NORMALCY

Perhaps I should be wrapping up small items in bubble wrap once Ray has gone to bed.  Today, after we painted the steps going down the stairs to the unfinished basement (our Realtor told us it would be good to clean it up a bit), and while it was sleeting and dropping freezing rain outside (Tuesday it is going to be five degrees maybe), I decided to wrap a few things in bubble wrap that I know I am taking with us to Panama. Some of the things are simple knick knacks that are on shelves around the house that will only look like clutter to potential buyers when we put the house up for sale.  Swarovski crystal figurines (animals) that my mom collected.  Figurines my daughter has bought me for birthdays and past Christmases along with things she has made me.  Those being a heart shaped bowl, a small terra cotta bowl and a flat heart made of flour and water (or maybe cement) with her hand print in it.  The Christmas ornaments she made are already packed up.  I am also taking four little blue bottles (I have may have written about this in a past post).  I bought these blue bottles for fifty cents to a dollar each when I was in fifth grade for my mom for Christmas.  Long story short, my dad gave me a hard time about buying them.  We had a red, white and blue bathroom at the time.  I thought the blue was pretty.  My dad kept them on a shelf for ten years before one crashed down and broke.  My mom told me how badly he felt and how much he realized what those blue bottles meant to me--that I could buy something at age ten with my own money, and why I wanted them to have them.  So those are going with us to Panama.   I eyed my dad's grandmothers coffee pot from 1929.  Never used, but there is a note inside the pot with the story about it written by my dad 1/3/99.  This is when Ray asked that question, "how much stuff are you taking"?  I haven't a clue.  I know that in my head it is very little, but to him it is about two suitcases full.  Horrors.  haha
The good is that we can keep things stored at the lake house and not take everything, such as Christmas ornaments, with us on our first trip settling there.   And the other good is that there isn't really a bad here.  To be fair, Ray is just sorting things out in his head, thinking ahead and being practical.  I would rather just walk around the house wrapping things up as I go along, and think about the daunting task of putting it all in suitcases when the time comes.  I mean, come on.  Normally, yes, I would start this early packing things up.  But I would also be thinking about things the way Ray is thinking about things.  We are alike in that regard.  But then I think, this really isn't normal what we are doing.  This is not usual or ordinary.  This is so out of the box for us and as un-normal as we can get.  Then my last thought is "well, this is just our new normal", and I really think (hoping here most of all!) we are going to like what our new normal brings us!