meet mr. higgins

One of the (far too many) items on our unofficial "to do when we move to Texas list" that was part of our self-torture during the job hunt process was to get a dog.  As you might remember from my previous experience volunteering at the animal shelter for karma yoga in Chicago, I fell in love with a small chihuahua mix that luckily was adopted to a different family.  I was already 99% sure that I wanted to go the rescue route, as we were not interested in a puppy, but that experience solidified it for me.  We were kind of stupid (again with the self-torture) and did a little bit of research before we moved down here but I started really looking at dogs when I was on my urban campout at Heather's house.  I found three that I was interested in inquiring about, two that were from private rescue groups and one from Dallas Animal Services (that I'd later find out was the pound).  One of the rescues called us on Adam's number fairly quickly but the other sent me the snarkiest email about how they prefer people that aren't in apartments.  I was semi-snarky in my reply back but not nearly as rude as I wanted to be because of Adam's guidance.  I just don't appreciate the judgment, as we live in a place that is almost twice as large as our condo in Chicago and people up there have HUGE dogs in tiny places.  But haters gonna hate.

Anyhoo, we ended up finishing the car buying process rather quickly on Tuesday because I am pretty darn decisive when I want to be and we happened to be in the neighborhood of Dallas Animal Services so I convinced Adam to go have a look.  It seems like it's a relatively new facility so it didn't look too bad when we pulled up.  However, I realized almost immediately upon entering that this was going to be a completely different experience than the posh private shelter I volunteered with in Chicago.  The dog I had seen online was called "Woody" on their website but the lady at the front desk had us sign in and said to go and look around for him.

I have never seen anything as sad as what we saw when we went to find him.  Thankfully, he was being kept in a nicer room with just one other dog (although there were three in his room on the day we picked him up) and he was close to the door we came in.  One of the workers came and leashed him for us but their play yard was being cleaned so we just hung out with him for a few minutes in an empty room.  When I volunteered, I kind of thought it was ridiculous that they wanted the 20 of us to basically just play with the animals for three hours but seeing the way he reacted to being alone with us in the room put it all together for me.  By spending time with the dogs in Chicago, they were hopefully more receptive to people coming to potentially adopt them.  Before we went into the room, we had to walk through what Adam called "the gauntlet", which was this totally insane room with cages and holding pens and more barking than I've ever heard in my life.  Little "Woody" didn't make a peep but he was so incredibly shy when we went in the room.  We just kept reaching our hands out so that he'd get used to our scent.  He was kind of yucky so we just pet him and talked him a lot.  We'd seen a couple of cuties around but there was something about this one that touched me, mostly because he seemed so fearful.  We did know that he was removed from his home situation because of animal cruelty but he never lashed out at us and by the time we left, he'd warmed up to us a bit.

We talked to the lady in charge, filled out the application and agreed that we'd come and see him each day that week to see how he reacted to us.  They wouldn't hold him for us but the front desk lady told us that he'd been there since May and she wasn't concerned that he'd go anywhere that week.  We also found out that he'd reached his allotted time in the adoption unit and would eventually be taken to the place at the pound where doggies go that haven't been adopted and I'm going to pretend that I don't know what happens there (so spay and neuter your pets, y'all.  Bob Barker's orders).

We drove back on Wednesday and got to be with him loose in the play yard.  He was so stinkin' cute and we knew he was our dog and made arrangements to pick him up the next day and take him to the hotel that night.  Our hotel was awesome and pet friendly.  Originally, we didn't want to bring him into two new environments in two days, but in hindsight, I'm so glad that we did.  It was a small place where we learned a lot about each other that night.

On Thursday, we picked him up and despite the fact that he had a mini-freakout and jumped out of the car in the parking lot of the pound, we took him to the hotel, got him all bathed and went on our first family walk together.  We had a yoga thing that night and he did just fine in our room in his crate.  We named him Higgins, after our local neighborhood tavern, not just because it's the best bar in Chicago, but because it was, at least to me, a representation of our neighborhood.  We knew the owner, his son and quite a few of the bartenders.  It's everything you could imagine in a Midwestern dive bar, complete with an AWESOME jukebox and standard random old dude regulars that show up every day.  It was more like our living room since there was always room for everyone and always cold beer.

