Make sure to wear flowers in your hair

I'm moving from Seattle to San Francisco at the end of March and, because blogging makes everything more fun, I thought I'd write about it.

I came to Seattle for college in 2003 and I've been living here ever since then. That's six and a half years. It's time for a change, right? I mean, my job is fine, my friends are great, my band is great, but I think I'm ready for an adventure. I'm excited and scared to get out 'on my own' and I think I'll grow a lot and learn tons about myself.

If you've ever moved somewhere new please feel free to comment and tell me what a positive experience it was.

So...things I've been doing so far to prepare:

1. I sold a bunch of books.

This was soooooo difficult for me! I have this thing where I like to buy books, read them, and then keep them around like I'm going to read them again, even though I never do. Rarely do. Sometimes I do. But I like to keep them because I can look at them on the shelf and think, "Oh, I remember when I read that book" and sigh over the memories surrounding it. Nostalgia and all that. But who wants to haul boxes and boxes of books to California? Not me. So I went to Half Price Books and sold them all.

I would not recommend selling books at Half Price. They don't let you stand there and tell them the story of every book in the pile while they're going through your stuff - instead you have to walk around the store until they're finished. Then you come back and they tell you some ridiculously low price for a giant stack and point to a teeny stack and say "These are the ones we don't think we can sell". So you have to seem calm while you snatch Persuasion out of the teeny stack and maintain your dignity while they write you your receipt. I would recommend driving down to Powells in Portland to sell books. Seriously.

2. I sold a bunch of clothes.

This was not as hard as the books but mostly because I got waaaaaay more money for the clothes and the ones I sold were ones I don't really wear. Totally different from the books. Way easier.

3. Listened to a lot of records.

This may seem unrelated but it's not. I'm trying to psych myself up for this change and Joni Mitchell "Will you take me as I am? Strung out on another man, California I'm comin home." and Stevie Nicks "I've been afraid of changing cuz I built my life around you. But time makes you bolder even children get older and I'm gettin older too." are really getting me there.

Yes, ok, there may have been a breakup in close proximity to this decision. Yes, it is an incentive to start over somewhere else. BUT I've been talking about leaving Seattle for a looooong time and now there's even less keeping me here so it's time to go! So my girls are helping me along the way- getting bolder as I get older and, hopefully, comin home.

That's it for now. I'll try to keep this updated as exciting (and non-exciting) things happen.