Big Changes

A friend recently mentioned, in casual conversation, that they would never consider a vacation within a month of moving. He enumerated the reasons that it was a lousy idea. I glared over the table and tried hard to not start hyperventilating. Obviously, I doubt anyone actually sits around and thinks ”man, the week before I move would be an awesome time to go on vacation.” I sure didn’t but sometimes the decision is just taken out of your hands.

A year ago, we planned a family vacation to the Adirondack State Park in New York State for Mom’s birthday. It was conveniently book-ended by a few days in Oshkosh, WI for the annual AirVenture airshow and a friend’s wedding in Jay, VT. All awesome things but the trip was quickly getting technically complicated. The plan was for the whole family to converge on Oshkosh and then fly to NY and, ultimately, back south together. Then my husband took his new job in Atlanta and we shuffled the plans a little. I flew from Houston to Atlanta on the front end of the trip for a quick tour of houses before we both jetted back out to Wisconsin. Just another relaxing vacation for our family.

Then, in early July, our house in Houston went under contract. I won’t go into our experience with the buyers here (at least not yet) other than to say it was awful. When all was said and done though, we had a closing date of August 4th, just 5 short days after I would return home from our big, multi-stop trip. We were given so little time between contract and closing that our movers had limited availability and we were scheduled for move out on July 31st and August 1st. In case you’re not counting (and who could blame you), that means the movers arrived 12 hours after I got home.

No problem right? You get everything done in advance right? That’s entirely my wheelhouse and I’m overly familiar with elaborately pre-planned moves. There was only one small, insignificant hiccup. In Texas, there is typically a 10 day “Option” period where home buyers can back out of a sale for any reason. So many things went wrong during the contract period on the house that the option period was not set to end until days after I had left for vacation. Since everything up to that point had gone anywhere from “rocky” to “downright awful,” I was hesitant to do much of the pre-move work that could not be easily undone before I left just in case the sale fell through.

The next twelve hours will be crazy and it’s hard to imagine that everything will get done. It feels much like the Sunday that I sat in church before the week of my doctoral defense and could not, for the life of me, imagine that the next Sunday would ever come. Time keeps moving though so I know that this too will be behind me soon enough. Family will be coming Monday night to help me out with the things that do not need to be finished before the house is packed up and next weekend is looking pretty vacation-y from here so that’s something to look forward to. The even better news? Our 9am, Saturday-before-boarding-a-flight house touring netted us a house in Atlanta and, God willing, we’ll be closing in September!

This too shall pass

I haven't forgotten to blog so much as I haven't wanted to write about the things that are going on in our lives at the moment. Looked at through the right lens (let's call it the Erma Bombeck lens), they could be funny. But when it's you and your life and you're in the middle of it, nothing about it seems funny at all. On my recent good days, I feel lucky to have so many supportive friends and family members who can help us make this transition from Texas to Georgia easier. For instance, our cats are "vacationing" at their Grandparents house and, though I miss them intensely, I know how much time and effort and worry their vacation is saving me. On my less good days, I wonder what I did wrong in a previous life and fantasize about punching previous-life-me in the face because thanks a lot previous me.

The less satisfying truth is that, sometimes, for no reason at all, things just go wrong. Too bad I can't punch "nothing at all" in the face. (Here my brain helpfully suggests that I can punch the air and then I sass myself with the knowledge that air is still something and that punching it will not make me feel better at all.) So here we are, in the middle of a house sale in which the only thing that might go right is that we sell a house. (If you are thinking that that sounds pretty alright, ask me for the full story sometime but come prepared with a stiff drink to share.) Here's a barometer for the last two weeks: Assume events can be placed on a sliding scale that ranges from awful to less awful to neutral to good to genuinely fantastic. The least less awful thing that has happened is that our garbage disposal fell out of our sink, with food in it, while I was doing dishes. You really can't make this stuff up...

In the midst of all this, I was on the phone last night trying to catch up with my Aunt. At the end of the call, after patiently listening to me rant for over an hour, she reminded me that what will happen will happen regardless of whether I am frustrated or scared or angry or even happy or peaceful. It's a true statement though one that I would only take to heart from a handful of people, if that. From nearly anyone else, the same advice would sound trite and chiding. From my Aunt though, it was a warm and loving thing. Despite being true, it's tough advice to put into action but also a little bit freeing. It reminds me that I can only do so much and that, when I have done what I can do, it's time to put the rest aside. Sure, it won't stop me worrying but it does help me let go of some of the anger and frustration that come from feeling like I am a very small person pushing on a very large and immovable wall.

