)
I was so naive.
I'm not making the same mistake twice.
I am a pro at packing and thinking "Oh but what if this situation comes up? I'll need at least 3 of these yellow shirts." Or whatever. I'm not allowing myself to do that this time.
Also, there was a lot we put into storage that I honestly have not even used or looked at since moving it back out of storage last February (as in February 2011...over a year ago...).
So, I'm purging today.
Starting with the extra room's closet. This is the place in our home where things go to die. Things like 2 blue Ikea bags.
"Where do I put these? I don't know. How about that closet over there where I can close the door and no one ever has to know? Brilliant!"
Not everything goes in this closet to die though.
Some things go in there to hibernate for eleven months out of the year.
Some of my most favorite things in the world.
CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!
Okay but look, I've been trying to approach Christmas with a "less is more" type attitude as of late, so I turned Pandora to "Christmas" and started the reaping of the Christmas decorations before lunch.
Our first year of marriage we bought a giant tree (fake, I'd be sneezing otherwise). With it being our first year of marriage, we didn't have many ornaments with which to cover said giant tree, so we went and bought some of those sets of unbreakable (i.e. cheap crap) ornaments at Wal-Mart and Garden Ridge. Since then, however, we've acquired quite an array of ornaments. I am of the belief that a tree doesn't need to have a theme and the more random the BETTER. Because of that philosophy, we have got some raaaaandooooom ornaments.
If they aren't appealing to me and I can't remember who gave them to us or how we got them, they are going to Goodwill dang it (Andy Pants, if you're reading this, I still have the ornament you painted for me in 2006 with the Hibernia logo. It's a favorite. Whoever gave us the creepy elf ornament though, you are out of luck...). With the exception of a bird wearing a scarf and a hat. I have no idea where that ornament came from, and it's not even that cute, but it's a bird that thinks it's a person because it's wearing people clothes so it gets to stay.
Needless to say, the vast majority of the "unbreakable" ornaments are going to Goodwill as well. Except some of the ones that look like disco balls....
This is very bittersweet, sorting through our food storage, memory boxes, Christmas decorations, and Ikea bag collection.
As I was wrapping up my favorite ballerinas, which don our tree every year, Michael Buble started singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and I started to tear up. Look I know they're inanimate objects, but these ornaments won't see Christmas for another year and a half. And then I started thinking about why they won't be seeing Christmas for another year and a half and I remembered that this will be the first Christmas Mike and I won't be spending together (that thought has somehow kept itself shoved into the back, darkest corner of my mind since finding out about the deployment) and that was the real reason I teared up. He'll be in the desert and I'll be in polar bear pants (pajama pants with polar bears ON them, they're not made OUT of polar bear...what kind of a monster do you think I am?) hugging Pete and most likely crying. Mom will probably cry too. And then we'll watch "Scrooge" and cry even more because that was what her and Dad used to watch every Christmas Eve (I don't think I need to tell you how much we loved and cried over THIS talk President Monson gave a few years ago).
MAN! THIS POST IS GETTING DEPRESSING!!!!
Here you go, something to boost your Christmas spirit:
And don't even WORRY. My army of nutcrackers is going to Tyler with me.
They look quite lovely on my mom's mantle.