Final Preparations: A Soap Opera in the Making

The plan? Finish packing up and cleaning the house by Friday evening, do last minute things on Saturday, leave right after church on Sunday, get to Newfoundland Wednesday or Thursday to leave the dogs with my parents while we are gone and meet our new nephew and spend a week with family before leaving for Sri Lanka.

But you know what they say about the best laid plans....

Week One - Packing:

• Two blizzards = four day delay moving out of our house.
• Sub-zero temperatures = destroyed wiring in the Suburban. (Three garage visits later, the wiring is finally fixed.)
• Blizzard #3 = broken windshield wiper motor. A huge thanks to the little garage behind my brother-in-law's house in Bellefonte, where they were able to fix it quickly.
• Unknown cause = sick-in-bed daughter at my brother-in-law's. A huge thank you to him for taking care of her and cleaning up after her while we finished up at the house.

Week Two - Driving:

• Overturned fully-loaded semi = two hours sitting in rush hour traffic in Scranton, PA, while road is cleared.
• Cramped spaces + jealousy over who was sitting in 'mommy's' lap = multiple dog spats.
• Daughter's stuff in dog beds + two cranky fighting dogs + me separating them = finger bitten to the bone.
• Delays in leaving = stop at a K-mart in Massachusetts to buy dog food, resulting in me leaving my wallet at the store, which we discovered when we got to Bangor, ME, 230 miles (372 km)north.
• Misunderstanding by FedEx = two day delay in Bangor while we wait for UPS to deliver my wallet so we can leave. Thanks to Jenn, the manager at the Tewksbury, MA, K-mart, for taking care of things on her end so UPS could get my wallet to me.
• Violently ill daughter = one overnight emergency room trip.
• Slippery roads and snow = 200 yard slide down an ice covered hill on the way to the hospital, just missing a car on the side of the road.
• Sub-zero temperatures = me and the dogs sleeping in the running car so it would not destroy the wiring again.
• Bad weather = UPS missing the next day delivery flight. Thanks to the call center, the customer service department, the local delivery warehouse and the UPS driver who went an hour and a half out of his way to get my wallet to me on Friday instead of us having to wait until Saturday. And, thanks to the Quality Inn in Bangor for putting up with us and not charging us for an extra day when the delivery came late in the afternoon.
• A chain of storms on the West Coast of Newfoundland =  more than 200 miles (330 km) of absolutely wretched ice covered roads and intermittent snowstorms and whiteout conditions, and two near misses as people were not driving according to weather conditions.

Week Three - Visiting:

• Coldest night of the winter = dead vehicle in driveway.

Honestly, we couldn't make this stuff up if we tried!

A couple of days here in Newfoundland with family, and then we leave for Sri Lanka on Thursday, arriving on Saturday. Praying and hoping for smoother travel the rest of the way!

Sometimes Life Brings Changes When You Least Expect It

For the past few years, my husband has been applying for grants to do research overseas. We were disappointed once again last spring when we received yet another rejection letter. We moved on, made plans, I got a job working part-time in an after-school daycare in the town where we live, I went back to school, he started planning his classes for spring semester, our daughter enrolled in dance classes and a basketball league...and then, he got a call saying that a major grant institution - Fulbright - had changed their minds and he was getting his grant after all. Five months to study and record a little-known language in Sri Lanka.

Not a problem! we thought. He could teach his semester, I could take my courses and work until the last week of the semester, our daughter could finish out her activities, and then we would go. After all, they generally give you four to six months to work out all the details, get visas and other documents together, and basically arrange your life so that you can be gone from it for an extended period of time.

Little did we know! Somehow, the Sri Lankan authorities, Fulbright, and my husband's work all agreed that we should leave as soon as possible, and they would make it happen. Suddenly, instead of four to six *months*, we had four to six *weeks* to get everything ready! I'm not saying this is a bad thing - given the choice of spending winter shoveling snow in Pennsylvania or spending winter sitting on a warm sandy beach in Sri Lanka, I would rather do the latter!

And so, we are almost ready to go. Our rental house is almost packed up and most of our belongings are put into storage. We have arranged for our daughter to be home-schooled while we are away. Our big 100 lb+ dog is staying with a very generous friend nearby and our two little dogs are moving back in with their 'grandparents' in Canada. My husband was released from his classes for the semester. I decided to take the semester off. And sadly, I had to give my notice at the daycare. I will really miss each and every one of those little treasures, who made me laugh every day. It has been such fun watching them grow and learn and discover. And I will miss my co-workers as well, most of whom have been so helpful over the past four months.

We are just one week away from the beginning of this new chapter in our lives.

Let the adventure begin!