(It’s not) Rocket Science

I can’t quite decide if we are in the middle of the slowest mover ever or if it just feels that way because I have no real idea of when the actual move will happen. My husband moved to Atlanta in the end of February but we made the very conscious decision to delay selling our house until the spring/summer. I was swamped in the early spring and couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around doing all the things you need to do before putting a house on the market. Time seemed to move doubly fast once I did start getting the house ready though as I frantically tried to balance work, house prep, and life.

Now that the projects are done and the house is on the market though, I’m just waiting and time has slowed to a crawl again. We’re beginning to whittle down a list of the houses we might be interested in buying in Atlanta but with no contract on our home in Texas yet, we’re stuck in limbo. I thought that this stage of the process would be just as hectic and busy as the one preceding it, the getting ready phase. Aside from keeping our house especially clean though, it isn’t. So I wanted to blog about a list of the things that are currently surprising me.

Keeping the house super clean is easy when you’re the only one in it. Even our cats have been relocated and, while getting the house clean wasn’t easy, keeping it clean is pretty easy when there’s only one of me. It’s also improved my efficiency. I now prep meals only once a week for the whole week (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) because cleaning the kitchen every day is a nightmare but cleaning it once a week is pretty reasonable. My week nights suddenly have a lot more free time in them since preparing dinner involves reheating whatever I made on Sunday (lasagna this week!!).

Having people come through your house is the weirdest thing ever. I know it’s a necessary part of selling a home but it’s uncomfortable and unsettling and I don’t have to like it. I have a backpack packed more or less 24/7 with everything that I won’t leave in the house while it’s being shown, which is probably an interesting snapshot of what I value most highly. My camera. My laptop. My research hard drives. My favorite jewelry (the rest is packed away and locked up). My planner. Of course, there are plenty of things in the house that I value deeply but don’t remover because I doubt the people coming through would value them the same way- stuffed animals, family photo albums, books. Maybe having people come through the house would be alright if it (apparently) didn’t involve rocket science.

I went into this process understanding that I might come home to lights or fans turned on, despite our requests that realtors turn them all off. Then one afternoon I came home after a showing to discover the house hadn’t been fully locked up. The first time I wrote off as an uncomfortable fluke. The second time I started to get concerned. Then a door was left open. Not unlocked. Open. I was (unsurprisingly) traveling out of state at the time so I took a deep breath and called our realtor who apologized profusely and promised to take care of it. Hours later, the showing realtor had come and gone again but the door still wasn’t closed. Very close to losing anything that may have once resembled cool or composure I called our next door neighbor, who dutifully traipsed over in the middle of the night to close up the house for us. Everything turned out okay and I vented my frustration to my Mom via text message. Is this rocket science?

She assures me it isn’t and I try to console myself with the idea that we’ll have less to move if everything gets stolen first. It’s also a powerful reminder to me to be the kind of person I wish we had coming through our home as we tour homes in Atlanta.

Long Distance Hug

I've been having trouble settling on something to blog about recently. There's so much going on at the moment and yet, somehow, I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. I haven't left Texas and I haven't arrived in Georgia and I'm not quite fully in either state. So, instead of talking more about that whole situation, I'll touch on a favorite topic.

I was recently asked how I have so many friends. The honest answer is that I have NO idea.

I'm sure I've blogged about it before but I'm lucky to know so many amazing people. That's true all the time but it always rings particularly true when I'm stressed or going through a difficult time. One of the easiest ways for me to recognize stress in myself is that I stop singing along to the radio. For me, that indicates the kind of stress that I need to care about, the kind that doesn't disappear after a good night's sleep and solid meal.

When the radio doesn't cut it anymore, I dig out my CD's. I could just play the same music off my phone but, somehow, it's just not the same. I reach for the CD's that friends have made me over the years. They've been made with intent and with feeling and with care. A fair few of them have even been made with love. Many of them have been my companions on nearly a decade of road trips. The music is great but the memories that come with it are better.

