Our big move to the Big State

I hate to be a Negative Nelly, but our move to Texas was brutal. Leaving Ohio was heartbreaking and the two day drive was torture for the kids (especially little Jim who can't face forward yet.) We had planned to stop at parks to let the kids stretch their legs, but the 100+ temps made it miserable to walk even from the car to the gas station potties, and most of the drive was so rural there were no other indoor options.

Once we arrived in Fort Worth (which I believe was 110 on that Saturday night) we found the landlord had forgotten to leave the keys under the mat. After tracking down someone to let us in, we were welcomed by a sweltering home, broken toilet and shower, several mouse-sized cockroaches (which, alarmingly, doesn't impress anyone down here) and eventually a hot and sleepless night on the bare floor for all four of us. Well, five of us, if you count the poor soul living downstairs.

The two days before our truck arrived were a sweaty and supernaturally slow-moving blur, and our attempts to get out of the empty house were disastrous. For example, while driving *way* too far for Ikea curtains, we discovered the most depressing place on Earth: Frisco, TX. Frisco is a flat, cracked expanse of brown earth criss-crossed by freeways the width of parking lots and dotted, every ten miles or so, with islands of tan condo associations, McMansion subdivisions, Targets and/or Macaroni Grills. There were even baby freeways following right along the grown-up ones for no apparent reason. It goes without saying that we spent a high-stress/low-yield day trying to navigate Ikea with our suddenly hyperactive children, only to arrive home and realize we bought mostly things that need to be returned. Or thrown into a dumpster.

Late that night, I started crying in bed. Billy tried to make me laugh about the situation, but visions of Frisco made everything seem like a depressing disaster, not the funny misadventure Billy was trying to spin. I wanted this to be going well and... it wasn't.

I purposefully waited to write this blog because even on the Frisco day I had a little flame of hope that things were going to improve. Our send off was so loving and our families are so supportive that deep inside I knew it was going to get better. And then our stuff arrived, and we made our house cozy and familiar, and we explored the zoo and museum, and we apologized to our poor, poor downstairs neighbor, and we filled our kitchen with good food, and we made a solemn swear to never NEVER return to Frisco again, and I think we're going to be okay.