It's crazy to think that we began this journey / adventure / move / shake-up . . . . one year ago.
One year ago, in mid-August, Scott accepted a job with this new company.
He flew to Vegas on September 6, 2011 and began working. His company put him up in a furnished apartment. He came home to Oregon on the weekends.
In October I flew to Vegas to do some house-hunting. It was kind of a flop. We found nothing, but it did give me an opportunity to become familiar with the area, and get a feel for the neighborhoods. Our high-hoped optimism of finding a home and moving the family there before Thanksgiving was squelched by the reality that everything on the market was a short-sale. And short-sales are not so short.
Scott continued house hunting in my absense -- taking videos of homes that were good possibilities. I watched those videos over the internet and put my trust in him.
We went through a few frustrating home offers that didn't work out.
Then an offer was accepted the day before Thanksgiving and we were thrilled! Yes, it was a short-sale so we knew a wait would be involved. We were okay with that.
Scott continued coming home on weekends. Although in November we began spacing his trips home 2 weeks apart. On the weekends he had business school it was just too difficult and too much of a strain (3-4 flights) to get him home for less than 24 hours.
I wanted to see the house in person before we moved, and our anniversary was in January so I flew out for a few days. We celebrated, I saw the house, and it felt more real.
But . . . within 2 weeks we started questioning this decision. It just wasn't feeling right. We decided to look online at real estate listings. Something I hadn't done in over 2 months.
On that Monday there was a brand new listing. Same neighborhood (which we loved), same floorplan, and it already had several features that were high on our "renovate/update" list for the first house. Scott looked at it right away, I watched the video, an offer was made, and accepted just after the first of February. Yes, that meant we walked away from the first house, and the 2 months of waiting that went it into, but we both agreed the value we were getting was worth it.
Once again, it was a short-sale and we knew it would be a long wait. At this point we had waited long enough, being apart, so we decided it was time to bite the bullet and just move. Scott found us a new apartment and . . . .
Six months after he left for Vegas, a moving truck pulled up to our house!
On March 8, 2012 Anna and I flew into McCarran airport and were greeted by the boys who had traveled in the van. We walked into our 3 bedroom apartment and life as we know it began.
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And during the last 5 months I have been through it all,
*sadness from leaving dear friends behind
*optimism and excitement for new opportunities and adventures
*throwing myself into my one little word "embrace" and feeling more open and friendly & outgoing than I have in a long time
*an ultimate breakdown (mid-May) when it seemed my efforts for reaching out were going nowhere and there was no hope for it ever getting better. ever.
*grumpiness over every inconvenience and annoyance that the heat was causing me
*finding "a happy place" . . . but really, feeling like I was just going through the motions. (Fake it 'til you make it)
*loneliness and feeling quite invisible . . . . there are only so many times you can say "hi" with no response back or go up to someone familiar in public and get "do I know you?" before it starts to mess with your head.
*and most recently coming to the realization that my my stuff / issues / trial really is not that big a deal in the scheme of things . . . it seems that I have been shown this over & over again as I see and hear of great trials in the lives of others. It gives me some perspective.
A key word that has stood out to me: experience
I'm mulling over what that means to me, and what I'm going to do with it.
Another word that keeps finding me: gratitude.
A talk at church reminded me that I need to be better at this. I have a little notebook that I think is going to become my gratitude journal.
I know that there are positives to this stage: more free time to dive into hobbies, quiet time to think/evaluate, not knowing everyone else's history & drama, time to focus on family . . . . .
All good stuff. Working through the hard. Finding our place.
It's been a year of working through it all.
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In other news, we are returning our furniture to the rental company on Monday (they will come pick it up). Good-bye bachelor pad furniture. Hello eclectic style!
We'll make a visit to the storage unit to fish out the red couch & our mattress from the front of the unit. Our dresser is being replaced with plastic tubs and drawer units. I need to pick up a card table & folding chairs -- otherwise it's gonna be picnic style around here. This week I grabbed a $7.99 side table and a nightstand from IKEA. And lastly I need to buy a couple lamps or else we's gonna be in the dark.
It's about to get (circle one) . . . . interesting / adventurous / redneck