August 23rd, 2008

WOW!!! What a day. Pat and Shannon showed up bright and early (Greg was still in bed) to help clean and pack!!!! Me, the control freak I keep discovering that I am, got a little unsettled leaving everything behind to go to my very last day of work.

 Work. I've been building my business for 7 years now. WOW!!! I can't believe I can actually say that. I started at London Hair Studio, moved to start my own business at Phenomenon, and then came to The Art of Hair Salon, which turned out to be the very best of all.

So this is it. It looked entirely different when I began to work here almost 4 years ago. The new owner recently remodeled. I must say I'm glad to be closing it down for awhile. It's been an amazing job. Fulfilling, financially rewarding, and fun! It's been so good to have a job to provide for my family. The last year though, the wear and tear of the job has started to show. My wrists are so sensitive now and always seem to be getting injured. I also have eczema on my hands which always seems to go away on the weekends (when I'm not doing hair). I've kinda lost my passion too. Hair has just become hair. So, I'm ready for a change. 

My favorite part of my job was most definitely my clients. The hardest part was definitely the goodbyes, which started 6 weeks ago. It's been an experience saying goodbye too 100 or so people every hour, on the hour, day after day after day, for 6 weeks in a row. It was hard. Some of my clients have honestly become family. It was interesting how certain clients, I'd been cutting for 7 years, didn't seem to care at all that it was our last cut, and others almost cried and I didn't think they'd care a wink. A lot of them spoiled me with HUGE tips and generous gifts. I got a pair of ear rings that I actually liked (I am very hard to shop for), an entire book series (The Death Gate Novels), a gift card to the new movie theater (which we've never been to, because we are too cheap) and a leather bound journal to write in on our travels (which I thought was SO thoughtful). It was really sweet because the gifts had to do with the conversations we'd had. I often knew what the gift was before I opened it. I was overwhelmed at the love and best wishes for us. People were very sweet.

Well then it was back home to finish the job. It's amazing how long little details can take. Pat (Greg's Mom) was amazing and packed our entire bathroom and kitchen and cleaned BOTH!!!! I don't know how she did it. All I had to do was clean the kitchen floor and it was much more difficult than I predicted. But finally, it was finished!

I kept thinking back to when we first looked at the apartment (and it was all empty like this) and we were SO excited to move in! With the exception of INTENSE, never ending mold, it's been a great apartment.

Bye bye!!!

Then it was off to Pat and Randy's for a few days!

 Randy took us all out to the Family Fun Center!

Pat

I haven't been miniature golfing since I was single. I have always loved it. I use to beg my friends to go with me but they never would.  

This is Christian, one of my old friends from the Institute. Randy and Pat are really good friends with he and his wife, Yumi so he invited him out. It was really nice to see him again!

Poor Chris has been home from his mission a couple of months now. He is really sick. I just found out today he throws up almost everyday, multiple times! Poor guy! This is Laurel, they are never apart.

Greg, tallying up the scores and . . . TA DA!!! I got SECOND PLACE!!! I figure out of eight people, that's pretty good.

Before we golfed we rode the Go Cart Track. It was SO FUN!!!! It was my first time and I was a little nervous, especially when I was put in the very first car to take off. But as soon as I put on the gas I realized it was easy and it was SO FUN!!! I LOVED IT!!! Afterwards I was so exhausted! I was TENSING the ENTIRE time!!! THANK YOU RANDY!!!! IT WAS SO FUN!

Today I woke up early to go to the dentist to get my bridge- yea, hooray. After that we lazed around the house until late afternoon and then it was WORK TIME!!! Pat and Randy have a shed that was FULL of stuff and we dejunked it and put all of OUR stuff in it. Though it was definitely work, it wasn't as bad as we predicted, thank goodness. And now we have all of our stuff together in a safe place. Phew. Now I can relax. With each new step I relax a little bit more and I can't believe all I have to worry about now is my suitcases! I get so preoccupied with everything to wrap up I forget I'm on a plane to Europe in just one week!!!

Oh yes, and here's good news: Greg got approved for his visa! YEA!!! Yes, that's right, just him. I guess we need him to register for his classes, get some official document and then send me BACK to the states to show someone and THEN I can get my visa. Yes, yes, what a pain. But, we really are just thrilled that this means we can travel freely without worrying about deportation- cause that would be bad! I can't believe I have to go on that long flight ALL BY MYSELF, but at least I get to try it out with my husband the first time. At first all we could find were flights with 19 hour layovers in Atlanta which would be a NIGHTMARE, but thankfully, my diligent husband found a more appealing flight schedule. I can't imagine what a smelly zombie I'm going to be when my sister picks me up, but that's ok.

I can't believe tomorrow I can sleep in and do whatever I want. I can't wait.