Gettin' Gone

The girls and I leave Abu Dhabi in 3 days. We have everything packed except for 1 suitcase and 5 carry-ons. Jon will stay here a week longer to pay for and cancel out our bills.

We have already witnessed the departure of our dishwasher, clothes dryer, rocking chair, iMac (I miss you!) and treadmill. Everything else goes next week.

My body is crying out for a little exercise, so I decided to brave the 108 degree heat and go for a walk with Hope in the front carrier. I got some groceries, my last shwarma (just for you, Holly), a creme caramel (just for you mom), and a touch of heatstroke (all for me).

But now Hope and I are properly reconstituted, Hope is napping and I should be getting my clothes out of the washer to hang dry. Without my dryer, I must do a load of laundry every day, or I will never ever catch up. In a way, it's liberating, to not have piles of laundry weighing me down every 3 or 4 days. I tend to let it go until we are desperate. Although I gotta say, I'm not loving the scratchy pokey towels.

One other incentive to get the wash done on a daily basis is that I have given away all our clothes, except for 3 or 4 outfits per person. That, too, is liberating - to no longer have the stuffed drawers and piles of stuff to be put away. I could have never gotten rid of most of our clutter, if we weren't moving across the world again. It is a great feeling to be traveling so light.