The songs I listen to remind me of all the times that were better than the moment I'm currently in. The time I got into a car with a near stranger and got out a few hours later with a close friend. (It wasn't creepy, I promise.) The time I road tripped across the country with my boyfriend (now husband) and one of our best friends. So many moves across state lines. Weddings. Birthdays. Parties. The list goes on forever but there's one memory that is especially precious to me. (Okay, there are at least a thousand precious moments but there's one I want to talk about right now.)

In my junior year at college, I came down with some awful stomach bug. I struggled through a midterm and spent the rest of the day in bed. By late evening, I had to be admitted to the ER. I remember the pain and the fear of the whole mess. Three people, my then-boyfriend, then-best friend, and another friend, came to the hospital with me. After being admitted and put on an IV, everything got pretty fuzzy. I was released, nearly 6 hours later, at 2 am and I remember standing near the hospital doors, near tears, wondering how I was supposed to get back to my dorm, miles away. I had no car, no phone, and still felt horrible. A nurse came by and said she would get my friend from the cafeteria and the relief I felt was unbelievable. Of course my best friend or boyfriend had stayed! I thought and felt incredibly stupid for feeling so alone. Neither had though. Instead, they had both gone back to their dorms, tired. The third friend who came with us to the ER though had stayed awake all night, not wanting me to be released alone.

Some acts of friendship leave an indelible imprint on us. They aren't all as grand as the one I've recounted here but they are all deeply important. I don't know how I have found so many friends but I am so thankful for every single one of them. When I am feeling low, their loving actions are a Long Distance Hug.

Coincidentally, that's also the name of one of my favorite mix CD's.

Hello, Goodbye

Back in March, April was a shiny, gleaming goal on my horizon. March was so full of deadlines and April held almost none and a vacation to boot. Now I'm looking back at the last five weeks and wondering where they disappeared to. I don't have to wonder much though because I know the answer. As so often happens when we come down from a particularly stressful time, I got sick. Then I went on vacation. Then I got sick again. On top of the vacation and the getting sick, we finally started gearing up in earnest to relocate to Georgia.

It's exciting and also terrifying. I distinctly remember insisting up, down, and sideways that I would never buy a house again. Ever. That was only 15 short months ago and here we are. House shopping. Of course, that means we're also selling our house. Eventually, everything will get done but at the moment the searching for a new house, getting our current house ready to sell, working full time, and searching for a new job is about two things more than I can handle happily. My advice to myself has warped from "never ever buy a house again" to "never buy a house, then you never have to sell a house!" If only.

One of the most frustrating things about preparing our house to sell is that all the projects that I have wanted to do in the last year are finally getting taken care of. Just in time for me to not enjoy them. The back door, chipped from the previous owner's scratching dog, has been repainted. Holes from the previous owner's pictures, paintings, and wall hangings have all been neatly spackled and painted over. Piles of stuff the previous owners left behind in the garage have all been disposed of. We've cleaned out our closets and junk drawers. The list goes on and on. The good news is that it is all getting done and our house looks so much better for it. Every time I look around though I feel irked that it took us having to sell the house to accomplish so much. I've learned my lesson for our next home though- just get on top of this stuff early, don't procrastinate with weak excuses (for example: We might want to repaint this room later, so why fix it up now?).

One of the funnier to-do items is to use up as much of our food as possible, since anything that is open cannot be transported and we're not sure if our stuff will end up in storage for a while between homes. This has resulted in some funny meals, some tricky meal planning, and, the biggest hardship of all, a good bit of drinking (open alcohol bottles are not allowed to be shipped). Most recently, I've taken to trying to use up as much of our hot cocoa mix as possible. I've already completed this exercise with the coffee and tea. It's a little warm in TX in May for cocoa though so I started wondering if I could bake with it. The answer seems to be a resounding yes- bring on the brownies and chocolate cake!

March Madness

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a blog up with good reason. The last few weeks have been some of my most trying in a long time. Through a combination of accident and well-intentioned-but-poorly-aligned planning, I had an awful lot of deadlines and to-do’s pile up in the second half of March. Add this move back to Atlanta into the mix and the whole thing started to feel perilously like setting off fireworks next to a powder keg. March is over though and I'm starting to decompress.

