Katie and I have been trying hard to make this move as easy on Norah as possible. We found a day school closer to our new apartment and my office. It was great. Norah started there about two months ago so she would have plenty of time to adjust to the new school before she had to adjust to a new apartment. It took her about two weeks to get used to the new school such that she stopped crying when we dropped her off. By now, she is back to the point where she practically shoves us out the door when we drop her off.
We are now a handful of days away from moving into our new place. The vast majority of our stuff is in boxes and the rest of it will be by Wednesday morning. Norah actually asks us everyday if we are “moving to ours new home tomorrow.” We are all very excited and ready to move.
However, just when you think everything is under control, life throws you a curve ball. We found out Friday that the Norah’s new school will be closing later this month. Now all our preparation to make this move easy on her seems fruitless. Norah is going to have to adjust to a new apartment and a new school all at the same time. I was under no impression that being a parent was going to be easy, but I had hoped that our well laid plans could spare our daughter the difficulties of adjusting to our semi-nomadic lifestyle.
I am now finishing my second week of work. I really enjoy working for Small World Labs. My co-workers are a great bunch of people and the work itself is quite fun. Katie is still searching for a job, but we have found a place for Norah to be in preschool which she will be starting sometime in the next week or so.
One of our biggest frustrations is that we are still not unpacked. We had several plans for this past weekend. These plans were thwarted because I was running a high fever for most of the weekend. So, we are renewing those plans for tomorrow and Sunday. Next week we start hosting guests which is a nice way to encourage us to unpack.
We spent the 4th in Dallas with Katie’s family celebrating her sister’s birthday. It was a surreal experience driving home and realizing that it won’t be six months before we see them all again. I just kept thinking, “This is why we moved closer.” It was really fun and reinforced all of our joy in being here.
So we arrived in Austin a little over a week ago. The apartment, which we signed a lease for sight-unseen, exceeded our expectations and would have been totally unaffordable in Denver. Our stuff arrived a few days after we did and we are now working to unpack and organize all of it. This is one of my least favorite parts of moving.
I will be starting my new job as a web software developer for Small World Labs this coming Monday. This an exciting new career path in IT for me and I can’t wait to start work. I am still planning to pursue ordination, but this will be an interesting career to pursue in parallel.
Katie has some interesting job prospects coming up. We are also still looking for a preschool/daycare facility for Norah. So, we are getting settled. This move has been quite the undertaking and I am not looking forward to doing it again any time soon.
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It is the beginning of the end. Yesterday was my last day to work at Iliff (Iliff School of Theology). I have certainly enjoyed my time there. I studied and worked in that community for the better part of six years. It is going to be more difficult to leave than I thought. There are many people there who have touched my life and taught me a lot both in the classroom and in the office. So, if any of you are reading this, thank you.
Another step in the moving process is that Norah is now in Houston staying with her Meemaw and Poppy. She and Meemaw will meet us in Austin on Friday. We already miss her, but it will be much easier to pack and do other moving preparations knowing that she is safe, cared for, and entertained.
I hope to have more news on the job front early next week. Until then….
We are less than a month away from our moving date (June 13th). By this date next month we will have been in Austin for several days and our stuff should be arriving on the moving truck. I am excited, anxious, and scared all at the same time.
Katie and I are both furiously looking for jobs. I think we both harbored the rather naive idea that I would get a job much sooner than this. Of course, most business don’t hire several months in advance of their job openings. This is where the paradox comes in. We really need at least one of us to have a job start as soon as we get down there. In order to get a job, we need to be there to do interviews, second interviews, etc. So, we need the job to get there and we need to be there to get a job. My mind gets all twisted just thinking about it. I am hopeful something exciting will happen in the next few weeks.
This is amounting to a very stressful move. I’m sure that when my parents had to do this it was just as stressful, but they always made it seem so easy.
I moved a lot growing up. My dad’s jobs moved us up and down Louisiana. When he finally decided to become an ordained minister (UMC), we got to settle down in one home for four years at a time. This constant change in surroundings gave me many gifts. For example, I do not usually have difficulty meeting new people and forming a group of ‘chosen family’ in my new location. However, it also gave me a certain restlessness. When I stay in one place for very long I start to feel too settled.
I have been living in Denver now for about six years. For five of those years, my wife Katie has been here and our daughter Norah has been here since her birth a little over two years ago. There are ways in which this has been comforting, but I’m ready to move on. I think that one of the only reasons I’ve lasted this long is because we moved into a new apartment or house every year. So even though we were in the same city, we weren’t really settled.
This June, we are moving to Austin. There are several reasons for this. First on the list is that Katie is ready to go back to school and wants to attend UT for a Masters program there. The second reason is to be closer to family. Even though we moved a lot as kids, we were never this far from family except on vacation. This has become much harder on us since Norah was born. We want her to have the chance to know her family at times other than holidays. Finally, Katie and I are both ready for a fresh start in a new city.
From the sounds of it, Austin is a great place and I look forward to getting to know the area. I also hope that we can connect with the several friends from college and even high school who now live in the Austin area. This is going to be an exciting move.
Today, I put down my keyboard and put on an apron. For the second time since I have moved to Denver, I cooked gumbo for the Iliff (Iliff School of Theology) community. The first time was a few years back just before I graduated. That time there were at least 100-125 hungry mouths to feed. This time it was a bit smaller at around 40-60. I spent Tuesday night buying groceries. Then my ’su chef’, a.k.a. my wife, and I chopped and prepared ingredients last night for several hours. Today I started cooking at Noon and finally served the fruits of my labor this evening. It was a long hard day. Every time I do this, I gain a deeper respect for chefs and caterers. They have to love what they do to work that hard all the time. I don’t think I’ll make any more gumbo for a long time.
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In the end I’m very glad I did it. It feels like it connects me to my heritage to cook like this. First of all, I grew up in Cajun country and food is such a part of that culture. When we gather to celebrate or just enjoy each other’s company, we cook and eat. This is a huge part of the joie de vivre of the Cajun culture. Wylma Dusenbery speaks eloquently about this joy in one of my new favorite old cookbooks, “Wylma’s La Trouvaille Cookbook: The Simple Joy of Cajun Cooking.” Wylma and her family found that cooking (and singing) for their community and eventually a growing loyal clientele was their way of sharing joy and love.
But cooking like this also connects me to my direct family heritage. We moved alot growing up and I can’t even think of a place we lived where my parents didn’t cook a couple of pots of jambalaya and invite the church or even the wider community to join us. My parents taught me this kind of hospitality. I have now begun sharing this with the communities in which we currently live. While it does wear me out and I have no desire to quit my day job, I am happy that I can share this little piece of my culture with my friends here.
