Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Looooong weekend.  Good weekend.  Here are a few of the things accomplished this weekend: After months of deliberation, I finally used my spa gift card (gift from Hans for Christmas) on an hour-long Swedish massage and a facial.  The massage ended up being comped by the spa because I had to endure the torture of sitting in their sun-filled atrium sipping tea and reading This Old House magazine.  For 40 minutes past my appointment time.  I don't know...it didn't really seem like a big deal, but apparently I got mixed up with a bridal party and got forgotten...I was perfectly content, but hey--anything FREE is okay with me.  Now I can go back for another massage, which the masseuse says that I desperately need. We decided to do a little hike on Saturday afternoon, at a park out in the middle of nowhere.  I think it would have been a perfect hike if not for the enormous quagmires of mud every 10', the enormous mosquitoes and gnats, and the enormous ti...

Back in February, I decided that I wanted to challenge myself to do something new, so I found an 8K race in Williamsburg and started running.  Just one mile at a time, then two, then three...so on and so forth.  I prefer to run at night, after it's dark.  It works well with our schedule and in the past when I've been a runner, I liked the anonymity of running under cover of darkness.  Not to worry, mothers--I'm always aware of my surroundings and running in well-lit areas free of murderers. Anyway, the culmination of my training was the 8K Run for the Dream in Williamsburg on Saturday.  I decided to book us a room for Friday at the last minute and I'm glad I did.  Friday evening in Williamsburg was glorious--we pulled in around suppertime, picked up my bib and bag of goodies and then checked into our hotel.  We were a 15 minute walk from Colonial Williamsburg, so after we got settled in our room, we took a nice stroll through the woods into town....

What a lovely, busy weekend I had, starting on Friday morning.  I had the bug to cruise...I blame my Dad for this trait, the desire to just get out and drive.  See what's out there in the world. Also, I will use any excuse to get away from this empty house full of boxes.  I have fully entered what I call "moving ennui"--the depressed period of time between moves when half of our life is in boxes and my heart is only half in the current location.  I have no desire to be here anymore.  I just want to get this over and move on.  Even though I haven't ever liked this house, it's still a place where we spent almost two years of our lives.  We've established a rhythm and routine and some history in this place and I'll be sad to see that go, as I always am, no matter what our moving situation. Anyway, enough about ennui and back to the lovely weekend.  The cruise:  I decided to go to Smithfield, VA.  I can't say exactly what led me there......

Will and Pete Annika on a faux ship's bridge at Nauticus, Norfolk.  She doesn't have a goiter, it's a jawbreaker. Watch out for those female drivers! At Nauticus

Boxes, Part IX.  After obsessing about boxes for a couple of weeks, I can report that Home Depot has extremely cheap moving boxes.  If you plan on moving anytime soon, do yourself a favor and just go to Home Depot and buy the boxes.  I don't know why I spent so much time comparison shopping, driving slowly past the backs of grocery stores and apartment complexes and even jumped in a dumpster at a Mexican restaurant...sheesh.  I thought packing up would be a very gradual thing, but as of this writing, we have almost no pictures on the wall, save our two very large framed travel posters in the living room.  There is not one spare bit of decor sitting around.  I have packed five bookcases full of books...for all my bitching about the books, they really don't take that long to pack.  All of winter things are packed.  I thought it would take me all month long, but it took about a week.  Of course, there are still more things to pack up as w...