AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

If you could hear my inner monologue these days, that's pretty much what it would sound like-- just a lot of stressed-out, crazy screaming. We are down to about 10 more days here in Texas and I feel happy and weirded out and exhausted and pretty sure I am forgetting something really important, all at the same time.

We have good news when it comes to selling our house here, for which we are very, very thankful. We had our inspections last week; I was so relieved when they called to schedule them because it seemed like a sign that our buyers were not, in fact, changing their mind about the house. Anyway, the inspections went pretty well with no big, terrible surprises and this past weekend we got the repair list from the buyers and negotiated with them about what we would do and how much money we would give them for the cracked skylights and roof repair and so forth. Houses sure can have a lot of things wrong with them, can't they? Even houses in relatively decent shape like ours. Anyway, if all continues to go well, we should close on this house in a couple of weeks. Hooray, hooray, HOORAY.

What happens NEXT WEEK is that we will pack up our whole house and drive away to our new home in Salt Lake City. Next Tuesday the movers will pack up our house, Wednesday they will load the truck, and then Thursday we will get in our car and drive away from Dallas. I'm feeling kind of excited about our drive to Utah. This is a bit of a surprise, given how I've felt about travel with my children in tow in recent months (i.e. mortal dread), but for some reason I am looking forward to driving through so many states and being on the road. We've decided to take this route. The shortest route goes through Albuquerque but supposedly it is only 20 minutes longer to go this way and we feel like we haven't seen much of this part of the country. I'm sure both routes would be scenic and pretty at different points in different ways, but going through more northern climes appeals to us more. We've decided to do the drive in 4 days (those points on the map are where we're going to spend the nights) which is a little slower than I think we'd go if we didn't have tiny children; we'll drive 5-6 hours each day.

And then there is dear sweet Abbey. Oh, it makes my heart ache to see how she goes through life these days... Last week we had the 7th anniversary of her coming to live with us and she is really not doing well these days. The timing of all this just sucks but we are trying to think through how she is going to handle the long drive and a new house and, at a more fundamental level, how much quality of life she has. She is such a good dog and we want so much to make the right decision for her.