This afternoon I sealed my 11th box shut. All my STUFF will be picked up on Tuesday morning, packed on a palette, and put on a ship from Sydney to San Francisco - arriving in the middle of July sometime.

I'm sitting here looking at the boxes (oh, so can you!) and thinking about the next time I see them and open the boxes I'll be not here. Profound. I know. What's crazier is that I moved here with just the three suitcases you see in the picture. That would be the least amount of stuff I've ever possessed (never mind the house and stuff in storage in Atlanta and at my mom's house, and at other people's houses n Atlanta...) and when I moved into my last place here I had 5 car loads of stuff. And a car! And now I'm back to this amount of stuff. Not quite fighting weight - but pretty damn close. And not bad for 3 years of living.




Anyhoo... it's weird to have everything packed up. I move into my friend Frances' house this week and then I'm on the countdown... 4 weeks till work finishes, then some holiday, and then I leave.

At this exact moment I"m okay with it all. But in the next moment I'll be very sad. It's a roller coaster for sure. Especially cause things are feeling very settled at the moment; my life seems to have decided to work itself out right before I leave.

Yummy!

I found A&W Root Beer in the IGA in the city... so I had a Root Beer Float. For the first time in 3 years! YUM.


This IGA also sold Diet Dr. Pepper. Of course. In the last 2 months here I find my favorites.

And the store had JujyFruits! Double Yum!

Running on a whim

Well, I did the Canberra half marathon two weekends ago, but it wasn't pretty. Not at all. Having run twice in the previous 5 weeks, each time for 30 minutes - I knew I was in for a world of hurt... but I figured I had enough gumption and base fitness (ha!) to go for it.

It was a beautiful fall day in Canberra, and the route of the race is one of my favorites - around the lake, through the west basin, and almost everyone I knew was doing it too. Peer pressure anyone?

It went really well, considering! My 'race plan' (more like survival plan) was to run 5K and walk for 5min after each one. That worked for the first 10K and then that third 5K just blew out on me. THe last 5K + 1.1K I don't really remember. It was such a beautiful day thought, and everyone else (who'd finished WAY ahead of me) was waiting for me at the finish line. And I got a groovy medal, cause it was the 40th running of the race. That's probably the farthest I'd run without proper training, and even that was pushing it.

I'm know trying to focus on getting a training routine going again, which is tough at the best of times, let alone when I'm trying to coordinate outbreaks at work, prepare to handover my job in 4 weeks, pack up my life, plan a trip to NZ and Darwin, start dating a new guy (!), sell my car, and not lose my brain along the way. So my goal is a 20 minute run each night this week. Baby steps people. It's a matter of urgency now that I only fit into my 2 pairs of 'big' pants. Oy.

Was in Thredbo last weekend with Kate and Frances - Kate won a weekend package at the last triahlon we did earlier this year. It was very fun, even if we were among only 9 non-workers that were there! The winter opening season is in 2 weekends, so to say that it was dead is the understatement of the year. But I reckon it's one of the best times to go - there was a little bit of snow around, so you got to see a bit of summer alpine with a bit of winter alpine. We walked to Mt. Koziosko (13K return, and spelling is totally off there!) and about 10% of the mesh walkway was covered in snow. It was gorgeous! And I've got a nice bruise on my left knee from slipping on the walkway... I'm such a flipping clutz.

Where am I in all this work work work work?????