Adventures in Moving: Part 1

My deepest apologies to my 2 followers for being blog AWOL for 2 months (and barely there before that). Life has been a bit…unusual lately, to say the least. After making the decision to move the herd to TX, we’ve been living in an odd combination of limbo and chaos. My big hunk of Man Candy moved to TX in March to begin his new job only to have them tell him they decided not to do any hiring and too bad for him. And so began his search for a new job. Meanwhile, the kids and I stayed back in WA to “get everything ready to move”. Which essentially translates to Mommy going into hibernation and avoiding anything close to reality. If anyone asked, I said, “Sure I’m ready to go!” and truly believed it. The weather didn’t cooperate for a garage sale (we were living in WA after all) but other than that, I was good to go.

MC found a new job and then flew back up for a quick pack up and send off of the family. It just so happens that he came during the ONE week we finally had nice weather. I threw all of our stuff out on the driveway for a garage sale Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I picked MC up from the airport on Wednesday night and brought him back to Ground Zero. He was speechless. I would like to say that he walked in and was so impressed with all that I had accomplished that he was stunned, but you know that wasn’t the case. He was a bit…overwhelmed, to say the least, at all that still had to be done. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was; I was still patting myself on the back for all that I had done without him there to ride herd on me. As the hours progressed and the day of our planned departure loomed closer, I could practically hear the panic attack coming on. MC was actually stressing and if you know anything about him, you know that never happens. I found myself in the rare position of trying to calm HIM down. Unfortunately, all it really did was succeed in making me realize how delusional I’d been over the past 9 weeks. (Yes, I said 9 WEEKS. That’s how long we lived apart. Let me tell you it was not fun.)

It was actually a blessing in disguise when the rain came in on Saturday. While working the garage sale, I couldn’t help MC get anything done around the house. Once we cleared out the garage sale junk, I kicked it into gear and helped move and pack boxes. The stress of having so much left to do and the reality of leaving my family, friends, and the place I love finally caught up to me on Sunday and I lost it for a bit. Let’s just say there were some tears and not a small amount of yelling/freaking out on my part–you know, the usual.

As with every other thing we’ve ever planned, things did not go as scheduled. The kids and I were supposed to leave in the minivan (that the kids and I have dubbed “Suzy”) after church on Sunday and MC was going to fly out on Tuesday. We both had to be in TX on Friday evening for MC’s sister’s wedding rehearsal (the wedding being the reason we were so rushed to begin with. I adamantly REFUSED to move until we had a house of our own to move into but then Sis had to go and get engaged and plan a May wedding. I might have been able to miss it and live with the guilt but she asked me to take photos and Sassy to be the Flower Girl. We now had a deadline we weren’t prepared for. Surprise!). Instead of leaving Sunday, we aimed for Monday morning. Again, it was a nice idea. At 5:15pm on Monday the 30th, the kids and I left Tacoma to make the long journey to TX. Let me amend that. It was me, the 3 kids, our 2 dogs, and our cat stuffed into Suzy along with enough clothes, shoes, toys, schoolbooks and toiletries to live on for the next couple of months until we shipped our belongings from WA. Oh, and about a dozen plants that I refused to leave at the mercy of my family members who are cursed with black thumbs when it comes to houseplants.

After working day and night for the next 2 days, MC decided that he wasn’t going to make it on time either. He changed his ticket to arrive in TX at 9pm Friday, after the rehearsal. That meant I had just under 4 days to drive Suzy and her cargo 2800 miles across country so that we would be there for the wedding rehearsal. No problem!

I would have nothing to blog about if things went the way they were supposed to so let me assure you that it was a typical Slacker Mom trip. One good thing about having to do so much at the last minute is that I really didn’t have time to wallow in regret and pity. I said goodbye to most everyone with dry eyes and made it all the way to the TX border before there was any time for sadness. Unfortunately, it was only hours into our trip before our train jumped its track. That will come in Part 2.