PhoneBoy Says

She thinks the whole Master Cleanse thing is a bunch of hooey. It may, in fact, be. She's looking for the science behind it because, well, she needs that kind of proof. Rational, but then again science can't make up it's mind. Smoking cigarettes used to be considered good for you, and we know how that turned out. Same thing with Fen Phen, Vioxx, and countless other things science said was okay.

Anyway, she'll humor me for the 10 days or more that I'm drinking lemonade. Hope so as it means I'll be buying a heck of a lot of lemons and maple syrup. And running to the bathroom to pee. A lot. Explaining the not-eating to the kids should be fairly simple--I'm not hungry. Hopefully Jaden doesn't start asking too many questions or figure out that I'm "not hungry" for an extended period of time.

If today is any indication, I might want to lay off the senna tea. Let's just say it had the desired effect a little quicker than expected.

The spouse of one of my co-workers started doing this thing called The Master Cleanse. You can read a bit more about it here (warning: PDF link) and by Googling, of course. Basically, you drink a lemonade concoction for 10 days (or longer) and ease back into real food.

Yesterday, I was having a miserable day with my allergies. I took meds, which cleared up the sneezing but didn't really do much for my runny nose. I kind of pigged out on some stuff I probably shouldn't eat yesterday. I just generally felt wrong. Figured it was time to give my system a good rotor-rooter treatment.

I did not have any provisions for this diet, but couldn't really go anywhere until almost lunch time. So I drank water and ate nothing. When I could leave the premises, I bought some senna tea, some Grade B Maple Syrup, a bunch of lemons, and dug out the thermos jug. Had a cup of the tea when I got back home while I was mixing the lemonade. Think I put a little too much cayenne pepper in the mix, and I only put half as much maple syrup as they recommend, but it's pretty tasty stuff.

I will be documenting the process here for your amusement and horror. I will try and leave out the more grotesque descriptions of the various bodily excretions that are supposed to occur as a result of this. The only thing I feel right now is a mile headache. Not hungry per-se.

I wish this video on Gov. Bill Richardson's site was embeddable. Even so, go see it. It's funny. I'm sure it will show up on YouTube soon enough.

While we don't officially move into the new house until the end of July, it sure seems like we're moving a lot of stuff right now! We are, but it's going into a storage unit.

Part of the process of getting the current house ready to sell is eliminating a lot of so-called "clutter" from the house. This means taking down a lot of personal family photos, moving out a lot of the extraneous stuff, and generally keeping the house looking nice. After coming back home Friday night, I can see that the wife has made a huge dent in the overall house clutter!

Meanwhile, I am attempting to do the same to my office, and it's no small task. I have a ton of stuff in my office, some of which I use regularly, most of which I don't. Much of it is out either under one of my tables and/or in a plastic crate. I do have some storage in my office as the attic storage spaces are in this room, but it's not always easy to get stuff in and out of those spaces. Also I can't exactly use those spaces now as I need to leave them available for someone to look in!

I probably have a van or truckload worth of stuff up in my office stacked and ready to go to the storage unit. Unfortunately, it probably isn't going right away. My wife had me bring down all the Christmas stuff from the attic. That and a bunch of other stuff already downstairs is waiting for us to go as well. Whether all that stuff will make it into storage tomorrow is another matter.

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy the house with a lot less stuff in it. At least for a few weeks.

Lots of people are saying we have to wait until this fall to end the war in Iraq. I don't think so - Congress has about a month before they break for the summer. They could do something before then if we push them.

Bill Richardson has called on Congress to de-authorize the war now - not to wait until the fall. If Congress de-authorizes, Bush is stripped of his authority to continue the war - he would be legally required to start bringing the troops home.

Learn more and join the call on Congress now.

After a lot of soul searching, stressing over whether or not we can actually afford the place, and praying we weren't going to be too late to do it, we put in an offer on a new house in Gig Harbor, and it got accepted the same day! So now we're committed to buy it, though we should probably be committed because it's going to be a financially rough transition.

Here's a rough idea of what the new place looks like:

The place is huge! Large backyard. Enough rooms for everyone. A three-car garage with tons of storage built-in. Great neighborhood. Almost exactly what the wife wants! Meanwhile, we've got to get our existing place ready to sell. House needs a few cosmetic repairs, some of which are happening this week.

Nothing like Chuck E Cheese on a Friday night.

Not quite, but awfully close.

Over the past several days, my wifeended up finding "the perfect house." The good news is that it,overall, meets our needs better, it's much bigger, closer tocivilization, and in a really great neighborhood with people we know.The problem is, of course, it's more money. A lot more money.And it's not like existing home sales are exactly good right noweither. In short, there will be a lot of belt-tightening in thehousehold and a lot of duct tape will be applied to make sure the endsmeet and stay together.

Today we are signing an offer letter, which we are very certain willbe accepted. That sets a whole series of next steps in motion which aregoing to be both time-consuming and expensive. Between that, the GarageSale we are having tomorrow, and the business trip I have scheduled fornext week, I may be just a little pre-occupied. You'll probably see less output on my Vox blog during this process, or maybe you'll see more pictures. :)

I'm going to have to do something to earn extra money to buy duct tape. ;)I may end up doing (paid) writing for some other blogs and/or do otherthings that I can do in my spare time to bring in extra money. If youhave any legitimate suggestions, please email me directly(dwelch AT phoneboy DOT com), post them in the comments, send me a private message, or get a local phone number to call me (via Jangl).