Three Days To Go

How do I explain the veritible swirling of thoughts and emotions. "To-Do" lists keep flying through my mind. I do one task and then another while making sure we've got time with family and friends too. In three days, we leave for Italy. We'll be gone for over two years. All the things that I love about Tulsa and the USA in general, will out of reach and sight for those two years. We are looking forward to being in Verona, but time is sooo crunched right now it is hard to wade through the feelings.

We heard from the landlord of our storage in Ancona. He has been graciously making sure our car is up to speed for us. This is way above and beyond any repsonsibility he has. He had a nearby mechanic check the fluid levels, the shocks need work and the tag is out of date, all of which the mechanic is doing before we return.

Also, our rental agents in Verona have gone the extra mile for us. They already have our electric and water running. They were going to have it painted and cleaned for us too, but the cost was more than we were willing to pay right now.

We spoke with the manager of our apartment in Tulsa and she said everything looked great and we would be getting our entire deposit back within the next 30 days.

Last night, I found out our first flight had been changed which in turn didn't give us enough time to change planes in Chicago. So this morning, our travel agent got our new reservation for a few hours before. So, now we leave earlier, but still in America the same amount of time. We have a layover in Chicago for four hours!

We found out that excess baggage prices have almost doubled since we last flew internationally. So, we will be going through our previously set aside stuff to determine its "weight in gold" and therefore take it with us.

Lots to think about. Lots to be emotional about. We are metaphorically straddling two continents. My mind bounces back and forth like I'm watching a tennis match in my head. In a week.....things will again begin to sharpen in focus.

Stuck at the Airport

So, here we sit at Starbucks inside the Louisville airport. Appartently, when the time change switched my phone's time to Eastern, it automatically switched over all my appointments to Eastern time zone too. Which means, since I input our return info in the Central time zone it changed it by one hour. We got here to the airport to check-in and found out our flight had already left.

About ten minutes later, we had new tickets, no charge...thanks Northwest! The downside was it was four hours later, we thought we only had to wait an hour!!! So, I'm on my laptop, using my cell phone's data connection, writing emails and drinking a nonfat Caffe Latte with shots of sugar free Vanilla and Caramel, and four packets of splenda.

Hopefully, there will be no issues with this flight and we'll arrive at 8:42 PM in Tulsa. We will be in Italy, three weeks from today!!! We don't have time to wait, but then again maybe God is giving us an opportunity to rest. We do have soft chairs, magazines and internet access. God knew about this, and maybe He decided to use it as a gift of refreshment. Thanks God.