Higgins has taken to life with us pretty darn well.  He's a 23 lb. terrier mix and in good health according to our vet.  He had a few accidents in the apartment on Friday but has been fine since the hoopla and craziness of moving has been over.  He hardly barks or gives us any trouble and watching his personality develop as the days go by has been really fun.  I just look at him when he's curled up sleeping and pray that he never remembers his past lives in his abusive home or at the pound.  I hope we will be all he ever knows as he ages and spends his life with us.  I feel so blessed that we found him and that he's adjusting well to us and our new home.

Higgy rocked his visit to the vet!

Sweet nametag and street legal Dallas pet license.

Blackhawks collar!

Passed out with Adam

Higgins tonight after two walks around Deep Ellum and playing all around the house.

the dps sucks

We spent four hours in the DPS office today getting new Texas driver's licenses.  You'd think that after all that we'd actually walk out with the new license (like in Illinois) but NO.  This is the one area that Texas does horribly and needs improvement.  The DPS is so stupid that they even have comment cards as you walk out the door.  You better believe I grabbed one and I can't wait to fill it out and mail it in.  Also, I am SO thankful that we won't have to go back for quite some time because they allow renewals online.  It was a long morning and I got more salty to Adam than I'd care to admit.  While we were waiting for his license, I took a little walk across the street to Lowe's to use our USPS moving coupon and got some organizational necessities and a couple of goodies that Adam will need for charcoal grilling (Reason #10,204 that we moved here.  Everyone knows charcoal tastes better).

We're also going back on our word because we went back to the pound to play with Higgins today and we can't leave him there again.  We got the documents from our apartment complex that we'll need and picked up the rest of the stuff we'll need for him for tomorrow.  The hotel is totally pet friendly so we'll go and get him tomorrow afternoon.  YAY!  I'm afraid to post pictures and jinx it but I'm sure I'll have a million from tomorrow.  We're going to celebrate like it's his second birthday and he might even get a special treat!

happy dallas!

We made it after the longest and most annoying flight ever.  There was a family of INSANITY sitting right behind us and it just reinforced my belief that every single human should be forced to purchase a seat on the aircraft.  It's an unpopular opinion, but it's a safety issue first and foremost, and it would also prevent some of these people that should NEVER have been allowed to procreate in the first place from affording to be able to fly.  My seat got headbutted more times than I care to remember.

But stepping off the plane in Dallas, into what has been the best weather here in months, makes the entire journey worth it.  It felt like coming home.  The crappy flight reinforces why we came here, so that we won't have to take our potential kiddos on flights all the time just to see their family.

We had a great dinner with friends in downtown Grapevine and headed to Dallas to check into our hotel.  They picked us up from the airport with the Civic we had shipped from Colorado that Adam bought from his brother.  It felt so odd to be driving around in our very own car together!  We drove around and I found what will probably be my grocery store for most of our staple items (Sunflower Famers Market or as I will call it Dallas' best kept secret).  We went to Deep Ellum (our new 'hood) and had a beer on a rooftop of a bar.  The bar is dog friendly and the bartender and his patrons were great.  They welcomed us to the neighborhood with a ton of to-go menus to their favorite places and restaurant recommendations.  That friendliness to strangers, right there, is why we moved to back home to Texas.

This morning we woke up with one task on our minds:  to buy car number two.  We've spent the past month or so researching it so we had narrowed it down to two dealerships and two potential car models. The preferred dealership was our first stop and they made the decision easy for us by only having one of the 2011 models (this is model year end clearance, after all) left.  Adam test drove it and we made the decision to buy in less than an hour.  We each had overactive imaginations about how awful the experience would be and that it would take all day.  We got to the dealership a little before 10 and it was just a little bit after noon that we drove away in the new car.  They did try to sell us on a bunch of stuff, but it wasn't high pressure or dramatic.

Then we took the Civic to Best Buy to have a Bluetooth put in it so when Adam has long drives to the coal plants, he'll be able to talk handsfree.  We also picked up the Dyson we ordered last week (YES!).

Conveniently, the Best Buy was one exit away from Dallas Animal Services, or the pound.  I've never seen anything like it.  There were SO many sad little pups and we found the one we had found on their website.  He came from an abused home and has been at the pound since May.  We were in a private room with him for awhile and he's so shy but after he realized we were just there to love on him a bit, he was fine with us.  I think it's going to take a bit of time and effort to kind of rehab him into a new lifestyle where he'll be a huge focus in our lives and we'd never hurt him.  We're naming him Higgins, not because it was our favorite bar in Chicago, but because it was basically our living room since we didn't have enough space in the condo to actually have people over.  We're going to go and visit with him every day this week to check up on him and hope we grow on him.  As hard as it is and will be to leave him each day, I think we both feel that giving him a fresh start in our new place is better than having him at the hotel in our tiny room that is already full of stuff.

