Neverending Travels

By the end of the summer, I'm usually ready to be done traveling. And yet, here I am going on a trip again. I'm driving with Dan to Ottumwa, Iowa (about 2 hours away from Des Moines) and he's going to drop me off at the train station Tuesday morning. I should arrive in Niles, Michigan that night. Then my cousin Emily and I are leaving by train from South Bend, Indiana on Wednesday at 9:19pm and should arrive at Union Station in Washington D.C. on Thursday. I've never traveled by train before, but I am looking forward to it. I'm just so glad I don't have to drive! And it's way cheaper than flying. It will be good to see my parents and my brother, but I'm really going to miss Dan. He has to work all week and won't be able to go with us. I should be back on Thursday, Sept 24. Sheesh, that feels so far away. And then the rush to pack the house begins. We have to be out of the house by October 8, 2009, so long as everything goes well. So the current tentative plan is to pack the house up, move the weekend before the 8th, drive the house filled truck back to Indiana, unpack into a storage unit, and then Dan and I have to be back by that Monday so that Dan can work and we both have to be present for the closing on the 8th. Oh Lord, please let the inspections go well!

We're Moving!

We've finally sold our house! Hooray! We still have a ways to go, though. We have inspections on Monday and Tuesday of this week. We expect everything to go well, but you just never know. If everything DOES go well, the closing date is set for October 8, 2009. Doesn't that seem SO soon? It does to me. From there, we have a few options:

• Move back to Indiana (which we will eventually)
• Stay with our pastor and his wife while Dan finishes up in Ottumwa
• Stay at the parsonage in Ottumwa while Dan finishes his work there

It's just such a great thing that we've gotten this far. Please keep praying for everything to go smoothly. We can't tell you how much we appreciate your prayers!!

I've been having fun updating this blog! We hosted a paid site for awhile: "thehartsteins.com". But I didn't use it often enough to justify paying for it. So we're back! You know, when blogs started to become popular, I used them for two reasons: as a journaling source for myself and a life updater for friends and family. It seems like everyone I know is on Facebook. And it does a fantastic job updating everyone on what's happening in everyone's lives. So I ask myself, do I really need a separate blog, then? Maybe I should explain something before I answer that question. I am a journal junkie. I LOVE writing in journals, I love blogging in journals - and I love lots of places to do it! Actually, that's not entirely true. It would make me incredibly happy to stick with just one place to journal. But I love journaling so much that I love to try anything new that enables me to journal. Which is why I end up journaling over the place. And it's a chaotic mess. I'm ready to settle down. Back to the question: do I really need a separate blog? Yes, I think I do. But rather than blogging for both my own personal joy and to update friends and family, the purpose of my blog will be simplified down to "for my personal joy". I maybe need to think this through some more before I just dive right in. Although, I'm excited to!