PART FIVE: big decisions, west Texas, marfa lights, and a mad dash to bayous and boudin

A LOT happened in May so let's just take it one week at a time.

Week One:

We returned home from Tennessee with a big decision to make in a small window of time. After a few days (that's really all the time we had) of fervent prayer and lots of discussion, we decide to take the job with LCA. Which meant, we'd be moving to a brand new state in less than a month. No pressure.

I immediately started packing whatever we weren't going to use in the next few weeks. The house hunting also commenced without a whole lot of luck.

And we realized we really didn't need my old truck and didn't want to mess with getting it to Louisiana. So we listed it for sale.

Oh and we soaked up as much of the Texas river wading and fishing as we could in the evenings.

Week Two:

We decided to go see our good friends the Swicks out in west Texas where we learned all about Pecans. Honestly great fun. Ya'll go google "hail canon." We also hiked and took photos of the gorgeous west Texas landscape. And checked out the super creepy Marfa Lights. All I'm saying is... If there are aliens, they're probably hanging out in Marfa.

Week Three:

We decided since we would be moving to Louisiana the next week, we should probably go find somewhere to live... That's when we made our mad dash to the land of bayous and boudin. We'd found two possible rental homes through the good ol ag grapevine (thank you, Uncle Dwight).

The first was a nice little place about 45min from the office that would just need a little cleaning up/out before we moved in. It was now owned by the original owner's nephew. The uncle had moved to an assisted living center and passed away over a year ago. The home was still just as he'd left it the day he went to the center. The house was a two bedroom, one bath, with a big front and back porch and a large yard just outside of a small town.

The second was an old farm house near a solar farm and only 15min from the office. It needed A LOT of work and the solar farm deal was less than ideal. Had it been a property we were buying to renovate it would have been worth it, but it needed too much work just to rent it.

*Cue House Hunters' music*

Since our budget was definitely not $1 million dollars and we both have real jobs....

We decided to go with House #1. The nice little place further from the city with porches and a big yard.

We also stopped by the LCA office and picked up the LCA trailer to help us move.

On our way back to Texas to wrap up the packing, we stopped in at our friends' place where we'd honeymooned which was a nice little break from the crazy.

Week Four:

Once home we realized we have (Dusty has.... all my stuff was still in storage in Oklahoma) way more crap than we thought we did.

We spent all day Wednesday, May 27, packing. Around 8PM we finally had everything loaded and ready to leave for Louisiana in the morning.

But, I married a Pendergrass... So that would be a little too reasonable.

"Let's just leave tonight," my husband said enthusiastically.

He figured we could roll in first thing in the morning, throw a mattress on the floor, take a nap, and then start unpacking. That would give us plenty of time to move in and start exploring the area before he started work on June 1.

And thus began the longest, most exhausting 36+ hours of my life...