Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!! Part 3...

Been running around like crazy the last few days, but I'll take a quick break and jot down some random stuff:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!! (Oh, wait -- I already said that... well, it's probably worth repeating... :)) It's starting to really hit me that I have less than a week until people are coming to pack up all our stuff and move it into storage, and I still have soooooooooo much to do. For some reason, I thought it would be easier to pack for a temporary apartment... I have managed to buy some new sheets and a blanket for the bed in the apartment (it's a queen and we have a king, so I didn't have any suitable bedding), which are now all washed and folded and ready to go... and I've packed some towels and a bunch of sweaters... and I've done about fifteen thousand loads of laundry... and I've started getting some stuff together in the kitchen and in the bathroom... but I've still got quite a lot of work to do before we're ready to go...

So who's excited to see the holiday drinks back at Starbucks?? I loooooove peppermint mochas and gingerbread lattes. Although I have to admit it seems a little too early to be reintroducing them -- if I'm remembering correctly, they waited until the week before Thanksgiving last year. That seems more appropriate... but I'm not going to complain, since I do love a decent peppermint mocha...

Why does it seem like all your stuff multiplies when you're about to move? I mean, really, how did I accumulate so many pens and unread magazines and random bottles of perfume? (Should I throw it all away? Or will I be doing a lot of writing and have plenty of time for light reading and need to constantly smell good once I'm in Chicago??)

I have been using my suddenly free weekday mornings to perfect my pancake recipe. I found a couple pancake recipes online a few weeks ago (including one on a food blog, whose author proclaimed the recipe to be "the best pancake recipe ever!!"), and tried them out one weekend -- they were HORRIBLE. The "best pancake recipe ever," in particular, was an eggy, chewy, culinary disaster, and I couldn't figure out why anyone would make it more than once (and I DID follow the recipe correctly, in case you're wondering... :)). So I've been experimenting with my OWN recipes -- each day they've been tasting better and better, and I think today's was ALMOST perfect. I added a few dashes of cinnamon to the batter, and it really made them quite tasty. I'm just hoping I can remember the proper amounts of ingredients I used -- I tend to not write down recipes... I'm one of those "I'll try a little of this and a little more of that" kind of cooks. Which, surprisingly, works out pretty well most of the time...

Okay, I should get back to work, lest I forget to do something important... By the way, I had a dream the other night that when we arrived at our temporary apartment in Chicago, I opened the refrigerator, and it was full of jars of olives. Like fifteen jars of olives. Nothing but olives. What does that mean??? (That means you have really weird dreams, Lisa... :)) Back to packing...