So, what happened to May?

Wow - busy month so far. Not much activity in the Mom Cave for the first three weeks.

The first weekend was spent with our Boy Scout Troop out at Camp Runamuck.  I almost backed out, when I learned that the other female leader who was planning to go had a last minute emergency arise. So I ended up being the only female on the trip...  20+ preteen & teen boys, plus our other leaders.  It was colder than expected but a fun way to relax for the weekend.  Had a similar experience last summer when I went to Camp Durant for Summer Camp, but there were other women at camp then, both on staff and as leaders with other units.

Mother's Day weekend we spent around the house and I spent the next week finishing up a grant proposal with one PI and laying the foundation for one of our July submissions with another team.

You may remember that in February, I took an impromptu trip to Denmark to spend time with my Mother as she closed up my Mormor's home (Mormor is Mother's Mother in Danish). So I spent the third weekend in May moving furniture. A quick flight to Tallahassee to spend a long weekend with my parents and sister and her family and then spent a very long day driving a 15 foot rental truck home.

 There were two paintings between the chairs and the panel that I unscrewed to get into the crate.  There were several more paintings stuffed alongside other items of furniture. The remaining paintings traveled in the smaller crate.

 There were multiple "layers" of packing - to accomplish fitting 11 chairs in. The sideboard and dining room table (you can see the feet) rode on their respective short ends at the back of the crate.

Around 1,400 pounds of furniture and other items arrived in two crates. The large one weighed in at over 1,100 pounds and is being transformed into a playhouse for my nephews.  Very little space was wasted with this packing job. The crates were shipped by sea from Copenhagen to Miami and then by truck to Jacksonville. Thankfully there was a landscape team at the house who provided stability to assist the shippers in removing the large crate from the truck.

In less than three hours we managed to empty the 7x7x4 crate into "my" truck and my parent's house. And then focused on unpacking and repacking the 10 boxes of smaller items to divide amongst four households. In the meantime, Dad saw an opportunity to send items long stored in Florida up to my sister and I in North Carolina.

Note to other drivers - "Budget" or "Uhaul" or "Penske" on the side of a truck should be like a neon flashing sign - that the driver is probably NOT used to driving something of this size (though is probably a little older than my test driver).  I was given a "free" upgrade from 10 feet to 15 feet. Truthfully - I only needed 10 feet and even that was bigger than I needed.  For the record, the ramp is more trouble than it is worth - especially when the ramp is wet.  I've now crossed an item off my Bucket List that I never knew was on my Bucket List.

This past weekend I spent at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium - but that has been featured in several posts already and more to come.

Now, I'm faced with needing to reorganize my craft room/Mom cave again in order to get it back to useable space.  No rest for the weary... this coming weekend we have a Troop Merit Badge College back at Runamuck and Ice Hockey tryouts for next season.