TX ---> CO

When I say the words "John Denver," what is the first thing you think of? 
Answer: West Virginia.
Okay, then what is the second thing you think of?
Answer: Unfortunate plane crashes.
Come on, help me out here, people.
What is the THIRD thing you think of?
Answer: Christmas specials filmed in the state of Colorado.
Yes, EXACTLY! That's the third thing everyone usually thinks of if someone were to say the words "John Denver" to them.
60% of the time, it works every time. 

Anyway.
We're moving to Colorado. 
I'm just as surprised as you are. When I logged in to Blogger to write this post, and saw that the last one I wrote was from July of last year, laying out what our plans were for the upcoming months, I wanted to laugh and cry simultaneously. If I were to give the last year and a half (give or take) of our lives a title, the title would be "We Started On Plan A, Now We're On Plan Q.539, And Those Unexpected Whatevers Just Keep On Coming." 
(it turns out I'm not any better than Michael Scott when it comes to writing a title or headline)
When we set out to sell our house, and buy an RV, we couldn't see any future possibilities that didn't include traveling the country. We felt the rightness of that plan deep in our bones, and it was unfathomable to think life would turn out any other way.
When the first selling of our house fell through, we thought "that's fine, it's going to work out, the right person will find it."
(side note: I thought all of those things AFTER ugly crying for the entire month of October 2019)
When Mike had multiple interviews, with multiple companies, for jobs that he was perfect for, and yet there weren't offers coming in, we thought "that's fine, it's going to work out, the right job will find Mike, or vice versa." 
(side note: I thought all of those things while simultaneously having many conversations with the Lord where I asked Him repeatedly what the heck He thought He was doing)
When the entire planet was plunged into a pandemic, and I began to wonder if my months of fasting and praying for Mike to find a job that would enable him to work from home (thereby enabling us to begin traveling), had somehow turned into my faith being so strong that I inadvertently caused the whole world to work from home, we thought "that's fine, it's going to work out, we're glad we're where we've always lived so we're not stuck in the middle of a strange place with nothing to do, and by the way the right job still HAS to be out there somewhere, right? RIGHT?"
(side note: I don't have a side note for this, I just wanted to keep things symmetrical)

Here's the truth about all of those things on paper: they were set backs.
Here's the truth about all of those things as they pertain to Mike, Sandi, and Erin Roughton: they were preparing us to do what we're about to do. 

(side note -a legitimate one this time-: I'm going to be leaving out tons of details, and I know that's shocking to anyone who's ever read anything I write, because I'm Bob Wright's daughter, and neither he, nor at least half of his children, know how to tell a concise story without wandering through points A-R; but really, there is so much depth to the past year, and wandering to find the right path, that I could probably write a book about this whole experience. Anyway)

Back in June, it had been 6 months since Mike's last job interview.
(I feel like I need to defend my husband's capabilities here. It is still unfathomable to me that he went that long without a single interview. I'm his wife, so I can wax lyrically about his attributes. He's really good at what he does, and IT work isn't exactly a barren wasteland of jobs. There are plenty. He's intelligent, has ridiculous amounts of common sense [thank goodness, since he's married to me], and he's worked his tail off to earn everything he's achieved in his career. He literally went to war in order to continue learning and growing in his job. One of the top 5 reasons I married him is because I knew if we were ever involved in a service project, he would not be a sidelines person, avoiding any real work. He would be in the thick of it, getting his hands dirty. I realize that's kind of an obscure reason to marry someone, but there's a story behind it, and I'm determined not to make this post any more long winded than it already is, so you'll have to hear that one another time. ANYWAY)
We sat down and decided to face facts. Maybe travel isn't what we're supposed to do. It actually felt really good to put that out there. It felt good to have more than one option that we were trying to cram our life into. So he started looking around Austin for jobs, and had 5 interviews within the first week. Hey! That's progress, right? About a week later, I jokingly said "Why haven't you looked in Colorado for jobs yet?" And he said "I thought you didn't want to live in Colorado" and I said "I thought YOU didn't want to live in Colorado" and then I'm pretty sure we laughed like we were on an 80's/early 90's sitcom, and a synthesizer played some sort of perky music in the background. I might be remembering the details wrong, but that was the gist of it. So he started looking in Colorado, and there were even MORE interviews. 
But still nothing.
Lots of promising prospects, but no offers. 

