Around the World in 80 Days

I'm currently flying back from Washington, DC where I visited our DC office, hosted a Women's Initiative Event with our female summers and associates, and attended a fabulous networking dinner. We moved Sunday and Monday, I went to the office Tuesday (4.7 miles! 12 minutes!! worth every sweaty awful minute of the weekend), and flew to DC on Wednesday. James drove the kids halfway to Houston on Tuesday to meet my mom for PapaGigi camp. We'll pick them up tomorrow/Saturday in San Antonio where we will drop in to visit my grandparents and then spend the night in Austin before dropping Landon at UT Swim Camp midday Sunday.

James, the girls, and I will drive back to Dallas, Cora starts a little local soccer camp on Monday hosted by a high school player, James continues coaching in Fort Worth every afternoon, Claire flies to NYC on Tuedsay morning (she has to be at the airport at 4 a.m. which should not be a real thing), I fly to San Francisco on Tuesday at 10 (which is how I'm justifying getting James to do the 4 a.m. airport drop off), I speak at a conference on Wednesday and then take the redeye out that night at midnight to be back in Dallas by 7 a.m. to speak at a conference in Dallas at noon. Claire flies back into Dallas on Friday after four days and four Broadway shows in NYC, Landon is getting a ride home from swim camp that afternoon, and then we spend the weekend finding things in our hopefully unpacked rental house and packing all the things for our twelve-day, all-the-way-around-the-country road trip in Iceland. We get back July 2 and then July kicks off its own flavor of travel craziness.

I also have quite a lot of actual billable work and some cases I'm running and it's all a little crazy (there's a spreadsheet to track who is where when this month), but y'all I am having the best damn time.

But let's take it back to the move. For reasons I can no longer justify, I thought we should move ourselves to the rental house.

"It's furnished," I thought in my optimistic brain, "it's just our clothes and some toiletries, we can just pack up some boxes, rent a uHaul and do it ourselves on Sunday before the movers come!"

Except no. When you're going to live somewhere for 6-9 months, and have 2 adults, 3 children, and 3 pets, it turns out you still need pretty much everything in your home except the furniture and whatever you've tucked into the very back of your closets. And that is still a LOT of stuff.

Also, renting a uHaul is pretty much the worst, particularly on a weekend. We had a reservation all confirmed, but still ended up in line for TWO HOURS to pick up our truck, which was not the best start to the day. Once we finally had our truck, we went back to the house and began hauling our dressers (the only furniture we were taking) and our boxes (so many more than anticipated) to fill the truck. The temperature quickly broke 100 degrees and we were drenched in sweat.

The kids were truly amazing helpers. Uncomplaining and if not enthusiastic, then accepting of the day and what it entailed. Reminded me of this little helper back in 2012 when we moved to Fort Worth. It is nice that he can now carry the heavy stuff!

We also filled the Suburban, divided up and drove both vehicles to Dallas, unloaded everything when the temp was somehow even hotter, and then headed back to Fort Worth.

The day ended at my favorite margarita place, Yucatan Taco Stand, where we ate many a meal on a lazy Saturday afternoon in 2012 after swimming with our little Landon while toddler Claire napped. It was my final choice on our Fort Worth food tour and tasted extra good after a day of moving.

And so there we were, sweaty, exhausted, and just a little sad, with one set of clothes left in the house and a bigger move to go tomorrow. We all immediately went to bed.

On Monday morning we finally opened the Pod we were supposed to go through on Saturday (no time/too hot), two big moving trucks rolled down the street, and a team of five movers were ready to roll. Ramps were created, animals were secured in Landon's empty bedroom, and professional packing and moving began while I kept finding more things that should actually go to the rental house and loaded them up in both our cars.

I took an early load over with the kids and dropped them all off to set up their rooms and unpack whatever we brought over the day before. Becca also arrived and drove over a load of refrigerator and pantry items and stayed at the house to get the kitchen set up. I went back to Fort Worth to continue supervising and grabbing things for the rental house v. growing donation pile, particularly as we got to the Pod and the garage. It was a busy day. In some ways that was good- we couldn't really reflect on the enormity of leaving this home for the last decade when we were sweating and organizing and driving.

Moose wanted to know what in the fuck was going on. He buried himself under Landon's tiny sink as that appeared to be the only thing strange men weren't carting away.

Soon it was time for my second trip, now with the pets, so the cats were packed in their carriers, Moose totally freaked out and Milo mildly concerned about the inflight snack situation.

Maggie just wanted to be sure she'd be packed too.

Once at the rental house, Maggie hopped on her bed for a nap, Milo explored every room, cabinet, nook, and cranny, and Moose refused to exit his carrier as it was the only place he'd deemed safe so far. Many hours later, he had moved from the carrier on Landon's bed to the blanket on Landon's bed and still seemed to generally be overwhelmed with a sense of What in the Actual Fuck.

By midafternoon the Fort Worth house was empty except for the furniture we were selling.

By the time James and I drove back, Becca had turned a disaster of a kitchen into an organized room of wonder.

A big salad was prepped and meatballs were simmering and you guys, I could have cried. There was (and is!) still so much to do, but having a little bit of order in the chaos was soothing to my soul.

Meanwhile, here is Cora's bathroom which she assured me, after SEVERAL hours, that was "completely unpacked and organized."

Our brains all work in their own ways. The girls celebrated their unpacking by jumping in our rental house hottub and then we were all in bed by 9:30.

On Tuesday I uncovered a work outfit and shoes and dragged myself to the car to head to the office. And then this vision on the GPS screen made it all worthwhile.

By Wednesday the kids were living their best lives with my parents in Houston, going to water parks and having lake days and eating at Hibachi grills, I was in DC enjoying fabulous Cuban food followed by excellent Indian food followed by one of the best dinners (Spanish this time) I've had in a long time, and James was driving back and forth to Fort Worth to teach lessons.

We haven't really had time to reflect on the fact we just moved- I think it'll sink in sometime in August when I stay put for more than a few days. But for now I can say that I think our Fort Worth house gave us one of the best decades of our lives- from happy babies to chubby toddlers to sweet little kids to delightful big ones- what extraordinary and simple memories we made in that space.

I look forward to making another decade more with this crew wherever we land next!