[Countdown as it stands: six more days of work // fifteen days until we pick up the truck // seventeen days to M day]

The great packing fiasco has begun. This weekend we took a car load of stuff to Goodwill, and after carrying it all up to the car, decided that we had better start an exercise program to get pumped for the big day. That's right: we got winded carrying four bags of clothes/books/miscellaneous whatever and a computer monitor up to the car. We are weak and girly.

I managed to go through one drawer of papers yesterday and then pack said drawer into a box. I also built two more boxes and put all of our paper-type office supplies in one of them, and started putting my writing notebooks in another. Brandon put half of his clothes in a very large box. At first, he was taking them all off the hangers and folding them (somewhat) neatly into the box. I said, "What are you doing that for? If you put them in there ON the hangers, they'll be a lot easier to put away at the other end." He liked that idea a lot.

I have not yet given my notice at work. I've tried, honestly, but Frank has been out of the office since last Tuesday because of TWO deaths in his family/friends and I REALLY don't want to tell Laurie without Frank being around. I swore I would do it today even if he wasn't here, but he's not here, and now I'm chickening out. GOD. I hate confrontation. I also hate being such a weenie.

Finally, the cat threw up on the laptop keyboard yesterday. We cleaned most of it off, but stopped before removing the keys from the keyboard and decided to let it dry out thoroughly before turning it on again. I went 24 hours without using a computer. It may be a new record for me.

I realized today why I have so badly wanted to leave Southern California almost since the day we moved here. Put quite simply, I don't fit in.

Let me start by explaining to you a little bit about my day Wednesday.

At 8:00 in the morning, I was in a housing development in Newport Coast called Shady Canyon, where none of the homes is under a couple of million dollars. I was in one of the model homes for a construction company which would sell for no less than $14.4 million. It has an exercise room and a movie theater in the basement, and the master suite is larger than my entire apartment.

I was there for a photo shoot for a client of the PR firm I work for. The client is a fine jewelry designer, and we were shooting their new consumer advertising campaign. He brought more than $3 million worth of jewelry -- that's $3 million cost. (Triple it for retail prices.)

The stylist for the shoot showed up, and she had several large, painful looking sores on her face. She told us that she had gone to her dermatologist for a facial peel, and it had burned her terribly, but she assured us that it will make her skin look amazing. If the sores don't scar. When our boss turned up an hour and a half late, she expressed her concern that the model would be too "fat" (her words) to fit into the clothes she had picked out. The model was six feet tall and a size six.

Fortunately, the model had no trouble fitting into the clothes that our boss had purchased on her credit card and fully intended to return -- worn -- to the stores. My boss did complain that the model's breasts were slightly too large for some of the tops. I quipped that if that was our biggest issue, we were probably going to be fine. The model was gorgeous, with beautiful sleek, shiny black hair and lovely, flawless brown skin. My boss was concerned whether the photographer would be able to photoshop out the beauty mark on her neck and hand, but he assured her that it wouldn't be a problem. Then the makeup artist put spray-on body makeup all over the model's arms and legs.

While we were waiting for the model to finish getting ready, my boss and the stylist were chatting, and my boss mentioned that she had read that Demi Moore has had a knee lift. She wanted to know where she could get one.

After arriving before anyone else, making sure the house was open, learning to use the lighting and music system, meeting the caterers, greeting the photographer, model, makeup artist and hair stylist, shoot stylist, and jewelry clients, my boss told me she was glad I had come to the shoot after all -- so that I could drive her nanny back to her house before I went into the office. My intern was allowed to stay, ostensibly because she has dark skin and could "stand in" for the model while the photographer sets up shots. My suspicion is that it was because our intern wears more fashionable clothing than I do.

And that was when I realized it. I can't compete with that mentality. I don't fit in here, and I never will.

And frankly, I'm not sure I would ever want to.

So, we have a place to live. Probably. Sort of.

We picked a place, at any rate (pictures can be viewed here -- scroll down), and we called the agent on Sunday morning, and she said, "Come to my office," and we did, and we signed a lease, but--

They still have to run a credit check, which shouldn't be a problem because we have excellent credit. Apparently, however, the owners are nervous about us not having jobs yet (can't imagine why!) and want us to put down TWO months' rent as a deposit and prove that we have six months' rent in savings. Which we do. But still. It is a little nerve wracking. We should know today if we are approved.

I guess this is why people are all, "BWAH???" when we say we are moving without having jobs yet. Whatever. It is an adventure.

About the place! It is a condo, second floor unit (which means no one above us) with two bedrooms and two full bathrooms, a gas fireplace, vaulted ceilings, and a detached garage. It also has pretty "designer" paint, which I like. And the second bedroom (which will be my office/guest room) is a happy yellow color! Coincidentally, my desk is yellow! WOAH! Fate much? (Although we may have to get a new cover for the sofa, because I'm not sure that the red will go with the green in the kitchen/dining room. We shall see.)

(I'm being awfully parenthetical today, aren't I?)

The place is in Broomfield, which is a smallish town roughly half-way between Denver and Boulder. It is VERY rural out there. It's basically like north Plano or Frisco, for you North Texans out there: lots of brand new housing developments right next to cow pastures. There are people with horses down the street from us. And people with goats. Yay goats! We did, however, discover that we have a Safeway and a Super Target relatively nearby, and a Washington Mutual, which is good, because that is where we do our banking.

Our front porch faces West with a view of the mountains, which makes us happy. Brandon already has plans to put a "thinking chair" out there. The rest of the windows face South which means lots of light.

We also have discovered that everything is relative in terms of distance. Our new place FEELS like it is out in the middle of nowhere, but really, it is less than 15 miles from downtown Denver, and about the same distance (give or take) to downtown Boulder. We can reach the mountains in under 20 minutes. There are walking paths and bike paths absolutely everywhere, and the property backs to a golf course. It seems pretty idyllic to us.

I forgot what dark looked like. I forgot what cold felt like.

I will be glad to be living a little closer to reality in the near future, and not so much in the OC.

Our top contender right now is in the small suburb of Broomfield, Colorado. We like the condo itself a lot, and the price is right. It is, however, way out in the middle of nowhere. There are horses up the block from us. And goats.

This might be a good thing, or it might not, we're not really sure.

More tomorrow.

We take off on our whirlwind weekend trip to Denver early tomorrow morning to try to find someplace to live. Photos of the contenders when we return.

Well, the gears are turning and the plans are beginning to be set in motion. This week Brandon and I are trying to plan our time for our whirlwind Denver trip coming up in just 7 days! We've been sifting through Craigslist, Housing Helpers, and Rent Clicks looking for fabulous places to stay, and we've found a fair few. Our next challenge is going to be trying to contact all of these people and set up times to view the properties in the scant 56 hours or so that we're going to actually be in Denver.

My project for the week has been registering with The Creative Group, a really cool placement agency for "creatives" like myself. They do freelance, temp, and temp to permanent -- but the best part is that even if you're a freelancer or a temp with the agency, you get the benefits of full time employment, like insurance, paid days off, sick leave, etc. Can I get a WOOT! Hooray for gainful employment!

Anyway, I spent this afternoon filling out their lengthy online registration forms, and I realized, almost ALL of my jobs have involved some sort of creative work since the very beginning. I've always found a way to work some sort of creative aspects into my jobs, and, more than that, I have almost always excelled at my jobs far beyond the original scope of the job description.

All I can say is, go me!

I've been using this great web app called Backpack for a little while now, and I've created a Colorado page which you are welcome to view. Check out the condos we're looking at maybe renting, see how much we have left to do on our to do lists (OH MY GOD) and just generally check up on us. If you're interested.