Empty Shelves

It's a funny thing.  I never feel like a move is truly real until the bookshelves are empty.  Maybe it's because I read such a lot, and the books I own are almost like friends.  I can pack the clothes and the dishes and the dvds and still feel that life is pretty normal and the move is not really imminent but only something of the distant future... but when I pack away my books I know it will happen, and soon.

My books are all packed.  (Seven boxes of them!)  Most of the clothes are boxed up, and I've got dishes wrapped in newspaper and old shopping bags finding their ways into their crates.  There's still so much more to do, to pack... but the shelves are empty.  It must be real.

Conrad has been assisting the packing effort by climbing into boxes, climbing up empty shelves, and sitting on whatever item I was planning to pick up next.

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Shifting away from the sentimental reflection... I'm moving to Clarksville TN for graduate school.  I'll be renting the "bonus room" above the garage from a family who responded, in God's providence, to the craigslist ad I put up when I'd almost lost hope of finding anywhere I could afford to live!  It's a little further from campus than I had hoped for, and it's not a huge space, but it is within my budget and it's a workable distance.  God knows what he's doing :)