We got the Civic state inspected, washed and detailed so that we can get it's permanent license plates tomorrow.  We finally had the expected happen and we were pulled over by the Dallas PD for not having plates, despite the fact that the temporary plate clearly says on it that you only have to have it in the vehicle at all times.  Luckily, we were on the way back to the hotel when that happened so we just left it here all night and drove the new car around.  I had the worst idea ever and we decided to drive the 10 miles to Costco in rush hour traffic to look for a dog bed that, of course, they didn't have.  We picked up a couple of things at Petsmart for Mr. Higgy before heading back to Deep Ellum to try out our bartender friend's pizza recommendation.  It was a great way to end our busy day by having a slice of thin crust and a Shiner Light.  It feels so good to be home and we haven't even settled into our place yet!

working on myself again

As this posts, we'll be in route to Dallas!

This move has been really hard on my body.  I still have a lingering low back thing that I frequently tweak.  As soon as we get settled in, I plan to get a massage and possibly visit a chiropractor to get it worked out.  I want to be able to practice yoga, run and bike without pain again.  I'm not sure how exactly that I tweaked it but it needs to get fixed.  Because of that, I've been working out a lot less.  However, when I say this has been hard on my body, I mostly mean my food intake.  It's been AWFUL lately.  We've had so many "last times" at places and so many different going away lunches, dinners, happy hours and nights out.  Not to mention that we haven't had a fully stocked fridge and kitchen since we switched realtors in July.  I can't remember the last time we made a proper meal at home together.  It's been fun but I am looking forward to having my kitchen set up and being more in control over my food intake.  We'll have five nights in a hotel in Dallas (and potentially more, depending on how the moving snafu situation works itself out) and then I'm ready to start our new beginning with fresh groceries and some meal plans.  I've been flagging tons of recipes in my google reader and for the first time since we put the condo on the market in March, I'll have my full kitchen arsenal to work with.

Having our stuff, being unpacked and working on getting settled cannot come soon enough!  My body is carrying around way too many extra pounds right now (again, why do I always do this to myself?) and I'm ready to start working on it in earnest.

urban campout

I've been continuing my transient "urban campout" status at our friend Heather's house all weekend, which has meant a very comfortable bed to sleep in.  We both like to sleep surrounded by pillows so it's working out well.

On Friday morning, I had just woken up and my phone started ringing.  The number showing was the number for my contact at the movers.  He called me often before the move just to confirm details so I didn't think too much of it at first.  It was after I answered that I realized that the last person you want to hear from when your stuff is in transit is the movers.  He informed me that the truck that was supposed to pick up our stuff from Chicago had broken down and wasn't able to be fixed and that our stuff wouldn't be picked up from here until the 8th.  Unfortunately, our stuff is due to arrive in Dallas on the 9th.  The way that this works is that because we don't have enough stuff to fill an entire 18-wheeler, our stuff has to be routed with several other shipments from Illinois to Texas.  It could possibly end up riding in several different trucks and routing through other cities, which is why it was scheduled to take two weeks.

I was a little (ok, a lot) perturbed because we could have had our stuff this entire week, it's basically been sitting in a storage unit in the Chicago suburbs all this time.  And also, if the moving company knew about this a week in advance, how come there wasn't enough time to fix the problem?  Adam spent the weekend in a wedding in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico so I was trying to deal with the logistics of this with the moving company, the relocation company and the HR rep at his new company.  Luckily, he was able to help me on his layover between flights, but I was still really stressed to be doing this at a time when he was out of the country.  We were told we'd be eligible for a delay claim but the amount of money per day is not what I think we deserve since we've already been without our stuff for so long.  Of course, with this being a holiday weekend, I knew we'd probably not hear from anyone or get any type of resolution to the problem until Tuesday.

Late in the afternoon on Friday, I heard back from the movers and the relocation company and there is an off chance that they would have been able to load our stuff on a different truck this weekend, depending on the size of the shipment already in the truck.  If it ended up making it on that truck, we'll still have everything in time for move in day, so my fingers are crossed that they were able to squeeze our stuff on.  Just as I figured, we won't know the outcome until Tuesday morning.

