coming to you from amidst a forest of cardboard, high from the smell of sharpie markers.

moving sucks because it's possible to focus so much on packing and making your way from room-to-room that it's sorta easy to forget you're leaving a place you love.

but then you sit down on the couch at 20 past 11, look around at the fort of boxes that surrounds you and the tears start to well up.

i'm sitting on the left end of the couch. but i sat on the right end of the couch - in this living room - nine months ago when i brought my baby home from the hospital. a few months before that, we painted her room. a few months before that we moved in, knowing this humble 864 square feet would be ellie's first home.

this is the last night we'll sleep here. this is the last night i put ellie to bed here. tomorrow we'll load the truck and then spend the night in a motel. friday morning, we pull out bright and early.

also every time you move you realize how freakin much crap you have. i mean, honestly, there has to be some sort of award for who can stuff the most crap into a small space. someone let me know if there is such a thing. 'cause i'd win.

thank goodness delana is here. she's been helping me. as i type, she's still wrapping dishes in the kitchen. my mom helped some too, but she's had work and car trouble and all that stuff. she is the queen of packing. i'm trying to talk her in to coming to san angelo this weekend to help me UNpack.

oh, sheesh. i don't even wanna go there at this point.

the other weird thing about this whole deal is that i'm turning 25 tomorrow.

25.

2-5.

a quarter of a century.

i'm not quite sure what to think.

i do know that i'm excited to have a big birthday dinner with my family tomorrow night, though i have already stuffed my shirt sleeves with tissues.

i'm gonna need 'em.