Whoa There Nelly!

Tomorrow, Dallas and I fly to Florida to secure housing and enroll the kids in school.

Or so I thought.

We are most definitely getting on a plane tomorrow but now, we aren't entirely sure what we are going to accomplish. Late yesterday afternoon, my boss walked into my office, shut the door and told me not to sign any lease agreements until he'd given me the okay to do so.

Um...pardon?

Since April, I have spent nearly every spare waking moment researching neighbourhoods, schools, community amenities and crime stats. I can rattle off zip codes for A rated school zones. We have appointments to see houses every hour on the hour beginning at 2pm tomorrow and ending at 8pm. My home is up for rent. I've had prospective tenants walking through with critical eyes, tight wallets and outlandish reasons for crappy credit reports. We've weeded the front flower bed and begun the painful process of sorting, saving and tossing the possessions that accessorize our life. I've had heated negotiations with my ex husband about visitation and the logistics of moving two young children across the country. AND, not for nothing but I spent a good portion of time last weekend doing this:


So, after my boss left my office yesterday asking us to hold on while the company analyzed a few details, I was stunned. It took quite a bit for us to get to the point where we embraced the idea of moving to Florida. We really felt like we needed to support that corporate decision. Now, I'm not sure what to think. Clearly, a move across the country takes planning and even though we are just four people in a company with many employees, the directive to "hold on" ROCKED OUR WORLD.

I didn't tell my boss that the Florida rental market is on fire and that we don't have the luxury of waiting for a few weeks once we've found something we like. I didn't tell him that my son is emotionally fragile right now and in desperate need of a structured, settled environment. I didn't tell him that it took me four years to find a stylist to do my hair and that the prospect of finding someone new causes me to break out in hives. I didn't tell him that my mother switched her flights for this Christmas so that she now flies into Florida. Nope, I didn't open my mouth with a single objection. Instead, I left work, picked up my children and got a bucket of KFC to assuage my husband when I broke the news.

He still came unhinged.

Tomorrow, bright and early, we board our flight to the East Coast. We still plan to keep our appointments and visit the schools that we had listed. We still plan to do some rush hour driving to get a feel for our commute. We will follow through with the plan to collect rental applications and make nice with the natives. In the best case scenario, the trip will serve its original purpose and things will progress as we had expected them to. In the worst case, Dallas and I did some spring cleaning, pared our life and got an all expense paid mini vacation to Florida.

And when I look at it that way, I can manage. For now.