My urban campout has been great because I'm not sitting alone in the empty condo.  I've been distracted enough to not worry about the moving issues, although this morning I remembered that we have to buy a car on Tuesday.  AHHHH!

Last Day

So today was my last day at S&L and I just finished my exit interview. After 5 years I will miss this place, but mostly I will miss the people. Today has been weird because I have been sad that it's my last day. I have worked with a lot of great people that I will miss. However, after going to my exit interview and talking about some of things I don't like has made today a bit easier. In a way today feels like the last day of high school. You're going to miss your teachers and a lot of your friends, some of which you will never see again. However, you know that going to your college of choice will be a better place for you and you're excited, nervous, etc. but are ready for the challenge. So for me, I am going to college again, this time I made sure to choose the promise land.

See y'all in Texas.

last day

The one thing I didn't plan for when I started this blog and wanted to document this move was the long period of time that we are essentially homeless.  We do own the condo still and are "living" there for all intents and purposes, however, we're not spending any time there beyond sleeping on the godforsaken air mattress because we have no furniture to sit on, no TVs to watch and no internet from which to blog from. My intention was to be able to run each morning and still have time to get to work early enough to sit and have breakfast and blog.  I figured out quickly that I'd have to get up way too early for my comfort since I'm not sleeping so well on the mattress so that plan was scratched.  I ended up blogging on Tuesday during my lunch break.  I'm hoping we can get the internet situation figured out when we get to Dallas, since the La Quinta Uptown will be our home for the first 5 days.  At least I'll be sleeping in a real bed- cheers to that!

Anyhoodles, it's been an interesting week.  I've been feeling a lot of emotions all up and down the spectrum from happy to sad.  Today is my last day at work and I've been feeling surprisingly sad about that.  Despite the utter boredom that I felt most days, it's been a good experience and I've worked with some fun people that have been very supportive of my goals to get yoga certified.  I'm going to miss it a little bit more than I originally thought I would.  It's a comfortable place to go and a place where I feel relatively at home.

I'm feeling very apprehensive about the logistical aspects of the move.  All of our stuff could be in Timbuktu for all we know at this point.  I'm worried that it won't arrive on the ninth, which is Adam's last business day before work.  I really want to have the apartment set up as well as possible because I know that it will bring him some comfort when he's starting his new job.  We've taken care of as many of the details that we can but we still have to buy a car on Tuesday, which makes me pretty nervous.  I'm hoping we find something that we'll be happy with and will make a great family car for many years to come.  Adam is going to Mexico early tomorrow morning and we're not planning for him to use the international plans on his phone so it will be the longest time we'll ever have gone without being able to talk to each other.  Even longer than my days of international flying with United.  I've never been "that girl" but I really hope he makes it home all in one piece.  This trip is just another piece of the logistical puzzle and I'll be happy when it's over.  There is only a little more than twelve hours from the time he gets back to Chicago until our flight leaves for Dallas and given my airline background, my mind has worked through every possible scenario that means he doesn't get back in time.

I'm also feeling nervous about the emotional aspects of the move.  It's going to take some time for me to find a job and I am worried about that process.  It's also going to take some time for both of us to adjust and make new friends at work and in life.  That part of it scares me a little bit because I feel like it will be my fault if Adam ends up hating life in Dallas.  I highly doubt that either of us won't like it, there are so many things we're looking forward to but sometimes I have irrational fears about things.

I'm thankful that we've been using this space to record our thoughts.  I truly can't remember how I felt when I came here or moved to DC.  I know that I must have had some worries or fears, but I don't recall.  It's funny how time has a way of erasing so much of the rawness of emotions and pain.  I must have been slightly worried!  Both times, I loaded everything into my SUV and drove for hours away from my family and my home by myself.  There must have been some irrational fears, after all in DC, we had never even laid eyes on the area or our apartment until we got there.  At least from this time, I'll have a place to go back and remember how this felt.  At least this time, I'm going with my best friend and partner in this life and we're headed toward family and home.  There will be a period of adjustment and transition that won't be easy to get through, but I think that the rewards will be worth the risks we are taking.

(and if I'm being totally honest, I'm also a little worried about getting all of the stuff that we kept here into the bags we have to take it home in- the two of us are going to be a disaster when Sally and Kevin meet us at DFW on Monday with about 10 bags between us!)

Last day at work = cake for everyone!