Hello friends!  I’m back! I hope you all are doing well.  It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. I don’t think any move is ever 100% smooth, and while we definitely had our share of craziness, I’m happy to say that we’ve enjoyed our first week in Indiana so far.  I have a lot of updates, so I’ll try and break my post out a bit so it’s not a huge jumble of words.

The Move

We had a series of funny yet frustrating incidents the week we moved, which add some notches to our life experience belts, and ultimately make funny stories.  The week before we moved, we found that our lock was broken after a realtor had stopped by, so we had to spend $200 fixing the lock.  THAT WAS FUN.  Then, our landlord’s realtor kept pressuring us to show the home…they wanted to bring people by the day before we moved, telling us we could stay in the house and continue packing while they showed the home.  What?  Do you want to show a house where every square foot is covered with possessions and boxes?  We told them no.  Then they stopped by the day we moved, without even checking, saying that they “thought we’d be gone already.”  And our awful ex-neighbor yelled at our movers for parking in front of his driveway, which is the exact same thing he did when we were moving in.  Thanks for bringing it full circle, garbage neighbor.  Not going to miss your face at all.

We left Austin that Thursday (July 18) to start our road trip to Indiana.  To be honest, we were so stressed from moving and lack of sleep that I didn’t feel emotional about it all.  I just felt ready to hit the road.  To compound the moving stress, work has been insane (I worked 21 hours this week when I was supposed to take most of it off).  I’m so grateful for the help my coworkers have already given me while I was moving, but I had to send an SOS yesterday – on top of getting the house set up, buying cars, personal errands, etc, it was just too much.  So my workload has decreased significantly until I officially restart on August 1.  I guess this long paragraph is just to say that I haven’t really had the chance to process homesickness yet since it’s been so hectic.

Goodbye, sweet house!

Town Lake Trail downtown – one of my favorites in Austin. When I started running on this trail, Austin started feeling like home. Even got engaged on this trail 🙂

Until we meet again, ATX. Thanks for 11.5 years ❤

Road Trip

The road trip itself was really fun.  We drove through Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois.  For anyone who has not lived or traveled in Texas, it takes nearly a day just to leave the state. I think we hit the Arkansas state line after 5.5 or 6 hours of driving from Central Texas.  We passed through Texarkana, which is the same town I’d passed through in 1994 when I first moved to Texas – a sweet way to bring it full circle.  We spent the night in Little Rock, then had breakfast the next day at a yummy cafe.  We’d started taking Apollo to dog-friendly restaurants right before leaving Austin, which I’m so glad we did. He really enjoys it, and it allows us to check out some fun local spots.

The next day, we hit 5 states total! Again, for a Texan, this is a big deal, since it takes forever to get anywhere. We had amazing barbeque in Memphis and passed through the town my grandfather was born in Arkansas.

Closing

Most of the trip to Indiana was very smooth, until 9:30 Friday night (July 19). Our realtor emailed us, “You need to call me ASAP.” That’s never a good sign. We found out that our lender hadn’t wired the money in time for a Saturday closing, so we wouldn’t be able to get the keys to our home until Monday.  I can’t tell you how sad and frustrated we were.  I must have called my lender five times that night and the following morning.  Major life lesson learned – NEVER CLOSE ON A HOUSE DURING THE WEEKEND. 🙂  Closing Saturday AM was very anticlimactic since we couldn’t get the keys or stay in the home.  We were at least allowed to unpack our belongings from our rental car, which was packed to the brim (seriously, I couldn’t see out of the rear view mirror), and the seller did at least allow the movers to drop our boxes off as scheduled on Sunday.  We FINALLY got the keys Monday after a tense morning of phone calls with my lender.

This past week has been a daze of unboxing and work.  We’re getting there and it’s definitely starting to look more like a home.  Apollo loves the carpeted upstairs and gallops around like a little pony.

Indiana

We’re really liking Indiana so far.  Our first Saturday here, we took Apollo to Broad Ripple, a neat section of town with restaurants and shops along the White River.  The food was good (Apollo thought so too, since he snatched half of my sandwich), and the live music was just as good as anything we’d hear in Austin. Despite the stress of not being able to close, we had a really good time that night and were able to unwind.

The first couple of days we were here, the weather was pretty similar to Austin’s, with the heat index in the 100’s.  But the weather changed drastically by Monday, and since then, we’ve had highs in the upper  70s/low 80s.  I don’t even have my AC on right now.  WHAT IS THIS WEATHER?  This does not compute.

Corn cakes at Cafe Patachou! Yummm.

Backyard corn field views

CRAFTS

So I haven’t had a ton of time to work on my projects, but I’ve made discernible progress with my Flatiron Shawl since my last post!

I need to find a new photo spot in this house…that white table I used to take my photos on belonged to my landlord!

I’m in the fade portion between Sections A and B, and just about to start Section B…I love this project so much!  The colors are fading together beautifully.

I’ve started creating a dedicated craft space in the designated guest bedroom.  If we have kids one day, this little room will likely become a nursery, but if/until then…it’s mine!

I downsized my stash before moving, so this is maybe 30-40 percent of it…ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME

If you read through this whole thing, phew! Thanks for sharing in my adventures with me! I should probably put this laptop down and continue unpacking.  Later we’ll check out some local parks with the pup.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!