happy place

i do not handle stress well. and the term 'well' is being entirely too generous. i have the utmost respect for those of you in my life who when faced with a large mountain to climb simply put one foot in front of the other and take one step at a time. im not that person. in college, rather than begin cramming for exams that i was unprepared for, i took long naps or went out with friends. in recent weeks with the realization that our move was imminent, i hosted dinner parties and dined with friends.

i made a lame attempt to prepare for the mother of all garage sales (our master plan at downsizing our abundant 'stuff' collection before the big move) a bit of background...our housing development being full of the military moving type hosts a mega garage sale every year. its the only one ive ever made it to and if not for the crazies knocking on our door at 6 am, i would have missed this one as well. anyway, it is a great opportunity to unload all of your junk on others and make some money while doing it. unfortunately, the evening before this years blow out had us flying home from palm springs at midnight. the 'planner' in me decided i needed to price my basement full of stuff well in advance and lucky me had 3 great friends who offered to help. i made dinner, we drank wine and by the end of the night decided we'd save some time and put a sign in the yard that said "everything $1.50". yep. thats how it goes. i prefer to distract myself from the unpleasantries of stress with all things enjoyable. we made some money at the garage sale inspite of my brilliant idea and being taken by a fast talking professional garage sale swindler for $39 (more on that another time). anyway, back to the happy place...


the night before our packers came, we had friends over for dinner. the night after they came we went to a party. totally enjoying my happy place. most people try to supervise the movers when they are in their house carefully or not so packing their life away. not me. i like to stay as far away from the progress as possible. pat found it amusing daily by playing a game similar to 'wheres waldo' only it was more like 'wheres katies happy place'. he found me painting my nails on the deck until they packed up our patio furniture, then hiding under the covers in our room at noon while the packers being the worker bees that they were worked on our living room. of course there were the constant offers to go get pizza, drinks, mail...really anything to leave the house.


at one point pat called out, 'katie, are you up here??' to which someone under covers replied they hadnt seen her all afternoon. now that we are out of our house, our life is in boxes crated somewhere in the black hills awaiting a 2 month ship ride to korea (or 'land of the not quite right' as pat calls it) and i am enjoying some wonderful family time in estes park, im feeling much better. im in a new happy place awaiting the next moment of stress that requires my quick duck and hide evasive maneuver. its interesting that as im writing this i am in our condos lobby during the most hectic time of day as my family of 7 adults and 5 children are trying to prepare dinner with kiddos running wild in a kitchen not big enough for all of them. hmm. maybe this is another lame attempt at a happy place. its working. im happy and out of the mix.