[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.

We went to the beach this afternoon, and I experienced a moment of nostalgia.

I want to have dinner our last night here somewhere I can see the ocean.

Of course, I'm trading ocean for mountains. Not a bad exchange. But I will miss the beach.

We bit the bullet and made our moving truck reservation today. We're picking up the truck down in Oceanside, because that little 50 mile drive saves us nearly $1500. Seems well worth it to me.

So now, all the reservations are made: we have flights to Denver for the first week in November plus a rental car and hotel for finding a place to live, Mom and Dad have booked their flights to help us do the actual move, and now we have a truck.

I guess this is really going to happen!

One cool thing about moving is that you get to start with a clean slate in a lot of ways. I'm really uber excited about getting a clean slate when it comes to the design of our new living space.

In preparation for this exciting new challenge, I've been doing some research and collecting some cool websites to give me ideas and inspiration for what we're going to call Lacy's "design on a dime."

• These articles on "rental renovation" have some really great ideas on how to make significant, but temporary, changes to a rental. In fact, this website it chock full of good articles like what not to scrimp on when decorating, how to find cool stuff on Craigslist, moving to a new city, and even the basics of color theory for those of us who are somewhat design challenged.
  
• Speaking of color, this nifty color scheme generator is intended for use by web designers, but I could see it having practical applications in home design as well. (I used it when designing the layout of this blog -- what do you think?)
  
• Apartment Therapy is a really cool interior design blog based on the concepts of the book with the same name. They even have free little 8 week courses to walk you through implementing the ideas from the book in your own home. I have got to get my hands on a copy ASAP!
  
• I'm also really excited about joining the freecycle network -- it's an online community of people who want to give their things a new home. Say, for example, I'm getting rid of a chair before we move. I could post it on the freecycle network, and if anyone out there wants it, they can come and pick it up for free! A much more sanitary method of dumpster diving.
  
• Finally, I'm keeping an eye out for cool sites like Re-found for ideas and products that might inspire me.

Have you got any great resources for design I should know about? SHARE!

Apparently, everyone has the same idea as us and wants to get OUT of California!

We've been looking online at moving truck rental prices, and everyone is having big sales and great deals if you want to move TO California -- apparently there is a shortage of trucks!

For example, if we wanted to move from Santa Fe to California (again), a truck would cost us about $300. But if we want to go from California to Santa Fe -- or Denver, or Boulder, or pretty much anywhere -- the same truck could cost as much as $3,000!

That's highway robbery, if you ask me (pun intended!).

I hate rental truck companies.

Finally! I've finished uploading and tagging all our pictures from our Colorado fact-finding trip!

To view of slideshow of all our pictures, Click Here!

In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites:

Here is Brandon, in front of the Capitol building, exactly one mile above sea level.


Some elk in Rocky Mountain National Park


Snow and doughnuts at the top of Pike's Peak!


Sherrif Brandon in Sedona, Arizona


And me, looking tired after a week of driving.

So, I do have a lot to say about our trip, but I was kind of waiting until all our pictures were developed so I could illustrate the story as we go along.

Brandon and I had a talk yesterday about moving and -- yeah. We're really doing it. We will be moving into our new place in the Denver/Boulder metro area by December 1.

This is a little bit terrifying.

Last night we went out with some friends from church, and one of the couples is also planning on moving to the Denver area because of a job change, so they were asking us all about our trip. When we admitted that we would probably (most likely, almost certainly) be leaving right after Thanksgiving, one of the women said, "But you can't leave before Christmas! The choir needs you!"

To be honest, we haven't made a whole lot of friends out here in sunny CA. I can probably count on one hand -- OK, I can EASILY count on one hand -- the number of friends I will miss when we leave. I can count acquaintances, like choir people and my writing group on two hands. But it's always hard to leave friends behind. I can't honestly say if I will keep in touch with any of these people once we are away from here, but no one likes to say goodbye.

I am NOT looking forward to telling my choir director that a) I'm leaving "before Christmas" as Kathy pointed out, and b) that I've joined a writing group that meets every other Thursday -- meaning that I will only be able to attend choir on the alternate Thursdays. I don't think he will be happy with me. (That and the fact that I have been avoiding him and church all summer to get out of singing a solo -- man doesn't take no for an answer.)

Of course, the good will hopefully outweigh the bad for our move. We wouldn't be moving if we didn't believe it to be so. But at the same time, change is hard for me. Especially monumental, 1,500 mile new state change.

It may be a little late for us, but I just found out that the Denver/Boulder metro area has been voted best city for singles three years in a row! Wow. That's a lot of singles.

