Short update

So much has happened in the last 3 weeks! We went from finally getting Casey's defense date, getting phone calls from our Realtor, various mortgage companies, etc. to booking a flight to Chicago to look at houses, changing Casey's defense date (again!), leaving for Chicago, looking at 9 houses, narrowing it down to one, making an offer, negotiating, and signing the paperwork. The inspection went fine, and now we're gearing up for craziness... Casey just went to Swearingen to turn in his dissertation, we planned a night out with friends tomorrow night, Sunday I'm baking cookies for our neighbor (he mowed our lawn again while we were away, and his birthday is Tuesday, like Casey's). Monday night the Hetricks come in, Tuesday at 1:00 Casey defends, we plan to go out to dinner that night to celebrate his birthday (and getting his Ph.D!!), Wednesday and Thursday the movers come, and Friday we head to Chicago. It's kind of fun to be this busy, though- it really gives me more energy, in a way. I don't have much time to nap anymore, which is a good habit to get out of. So yeah... I'm getting ready to go in to work (again) even though my last official day was on Wednesday... I left some things a bit unorganized so I wanted to straighten it up a bit, and then one of the post docs wants to take the staff out for lunch while I'm still here. That reminds me of a funny story!
On Wednesday, I went out to lunch with the rest of the staff. We went up to McCutchen House which is all the way up the hill on the Horseshoe. We thought we could walk the normal route up the hill, until we got to a fence that was blocking the way because of construction. Diane decides that we should all climb the fence. We help each other over the fence, and we're pretty proud of ourselves for making it over without getting hurt, when this big guy strolls up to us with papers in his hand. At that point, we were all pretty sure we were going to get fined for trespassing or something. Diane starts on a list of reasons why we were climbing the fence, and that we were late to lunch and would never do it again... we were so sorry! The guy looks at us and says, "I don't give a shit, I'm just a truck driver!" LOL... that's pretty much my favorite quote recently. I snapped a picture of him as he was walking away, which I'll add to the post. It was really a fun last day at work. I thought I'd cry all day, but I didn't at all. The only time I almost lost it was yesterday. I went back in to work (maybe I should still be on the payroll??) and handed out some of the cards I didn't get to pass out to people on Wednesday. I went downstairs to give Donn his card, and he got really teared up. That was hard to see. Then we went into Mike's office and he got sad, too. He said, "You know I love ya, kid." I didn't lose it, but at that point I really wanted to. It's always hard for me to see men get emotional. It's especially weird to know that it was because of me. I'm going to go back in today to see them again... I've tried to tell everyone that it's not "goodbye", it's "see ya later". We know we'll be back. Hell, at this point, I'll be in to work every day until we drive out of Columbia. But it's neat to know that I've made such great friends here. I will truly miss them.
On a brighter note, I need to go get ready for lunch. I got my hair cut yesterday, and so far I really like it! It's a lot shorter than it was previously. It's more of a chin-length bob now. Hopefully I can style it today so it *somewhat* resembles the way she styled it yesterday when she cut it. We'll see.
Anyway, this went from a 'short update' to a novel. OH well, I've been meaning to update recently anyway. More later...

-Ash

PS: For some reason it won't let me post pictures right now, so I'll try again later.