It’s been a month since we left Stuttgart, and every day feels more real. My suitcases have lost their luster. The amount of American cold and flu bugs we’re catching up on is catching up with us. Moving is always a process, but an overseas move, especially a last-minute one, is a whole new species of craziness. We made it to Williamsburg a few days ago and I’m already in love. When we flew into Richmond, it was raining, but it evolved into sunshine and warmth. The balmy air felt like an embrace. “Welcome home,” it said.
Our hopes and dreams and mental world creation are going crazy as each day brings a new piece of joy to look forward to. We feel ready to welcome each new idea into our future lives. My husband and I put a lot into making this time in Virginia—but still in suitcases—a time of relative stability, so that feeling of readiness to embrace the possibilities tells me that the groundwork we laid is working. Here are some of the things that we’ve identified that help maintain our equilibrium.
Reframe the experience
As an educational designer, when I create a new learning program, it helps if I mentally clear the space and imagine the ideal. Then I do a rapid prototype or quick mockup of the basic functionality to test the ideas before I invest too much time and energy on the full program. Just as I test a new learning program with a rapid prototype, I am using these two weeks in a hotel to ‘prototype’ our new lives in Virginia before we face the full intricacies of homemaking. When I look at the time before and during a move as a time of low investment testing, a time to imagine and try out how we want our lives to be, it makes the time in between feel like a gift instead of a waste. It makes growth and learning more important than daily enjoyment. Best of all, it’s an invaluable time to discover what paths God wants to lead us to.
Routine
This is only possible when the basics feel met. Food, clothing, shelter, sleep. As someone with chronic illness, I don’t always have energy and mornings can be hard. I have learned that if I just start my morning routine (brush teeth, wash face), the next few steps or miles happen without nearly so much effort. Like a dance. The last few weeks we saw, once more, how much our daily devotional and weekly date night/movie night meant to the kids. Beyond that, we tried to keep our healthy habits with food, sleep and routine but the holidays, vacations, and being in someone else’s space were times when stability meant being a little more flexible. Our time here in the hotel, preparing for our new home, is the time we set aside to really get back on track–adjust to our time zone, have a more focused school day, find and prepare the healthy foods that will support us in this transition. Being a resilient family means knowing when to hold firm and when to sway with the breeze. For us, now is a good time to anchor ourselves with our most essential habits.
For the kids, our daily routine currently functions as a 'minimum viable rhythm.' We’ve pared our morning academic block down to the absolute essentials to protect our energy and focus. We prioritize a 90-minute concentrated window: a family devotional, targeted reading, and piano practice (yes, the portable piano is a hotel-room essential). By holding firm to these three pillars, we maintain our academic standards without the friction of a full school day. Once that block is complete, the rest of the day belongs to physical movement—usually involving rollerblades and exploring our new Virginia surroundings.
Cultivating home
Living in a hotel is not inherently stabilizing, no matter how much the hotel company tells you to make yourself at home. Hotels are not homes. They are manufactured waystations. Sometimes the heat randomly rises to sauna-like temperatures in the middle of the night. Several times. So no one sleeps. That was us in Nebraska. Or the free breakfast that appeals to no one. That was us in St. Louis. Our hotel in Virginia, fortunately, has no such odd quirks, but it’s still not home. There are a few things that we’ve learned along the way that help us feel stable.
Cultivating home in a hotel, step by step
There are many things we can’t control but there are also many things that we can. I have a process that helps me feel like the hotel space is more of a cultivated home.
Own the experience
When I enter a hotel room, I glance at the numerous placards posted around the room, briefly take note, and discreetly gather them up. I am silencing the visual noise that constantly reminds my brain that I am in a commercial establishment. I collect remote controls, throw pillows, and items of random decor. Coffee machines. I find a spot in a cupboard or under a bed that would be less convenient for family use and I stash it all. It’s amazing the amount of mental clutter and free advertising that hotels try to get away with. I clean any dusty or dirty items. Just because I won't be charged for someone else’s mineral deposits doesn’t mean I have to live with them myself. Each of these elements mentally whispers “you are not home.” I want our family to feel at home, and I want these two weeks of our life as a family to count. Especially when it’s a very important time of transition. We need to be on solid ground.
Medium Try
In the bathroom, I tuck away the extra towels, the extra tissue boxes, and move the garbage can. Maybe I just move that garbage can two inches to the side, but it helps me feel ownership and gives me a sense of home nurture for our family. I don’t go to any extremes. I only ‘medium try.’ But I do try. I attempt to give this sterile (hopefully), personality-free space a feeling of intentionality. Because we intend to be in this space for about two weeks, my medium try is more than what I usually do. I unpacked the suitcases. I didn’t unpack everything in those suitcases. I unpacked just what I needed. Because the suitcases needed a bit of mix and match to make weight for the plane ride, the items are not sorted as intentionally as I would prefer. I don’t unpack anything just in case. Just items I will definitely need. I grabbed a sticky note from my office bag and noted those may-need item—as well as items that might be needed first thing at move-in—and kept them in their suitcases. That way I won’t have to dig through ten bags to find what I want when that extraordinary case happens.
I try to lightly replicate the organization system I used at home. I put my journal and foot cream next to my bed. There isn’t really space in the bathroom for any bathroom items, so I dedicated one drawer in the bedroom towards bathroom items. I have a little container I take into the bathroom with my most needed items. I am ok walking to the bedroom to get items I only use every few days. I organized my drawers similar to how I did in Germany and also dedicated a drawer to my paperwork and ‘landing station.’ Since what we have in the hotel is a condensed version of my household, I can’t fully utilize all of my organization systems. This is where Marie Kondo’s organization comes in handy. She recommends that items be stored horizontal rather than stacked. This allows everything to be seen at once and prevents items from being buried. Items are subtly angled so the left side is lower and the right side higher, creating a natural visual flow. This makes it so we don’t have to put a lot of thought into the organization and, visually, it’s a relief. Clothes are folded into compact rectangles that can stand vertically, so we can find what we need without digging. But we’re in transition in a hotel. We do whatever works. Medium try.
Add you
The last thing we do to help own the hotel space is to add something creative. I’m pretty sure everyone has their own thing that makes a house feel like a home, but for me it’s greenery. I love woods, and my peace-bringing walks in the woods, so bringing a bit of it indoors helps me feel connected even when I’m inside. This time I pieced out a $5 grocery store bouquet into six hotel glasses and added small juniper, wild boxwood, and live oak branches my son and I had collected on a nature walk. It adds a touch of me to something that’s very much not mine.
Ultimately, I have to be real: transitions are hard. Children get bored, patience runs thin, and the ‘ideal’ often feels miles away from the ‘real.’ As exciting as it is for me to browse removable wallpapers for our new Williamsburg living room, I have to remember that my eight-year-old doesn’t live in a mood board. He lives in the now.
My goal for these two weeks isn’t to create a perfect home in a hotel room, it’s to develop the sense in our family that stability is something internal. By clearing the visual noise, maintaining our core routine anchors, and adding a few berried junipers to a glass, we are practicing home before we even have the keys. We are learning that while we can’t always control the winds of change that a move blows in, we can always choose to cultivate a bit of light, right where we are. Our ‘medium try’ is enough. For now, it is exactly what we need to stand on solid ground.
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