Hurry up and wait

For those that know me (Jenn), I'm not necessarily the most patient person, so this move is really stretching my skills as a human. Shayne is the patient one, and often keeps me more chill than I would naturally be in this process.

While we await signing our lease (they spelled my name wrong which I didn't catch until last night...totally my fault...I have an odd name), and wait for our meeting at the Portuguese consulate in San Francisco, I'm in another hurry up and wait part of the process.

The hilarious part of this feeling is that when I'm in Portugal, in a much more slow moving, calm society, I don't feel these rushes and stops. It's just life. Go have a coffee if you need to wait, take a walk. It really is the perfect place for me.

What we can do in the meantime (while wishing I was doing at a cafe with a coffee and a pastel de nata)

We can hurry up on, or at least do the following:

• buy health insurance

• make sure all our names are the same on our banks, etc. (we got married and both changed names, COVID paused a lot of that work until now)

• move money over to the Portuguese bank account, now that we have that

• Reserving our flights (not buying! I didn't even know this was a thing before now)

Once we sign the lease later today and have an official address:

• Pay the deposit and rent up front through our Portuguese bank account

• Contact the Home Relocation helpers to get us a bed setup when we arrive, since we'll have ZERO furniture. And a way to make coffee, obviously. Priorities!

• Get internet setup, and whatever other utilities we need.

• Google and memorize our address in Lisbon, practice saying it in Portuguese (that will keep us busy!)

• Practice not giving that address to anyone because apparently mail delivery is awful in Portugal, and customs charges a mint. Surprise birthday boxes aren't a thing there, because you have to know what's in the box and pay customs on it.

• Continue getting rid of things (anybody need a couch? desk? a household of stuff?)

Once we have a flight reserved we can:

• Start booking the transport for the cat. Since he cannot fit under the seat, and we know he'll have to go cargo either way, we are having a service help us so we can handle our own selves, baggage, etc. when we arrive. All things working out, he'll arrive about 12-24 hours after we do. We'll be rested and have time to get supplies, and be ready to clean him up, calm him down, and help him adjust.

We can wait on:

• Printing out all our documents to get ready for the Consulate meeting. I'm waiting a little bit to do that so my tasks are metered out. I don't want to sit staring at a pile of paper for the next two weeks, and we need three months of bank statements, so waiting for those to render the most recent versions. I'll probably do that in the few days before.

It's like a project manager's dream and nightmare all in one, these various open loops, the waiting, the confusion.

Shayne asked the other day what we'd do when we finally got there, would it feel like a huge deflate to have it done.

Oh, no. There'll still be a lot to do. I have a list for that as well!

• sign up for Portuguese classes

• enroll in a cooking class or two

• start making a map of places to travel to investigate where we want to buy a place

• buy furniture (we are taking the cat, ourselves, clothing and books) so we are staring over, completely, again

• trade drivers' licenses

• explore Lisbon

• get ready for 'conference season' in late Sept to early Nov (Web Summit, Agile eXperience)

• get a tax pro in Portugal

• start building our professional network

• make some friends

• await our SEF appointment a few months after we arrive so we can get our finalized bits of our visa for the next two years

• Eat a lot

• Walk more than I eat

Just making these lists helps a bit, as today is a 'wait' day for this life project.

Now, back to the business/income project for another few hours...after a calm, relaxed coffee since I'm in practice cafe life mode.