Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Calming Moving Madness

After brief consideration, some lost sleep, lots of talking in circles, and clearly seeing that the cons immensely outweighed the pros, dear hubby turned down a job offer thirty minutes outside of NYC this week.  I fully supported his decision for a number of reasons - mainly:
 #1.  We are happy where we are - happier than any place we've ever lived. 
 #2.  I'm preggers, and a move & uprooting our kids is not something I crave at the moment. 
 #3.  The cost of living is astronomical and way beyond NOT worth it. 
From a career standpoint it would have been great for him, but we've reached a point where there's so much more to life.

All of this moving chatter led me to reflect on all the moves I've made in my life and how many dear hubby and I have made together.  As a kid  my family moved when I was two (don't remember it), nine (not easy), sixteen (utterly devastating - but I never would have met dear hubby had that move not taken place), and eighteen (then, I was carefree and off to college). 

Dear hubby and I were married in 2000, and even though "the time and place for everything is college" the real adventures really began upon graduation (well, the legal adventures...just kidding, of course..).  It's always fun to watch people's faces contort and hear their response to this sentence:  "We moved seven times in the first eight years of marriage."  It's true (trust me...I've got unpacking down to a science), and no, dear hubby is not in the military.

Through all of these moves we've had one constant companion, our pound puppy that we adopted in '98:


Mickey is the best damn dog on the planet.  There I said it.  He is.  He's a well travelled dog that came to live with us in Clemson, SC (and a brief stint in Central, SC) before embarking on our first move to Asheville, NC.  Where we left our hearts when we moved a year later to Americus, GA.

The movers who packed us were like none I had ever encountered (well, until we moved a year later...).  One tall, scrawny mover in particular drove me nuts with his lengthy smoke breaks with barn doors agape, slow wrapping of single utensils, snacking on food from my pantry, and commentary on my collection of dish soap under the kitchen sink.  He said it would make for a great bubble bath, and I gave him the biggest bottle (even after he snatched some mini Reese's Cups).  It took them more than a day to pack our 1,008 sq. ft. apartment!

We diligently cleaned the apartment and drove all night only to arrive in Americus in the wee hours of the next day.  Desperately wanting showers before sleeping on the floor of our new apartment, we realized we had no towels and made a dreaded 1:00 a.m. trip to Wally World.  What an introduction to our new home town that was...whew, we were lucky to have survived that...remember that novel turned movie Where the Heart Is that stars Natalie Portman who lives in a Walmart, becomes a teen mother, and names her baby Americus?  Well...

Americus, GA was an interesting place surrounded by armadillo road kills and those odd walking stick bugs - a home to some real, ridiculous good ol' boys flying their hate (err, uh - "pride") flags, tense racial controversy & actual ignorant men in sheets, the drama of southern belles abounding, and a serious haves/have nots dichotomy...but it was also home to some of the best eats we'd ever had - real soul food.  Glady's Kitchen - when I die I hope to have endless  Glady's fried green tomatoes and butter rolls in heaven.  Dear hubby's barber also cut Jimmy Carter's hair regularly.  In fact, we visited Maranatha Baptist Church where President Carter teaches two Sundays/month.  It was awesome to be in a room with him and an honor to hear him speak.  I had my favorite, most challenging job of them all with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America in Cordele, GA, the Watermelon Capitol of the World.  Stories from that job of the things and people I encountered could easily take over this blog...

After a year it was time to leave Americus, and we most certainly wouldn't miss our neighbors on one side who fought all night and on the other side who blasted the stereo until 4:00 a.m. and constantly took our chairs off our porch for their parties without asking.  You would have thought our movers found a pot of gold when they grabbed a box off the moving truck and used it to catch a big turtle hanging out by the pond in front of our building.  They were hollering and jumping around and telling us about the stew they would make at their motel that night.  Now, I don't know where they were staying that would allow for the proper set up to stew a turtle the size of a basketball, but I sure was glad that we were hitting the road and heading back to Asheville, NC for another year!

