the plants made it okay

Believe it or not, that was one of my big worries: how are the plants going to take the move? With no children and no pets, my love and affection (the amounts that overflow from Somebody) are lavished upon my very healthy plants. As a precaution, we placed the two bigger plants in an open box in the cab of the Penske truck. Three hours into the drive, I opened the cab door to check on the plants (my brothers were driving the truck) and discovered that they were using the plants as a table for their groceries. After much freaking out, we moved the plants to the back of the truck where they finished the trip uneventfully. They are now on the ledges in our bedroom and show no signs of the abuse of the trip.

The drive was relatively uneventful. The brothers left the NOG just a little ahead of us. We left out of SLC and caught them on the road after only half an hour or so. My sister and dad left the NOG about two hours behind us, so in Rock Springs we killed some time browsing the Walmart. Ah, Walmart. Much like the Church, it’s the same everywhere you go. Still white-trashy, and still without my favorite eyeliner.

At one point around 5am, Somebody was driving and I was sleeping and I woke up because he was slowing down to exit for gas. I sat up and saw the truck ahead of us, but didn't see my sister's car. I asked him where they were and he said he hadn't seen them in a while. We followed the truck to this closed-down gas station, and then when we started pulling up close, I started thinking how my truck looked way bigger than I remembered it being before I fell asleep. And then we got up even with the cab and this big, hairy man leaned out and looked over at us. I think we both screamed a little. We got back on the highway and called my brother and found out they were more than 10 miles ahead of us--at some point in the night Somebody had started following the wrong truck. Good times.

As if the pressure of moving wasn’t enough, I started my new job bright and early on Monday morning—about 20 hours after arriving in Kansas.

We woke up early so that we could get into Lawrence in time for work. When we came upstairs we found that my younger brother had gotten up early to make us pancakes and eggs for breakfast. And made juice. And filled two travel mugs with orange juice for the road. And he even spelled "Good Luck" in chocolate chips on my pancake. So cute. With support like that, was there any chance it wouldn’t be a good day?

The new job is fine. They don't have an ice machine with small ice chunks like I love, and they don’t have two large, flat-screen monitors for me, and they don’t have big windows along the wall, and they don’t have the chatter of the students that bothered me so much before but that now I miss like crazy. What they do have, though, is a job for me that pays well.

It’s hard to sit at work all day while my siblings, spouse, parents, nieces, and nephews frolic and play all the live long day, but somehow I’m getting through it. It’s nice having the family here, even if I only get to see them in the evenings. It will be lonely when they all go home this weekend, and I worry that only when the house gets quiet will I really start to realize that it’s real: that we packed up our lives and moved ourselves to Kansas. And that everything that is friendly and familiar is over 1,000 miles away. And that our friends aren’t close anymore and won’t call us to meet them for sushi at lunchtime, or a late movie, or invite us over for cupcakes and games. Tears will be shed.