So, yeah, at the moment our apartment is a disaster area. Some stuff is in boxes, some stuff is making its way to boxes, and some stuff is just sitting there mocking the very idea of being put in a box. “You can’t make me. I won’t go,” it says. “Like hell!” I say and cram it into a box, whether or not there’s room.
We’ve been doing a countdown, Pete and I. Not to moving day, though. The countdown is to dishwasher day, which happens to coincide with moving day. That’s right, we’re celebrating the day we have a dishwasher. It’s been 5 1/2 years since I’ve lived in a place that has one – and probably about the same time for Pete – so we’re very, very excited about this. We both dislike doing dishes but prefer to have a clean kitchen. Leads to a bit of a quandary most days… just exactly how much of a mess can we stand before it makes us crazy and we have to do dishes? In 4 days, though, we’ll wonder no more. Instead of stacking dirty dishes in the sink with the promise that we’ll wash them in the morning – a promise we even kept sometimes! – we’ll be putting them straight into the dishwasher. Clear counters, clean dishes, minimal effort - sounds like heaven to me!
Of course, thinking about all this as “dishwasher day” rather than “moving day” is an intentional choice. It’s done to obscure the fact that we’re leaving an apartment we like with a deck we LOVE in a town we enjoy to move to a slightly smaller place with no basement and very little character. If we could have made Pete’s commute to work feasible while staying in Quakertown, we would have but there was just no way to do it. We found the best place we could and, to be honest, it’s not all that bad. It’s just that neither Pete nor I are big fans of big transitions. Oh well, we’re sucking it up and getting ready to celebrate the first annual Dishwasher Day! 
__________________________________________________________________________________________
On an unrelated note, I have a post for this blog that’s been rattling around my head for a few months. For a couple of years now I’ve been enjoying listening to “This I Believe” on NPR broadcasts and on their podcast. They’re no longer broadcasting on air but the podcasts have been continuing. I’ve been wondering over the past few years what I would say if I wrote an essay for This I Believe. How do I put my finger on what I believe? It’s been a harder exercise than I expected. Sure, I’ve tried to live a good life and I know that there are things I think are right but to try to put a finger on a belief that guides me in many areas of my life? That’s tough. I think I may finally have come to it though. I’m looking forward to posting it here but I need a little bit of quiet space in my life to write it, maybe a quiet, rainy Saturday afternoon. Things have been a little nuts around here with the yard sale, the packing, some celebrations recently, etc. but I look forward to having a little quiet time to put my thoughts on (electronic) paper. So, with that, I’ll leave you hanging… (got to keep you coming back somehow! It’s certainly not with my frequent posts and pearls of wisdom.)
