Interminable Yet Unproductive Packing

7 days till close!

I'd do one of those fancy counters that does an automatic countdown, only I haven't a clue how. Also, it's arguable that I don't really need one, since I update everyone I meet daily on how many days we have left. Sometimes I update Matt more than once, which I think he might be finding a little less cute as the days pass.

Planning for the house is still occupying almost all of my attention. Today I figured out where to put those mahonias Matt wants. Personally, I'm not a big fan of mahonias, but they fill him with enthusiasm, and I realized that if we make a small seating area on the front porch, we'll want some sort of pleasant green backdrop behind it. And as it's a rather shady spot--voilà mahonias. The day before that, I realized which ornamental tree to use on the right corner of the house--a Texas madrone--very hardy and drought tolerant, plus with pretty bark, okay flowers, and decorative fruit. And then I also realised that including some sort of trellis or pergola on the side will make our eating area feel much cozier and more private, especially if we wired it for lights. And if we put it behind the sidewalk, we'd have a nice little lawn area for croquet. Yeah, that's right--croquet. It could happen.

Actually, my most valuable insight is that if I keep doing this--obsessing, that is--for a long enough time, eventually good ideas will manifest themselves. Sometimes the ideas get a little less grandiose and more realistic over time, too. The trick is just to keep at.

Meanwhile, in practical terms, we're packing. Matt's really tearing through his greenhouse (now dismantled and transported) and all his plants in the back yard. I'm making more fitful progress in the house. Most of the study is packed, and the bathroom and guest room. But there are those random miscellaneous thingies--sort of room detritus--hanging around that don't really belong to one category or another, and they don't seem to be packing themselves.

All together, though, the packed boxes make a respectable pile in the guest room. The vast majority of the boxes are books. Matt says we have too many. I don't know what he's talking about.


--a couple of boxes of books--


Only 7 seven days left!