I wasn’t trying to get back to Blacksburg, but I’m here anyways. Funny how life works like that.

It’s been a summer for my family: leaving a life that had far more good than bad, hastily selling a house just as local real estate cooled, putting together a slap-dash move, looking for the right house in a market where everything we liked was spoken for in a day or two, and then grabbing a rental just in time for the boys to start school. It was the kind of move I said I’d never make again, but we made it and so far have made it work. Football’s been on the backest of my burners…I haven’t read any articles or watched pressers, and my output for TSL has been sporadic. The stress has gotten to me. Most nights the past few months I’ve only slept a few hours, and lately I’ve had more two-cans-of-Dr-Pepper breakfasts than I’d care to admit.

My wife and I spent our first week in the Burg alone; we’d sent our kids to the grandparents so we could open some boxes and ready their rooms. Naturally, we only got a smidgen of homemaking done in that time. When the week was over, we focused on getting the boys as used to Blacksburg as possible and readying the house at night. I’d taken the boys on a stealth mission to Blacksburg when it first seemed like we might be moving, and they saw some more of town when visiting schools and house-searching, but the kids were always more spectators than participants. 

...