Hello friends! It’s been a little while since I posted an update. We are getting settled in our new (old) city. I’ve blogged ad nauseum about my homesickness and how much I wanted to go back to Austin. So you might be wondering, was this longing overrated? Was moving back home a massive disappointment?

Answer – NO. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I am so happy to be back. LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.

– The first walk through my neighborhood trails and smelling the familiar but forgotten pine-y aroma (they’re not pines though – are they cedar? I should know this? I don’t know which trees are giving off this aroma! This is the best way I can articulate this smell. I AM A GREAT WRITER, RIGHT???)
-Going to ACL and parking at my old familiar parking spot, knowing that we could just return to our house after a long day at the festival.
-The first week after we moved in when we realized we had hundreds of UberEats options instead of like…three.
-Going back to Alamo Drafthouse for dinner and a good flick.
-Being up front at a Bully show with my brother and losing some of my hearing in the process.
-Leaving my house every day for work and being able to leave the stress of work behind at a physical location, rather than in my home.
-Not sliding into the SAD like I did in the Midwest even though it’s mid-November (when I told this to Husband, he offered the verb “plummeting” instead, which is probably more accurate.)
-When we had one day in the 40s and the weatherman solemnly informed us that it was the coldest weather Austin had experienced since February. HAH! HAH! I was so relieved. It was not uncommon to get that weather into April or even May up in Indiana.

Our move was…well, it went as well as a cross-country move could, I guess. There were definitely some shenanigans with the movers, but I think that’s unavoidable. Driving with three pets was definitely stressful, but we did it. We took a different route to Texas this time – St. Louis, Oklahoma City, and then Texas. It was a lot of fun taking a different route. We were so exhausted when we showed up to our hotel in St. Louis the night we moved. Imagine driving into a parking garage at midnight with a hyperactive dog and two skittish kittens. We opened the back of our SUV and all the stuff we had packed fell out. Even though he’d been in doggy daycare all day, Apollo had so much pent-up energy from smelling the cats in the car that I had to walk him several times around the parking garage to try and get him tired. The front desk clerk must have read the sheer exhaustion and resignation on my face when we arrived to check-in, and he offered us an upgrade from a room to a suite. I have never received an upgrade for anything in my life. We loved the suite. Even better, the girls spent their first morning outside of Indiana with a beautiful view while we ordered room service.

The night before we drove home, I was so excited that it was hard to go to sleep. I’ll never forget the drive from Oklahoma to Austin. We took the exact same exit on I-35 to get to our house that I took nearly 16 years ago when I first moved here (at 23! What is time?) That night we went to HEB and ordered tacos and margaritas. Even now, I still get a little emotional when I see the skyline. It’s hard to believe that we’re here.

I truly feel like returning to Austin is lightning in a bottle (or whatever cliche you want to toss in here), and I’m determined to make the most of it. While we’ve been enjoying some old haunts, we’ve been trying a lot of new things and keeping things different so we don’t slip into the Twilight Zone of “Did Indiana ever happen?” So far we’ve been able to successfully avoid that. I’m so happy and enormously grateful for this second chance at living in a place I love.

What else is new? We’re prepping for Thanksgiving next week. We’re also working on getting the pets to coexist, which is an effing PROCESS™. I mentioned in my last post that Apollo met a kitten at his doggy daycare right when we were just adopting the girls and did a great job. So that means that he had an easy transition with his sisters, right? OMG. NO. We realized pretty quickly that we were in over our heads, so we have been working with a fantastic behavioralist/trainer. He thinks Apollo’s issues are more related to barriers with playing with the cats/the cats not fully engaging in the kind of play he wants, rather than a high prey drive. He is fully confident that we’ll get Apollo to behave properly around the girls. I was sooooo relieved to hear that it was not a high prey drive, because THE GUILT I HAVE FELT FROM THIS PROCESS, LET ME TELL YOU WHAT. I hated keeping the pets sequestered. Was it stressful for the kittens? Wasn’t this too stressful for Apollo? Are we doing the right thing? Are they happy? Are they going to hurt each other? UGH.

We had a lesson at home yesterday and while I still think we have a ways to go, I am finally seeing the light at the end of this tunnel (let’s just toss all the cliches into this post today, fuck it). Husband held Apollo next to me while I held Mittens. Apollo licked Mittens – yay, great! This was progress! Then he tried to nip at her twice – NOT GREAT, APOLLO. If you’re wondering where Moon Pie was…she had already landed a very good swat at Apollo (which he deserved because he was being a jerk) and had peaced out from the lesson. But we are seeing a huge improvement from what we started with, so we’re just going to keep at it every day by incorporating everything our trainer taught us to keep all the pets safe. I do think I want to have him around when we introduce Apollo around the girls leashless, buuuuuut we’re definitely not there yet.

Right now we have a good schedule as we get them acclimated to each other. Apollo and the girls each have separate rooms that they stay in while we’re at work. At night, Apollo roams the house, and we’ve recently allowed little visits to his sisters’ room to say hi (leashed, of course). When Apollo and I go to bed, the girls get to explore the house and hang out with their dad (who is a night owl). Then they spend a little time with me in the morning and go back into their room once it’s time for kitty breakfast. They have figured out how to open the closet door (!!!!!!) and they cozy up in the yarn closet during the day as they sleep off witching hour.

I am so proud of my resilient little pets. We are so happy that Mittens and Moon Pie are part of our family. Mittens has gotten SO SWEET. She loves to cuddle and flops on her back when she sees me, and I generally cannot handle her cuteness. Sweet Moon Pie has been a little more reserved lately, but she has recently started laying on my hand when I come into pet her and then makes biscuits there. They are both so affectionate and we love them so much. And I’m so proud of my little OG Apollo…he’s been through so much with us and he has been such a good boy (even with all the hiccups with his sisters). The girls have started bring toys (or yarn) out in the middle of the night, and Apollo loves to find them in the mornings.

Ok, so I’ve been doing 6 am yoga classes? Am I insane? It’s 10:45 and it pains me to say I’m up past my bedtime. I hope you all have a great weekend and a good Thanksgiving, if you celebrate.