What a weekend. I've spent most of this weekend in head aches, fighting through drifts of emotions that bring me down choking; I claw at the chance to smile. Sometimes He makes it easy for me to break-down; sometimes He's so good at fixing the broken. Sat right down to watch the first reading of Thread; I sat down to cry and tossed another old shirt on the pile, another hanger on the floor. I cleaned out my closet and drawers. Just one step in the grand move from high school to college, teen to adulthood, one house to the next. I was surprise to find that all the doors were mine; Haven't we had a second roommate for quite some time now? All that's here is a green tooth brush (and a phone charger soon to be mailed...). Every weekend my old room--hardly my real room these days--gets dumped on with bags and clothes. It gets wrecked, walked through, and cleaned out (for the most part). Every weekend (almost) He comes down with his backpack of boyhood, makes a move and moves right in. Come Sunday we're back to telecommunications. Two weeks more and we're back to old times. Went up north for dinner and a movie; a date with family, bearing gifts--out with the old, in with the used. (Hey, they don't call me Second Hand Rose for nothing). A little past ten and close to groggy, the phone rings and Cody and I cruise to the airport to pick up the folks. The whole drive home bears images of boxes, little pieces of paper and decorative bows...tokens of old people and 20 years of living in a house and never having cleaned out so much as a bottle of pills. We Arizonans know better; we take spring cleaning seriously and will typically do it two to three times a year. We know our legacies don't last in hand-painted tea sets, cracked and wrapped in tissue paper. Anger and frustration drives us to clean; ferociously, digging out boxes and tearing up old letters, stuffing the throats of the garbage cans to over-flowing and our unwanted, unimportant suveniers are spilling over lids and throwing-up over sidewalks laid out for the needy; why try to make a buck on a hassel so worthless? Our desert living has adapted us to see dust; Clorox is our friend and we use him generously. We're immune to clutter, vaccinated against junk, and most of all, completely aware of the things bearing significance. I still have my head ache now, a few quick notes before the end: The show at Ascension went over (surprisingly) well. Kris and I never went hiking, but the bear did get caught up on much-needed sleep, and, well, I'm sure he'll make it up to me. : ) Deep-fried Turkey is good. I wish to be hypnotized because there are a couple things I wish I didn't think about every day. I am completely done with my first semester of college on Saturday, so thank goodness for that! Carrie