Months ago, when the only thing I had planned at the end of March was attending the wedding of two close friends, before we were going to be moving to another state, I volunteered to coordinate a “Food Fair.” In both Houston and Atlanta, I have volunteered with food pantries and it has always been a deeply moving experience. It reminds me, on my hardest days, of exactly how much I have to be thankful for. However, it is very difficult for many food pantries to stock fresh fruits and vegetables and other perishables, like milk. The health and safety standards associated with these items are beyond the reach of many smaller pantries. Houston Food Bank’s response to this need is a “Food Fair” where the food bank delivers 10 to 20 pallets of fresh produce to a location with the intent that it will all be distributed in one day. It’s a huge undertaking once you consider getting the word out to people in need, coordinating volunteers to run the event, and finding a place to hold it.

After so many months of planning, I was sick with worry by Friday night. What if no one came? What if the truck was late? What if we didn’t have enough volunteers? What if it rained? (We had only a very loose contingency for this because we didn’t have an indoor venue that would ever have been big enough.) What if we ran out of food before serving everyone that came?

I’m sure I’d worry just as much if I had it all to do again, amazingly, it all went off so smoothly that I spent all of Saturday wandering asking volunteers what I could do. After months of planning, the big day came, and I had little to do besides stand back and watch in wonder. At this point, this whole post may sound disgustingly self-congratulatory, but that really isn’t my intent. However, the back story was needed for the real purpose of this post.

On my umpteenth trip around our “fair ground,” I paused to look around and just watch everything in motion. In that moment, despite all my worries about other things going on in our lives, there was nowhere else that I could imagine wanting to be. I was surrounded by a group of amazing volunteers who all were willing to give up their Saturdays to direct traffic, to cart heavy food around, and to stand on street corners holding signs and directing traffic. I moved around asking people if they wanted a break and was turned down time after time. No one wanted to stop, even for lunch. Despite the heat and, occasionally, the rain, everyone was willing and happy to keep going and it was one of the most amazing, humbling things I have seen. And that was totally worth everything that led up to that moment.

Bad at Failing

I had an art teacher in high school (a hilarious nun who sometimes cursed, was usually improper, and taught me all kinds of things about not needing to conform to expectations) who used to tell us to "have a day." We would ask her if she meant "have a good day" and she would tell us that we could have whatever kind of day we wanted to have. Well, this has been a week. Stick whatever adjective you want in front of "week" and my answer will probably be "yes."

Math and science have always been hard for me. In both high school and college, I was strongly encouraged to pick something else. I was born with a stubborn streak a mile wide though and any suggestion that I couldn't do something generally only provoked me to try harder. (How lucky are my parents? I'm sure they hope I someday have one just like me.) I didn't choose science because it was easy, I chose it because it was hard, because it was a challenge, because I was determined to prove a point. To who (whom?), I have no idea.

I love that research keeps my mind busy and engaged. I love looking for the next project, the next challenge, and the next unknown. That's all well and good but usually science is a lot of days of failing to do something before you figure it out. Sometimes, before you discover you were asking the wrong question all along. Plenty of famous scientists (and less famous ones) offer examples of exactly how failing is intrinsically a part of research. Unfortunately, I am bad at failing. I do not, despite all the well meaning advice to the contrary, look at lines of failed code and think cheerfully "well, now I know that approach doesn't work, I'll just have to try another one!" Instead, I question why I couldn't have picked something else, anything else, to invest myself in as an adult. I hear the voice of a professor, long ago, telling me that I should consider science writing or being a telescope operator because I was not suited for more. If you're not sure, this was very much not a complement.

Usually I am most sure that I will never succeed shortly before I do just that. Often I leave work dispirited about my progress only to get on the highway and come up with a new approach on the way home. Or in the middle of the night. Or while I'm cooking dinner. I'm still not sure if the triumph at the end (however small of an improvement the "end" might be) is worth the struggle along the way. Maybe, someday, I'll get better at failing. Maybe I'll fail with more optimism and less resignation. At the very least, maybe I'll figure out a way to help my students be better at failing than I am. Or maybe being bad at failing is exactly what makes people good at science.