Dear hubby was summoned back to Asheville to be the "axe-man" at the first plant that he ever worked at as it was sadly laying off workers left and right and moving product lines to Mexico.  This year went by in a blink.  It was great to be back in the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains and once again living in Bohemian bliss only three miles from the Biltmore Estate.  We had it made and didn't know it.  As the year ended we found out we were moving to the armpit of New York state...Olean...smack dab in the center of the snow belt.  There we bought our first house, a charming Cape Cod built in 1940 that I really put some TLC into over the next 18 months, and there we also bought our first and hopefully last snow blower.

We drove all night to get there, so excited to have keys in hand to our first house ever.  It was March 16th, and the temperature was below freezing.  We went outside on our new deck just before going to bed to let our dog out (& smoke a cigarette - a bad habit we quit a year later and have remained cig-free since).  I was wearing pj's and flip flops and Josh was in a t-shirt and shorts.  The dog quickly did his business and went back in.  We stayed on the porch and shut the door behind him only to quickly realized the knob was locked.  NO!  It was 11:00 p.m., we had no way in, were dressed inappropriately (I should add that I was blind without my glasses and bra-less - lovely).  THIS is how we introduced ourselves to our neighbor, Bob, a professor at St. Bonaventure University.  URGH! 

He was kind enough to let us into the warmth of his house while we used his phonebook and phone to find a locksmith.  What a bad first impression and what dumb southerners he must have pegged us as.  We had exactly $50 in cash courtesy of dear hubby's parents for incidental travelling funds.  The locksmith's fee = exactly $50.  The movers arrived the next day, St. Patrick's Day, and so did EIGHTEEN INCHES OF SNOW!  Welcome to Western NY.  What a mess, but what stories we have from the blustery stint on our Village street.  It was there where we met some of the best friends we've ever had and became godparents.

After that we were off to Hartland, a town just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin - less snow, but even colder temps.  It was there that after two+ years of trying and two rounds of fertility drugs, our first child was born and there that I began my current profession as a stay-at-home-mom.  Dear hubby travelled bi-weekly to New York for a year.  It was a little rough, but I had great friends to rely on.  It was also there that we moved in at the height of the bubble where we bought a very Brady '70's house for nearly twice the price of our last house  and there that we moved away just as the bubble burst and our Brady house declined substantially in value.  Thank goodness for good corporate relocation programs that once upon a time offered buy-outs and a handy man who took a snow blower as pay!

Back to the Carolinas we happily trekked with our old buddy dawg, Mickey, and our four month old bubbly boy.  Greenwood, SC was a convenient place for us as Clemson football fans, and thus, season tickets became a necessity.  It was also only a 1.5 hour jaunt to our parents' houses.  Dear hubby was still travelling a lot, but this time he was off to more exotic locales, like Mexico and China for weeks at a time.  It was rough, but I somehow survived it, and even managed to become preggers again...shortly after our sweet daughter was born dear hubby's company was pushing to move us to TX.

We were so happy to be back in the Carolinas that we just didn't want to start moving all over the U.S. again, and forget Houston and it's ranking as the #1 crime city at the time.  No way.  It became apparent that this wasn't really up for debates, so dear hubby sent his resume in for one job of interest near Raleigh, NC.  Lo and behold, that one step landed us where we are now nearly 3.5 year ago.  We once again moved with a four month old, our aging dog, and our curious toddler boy.  It wasn't fun as we lived in corporate housing for a few months until the transition from house to house took place. 

THIS is the longest we've lived anywhere.  THIS has been our favorite house and our first new house, so it really feels like it's ours.  The pathetic yard was a blank slate and is still a work in progress.  Our kids have oodles of little friends that have come to be like our own in some ways (after all, it takes a village).  THIS is our favorite neighborhood, and we are fortunately surrounded by an Angel Network of favorite neighbors that we'll just have to pack up and take with us some day, but not today and not tomorrow.  We are indefinitely opting to put an end to the moving madness and simply choosing to love life here...for now...


Monday, January 9, 2012

In a Preggo State of Mind

As Billy Joel sang:

"Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach
Or to Hollywood...”

But I'm taking a breather
On the Baby Brain Line
I'm in a Preggo state of mind...