The last couple months have been a mixture of feeling like the days are flying by and feeling like they’re dragging on.  There’s a lot to do before we can leave.  We need to schedule our second major flight, get an international driver’s permit, sell or donate 90% of our things, cancel our phone service, give notice at our apartment (not to mention our jobs), finish our financial preparations, and a dozen other things.

Unfortunately, a lot of these things have timelines we can’t really avoid.  You can’t book a flight more than 330 days in advance.  Work doesn’t need four months’ notice, and we can’t cancel our phones yet, because we’re still using them.  Same problem with selling our stuff; I don’t want to have to sit on the floor or have no TV for the next few months.

Pictured: a boring apartment to come home to

This has kind of left me in a weird state where I’m stressed out because there’s an overwhelming amount of things to get done, but no real way to actually check them off the list.  All there really is to do at the moment is wait, which I suppose is good practice for the overnumerousness of the long bus rides and general delays we have in front of us.

I guess that will at least give me time to finish my milk

We do have some exciting things ahead of us in the near future, which alleviates the purgatorial feeling a bit.  Starting Monday, Bridgette and I will be taking bartending lessons!  It’ll be a fun way to keep busy for a couple weeks, and being able to make our own tasty drinks can’t hurt.  Our “ulterior motive” for the class is that bartending is a skill that’s appreciated worldwide, so if and when we decide to pick up some work along the way, we’ll have an additional option open to us.

Next month, we’ll also be heading to Coachella for a weekend!  If you’re not familiar, Coachella is one of the largest music festivals in the country, and is held in the Los Angeles area every year.  Since it’s our last year here, we wanted to be sure not to miss it.

It’s basically its own city

The bartending classes and Coachella should get us through April without dying of boredom, although I am still trying to be a bit more present as I talked about in my last post.  As the date approaches, I become more and more aware of our limited time left in LA, so we’re trying to make the most of it.

Also working hard to keep my mind on the present is this goober:

LOOK AT THAT FACE

My parents have graciously offered to take care of her in our absence, where I’m sure she will have the time of her life.  She’s a California dog, so she has no knowledge of this strange “yard” concept I keep telling her is waiting for her at her grandparents’ house, but I’m sure she’ll be over the moon when she learns what it means.  We’re definitely going to miss her though, so we’re trying to make sure we appreciate the time we have with her.

5 months to go!