The past few days are a complete blur of activity. As I said in my audio blog - I ended up going back into work from 8:30 to 11:30 that night. Me, Toni, Kristen and Todd waited for Verl to arrive in the big 24' U-Haul with the shipment that had finally completed it's journey from Shanghai to Seattle. I was sweating it, because my Bossman had put me in complete and total charge of getting everything arranged to clear it through customs and to be picked up at AEI near Seattle. I was nearly biting a hole through my lip when Verl left in the U-Haul. He had to make it to Seattle by 5:00 sharp... and he didn't leave our offices until 2:00. The mountain pass had snow on it, and any number of things could've held him up. The fact that Bossman forked out money to send Verl on this wild mission....and that it had a chance of failing miserably was too much to bear. I saturated my nervousness with as much caffeine as possible - because then at least I was just manically hyper instead of annoyingly anxious.

At 4:45 a called AEI. No, they had not seen our driver yet...and they could not guarantee that anybody would remain after 5:00 to help him if that's when he showed up. I begged and pleaded for her to hang on while I tried to contact his cell. I pressed the phone reciever to my forehead and closed my eyes, willing this phonecall to be a good one.... and then I dialed the number. It rang...and rang....and suddenly I heard Verl's voice on the other end!!

Me: VERL!! Oh my gosh - where are you??

Verl: Are you getting nervous?

Me: YES! *whimper* we're all nervous!

Verl: Well.... (long pause) I just left Wenatchee.

Me: YOU'RE CRUEL!!!!!!!!!! You're MEAN!!!!

Verl: Heheh - actually, I just walked through the front door at AEI.



So he skimmed in with five minutes to spare, and another guy there helped him hand load 147 big boxes into the U-Haul (because the pallet jack wouldn't fit past the wheel wells on the truck. DOH!)

So.....back at the farm, we busied ourselves until Verl finally came rolling in at 8:30. After lifting him on our shoulders and parading him around the office (okay, maybe not) we formed a chain from the loading dock to the conveyer belt that would carry the boxes down into the basement where we'd be sorting everything. We worked until I thought my back was going to snap...tossing those boxes from person to person, then onto the conveyer. But...at last, the last one was sent down, and we did an exhausted dance of triumph.

All the guys took off at that point, and left us girls to head down into the spooky basement to get everything lined out for the crews that would be coming in the next morning. That took us up to about 11:30, when we finally dusted ourselves off, limped up the stairs and went our seperate ways.

The night went WAY too fast....and before I knew it, I was rolling out of bed (we're housesitting in Wenatchee for the next two weeks...so it wasn't even my own comfortable bed! But that's a story for another blog session) and heading back in to work. That happened next was a total blur of boxes...gloves....unpacking, sorting, counting, repacking....conveyer belting....and limping from standing on a cement floor with sandals on from 8:00 in the morning until 6:00 that night. Oh... my............gawd. By the time I drove over to the place we're house sitting, I could barely walk up the front steps to the door. I must have looked like an 80 year old women!!!! But, the important thing was....we got it all sorted, inventoried...and good to go. HUZZAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! At last.

So....needless to say, after scarfing down some pizza from the place just around the corner from where we are staying, I laid on the couch while hubby rubbed my feet...and found myself dozing off. I roused for a moment, and saw that he was snoozing too....so I suggested we just flop into bed and call it a night. It was 8:30 p.m. *laughs!!!!* But bed sounded so good. I'd taken our two awesome oversized sleeping bags and zipped them together so we'd be more cozy comfy sleeping on the strange bed upstairs. I suppose it could've been two wooden planks for all I cared, I was so tired it wouldn't have mattered - I would have fallen asleep anyway.

So...after 11 hours of pure, blissful sleep....I was laying in bed listening to the sound of cars going by the house. (We live out in the country and rarely hear any traffic, so this was a reminder of when we used to live in the city.) Hubby woke up....and the following conversion ensued:


Him: Man... I can't believe how much traffic goes by this place.

Me: I just pretend it's ocean waves crashing on the shore....it makes it a little better.

(lay there listening to several cars or 'waves' go by.......)

Him: Yeah, I see what you mean. And every now and then there's a wave that sounds like a Volkswagon.