Phase 1

I am now officially kitchenless - for the time being, anyway. The packers have been here since this morning, and are in (I hope) the final stages of putting all of our belongings into boxes. They're coming back tomorrow to load everything onto the truck and take it away, and then we'll hope to see it again, in more or less its original form, in Canberra, in 3 months or so - assuming that it clears customs without difficulties (fingers crossed) and that we have found a house to have it delivered to (fingers and toes crossed).

Thus begins Phase 1 of our Great Trek from KC to Canberra....more updates to follow.

Thursday digest

And to think I toyed with the idea of making May a #NaBloPoMo month! Ha! I kill me!

I do have an actual recipe to share shortly, but since I haven't managed to post anything substantive in about two weeks, I thought a brief update was in order first:

Move organization the movers have been booked and, mercifully, are required to do all the packing for international moves. So I am focusing on trying to organize things, weed out anything that probably shouldn't be shipped 10,000 miles, and separate out things that we are likely to need while we are in transit and when we first arrive, so I can hide them from the movers but we can still use them. I currently have six different To Do lists from which I pull items for a manageable daily list, because otherwise I would need to spend too much of my time breathing into a brown bag.

Living arrangements our house here is on the market, but so far no one has shown the slightest interest in purchasing it. So it looks as though we might be trying to get some renters in. (If you know of anyone looking for a lovely 4BR house in the Kansas City Northland, do send them my way, won't you?) Meanwhile, we have secured a place to stay in Canberra, at least in the short term. It will give us a base to find something more permanent and, more important, is in the same neighborhood where we lived before and want to remain, so that we're in familiar territory and Miss B can go back to the same school that she attended in 2009.

Miss B lost her sixth tooth yesterday and finished school today. Now she gets a few weeks off before jumping back in, partway through the Australian school year, which runs from late January/early February to mid-December and thus is already underway. We continue to discuss mixed emotions on a near-daily basis, as she is simultaneously sad about leaving behind her school/friends/cats/house here, and excited about the prospect of being back in Canberra, and seeing the friends and family we'll be visiting on our roundabout way there.

DP work, work, work, work, farewell dinner, work, evening conference call with Australia, work, farewell lunch, work, work, work. In his spare time, he is coordinating the itinerary for our cross-country drive to Boston at the end of the month. Oh, and we hosted an end-of-year party for his seminar students last weekend--26 adults and children, including us. (The smash hit of the buffet table was the sausages, which I had rolled in olive oil and roasted in the oven. Something to remember the next time I contemplate cooking anything complicated.)

Food I have more or less stopped buying food, other than things like bread and milk, and am trying my best to either consume or give away everything edible that is still in my house. If you can think of any creative ways to use a bag of spelt flour, a jar of sesame tahini, four different kinds of cheese, and/or a canister of Cajun spice in the next 10 days, please share! Oh, and even though I stopped buying pasta about 2 months ago, I still haven't run out yet. I know, shocking, right?

Saturday shuffle

I finally saw Slumdog Millionaire on the plane home from Paris two weeks ago, and it--particularly this song--has been stuck in my head ever since. Just the thing if you need a little endorphin rush.