Our road trip to the mile high city commences tomorrow morning early, though we won't actually make it to Colorado until Sunday. We're spending our first night at Zion National Park in Utah -- expect many photos to come!

I'm not sure if we're taking the computer or not, but there will be plenty of bloggage when we return, so stay tuned!

The Perseid, a meteor shower that was first witnessed almost 1,000 years ago, makes its grand entrance in August, and peaks on August 12th -- the first night of our Colorado trip and the night we'll be camping in Zion! The show starts at 9 p.m. and goes 'til dawn. At peak times, you might see as many as 15 - 20 meteors per hour. Locate the constelation Perseus in the sky -- that's the area of the sky where the shower originates.

I am so very much a child of the internet age. As soon as Brandon and I started talking about the possibility of moving to Colorado, we started doing research about it -- online.

Our approaches, however, are somewhat different. Brandon is more apt to search for crime rates, housing statistics, and employment/unemployment rates, while I prefer looking at tourist websites and, most recently BLOGS.

My favorites so far include the Elevated Voices blog, produced by the luxury magazine 5820, and the Colorado For Free Blog is really right up my alley. The first is a conglomeration of the news around and about Denver, while the second is exactly what it sounds like -- listings of things to do in Colorado for free!.

It's a whole new look for this blog!

Brandon and I have been happily married for 10 months now, and are enjoying married life more and more each day. I loved updating this blog with all of our wedding news, and I thought it would be fun to reinvent it as a place to talk about our next big adventure: relocating to Colorado.

Brandon and I have been talking for a long time about moving away from the Land of Fruits and Nuts (ie: Southern California) to somewhere we could really see ourselves settling down, buying a house, and maybe even starting a family. Colorado has always been at the top of that list for a lot of reasons, including that it would bring us much closer to both of our families. Our lease here is up at the end of November, and it seems like all signs are pointing to the fact that this is the time to GET OUT OF DODGE!

So the adventure begins next month with our week long vacation to Colorado to try to get to know the Denver metro area and see if it is really a place we could see ourselves living.

I'm so excited! It's really starting to feel real.

We spent the majority of the afternoon today working out our plan for our Colorado trip. Originally scheduled for June, it had to be postponed due to unexpected kitty craziness, so now we are planning to go the third week in August.

And I'm so excited! It's looking to be such a great trip. We're leaving Saturday the 12th and we're hoping to get as far as Zion National Park in Utah, where we plan to camp overnight. We're hoping to get in on one of their cool shuttle tours of the park before heading on to The Peck House in Georgetown, Colorado.

Georgetown is about 45 miles west of Denver, and one of Colorado's original gold mining towns, and The Peck House is a five star restaurant and bed and breakfast in the mountains. We're hoping for a really relaxing dinner and stay there Sunday night before heading to Rocky Mountain National Park on Monday morning.

We have a reservation at the Moraine Park campground and plan to spend Monday driving and hiking around the park. I am particularly excited about the prospect of summer "Campfire Talks" given by the rangers. Because I am a dork for stuff like that.

Tuesday we will head into Denver proper, probably by way of Boulder. We have a reservation at a hotel in Denver for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. We plan to drive around the city, trying to get a feel for the different neighborhoods and where we might like to end up. We definitely want to spend some time downtown, probably in the area of the 16th Street Mall and LoDo, and we're also talking about making a visit to the zoo, the Natural History Museum, and probably at least one brewery.

Friday night we are hoping to stay in one of the camping cabins at the Garden of the Gods just outside Colorado Springs. They just look so kitschy and cute! We also hope to take the Pike's Peak Cog Railway to the top of Pike's Peak to get a panoramic view of the state before heading home.

Saturday we will head south, probably stopping in Flagstaff or Sedona, or wherever we happen to end up (no reservations for Saturday night) and on home by Sunday.

More details as we finalize them!

Our invitations arrived this weekend! We've been working hard to get them assembled and in their envelopes so they can get in the mail ASAP!

Things are happening faster and faster around here!

We recieved the invitations last night and started assembling them. They're very cool. I'm happy with the way they turned out, and today, I'm trying to order the announcements that will go with them.

We've also got the audio equipment rented, so their will be music and dancing, and Brandon rented a Jaguar for driving around on the wedding day.

Tres fancy.

The other big thing is that we're planning to sign up for dance lessons.

!!!

Very exciting. They're going to help us choreograph our wedding dance.

Somebody break out the video cameras -- this is going to be one for posterity.

=D