I am fairly certain that I lived several lifetimes in the past twenty-four hours. I'm writing this from my living room floor, sitting on a sleeping bag and using an empty cable box as a desk. I just slayed a spider the size of a walnut, and am drinking tap water out of an empty CVS earplug container, because I forgot to bring cups and there is no way I am driving over to Target until I return that damn trailer, because backing up a trailer in a Target parking lot sounds like a bad idea for anyone, and especially someone who just drove seven hours with two furious cats and a comatose dog, and then "slept" (didn't sleep) on a bed-in-a-box mattress on the floor.

Solid parking form.

Our house went into escrow last night. We have thirty days (give or take a few, depending on various logistical complexities) to vacate the house that started out as just the place where we lived, and that has since become our home.

I have thirty days to find a mover, pack up three human beings and three animals, coordinate a 350-mile move to an as-of-yet-unknown location, negotiate leases and school enrollments and doctor referrals and internet hookups, figure out how to handle the fact that I have a business trip scheduled to begin on the day that we are scheduled to move (woooops), and theoretically maintain...you know, like, normal life. Or an approximation of it.

So you know what the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was?

That time we went to Maine and got married.

A little over ten years ago today, Kendrick and I - and his best man, Matt - arrived in Ogunquit, Maine, and checked into our respective hotel rooms. The rest of our family and friends weren't set to start trickling in for a couple of hours more, so we decided to wander down to the main part of town and get some lunch, maybe check out the beach.

We wandered into a little jewelry shop - a touristy gift place, full of t-shirts and hats with GONE FISHING and IT'S BEER O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE and such on them. I spotted this necklace - a gold starfish studded with tiny crystals - and I loved it so much, but when I say that we were broke after paying all of the wedding expenses, I mean we were let's-not-get-coffee-at-the-deli-today-because-it-costs-a-dollar-style broke. The necklace was only twelve dollars, but still. That was twelve coffees.