Boy oh boy.  You’d think now that I’m officially unemployed, I’d have all the free time in the world.  Not true!  I have a million and one things to do, starting with packing up one life and preparing to embark on another.

One thing I really need to get going on will be accomplished by this blog post.  It’s time to plan our going away party!  It’s going to be EPIC and if you’d like to see us off, you’re totally invited.

Here’s the low-down:

• It’s going to be all day on Saturday, June 19^th (starting at noon, dinner at 6pm)
• It’ll be at the Schiable House, on Back Loop Road (next to the Mendenhall River Bridge)
• Anyone that knows us is welcome to show (and bring a guest if you like!) but you’ll need to RSVP
• This will double as Oksana’s 30^th birthday party (more on that later)
• It’ll be a potluck (ohGodnotanotherpotluck!  Yes, but hold on:  There’s a theme!)
• The theme will be: A Second Thanksgiving (I don’t have a parenthetical for this, but I was on a roll)

“A Second Thanksgiving” theme is something I’ve wanted to set up with my friends for a long time now.  I mean, seriously, why shouldn’t we have more than one Thanksgiving?  Besides the sentiment of, you know, giving thanks for the things in our lives, shouldn’t we be able to enjoy all that wonderful food more often than once a year?  Turkey, stuffing, casseroles, cranberries, rolls, pumpkin pie… I’m making a declaration right now: It’s time to break out your favorite family recipes!

And this is why you need to RSVP: We can’t have everyone bringing cranberries.  I’ll start us off: I’m bringing the turducken.  What’s that?  OH YEAH THAT’S RIGHT I SAID TURDUCKEN!! Also, put me down for stuffing.

We can coordinate RSVPs and potluck dishes here in the comments, I guess.  Oksana and I hope we’ll have a lot of people show up, so I’m throwing out a request for at least one other “big dish” item.  Anyone willing to tackle another turkey?  Of course, we’ll need plenty of side dishes.  I suspect we’ll need at least two of everything.  Maybe even more.  (By the way, the Schiable House has a kitchen, so we can at least do some of the cooking there.)

As I mentioned above, we will also be celebrating Oksana’s 30^th birthday party!  Now, let it be said that the best gift you can give her is your presence at our going away party (well, maybe the best gift would be sticking around to help clean up…), but if you feel like you must buy her a gift, then you’re going to have to get creative.  Chances are, if your present has any sort of physical properties at all, it’ll probably just sit in storage for the next 12 months.  No puppies, okay?

Finally, if I can get my act together, I may pull together some video/computer equipment for the party, too.  I would love to have something set up in the corner where guests could put pins on a map, give suggestions on where in the world we should travel, or just get some help (if needed) subscribing to our podcast.  But really, that’s all secondary because…

We’re going to be gone for an entire year.  All we want to do is make time to see our friends one last time before we go.

So, get those RSVPs in, okay? (Recipes! s’il vous plaît) And we’ll see you in a couple weeks!