Staging!

I didn’t realize that it had been so long since I last posted to this blog. A lot has happened in those two weeks.

The Great Blizzard of 2011

First, there was the Great Blizzard of 2011. I went to bed late the night of February 1, it was snowing but there was only an inch or so on the ground. When I got up six hours later, at 6:00 a.m., there was over a foot! The plows got the road cleared by the end of the day. Then the winds (30 mph) started, and by the next morning there were a couple of six-foot high drifts blocking the road. But storms like this are exciting, especially when you’re in a warm house. I remember only two others of comparable intensity in my lifetime, in back-to-back years, ’78 and ’79.

Then I spent a couple of days helping my younger son Joe clean up his apartment in Kalamazoo and move back to Grand Haven. He plans to work through next fall at the blueberry farm where he’s worked the past two summers, then hopes to go WWOOFing (?? – I didn’t know what it meant either when he first mentioned it to me).

The next day the winds began

And I’ve been taking care of some of the details of departure. I found a buyer for my car. We’re going to close the deal on March 10. He’s then going to drive me to Grand Rapids to my older son Robin’s home, where I’ll be staying the last few days before departure.

And this week there’s been a buildup in preparations from the Peace Corps. We’ve had several emails with questionnaires relating to language learning, personal information for host families, and program developments. That culminated today with “Staging” instructions. I just got off the phone making my plane reservations. I’m still scheduled to leave in mid-March.

I’m excited. But I won’t let myself get too excited. I’m not on that plane yet.