The lease is signed, a move date is set, and our house is currently covered in boxes. This is our third move in four years (!) so we are pretty familiar with the mechanics of a move (i.e. your kitchen will always take you longer than you think to pack! Pack it early!) and of everything that needs to be done. I’m taking most of next week off just to focus on last minute to-dos, saying goodbye to friends, and making sure everything is ready.

There’s a mix of excitement, dread (I don’t think anyone would be excited to do a fifteen-hour drive, let alone with a dog and two kittens), and bittersweet emotions. I’m going to miss the friends we’ve made here. We’re leaving during one of the most beautiful times of the year – Texas fall can’t compare to Midwest fall, and I think we’ll be leaving right at its peak. But I’m overall really happy to be heading home, back to a city that inspires me and fills me with hope. I’ll be connecting with a part of myself again that’s been dormant.

I’m trying to take time to savor everything ephemeral – cool days, weekend mornings sipping coffee and watching TV with the kittens, lunch at our favorite restaurant and their kind staff. And in the midst of everything, we have two kittens – two rambunctious, adorable kittens who are about six months old now. Getting the kittens so close to our move isn’t ideal timing, trust us. WE KNOW. Renting a house with three pets is much trickier than just one (or even two), pet deposits skyrocket, and the mechanics of taking a cross-country road trip with kittens is not for the faint of heart. But we’ve had these little girls for nearly a month now and I can’t imagine the alternative, where we never brought them inside and they just continued living under our deck.

It’s been a lot of fun getting to know their personalities. Mittens is our princess – when she lets you into her orbit, she is sweet and affectionate. Other times, she is aloof. I guess she is a Stereotypical Cat™. After two missed vet appointments, we learned that we had to block all hiding spots in the couch. We were finally able to get our little Pumpkin Spice to the vet last week for her shots. I’ve been really surprised to get to know Moon Pie – she was so skittish outdoors, but she’s really thriving indoors and is pure sugar personified. She gives me nose boops every time I see her and just wants to be loved. I guess it makes sense, since she was sometimes bullied outdoors by Shadow, her mama (on their very last encounter), and even her own sister. She got spayed last week and she is wearing a little body suit. If you haven’t had the chance to observe a kitten prance around a room in a little onesie, it is a DELIGHT. Little Pumpkin Spice will get spayed in Texas, since our move is coming up so soon and she won’t have a chance to fully recover before then.

Apollo has been doing pretty well. He met a kitten at doggy day care several weeks ago and did a great job with the introduction, so we felt much more comfortable with the idea of permanently adopting the girls. After talking with the girls’ vet, we decided to keep them in one room in the house rather than letting them get used to the entire house and then having to move so quickly. Plus, it gives Apollo time to get used to their presence. He sniffs under their door every morning and they generally sound like a herd of elephants, so he knows they’re here.

Yesterday he had a fit of jealousy since I was spending time with them. Husband was still asleep, so often Apollo will sleep in with him as well. But when I went inside our room, I discovered with horror that Apollo was chewing on a boot. And not just any boot – it was from a pair that I’d bought from Argentina, as a splurge. I’m of the “buy my shoes from Target” variety, so other than my running shoes, this was the most expensive pair of shoes that I owned. Cue a flood of emotions – will Apollo be okay? What kind of chemicals were used to treat these shoes? And DID YOU HAVE TO PICK THESE SHOES TO DESTROY, BUD? Dogs never quite lose the impulse to ingest alarming things, but it has been nearly a decade since Apollo has attacked a shoe. But fortunately, little bud is fine (alas, my boot is not), and we made sure to spend some extra time with him by taking him on a good hike and getting him a puppy latte at Starbucks (after some time had passed from the offending incident, of course).

I’ve also been taking time to do some crafting. I bought a book on raised embroidery stitches and made a little mini-sampler of some terribly executed stitches as practice.

It’s been a fun project to work on while watching TV. We’ve watched so many good things lately! Barbie (definitely worth the hype), The Dropout (skip the first episode, it’s basically Amanda Seyfriend dancing around underneath a poster of Steve Jobs and the rest of the series is much better), and Only Murders in the Building (we just started it yesterday and it’s so funny).

Okay, I wanted to do a little yoga before showering and starting work, so I better go. I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the start of fall (or spring, depending on where you’re at).