My Life in Boxes (AKA Closing Time, Part 2)

As I sit here on the eve of what will be my third day as a Wyoming resident, I am looking out at the sky from our top floor deck. Our home has a walk-out basement with patio, a main level deck and an upper story deck. It’s a beautiful view, but that seems to be where the wind blows the most so may not get much use. The clouds are amazing tonight. We had a little rain earlier, but most of the day has been fairly calm.

It was bittersweet leaving our home in Longmont. This move was chosen, but it’s still not easy leaving my hometown for the past 16 years (and growing up!). Our Longmont home officially closes tomorrow and will have new inhabitants in the next few days. I have been thinking about the lyrics to that Semisonic song I discussed a couple of posts ago, Closing Time.

Closing Time

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

This is most certainly a new beginning. Over the past couple of days, I found myself longing for comforting things; my bed (no, not yet, not until tomorrow, for now it’s the taco bed….more about that later); my pillows (nope, not that either as I think they accidentally got packed and loaded onto the moving truck, which doesn’t get unloaded until tomorrow), my dogs. Ok, yes, my dogs are here and, of course, my family members. Those are the most important things anyway, the rest is just stuff.

LOTS of stuff! Pictures below are of the moving truck that arrived on last Friday to load and transport our belongings. And it was packed, PACKED! In fact, they had to bring a smaller truck the next day to finish up the last few items. Yes, we have way too much stuff. We are two households, but still way too much stuff. Working on that…Any of you amazingly clutter-less people have any great ideas on how to get rid of more stuff?

On Friday, as I watched my life in boxes being loaded up into the truck, it was surreal thinking of my life as a matter of number of boxes, weight of the truck, and number of hours of labor. Our lives are obviously more than just boxes filled with stuff, but that’s what I was thinking about. There it goes: My life all packed up in boxes. Almost everyone has moved at some point so we all have watched our lives end up in boxes (no, not THAT kind of box; our lives, not our deaths….different kind of box). Hard to say goodbye to friends and the familiar comforts of the former home, awaiting the new home to become familiar and comfortable. However, remember as I’ve said before, we LOVE visitors and as soon as we’re settled we hope to have some!

Ok, now more about the taco bed. We have a queen sized air mattress that we have been using this weekend until our belongings are unloaded from the truck tomorrow. Even though I don’t think the mattress has a leak, in the morning it folds up like a taco; person or people in the middle almost on the floor and the sides sticking up like a taco shell. Lest you think I am just so clever to have made up the taco bed, I must confess, I did not. The term was actually coined by my brother who was staying at our parent’s home many years ago and their air mattress did seem to have a leak and the bed was folded around him like a taco in the morning. At least ours has maybe half the amount of air by the morning so we’re not completely on the floor. However at night if one of us gets up, the bed molds just so and the other person basically falls off the other side from the motion and shifting air. Is it stretching? Does it really have a slow leak? How can this happen? I’m not really sure. This phenomenon will forever be known as the taco bed in our family. ‘Last night I slept on an air mattress that deflated.’ ‘Oh, you mean a taco bed? We have one of those too!’

Needless to say, even though I’ve been exhausted from moving, I haven’t really gotten a great night’s sleep.

But we do have a beautiful new home and a beautiful new landscape to view outside of our home. We have family togetherness, dogs have a huge yard to run around in, and we have many new adventures awaiting us in the great state of Wyoming, on our land and in the state. My youngest son, Ethan, seems to be adjusting well and looks forward to unpacking his stuff into his new room.

I even know a couple of people here in Cheyenne, and even went to a Fourth of July party that was fabulous (despite the spark that traveled up the long driveway, up my T-shirt to make a burn streak and singed my hair a tiny bit). And amazing hostess, if you’re reading this, thank you so much for including these former Coloradans at your home last night! Cheyenne residents know how to do Independence Day right!

By the way, if you read my last blog post I did go back and buy the buffalo canvas print. I’ve found the perfect spot for it 🙂

Until next time…