Canton, MI

Now that I am in Canton, I definately have very mixed emotions.  I love the traveling that we are doing, but I really miss the people here- my neighbors, and my friends at work.  I feel happy to be here, and ready to visit with as many people as I can.  I spent this morning with Pennie, a friend of mine who just had her first baby- born on February 26, same as my daughter Jess!  We caught up on the basics of whats going on in our lives, but its  not quite the same as being involved on a regular basis.  It was really good to see her though, and Mason, her son, is, of course, absolutely adorable.
               What I don't miss, and really had forgotten about, is the rain.  Being out in California, New Mexico, Texas etc.  its essentially desert. It hardly ever rains, and when it does, it stops pretty quickly.  Today it rained all day.  I mean ALL day.  And it was COLD, and RAW.  I had forgotten that chilled feeling you get when its that cold and rainy. I hope I am not getting spoiled. 
               This afternoon I got my haircut for the first time in 5 months- boy was I desperate- but determined to wait so I could have Peter cut it. I also  made several calls to other friends, to finalize plans for lunches etc. Killed the battery on my cell phone- I guess I talk too much. Since Jess and I can stay until Friday, I plan on heading up to visit my work friends on Friday morning, or possibly on Thursday if I can.  Its a little strange I guess that when I talk about my job at Valassis with people I meet, many times I talk in the present tense, as if I still work there.  Paul notices it and comments sometimes. I guess I still feel like an honorary employee or something.
            They say that our strongest memories come from our sense of smell.  That was brought home to me in a weird way this afternoon.  One of the things on my to-do list while I am here is to check on the things we have in various storage spots.  I went to check on our 10' x 30' storage unit that contains the remains of our household goods.  As soon as I walked into the building, it hit me.  Just the smell of the air inside the "climate controlled" building brought it all back to me.  It wasn't a bad odor, or a good one, just ...detectable.  Walking down the corridor I was re-living the process of downsizing that we went through last year. I could still feel the sense of excitement, the exhaustion, the heat, and the craziness that I felt last summer. Every trip we made to that building was tiring and yet put us one step closer to being done with the work part of leaving on our adventure.  Paul was always very careful to pack our stuff in as tightly as possible, since we had a lot of stuff and only one storage unit, so it was always time consuming to pack it.  It also had to pretty much be done at night, since I was still working.  On top of that, I had to act energetic during the day at work, since I hadn't even told anyone our house was on the market, never mind that we had sold it and had moved out!
I always felt bad about that, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do....in this economy, lots of sales fall through, right up until the day of closing. It could have taken a year or more to actually sell.  Anyway, all that was going through my mind as I took pictures of our stuff since we couldn't remember if we had any room for anything more ( we could fit about 4 more bins).
               Tonight I am relaxing alone in my hotel room.  Its been such a whirlwind week, I wanted a night to decompress.  Jess has gone off with her friends for the night, with a big smile on her face.  I should head to the Fitness room,  so I can work off the cookie I ate, but naaaahh.
The hotel we're staying at is a Fairfield Inn, in Canton.  When I was looking for a hotel, I did some research, and decided to use Priceline. I've used it before- sometimes its great, sometimes the hotel is a dump.  But this time, I know the area so I felt pretty confident that I wouldn't hate whatever hotel I won.  Originally I put in a bid of $22 a night, and it was rejected.  I know that seems ridiculously low (going rate here is $89), but there's a forum that posts "wins" for Priceline, so I knew someone got this hotel for $23 a night.  I upped my bid to $24 and it was accepted.  What a deal!  Especially since they not only have an incredible breakfast buffet, but Mon-Wed. evening they provide a complimentary dinner.  Tonight I ate Lasagna and meatballs with salad.  Tomorrow night its Tacos.  All for $24.  Can't beat it!