Yeah…we haven’t made much headway on the unpacking yet. Good thing Brenda’s coming to help us with that. She and Bug are flying here tomorrow, and will be here for two weeks, whee! That should give us plenty of time to unpack and do a little sightseeing too.

Since we knew Brenda was coming to whip us into shape, we weren’t in a huge hurry to get the unpacking done. We decided it would be a good idea to paint Annalie’s room while most of her stuff was still in easy-to-move boxes. Her bedroom was a dark wine red that, while a lovely color, wasn’t a great color for a little girl. Also the room just needed to be painted, it had obviously been a few years.

Sunday we primed. I had photos of us priming the room, including some cute ones of Annalie making crazy designs with a paintbrush. I thought I had downloaded them, so I cleared the memory card. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Oh well.

Yesterday morning when Annalie realized that we were going to wait for Troy to get home before we started the actual painting, she was rather annoyed. She wanted to paint! She wanted princessy, ballerinaesque, girly-foo-foo pink walls! So by the time Troy got home, we ate dinner and changed into our painting clothes, she was super excited.

We carefully explained to Annalie that if she wanted to paint, she would have to listen carefully to our instructions and follow them. She definitely likes to do things her own way so I thought that might be a dealbreaker right there, but no. Annalie listened, repeated the instructions back to us, and nodded determinedly when we asked if she understood that if she didn’t follow the directions that she would have to stop painting.

I remember when my mom painted my room when I was about Annalie’s age. I was all excited about it till I actually helped with the painting a little and realized how boring it was. I thought Annalie would do something similar. She stuck it out though!

Annalie painted and painted, followed the directions to the letter, and only had a couple of small mishaps (getting a bit of pink paint on the baseboard and accidentally putting her hand on a wet wall when she lost her balance) both of which were things that everyone does sooner or later while they’re painting. In all, I’d say Annalie was responsible for about a quarter of the paint that got on the walls in that first coat, which is pretty respectable for a five-year-old. She just kept rolling on the paint till it was time for bed.

Okay, she stopped a couple of times for breaks, but I don’t blame her for that. Those rollers are heavy when they’re loaded with paint. And five-year-olds may not need coffee breaks but they definitely need silly breaks.

Heck, even dads need silly breaks once in a while.

By the time Annalie announced that she was tired and we realized it was 15 minutes past her bedtime, we’d almost completely finished the first coat. While I got Annalie into bed, Troy finished up and cleaned the rollers and brushes and trays. Today we did it all over again for the second coat.

Even though it’s a bit crazy that we painted right away, I think it was easier since we just had to move boxes around, not a whole room full of stuff. And if there’s anything more exciting than unpacking and setting up in a brand-new room with a fresh coat of paint, I don’t know what it is…unless it’s having wonderful friends who will do the unpacking for you!!!

We are SO looking forward to you getting here, Brenda and Bug! Fly safe!

Whenever I’m going on a road trip, even if it’s a short one, I bring crocheting with me. I can’t read and be social at the same time, but it’s easy to crochet and talk. And if I have to put my crocheting down for a minute to help Annalie with something or look at the map for Troy, I don’t get annoyed like I do when I’m deep into a book.

When we left San Diego, I was actually close to finishing a big crochet project: a blanket for my friend Angela, whose baby girl is due to be born next month. I thought for sure I’d finish the blanket halfway through the trip, so I brought along a second bag of assorted yarn and some stuffing. I figured it didn’t hurt to be prepared in case I needed something else to do once I finished the blanket.

Funny thing is, though, I didn’t touch the blanket once we were on the road. Maybe because I’d been working on it nonstop for a few weeks, I just needed a break. Or maybe I just felt like making potholders.

I made whatever came to mind—headbands, potholders, balls, baskets—with whatever yarn I felt like using. I wasn’t even making anything with anyone specific in mind.

Except these three headbands, which I crocheted at Amanda’s request. (Amanda, I’ll get these in my Etsy shop for you soon, honest!)

