Five Things People Say when You're Moving to Wisconsin

This is getting nuts. I can't believe we are actually moving to Wisconsin, of all places, in two days! Fortunately, all the moving plans have come together nicely. We've already:

• Filed change of address forms with the USPS
• Had a going-away party
• Trashed/donated stuff we don't want and packed the rest
• Loaded our "portable moving container" (like a POD, but we're using U-Pack)
• Set up utilities for our new apartment and bought renter's insurance
• Got a check-up for our car and topped off its fluids and stuff
• Perhaps most importantly, bought a TON of road trip food!

All our stuff in an 8'x7'x6' cube! Actually, there was still a lot of space left. The only furniture we kept was our bed.

You're not supposed to ship firearms and ammunition ... but I think we'll be okay.

We have a lot of books, but I get the feeling that this is just the beginning.

So I guess that means we're ready! People keep asking if I'm excited. Honestly, most of the time I'm just sad; the past couple weeks have been filled with a lot of goodbyes. I'm going to miss not only the people I love but also the great resources that living in the BYU area has afforded me, like the Harold B. Lee library and the student events. But I think once I get to Wisconsin, and I'm saying more hellos than goodbyes, things will start getting exciting.

Which brings me to my Five Things People Say when You're Moving to Wisconsin!

1. "Oh, it's going to be cold there!" I can't really blame people for this one. If you don't know much about Wisconsin, you can at least infer that it's cold. It turns out, though, that this past winter was fairly mild, so the times we've visited haven't been too bad. I guess we get to ease into it. Plus, after a certain point, cold is cold is cold; you just get inside as soon as you can regardless if it's 20 degrees or 10 degrees. I've heard that the humidity makes it worse. I only have experience with warm humidity (in Ecuador) and that didn't bother me too much; I can only hope cold humidity will be the same. Wish me luck.
2. "I hope you like cheese!" And this is the other thing people usually know about Wisconsin. Cheese, and beer. I've never liked cheese in huge amounts, but I do like the flavor of cheese and the different varieties there are. Also, cheese curds = yum.
3. "Are you Packers fans?" That's football, right?
4. "Do you have family there?"/"That's far away!" Yeah...we'll be living a thousand miles away from our family, but the miracle of Skype will keep us close, I hope. We don't know anybody in Wisconsin, but I am now Facebook friends with someone in our new ward, so there's that.
5. "What will you be doing there?" Tygan will be doing software development for a medical records software company. As for me, well, my mind changes every day. I'll start by focusing on putting our new apartment in order, and then I'll see what's around that will help me feel fulfilled. How's that for a plan? :) Our circumstances will be such that I can choose to work if I find something I enjoy, and/or I can volunteer somewhere (library? refugees? church calling?), and/or I can work on my ASL videos for this online language learning platform. I would love to spend more time promoting my course and connecting people to online ASL resources, which would require a lot of research on my part to find out what people need and what's already available for them. If I can find an ASL learning niche that has yet to be filled, I would love to capitalize on that. Also, we'd love to grow our family soon, but that's not something you can always plan on.

Anyway, those are the current answers to the FAQ's! It will be interesting to revisit this in a few months and see how things have worked out!