We have made the plunge and are purchasing a townhouse. Luckily looking forward to the end result is exciting enough to go through the energy draining process of moving. Counting moves where we physically moved the majority of our belongings, since Randy and I got married, this will be move number 9.

Randy will be collecting our things from Kentucky where they have been in storage in our dear friends’ basement for 2 1/2 years. This is the stuff that we didn’t need or have room for in our aparment (e.g., washer & dryer, weed eater, china hutch, etc.) and when we finally open up all those boxes, it’ll be like Christmas. Or will it?

We’ve lived without this stuff for a long time. There is the school of thought that we just don’t need it all. We’ll try to employ the guidelines from Peter Walsh’s book “It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff” which make a lot of sense. Over on 43 Folders, Merlin Mann is taking Walsh’s advice to heart and he has blogged about his journey to a richer life. I picked up my copy of this book from the side of my bed and am re-reading it in preparation for facing our stuff.

That aside, I am very excited to move into a new home with more room than our apartment, a patio where we can use our gas grill, and a kitchen that might hold most of my kitchen wares. And we won’t have to walk up three flights of stairs to get to our front door!

At the moment, my life is all about packing.

Oh and if this isn’t enough to do, the company I work for is moving to a new building the day before we move into our new home. When it rains, it pours.

One of my favorite organization blogs is having a little contest with great prizes. All you have to do is leave a comment that includes a clean and tasteful joke.

Have fun!

I’ve occasionally looked for long-lost friends by doing a search on Google and some of the social networking sites but haven’t had too much luck. Recently, lifehacker highlighted a people search engine called pipl. I quickly found people I haven’t seen in years. I even found a boyfriend from when I was in 5th grade (he has a PhD in organic chemistry and is a senior associate of a life sciences venture capitol group). Actually, after doing a dozen or so searches, I started to get creeped out. It felt like I was looking through the window into someone’s house or something. For example, I found a scan of an application of sorts filed with the state of Florida that had an ex-boyfriend’s signature on it. I guess anyone can look at it because it’s a public record. I felt like a stalker. Yuck.

I found myself easily especially when I looked up my maiden name. I wonder if anyone has been looking for me. . .

My wonderful husband surprised me with “LEGO™ Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy” for our Gamecube. I’ve been anticipating this game for a while now so it was pretty exciting to unwrap it. We’ve just begun to work our way through but this game is just as fun as the first LEGO™ Star Wars game. Sure, the cuteness factor makes the play very appealing but although it has been rated as appropriate for all ages, the game is still challenging even to adults. The problem-solving aspect can be pretty tough.
I have become partial to being Chewbacca as we make our way through the game. Besides being able to hop very high and being a crack shot with his blaster, Chewie will also rip the LEGO™ arms off of adversaries. It sounds violent but when you see a little LEGO™ wookie jump on the chest of an Imperial Stormtrooper and pull his plastic arms off, it’s much more on the side of amusing than shocking. They are toys after all.
Having recently received this game as well as the DVDs for season two of “Lost” from Randy, I now have big holes on my Christmas wish list. I’m sure it won’t be too hard to come up with something new.

I’ve been incommunicado for some time not just because of my recent trip to Arizona, but since I’ve been home, I can’t stop playing “Lego™ Star Wars.” I’m addicted. I do find time to do normal stuff like clean our place, make meals for my husband and run errands. But as soon as Randy gets home from work, I’m practically begging him to play “Lego™ Star Wars.” I haven’t been surfing the ‘net, I haven’t been uploading to flickr, and I haven’t been keeping up on my favorite shows saved to our DVR. Obviously, something is amiss.
Last night, I barely let Randy watch a recorded episode of “Boston Legal” because I wanted to play my game. I think “Boston Legal” won out because it does star my beloved Bill Shatner (”William” to you who love him a little less than I) who is brilliant, and Emmy Award winning, as the rodomont Denny Crane. Besides, watching those characters duke it out is almost as fun as duking it out myslef with General Grievous.
Lego™ Star Wars has it all. The game play is challenging even though it is rated for ages 6 and up. The scenes from the movies recreated in the Lego™ universe are eerily accurate. The cuteness factor is off the scale especially when one “kills” another character and its Lego™ pieces fly apart — no bloodshed in this world. I especially enjoy looking for the mini-kit pieces and the problem solving involved in that search.
Perhaps when we complete this game, I will be able to return to “normal” life, look for a job (Randy would appreciate that!), and the hopping Wookies will finally leave my dreams at night. One can only hope. Of course, Randy also bought me “X-Men™ Legends II: Rise of the Apocolypse” for Christmas. So many games to play, so little time.

As a small blogging birthday gift to Randy, I’ve posted here a picture of Speed Racer, a favorite from his childhood. Chim Chim is the monkey that provides the plucky comedic relief in the cartoon.

Now the trick is, where did the person who took this photo find this great toy and where do we get one? I know Randy also liked Darth Tater too but I’m partial to the Spud Trooper.

So many toys, so little disposable income. . .

Cascadia Restaurant in my hometown Seattle is now serving their miniburgers via their catering service. As part of their brilliant marketing, they are using a Mini Cooper to advertise their miniburgers. It’s like a marriage made in heaven: Randy loves burgers, I love Minis. Yeah, it’s shmaltzy but that’s okay.

It just makes me miss Seattle.

With today’s high being around 98 degrees, it’s hard to believe that autumn is just around the corner which is lovely as autumn is my favorite time of year. School has already started here and Cracker Barrel has its Halloween merchandise out already. Although I don’t enjoy the hot weather, there are some things I will miss when summer is over:

I’m a big fan of disneymike’s photostream on flickr.com and his blog. While catching up on my RSS feeds via bloglines, I found out that disneymike is sending his Pirate Rubber Duckie on a world tour.

Although this may seem a little strange, it’s a lovely twist on travelling with a gnome (as Randy and I do à la “Amélie “) except that Pirate Rubber Duckie will do all the travelling by himself but be hosted in homes around the globe. It’s like he gets to be on the ultimate exchange student tour.

Here’s how it all started as told in disneymike’s blog:

Pirate Rubber Duckie was given to me by coworkers in gratitude for some photographs I took for them. One day, I decided to take a picture of him because he was so cute sitting there in my office.

I posted that picture to Flickr to share with others. Cindi mentioned that he’s like those travelling gnomes. I thought that it would be a great idea to send Pirate Rubber Duckie on a trip and started the Pirate Rubber Duckie Group on Flickr.

I invited my Flickr friends to host Pirate Rubber Duckie on his trip around the world. I thought it would be fun to see where he ends up. To date, I have sixty hosts signed up from the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia.

We’ve requested to be hosts for PRD (as he is affectionately called) but either way, we will be following the pictures of his travels on flickr.

Besides the opportunity to be a little silly and take pictures of a bath toy with an identity crisis, I love the fact that people all over the world are going to participate. Although it is a very small enterprise, it is heartening to know that we human beings can cooperate in an effort that showcases a lighter side of life.

Hopefully our “application” to join the Pirate Rubber Duckie flickr group will be accepted and we’ll get to host PRD for a spell. Either way, we’ll be following his international trek. I can’t wait to see his adventures.