New Mexico to Home

We have arrived home from our road trip to Texas, and we have a dent in the car from a deer and a chip turned into a crack across the windshield to prove it. I shall now give the account of the last leg of our journey.

I woke up before sunrise, got the car loaded, then got the kids in the car. We had apples and cookies for the drive. We left before the office opened. I told Siri to take me home, and Apple Maps showed 615 miles, about 10 hours. Google Maps said 615 and 10.5 hours. So I think I know what the difference is... Google maps adds time for anticipated bathroom stops and fuel ups cause they want to be right on people actual arrival time. And today they did prove to be most accurate (we had a bathroom emergency... might have picked up a stomach bug somewhere, hopefully we didn't give it to any family in TX) I'm glad that both apps said the same route today. That spared me from stressing over if I was going the fastest way. The ride home today was lovely. We drove east from Red River, then north to Colorado through San Luis, Fort Garland, and Alamosa. I loved seeing Blanca Peak in the distance and coming closer and closer to those mountains. They were beautiful!

We went via Monta Vista, up to Hooper, filled up at Conoco in Saguache, then through the mountains on highway 114 through some beautiful country, across the continental divide, down into Gunnison. Blue Mesa reservoir was beautiful! Then we continued through Cimarron, Montrose, and Grand Junction, then we were mostly back on familiar territory once we reached I-70. It was good! I think Colorado is beautiful. I could live there. I think I could live anywhere. The kids were troopers. 

I'm impressed with them. I'm awesome for taking them, I was a champ, and they were my good little soldiers, thanks to a lot of movies. Penguins of Madagascar and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs were the two that I enjoyed listening to the most. 

So, somewhere in Grand Junction I got a rock chip in my windshield. I stopped by Jiffy Lube right off the freeway, 15 minutes from home, to get it repaired. They measured it, it was smaller than a quarter, but when they tried to fix it, it totally cracked the windshield. So that was unfortunate. But hey, the whole thing could have been busted up last night by the deer, so we're counting our blessings. We arrived home around 6:30. Our trip was made slightly longer by a stop at a bathroom for an emergency clean up (Sophi). Hopefully we didn't leave too many germs behind to make someone else sick. 

So, one complaint. Or atleast something I noticed and I'm trying to process my feelings... So usually when we come back from a trip, we all get this sense of relief when we walk in and smell our house. Like you just get this release of relaxation when you take a deep breath and think "we made it!" and part of that moment is coming inside the house to smell what our home smell likes, which we don't notice day to day as we live here. But when we come back from a trip, I can smell what our home smells like and it's nice. Well I was looking forward to that moment, but when I came inside the house from the garage, I got a bit whiff of something that did not smell good. It was a moldy and citrus-y gross smell, like the house smelled like rotting fruit. Corey and the girls were all gone. I looked around the kitchen and things were kinda picked up, I guess, but nothing was wiped down and it looked dirty to me. I was thinking "What is this??? I have all the little kids and we're gone for over a week and I come back to a mess???" The sink was dirty and gross, the garbage cans that I told Corey to empty as I left 8 days ago, were all still there! Like with K's dirty diapers from the night before and the morning that I left! Maybe he didn't hear me tell him to do that. And a lot of laundry. The house smelled gross, looked dirty, and I was disappointed. And the garbage can that I called and told them to take out last week and today was still full from garbage that I put there before we left on March 28 - 31. It wasn't put out in the street on Apr 3 or today! I was noticing all these things and I was frustrated with Corey and Abi and Lily and I didn't get the sense of relief I was hoping to get from arriving home. But lucky for me, Corey was gone, so I left Sophi and Natalie in charge and I went climbing. I was still able to do the white V4, yay.

So, what have I learned from this experience? 1) My home will be a mess if I'm not here. No one is going to take care of it like I do. 2) I like my home being clean, and I want it to be clean for Corey and my kids, so that when they come home from work and school, they are happy to be here, unlike what I experienced today. Today I was not happy to come home, cause it was a mess. So 3) I realized that a clean home is really important to me. Like, a messy house can ruin my good mood from a great trip (as tiring as it might have been). I was ticked, a little sad and frustrated. I unloaded the car, then worked through my thoughts and feelings a little bit on my drive to Momentum (quick call to Nicole) and that is where I'm at right now. I was thinking of something Nicole and I talked about somewhat recently I think, about how no one is going to come rescue us. She has to take care of what's important to her. I have to take care of what is important to me. I have to do this. And today I became determined to do it. I know an organized and clean home is important to me, by the feelings I had today, so I'm going to take steps that I can in that direction. Please help me God, cause I'm swimming upstream here with all these kids. Especially thinking of President Nelson's conference talk that he just gave on Sunday - he invited us to study the dedicatory prayer from the Kirtland Temple Dedication and to establish a house of prayer, fasting, faith, learning, glory, and order, and a house of God. So that's what I'm going to strive to work on these next few days. First I'm going to get a good night's rest. Two days of school for my kids - I'm glad it will be a short school week for them (and me!)