Countdown

Most folks spend their last weekend at home before heading to China doing something relaxing, or packing, or cleaning the house. Us? We ripped out the dining room carpet, painted the walls, and laid hardwood floors.

Nothing like a little deadline pressure to get our rumps in gear.

Seriously, with the arrival of Who III imminent, reality set in -- the time for home improvement projects will be gone for many months to come. The almost 4-year-olds are big helpers -- Who I hammered in boards while her sister ran the sweeper. But Baby Who isn't going to be allowed around power tools until she's at least 18 months old. No child labor available there!

The room looks good, if I do say so myself. Burgundy walls (all 8 coats -- THAT was a brilliant color choice!) on the bottom, "linen tint" on the top. I even rehung the curtains!

Wish I could say mhy packing was going as well. Still searching for the perfect combo of bags, still unsure if the laptop will actually work in China. We made the not-so-bright decision to switch our Internet and TV service to our neighborhood's new fiberoptic service. Seemed like a good idea until the installer arrived and said we were just beyond the recommended distance from the box. But he thought it would work, so here we are.

When it works, it's great. But our Internet has been really unreliable since it was installed, so I'm panicking that I may haul the beastly laptop to China for naught. The whole point was to use Skype and call home and use the Web cam to see my big girls and let them see baby sister. None of those functions is working well right now. So I'm agonizing. Nothing like having a Libra trying to make a big decision under pressure. AAAACK!!!

I keep telling myself to breathe. In a few days, none of this will matter. T-minus 60 hours .....