It’s an odd quirk of my blog that I often post extensively about the minutia of life, yet the really important stuff sometimes gets short-shrift. I’m in the midst of several important developments in my life right now, so I figure it’s high time for an update.

First of all, Becky and I are in the process of deciding on a wedding location here in the Phoenix Valley. We’ve visited four potential sites so far, with a fifth and final tour scheduled for tomorrow. (I’ll post pictures eventually.) Currently, the front-runner is the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale, but the place we’re visiting tomorrow — Gold Canyon Golf Resort — remains very much in the running, having been Becky’s sight-unseen favorite from the beginning. If they impress us enough to surpass the Hyatt, we’ll choose them; otherwise, we’ll pick the Hyatt, which we visited today and which we both loved.

We have yet to decide for certain whether we’ll have the ceremony at the hotel (i.e., where we’re having the reception) or at a church. We’ve been asking the various hotels we’ve visited to show us their ceremony sites, and some of them are quite lovely. But Becky is her parents’ last best hope for a church wedding :), and she has been vascillating on the issue for months. It’s still up in the air at the moment.

Since reserving either a church or an off-site priest is a crucial logistical hurdle, that choice — church vs. hotel — will be one of the next decisions we make, after picking a site and a date. Our target date range is Dec. 27-31 of next year, and right now we’re leaning toward Dec. 30 (a Friday) or perhaps Dec. 29. We’ll have to go over everything with our final site choice, and get things set in stone. But it’s entirely possible that, one year from this very night, or else one year from tomorrow, I’ll be getting married! :)

The other major development in my life is, well, moving halfway across the country. Of course, I’ve been living in Indiana since late August, but much of my stuff has still been living here in Arizona; I had only a couple of suitcases’ and a few boxes’ worth of possessions in my university apartment. And Becky, of course, has all of her possessions here in Arizona, as well as herself and our four pets. But next week, all of it — the possessions, the pets and the people — will depart sunny Arizona for wintry Indiana. Becky will be (hopefully) renting out her house in Mesa, and we’ll be living in South Bend together for the next 2 1/2 years.

I’m thrilled about living with Becky again — the last four months apart have been really hard, even with the multiple visits and frequent phone calls — but the process of moving is anything but thrilling. We’re in the process of packing up the entire house into a couple dozen boxes (tomorrow afternoon and evening promise to be a b*tch), which will be picked up by the moving-truck guys a couple of days after we depart. (Thank goodness for Becky’s amazing parents for helping us with all this!)

We ourselves will leave either on Sunday or Monday, depending on how things go. That should get us to Indiana in the Wednesday-Thursday range. So — this is amazing when I think about it — a week from now, I might already be back in South Bend. (When our furniture will get there is another story!)

Moving the pets is going to be, ahem, interesting. Robbie is a big dog, but he can fit in the back seat and sit down quite comfortably; we take him to the dog park that way all the time. How he’ll fare in the back seat for hours on end, however, remains to be seen. As for the cats, Toby (the road-trip veteran) travels very well, but Sasha is terrified of car travel; we’ll probably have to put her in a kitty carrier of some kind, and maybe also Butter, who could be a real menace in the front seat, what with her tendency to plop down wherever you most need her not to be.

And then there’s the small matter of the litter box. In the past, travelling with Toby, we’ve put it on the back seat, but that’s Robbie’s territory now. It won’t fit on the floor, and Robbie can’t fit if the passageway from the back seat to the trunk is open, so that’s not an option. Thus, it looks like we’ll have to buy one or two smaller litter boxes and put them on the floor… which then brings up the obvious question, where will the cats go? Oh, it’s going to be fun, moving a greyhound and three cats across the country in a Camry. :)

But we’ll manage it, somehow. Needless to say, we’ll be packing very light, bringing only the clothes we need for the trip, our laptops and cameras, and a few other bare essentials; everything else will be going with the movers.

So what’s on tap for the rest of the week? Tomorrow (Thursday), we have breakfast at the Zaks’ house at 8:00 AM, then visit Gold Canyon at 11:00 AM, go to Massage Envy for our hourlong massage appointments at 2:00 PM (Becky gave me a gift certificate for a massage as an end-of-first-semester present, and I owe her one from, er, Valentine’s Day), and finally, return home and pack, pack, pack! Friday (New Year’s Eve) will be spent mostly at the Zaks’ house with family (Jen, Soren and Casey are all in town). Saturday, New Year’s Day, we’ll presumably be at home packing and watching football. Sunday, we hit the road, or perhaps stay an extra day to finish packing and then hit the road Monday. We shall see.

By the way, I ordered a USC car flag, which we will proudly fly throughout the road trip, including any possible time we spend driving through Oklahoma on Tuesday. :)

Anyway, that’s the update on my life. Oh, and I’m feeling better, by the way. Becky has shown some signs of coming down with my bug, but nothing full-blown yet, so it remains to be seen whether or not the New Year’s Curse will strike with full force. Let’s hope not.

I hope y’all are having a wonderful week between Christmas and New Year’s!