Paint your wagon and come along...

Ten points to anyone who can identify the movie from which the title comes. Hopefully I'll be giving out lots of points. Here are two hints: the movie title is in the post title and the post title is a lyric.

Well, I'm not leaving to stake out a new claim for gold-mining and all three cars are still sporting their original colors, but I do feel like my adventure is really starting! Today Mama (happy birthday!) and I did the majority of our shopping (the plans for a big shopping excursion on saturday coalesced into the small--but still productive--shopping excursion) and I spent much of this evening finding a place for each purchase in the plastic storage bins that soon will grace the space under the bed. Each time I crossed an item off the list I felt as if I was one rung closer to the giant bunk bed of college. Okay weird metaphor. The point is, it was rather exciting, and rather exhausting. Highlights of the trip include two periods of extended separation in IKEA and Target when Mama and I were off looking for different items. Mama's cell phone was out of batteries and I did not do a good job on either occasion of specifying when we would meet up again. So both of us ended up wandering around both stores (and those can be some tricky stores) laden with dorm furnishings, searching for each other. Also, the process of finding the proper bedding was quite the chase. We still haven't found the proper sheets, but we did manage to corner a quilt and sham set of the proper dimension and acceptable color. BYU dorms have extra long twin beds (39" x 80" as opposed to 39" x 75") and bedding of that size is difficult to come by. Mama and I were both so excited when we finally found a proper-sized quilt that we failed to remember that boys don't sleep in beds dripping with rainbow-patterned fabric for a couple minutes. Mama's described it as "too Joseph-and-the-Amazing-Technicolor-Dreamcoat" for my dorm room, but something tells me that not even Joseph would sleep under that quilt. It was very pretty, though, so maybe Eva can buy something similar when she goes up. After searching through a few more colors and patterns, we finally found a nice light blue and green bedspread that goes nicely with some of the other blue furnishings. Go Cougars! Now to find sheets...

Despite the bedding difficulties, the trip was very successful. Target was just a wonderful place today and I LOVE all my college stuff. Plenty of supplies to "set me up for success" as Mama says and lots of great furnishings and clothes as well. I've only a few more items yet to check off the list, and those will be easily taken care of over the next few days, whether we find them here or in Utah. "Excited," as an adjective, is fails to describe how I'm feeling right about now.

And there is one particular person who must be thanked for this feeling. That would be Mama. She has been so wonderful throughout this whole packing and shopping process, helping me and advising me when needing it, allowing me to get carried away just a little bit and then reeling me back down, and giving so much energy and time to help get me ready. And on her birthday of all days!

Off the subject of college adventures beginning and back to the title, I just watched that particular movie last night. It was very fun. Not very elegant in structure and form, but the songs are great, it's funny, and it's visually pleasing. And it doesn't paint prostitution in a very appealing light, so I guess that's a plus.

Here's a video from the film:



I love you bunches!
--Christian