And I made these hearts for Bex and Jo, so I’d have a little gift for them when we met up in Alabama.

These Easter baskest are similar to the ones I made a couple of years ago. If anyone out there wants them, let me know. I’d be happy to list them in my Etsy shop for you.

I guess I crocheted one more thing with a specific person in mind. I made the coffee-cup sleeve on the right for Troy, so he wouldn’t have to use one of my girly ones each time we stopped at Starbucks. I liked it so much I crocheted another brown and green one.

And then I crocheted a brown and pink one (which I’ve been using) and a brown and cream one. If anyone wants one of these, let me know, Etsy shop, etc.

In house news, I put up a bunch of photos on Flickr, mostly ones I took the day we moved in. Go have a look!

As we left Troy’s mom and stepdad’s town, we had a little tiny bit of rain. That was probably the most precipitation we had on the whole trip. Considering that we made this cross-country drive in February, during one of the snowiest winters in recent history, I think that’s pretty amazing.

My mom liked the palms lining this stretch of the highway along the Gulf coast.

Can you tell I was bored? Cameras make the best toys on long road trips.

Cell phones make good toys too. Annalie was typing in a text-message box on my cell phone. In case anyone is getting a headache trying to figure this photo out, I’ll explain that I took this photo by angling the camera at the visor mirror above the passenger seat. That’s why it looks like Troy is driving on the wrong side of the car. Unless you’re Sarah or Lauren, in which case this photo didn’t even make you blink.

I mentioned my geekwear on Twitter, including my Orange Orange t-shirt and one of these pins. Anyone get the references? The pin on the right (a gift from Sonja) could have a couple of geeky meanings.

Another self-portrait born of boredom.

In Texas, the bathrooms are bigger and fancier!

Here is proof that our other cat, Lily, really was in the minivan with us. She doesn’t like road trips and tends to stay in her carrier the whole time, only coming out to eat or drink or glare at us accusingly.

Louisiana sky. I never get tired of taking pictures of the sky and clouds.

Bridge over Lake Charles.

Sunset and a semi.

Sunsets may be larger than they appear. Although these rearview-mirror shots are pretty cool, it’s much easier to photograph sunsets when we’re driving west.

When we were at Tom & Carol’s, my mom was looking at Carol’s cookbooks and found a recipe published 1965 that called for “one 29-cent bag of Fritos.” We all had a good laugh about that, joking that it would be awfully hard to find a 29-cent bag of Fritos nowadays. So when we saw these 35-cent bags of Fritos at a gas station today it cracked us up. I bet this bag is a LOT smaller than the 29-cent bags in 1965 were.

I liked the packaging on these Hubig’s New Orleans Style Pies so much I bought two of them. I guess they’re a New Orleans institution, and no wonder—they were pretty good!

Poor Katy, she gets manhandled a lot by Annalie. She doesn’t really seem to mind, though.

I took this from a moving vehicle, so it was pure luck that I caught the sun shining off a serendipitous lake and that green flare/reflection over there on the right.

Alabama sunset. When I took this we were about one minute away from the Target where we met Bex & Jo.

Annalie in her Hello Kitty jammies + a kitty on her lap = happy Annalie.

Annalie the strawbender! She has done this for as long as I can remember. When she is drinking from a non-bendy straw, she creates a bend in it.

Snowy hills in Virginia. The first snow we saw on our trip was on the side of the road in Tennessee, but that wasn’t very much. This was the first sizeable amount of snow we saw.

I think these are the Blue Ridge Mountains. Any Virginians care to confirm or deny that?

This rest-stop drinking fountain at a rest stop seemed funny to me with all that snow in the field behind it. It doesn’t really seem that funny now, though. It’s entirely possible that I was a bit loopy at the time from a week of traveling.

When I took this photo we’d driven over 3,000 miles (5,400 km) across the country. We’d spent 8 days and 7 nights on the road, for a total of 54 hours of driving time…and yet these last two hours seemed to last longer than the entire trip.

One last rearview-mirror sunset shot before…

…the exit to our hotel. We made it!