My first entry in this blog was about how Alex’s joining the foreign service was starting to feel real.  After a year of tests and essays and clearances and uncertainty, we were finally making preparations for the big change.  We called the movers and found someone to sublet our apartment and made living arrangements for our time in DC.  Then we had to make plans for our month-long road trip to the Midwest to see our families.  Stuff was happening!

Now that we’ve been on our road trip for two and a half weeks, we’ve had a chance to rest.  Of course there have been a few things to take care of, even from the road, such as finalizing our sublet and finally finding someone to fix a zipper on our couch cover that has been broken for about four months (both tasks have somehow proven way more difficult than we could have imagined).  But mostly we’ve been relaxing.  It feels like the calm before the storm.

When we get back to NYC, we’ll have one full day before the movers arrive, and then four more days spent in a hotel before finally heading to DC.  During that time we’re going to be much busier than we expected because of an ever-growing list of tasks that we’ll need to take care of.  It includes things like taking our cable box back to Time Warner, picking up a month’s worth of mail from the post office, renewing my drivers license and eating at about ten restaurants we promised ourselves we’d hit once more before leaving town.

But right now all we can do is look at our list, then push it aside in favor of a few more days of relaxation.  The calm before the storm.