West of Eden

When I was a kid I measured the passage of time in relation to events. Two more weeks until Christmas. One more week until Christmas. Five more days until Christmas.

For some reason, the most important marker was THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. The day after tomorrow is Christmas. The day after tomorrow is my birthday. The day after tomorrow school starts (yeah, I always looked forward to that.) I still measure time that way and the day after tomorrow is still the most important marker. I never use that measure for yucky things, only for fun things.

Yesterday it was a mantra: The day after tomorrow we leave for Utah. The day after tomorrow we leave for Utah. And now it's tomorrow and I'm hanging by my fingernails. DS1 needs work so I took the day off to run errands and pack so he could sub for me (he's a great sub, too, so it's not like I'm employing an idiot out of charity or something.) Then, tomorrow, we'll be on the road by 3:30, spend the night in Primm and then be "home" in the early afternoon.

Let the healing begin.

I'm even looking forward to the first part of the trip which ain't so good. SoCA freeways for two hours, then the trek across the Mojave Desert (how did they survive it on foot and without rest areas?) and on to Nevada. We'll take the back way into Lancaster and are hoping to see some wildflowers. The poppies were blooming last week so maybe some remnants. But, even if we miss them, at least we'll be out-of-here.

As excited as we are to just be going "home" for the week, our excitement has been enhanced since November because our architect said she would try to have some preliminary sketches for us to check out on this trip. Now we are all aflutter (well, I am; I can't picture DH aflutter, but he's pretty excited) because she emailed us yesterday that she wants to meet with us at least three times next week. Sounds like she plans to make some significant progress in getting this done.

I'm nervous and excited at the same time. I have a very clear vision of what I want this house to look like and work like, but I can't have what I want. It would be way too big and way too expensive. What I've tried to do is "let go" and approach it as if we are touring model homes and this set of plans will be the floorplan for a home that is close enough and can be altered to be closer to the vision.

As always, I have a long list of Things do Do while on this vacation. I'm taking my "...Spring..." quilt so that I can mark some of the embroidery onto the borders, my "Firefly Faeries" so I can finish the blue fairy, and
Bent Creek's "The Lighthouse" sampler (a gift). I'm about finished with The Eldest by Christopher Paolini so will take that for falling asleep reading. DH promises we'll listen to The Mayflower and I'll take my romances on CD to listen to while I stitch. We plan several walks (including a promised moose hunt with the architect on her property in the same valley), and I'm hoping to spend a little time in the Family History library in SLC (four years visiting the area and this historian hasn't made it there, yet) as well as in the green building center there. Oh, yeah, and another trip to Utah House for ideas and a tour of the Tracy Aviary and...

Well, probably most of that will go by way of napping in my comfortable chair, as usual. But that's OK. It's vacation, right?