I-25 Albuquerque, New Mexico to I-10

I've been lucky in the past with I-40 passing through after a storm with snow only on sides or with a storm trailing a day behind so we pushed a little harder to beat it and get out of the way. This trip we are challenging ourselves to traveling an easy fashion doing no more than 8 hrs on the road a day and about 400 miles. We are most familiar with the route that takes us to Memphis and that has us heading south quickly instead of going west to Des Moines to head south on 35. Where we go from Memphis is a condition of weather. Options are I-40 to Little Rock and then angle south or keep on going. Or continue south to I-20 and head west or all the way to 10 or 12 and head west. We would really like to avoid having to drive 10 the entire trip across Texas. That is 900 miles plus of driving and we have done it several times. Listen to a good book. It seems my ideal for getting to Palm Dessert is to take 40 to I-25 and then to Deming as suggested. From there 10 to 8 and the cut off back to 10 to avoid Phoenix. I didn't know that I-25 from I-40 was an easy drive and a great way to avoid the mountains in Gallop and Flagstaff so that has adjusted my thinking. Have to get south at some point so I-25 looks like an excellent choice if I have not been forced south earlier. All suggestions are welcomed.