Mentally moving on.

I know we all do this. You know, once a decision has been made, you move on with your life in accordance with said decision. Even when the effects of the decision are months away from coming to fruition. Am I right?

Once we decided we were for sure leaving this place permanently (i.e. not coming back here after retirement) I chose my last day at work and have, ever since, been in varying degrees of checked out. I'm still here enough to do my job and do it well, but the long term implications of plans or future goals in the workplace hold no weight or concern for me now. I'm in the moment, and for now, it is working.

We also decided to just stick with on-post housing once we get down to Fort X. We've lived there before and if given the opportunity, we will choose the same community we were in before. All of the homes consist of a small galley style kitchen, large living room, 4 bedrooms and 2 baths in a ranch style duplex. I have already mentally started moving our furniture in. Which room will be the guest room? Which one will be our office/studio? Where will I put the sofa? Will the dining room set fit? It is a task I enjoy, like a giant puzzle where I get to rediscover all of the great items we have, the functionality of our furniture and mostly, because it means a new start for Swiss and I. One were we actually live together. What a novel concept!

Lately, I have been taking this mental moving on to new levels... I'm planning and researching how I want to decorate our home after retirement. Which is sort of hilarious given that we have no idea where we will be, let alone what type, size or style of home we will have. Apartment? House? Will we buy or will be build? No idea! But I do find that this process, the sorting out rooms that I love the look & feel of, finding colors or fabrics that I find inspiring, trying to imagine us in the rooms in magazines, figuring out what things I just can't live without, so relaxing and energizing at the same time. I get to use the right side of my brain (side note: take this test sometime, I am 47% Left, 53% Right, which I find fascinating as I am a scientist by trade and all that Right brained business has no place in a lab.) and think abstractly about spaces and color and feel. Which is so not what I do here at work. It is beyond refreshing.

Anyway, I totally beefed up my Daily Goodness Blogroll over to the right (down just over half way) with a ton of beautiful sites that are chock full of inspiration. All this planning and right brained thinking has me feeling much more settled and content, less anxious and uncertain. Maybe it is because this is a tangible thing I can work on, something that I can actually DO without input from an Army office, fill out forms for or cross my fingers to accomplish. Funny what a little paint and design can do for the soul.

Guilty pleasure.

Project Runway. I am a sucker for it. I have been since the very first season. Hopelessly addicted... That's me.

And today the Season 5 finalists had their Bryant Park collections shown! And I have been glued to the computer waiting to see the collections before the final... see, I hate secrets! Anywhoodles, I will post more when the complete collections are up on the net.

Happy Friday Internets!

UPDATE: Here they are... thanks to Tom and Lorenzo.