Everything's coming up hummus

I don't think I've ever been so excited about a grocery store before. A Jewel just opened about a block from my office, and I went there for lunch today. Holy. Crap. It's like the happiest place on Earth.

For starters, they have a salad bar. With all kinds of delicious ingredients. Then, there's the olive/hummus bar. Not kidding, there were like 8 different kinds of hummus available.

THEN, they have the deli/home-style goodness section, featuring things like lasagna, spinach pasta, green bean casserole and au gratin potatoes. I wanted to eat EVERYTHING. And then, they have tables and chairs outside. And it's all right across the street from a new park that opened a few weeks ago. Like, a great big park with a playground and dog run and tons of soft, green grass. All in the middle of the city. Heaven.

Anyway, other exciting things going on right now include moving into our house. (Like how this got second billing to the grocery store?) Currently, there are some painters painting, and some floors guys doing whatever floors guys do, all working to make the fun house livable and cat-pee-smell free.

We're moving in on Tuesday. In the meantime, I still have tons of packing to do. Apparently, having a whole month to pack and move just meant that I could procrastinate that much longer. Although I do have some good excuses.

For starters, Chris and I have been at the fun house almost every night for the past month trying to clean and rip out old flooring and pour every concoction available on the floors trying to get rid of the cat-pee smell. Seriously, we tried everything. We finally did get rid of the smell (I think) but it required ripping out the hardwoods in the dining room. They were pretty bad and rotted from the cat nastiness. Interestingly, under those hardwoods we found..... more hardwoods. The house was built in the 1890s, and I assumed that the hardwoods we found under the carpeting were the originals. But now that I've seen this new, super old layer of hardwoods, I can say that I'm pretty sure we finally found the original originals. In fact, my dad found one of those old school nails that's more square than round. So, yeah, that's some old wood.

In other hardwood news, we also found some underneath this weird fake-wood linoleum on the second floor. I cannot fathom what the previous owners were thinking, like, "Hmmm... you know what would look great on top of these hardwood floors? Fake wood-grained linoleum. And then, let's throw some green carpeting on top and let our cats pee all over it! Oooh, ooh! I have an even better idea! Let's turn some birds loose upstairs and let them poop all over the walls!! Awesome!"

But I digress. In addition to de-pooping and de-peeing the fun house, I also went to Arizona for a few days for work. It was fabulous. The weather was super hot, (which I love), the sky was blue, the resort was amazing, and all my food and drinks were paid for. I most definitely took advantage of the latter.

Now that I've been away for a few days, I'm itching for a real vacation. Chris and I are taking a few days off next week to move, but that's no vaca. I realize I shouldn't complain, considering we went to Aruba this year, and we're probably going to North Carolina in November. But what I really want is a vacation where we don't have to do anything. I don't want to visit anyone. I don't want to go to a wedding (we've been to three this year). I don't want to go sightseeing. I just want to relax for a few days with my husband, sit by the pool, go to the spa and eat my weight in fancy dinners.

I managed to talk Chris into this idea. (by "talk into," I mean it went down like this. Me: Hey we should go on vacation. Him: OK!). So, such a trip might happen in the next month. We're considering Nashville, which isn't a likely spot, but it's close, relatively cheap, has a great music scene and features slightly warmer weather. So, if you have any suggestions for our trip, lemme have 'em!