6

It will be but a few more days that "that building" (deep background) will be visible to our naked eyes.  It will only be a fading memory filled with the hardest work I have ever done, interspersed with a lot of laughter, with new friends.  Friends who have become such an integral part of my daily life that I am finding it difficult to imagine my life, in just a few short days, without.  It has been physically demanding, but most of all mentally demanding.  It may seem like "grunt" work to some, but in reality it takes 10-12 hours of almost continual concentration while standing/walking on your feet a great deal of the time on cold concrete.  You will climb up and down 4 flights of stairs often.  As Katie, an Amazon associate, says "this is my gym membership", which includes a treadmill (walking 10 miles per shift), a stairmaster (up and down 4 flights of stairs), and often involves squats (got to peer into that "A" bin at floor level) and curls with (picking up the loaded totes and placing them on the conveyor belt) varying weight loads up to 40 pounds.  Personally I have lost around 8 pounds, and am now fit enough to hike the Appalachian Trail (end to end about 4,000 miles) if I wanted to, which I don't, but you get the idea.  I think TLE has lost 1, or 2 more than I have.

Friday was another day in the "eat, sleep, work.....repeat" mode we have been in lately.  Arise around 1 to 2pm.....enjoy a couple of cups of coffee then start to get ready for work.  Of course, now that we are so close to the end of our work contract we think and talk more often about our life after Amazon, and, as I walk the concrete corridors of Amazon.com, my mind often drifts to thoughts of changing scenery, sunny beaches, tiki bars, micro breweries, bike rides, kayaking, flip flops, t-shirts and shorts......in short, all the things currently missing from my life.

TLE and I were blessed to be called up to HRV last night for our full shift.  We love being up there late in the week when the time on the "floor" seems to slow down.  In HRV time speeds up, and our tasks become more varied......pick a little, pack a little, talk a little, restock a little, clean up a little.....repeat.  And to top it off we work in HRV with neat people....Jan, Kim, Roy, Cameron.  I am amazed at their upbeat, positive attitudes.  This is their full time job that they work week in and week out.  These are the kind of people who impress me, because I don't know if I could do this work for years on end.  I am glad to have met them, and to have gotten to know them.  They work hard for their paychecks, and do it with a cheerful attitude, and they are grateful to be employed.

The forecast is for a chance of rain......well, I heard the chance of rain on our roof about an hour ago, and it does look like more on the way.  One more day left in this current work week, then 2 days off, and then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 lift off!

I am not looking forward to putting everything away that I have taken out over the past 10 weeks.  It's good that we'll have 3 days to sort, and repack everything before we head to Chattanooga, TN for our coach servicing.  I'm not looking forward to that, but the process will be all the more pleasant because of what it means.  

We are fast approaching the end of our 11 month on the road.....it's hard to remember our life before February 1st, because this is now our life.    I can't imagine us doing anything different, and we have just barely begun our new journey.  Sometime in the near future we will be doing some remodeling of our home on wheels.....the sofa bed couch will be removed, and replaced with another Euro style recliner and a desk area.  And sometime in the very, very near future I will be sitting in my beach chair with my feet in the warm Gulf waters sipping a mirco brew NOT thinking about my next pick.....that Kindle White Paper located on a pallet in R-3-H-23-A-1.

Thanks for stopping by!