Day 10: 172 days to L.A.

Today was another day of massive decluttering and cleaning. The realtor comes on Tuesday to lay things out for us and we were going to have the carpets cleaned on Wednesday, but we're going to need to delay that. We've got a plan in place for what renovations we need done and Lori's identified a contractor to call for a quote.

One of the things that's bugged me is the length of the commute I'm facing in L.A. But I realized that most of the jobs in this area would also mean a commute of probably almost as much, the jobs wouldn't pay as well, and the only option here for the commute would be by car. In the rain and snow and dark. I did that for six months and it was pretty brutal. And that was a really mild Oct.-April where there wasn't any snow. However, in L.A., the potential will soon exist to have almost the entire commute by rail. We're getting a mobile hotspot soon and I could definitely use that to do some of my work while in transit. That would be a much better use of my time. I hate to leave Seattle, as near as we can tell, this is the best option. Well, that and I love working with these guys. They're smart, they're driven and there's a lot of potential for me. It's not Kingdom-work, but I can still pray that somehow it means something beyond just supporting my family and having fun doing it.

Speaking of cars, this is a weird one, but one thing I've noticed about California versus Washington - people are a lot more respectful of others' cars in California. You're a lot less likely to come out of a store and find a fresh new ding in your car door down there than you are up here. This is from a sample size of 3 or 4 cars, but especially Lori's, people up here have just not been kind. It's really quite disappointing.

And speaking of cars, I'm looking forward to the Peterson Automotive Museum. It's fresh off a major renovation and I don't know why I never made it down there before. Of course, if you like cars, you also need to see the two LeMay Galleries up here in Pierce County - they are really amazing. One of them we didn't even get to see all of because it was just so big and we knew our son wouldn't be able to make it all the way through.