Doing the Math...

While Andrew's been doing his training in Ohio, I took a spur of the moment trip down to Georgia. When I say spur of the moment, I mean I talked to my mom on Sunday, she suggested it, I packed, and left first thing Monday morning. As much as I love getting to be with the hubs, the pups were having a hard time coping with our sweet (as in, "oh, it's sweet how small and uncomfortable this place is!") hotel room. Plus, I didn't know when I'd next have the opportunity to visit (we aren't planning on making it for either Thanksgiving or Christmas this year :/).

I'm leaving tomorrow, but I've had a nice trip overall. It was a pretty odd week, though. I got to spend a lot of time with friends and family, but that was unfortunately accompanied by one pretty big blowout. And we lost Molly this past weekend, which is bittersweet. For those who don't know, Molly was my mom's Old English Mastiff who survived her brother Max. She weighed around 160 lb., closer to 200 at her largest (Max was about 280). She's had an uphill struggle with her health, and wasn't the nicest of dogs, but my mother loved her so much. It was definitely her time to go.

Max and Molly at their prime. Molly's the "little" one. And yes, that is an epic hanging slobber coming out of her jowls.

On a lighter note, I randomly sold my wedding dress to a super excited lady in England, and used my share of the profits to get some amazing items from Kirkland's Home. Oh my gosh, I love this place. I can't even tell you how awesome I think it is. I got 4 pieces for our home. Naturally, there's no Kirkland's out in New Mexico, and the internet shopping is only so-so, but I'm glad to have gotten what I got!

There was one piece that is just way too big for us to take back with us in the car, so we ended up trying to explore every way imaginable to get it to NM. I seriously loved it that much, and it was such a steal. I found a relatively cheap way to ship it via Greyhound Shipping. I seriously recommend this for people who are trying to cheaply ship just about anything. I used the service to get all of my stuff from Colorado back to Georgia, and it was so much cheaper than any other option. It definitely wasn't the most convenient (you take and pick-up your things from a Greyhound station, which tend to be not in the nicest part of town, though I think for extra they do offer a pick-up/drop-off service if you live close enough), but it was reliable, easy, and fast. Like, really fast. Your stuff gets on a bus and however long it takes to drive is how long it takes to get there.

So after deciding to go with Greyhound, I took the piece to UPS to get it packaged. $6o. For packaging. No thank you. So, being the innovative person that I am (ha), I "borrowed" some boxes from the in-laws, bought 150 ft of bubble wrap, a roll of packaging tape, and seriously ghettoed the heck out of that thing. I literally used all of my materials (except for some spare cardboard) to create a monster 5' x 4' x 2" impenetrable package. Making it work, Tim Gunn style.

Once you do the math, it'll cost about $75 to ship (including materials), which is how much I spent on the piece. This might seem kind of ridiculous, but when I think about what a steal it was in the first place, I think it's reasonable. Plus, since it's coming from the dress profit, it's a lot easier to spend the money since it wasn't in our budget.

I'm so excited to get back home and get some of these things on the walls. Expect a picture overload in the next couple of weeks!