Before I go on, I want to paint a picture for you of what I've been imagining Mike's current job is like. As a side note (MAN! This post is RIFE with side notes!!), the quality of life at his office has been getting progressively worse over the past couple of years, and even more so the past couple of months. Like, on a weekly basis, his job sucks more and more and more. And, when I say his job sucks, it's not like when people say it offhandedly. I mean, IT. IS. THE WORST. I will spare you the details, but the picture I'm about to paint for you should suffice. 
Here we go.
Picture this:
Mike is in a room with all of his co-workers, including the two guys in charge. Inside this room are all kinds of water pipes. These water pipes start leaking, and before too long, they're all standing in water. Mike points out the leaking water in the pipes, and the water on the floor, to the two guys in charge. One of them denies the existence of said water, while the other one says it's not a real emergency. Meanwhile, everyone else is just kind of there. The water situation gets worse, so the guys in charge give Mike band-aids to fix the pipes. While the two guys in charge are oblivious to, or unconcerned about, the water leaking from the pipes, and rising from the floor, Mike is running around trying to frantically cram band-aids over the leaks in the pipes. 
Is it weird that that's how my brain decided to interpret his current working situation? At this point in my life, I'm nearly 36, and I'm not really surprised by anything that comes out of my brain anymore. I wish I could say this scenario was an exaggeration, but if you change the room to an office building, and the pipes to a bunch of computer stuff, and the water to a bunch of computer issues, then the analogy.....holds a lot of water.
ZING!

Now that you have that picture, you might understand why we're doing what I'm about to tell you we're doing.
Mike's quitting his job, and we're moving to Colorado without having a job already lined up.

We're doing this for two reasons.
The lesser of the two is, he feels like he has a better chance of being picked up for a new job if he's actually in Colorado.
The much, MUCH more important of the two is, because it's what the Lord wants us to do, and it's absolutely where He wants us to be.
I don't think we've ever felt so confident about anything in our marriage. EVERRRRR. Like, there is not a single doubt or fear that it might not work out.
Do I have concerns about details? Sure, but those concerns always get swallowed up in the rightness of this endeavor. 
We're going to be fine, but also we're going to be in Colorado.
Have you ever SEEN Colorado? I mean, no wonder John Denver loved it so much. 
If I'm being honest with you, one of the things I'm most excited about is living with all 4 seasons. I have lived in Texas for my entire life, and while Spring usually lasts for a few weeks between the end of March and beginning of May, Summer usually lasts for the remaining 526 weeks of the year. At least, that's what it feels like.
If I'm being even more honest with you, I think I'm going to cry really hard when I finally get everything squared away for our move, and actually start thinking about Texas. We sat down to start planning our drive up there, and it went something like this:

Me: It looks like our halfway point to stop for the night will be Amarillo.
Mike: By morning?
Me: Who sings that?
Mike: George Strait.
Me: Are you sure?
Mike: It's George Strait.
Me: (I pull up the song on Spotify and immediately start crying while I listen to George Strait sing about the state that my heart is shaped like) (do you know what shape Colorado is? Square-ish rectangle. Do they even sell tortilla chips in that shape? Because HEB sells Texas shaped tortilla chips. OH MY GOSH. HEB. OH MY GOSH NEAR FAR WHEREVER YOU ARE).

But really. I'm very excited to live in Colorado (except for figuring out how to bake). The vast majority of places I was excited to go, when our plan was to travel, are within a reasonable driving distance from Colorado. 
So, that's it in a nutshell.
Also, I forgot to mention we're moving next Sunday? We're stopping in a couple places to see friends in Texas, and then stay for a long weekend at my mom's, but then we're out. To Amarillo. By Morning. Or evening. Which is the time of day we will arrive there. 
And then on to Colorado. Rocky Mountain High.

(how long will this affinity for adding song lyrics to words last?)

Yes, we're staying in the RV, for anyone that's wondering. The plan wasn't JUST for moving in the RV to travel. There are many other benefits to living in it at this time. 

We're excited, we're a little nervous, we're wishing we weren't moving in the middle of a pandemic so that we could actually meet people and have a social life eventually (oh dear. I've never had to make friends in a completely new place. What if no one likes me, and I start making puppets and pretending they're my friends?), but it's going to work out. And this pandemic won't last forever. And Mike is going to find a job when we get there. And I'll be able to watch Hallmark Christmas movies with actual snow outside.