I haven’t been able to add a new post in a couple of months now. I don’t know why, nor do I know how I navigated to wherever I got to to create this one. (I am a digital moron like you have never seen before.) I don’t know if anyone will be able to read this post because I usually have to change the font color, and I don’t see anywhere to do that here. *Fingers crossed*
Life has been wild. Anyone that knows me knows that I want everything to be smooth, even, no disruptions. I want to see everything coming my way and prepare for it. I, like my sweet Rookie, like my routines without deviation. We threw all of that into the wind recently, and it’s been a stressful summer for me trying to catch up and adjust.
Many of you, if I see or speak with you regularly, know by now that Justin and I impulse bought a different house in June, and I am changing jobs after almost 9 years at my current practice. Some might say that both changes have been a long time coming. It just so happens that they arrived together.
For the house, we didn’t move far. Many were surprised because it isn’t in Vermont. (I have definitely called it the “Vermont Compromise” though.) We tired of not having a yard after 15 years on 0.11 acre. In 2019, we created a small bit of outdoor space for ourselves at the old house by slightly expanding and covering the front porch. We made good use of that porch, but there still wasn’t anywhere to entertain. Grilling occurred in the driveway or the gravel parking spot behind our garage. It was inconvenient to carry food out there. Justin’s mom tried to get a smoker one year, but we had to return it because we just didn’t have anywhere to utilize it. Our dogs went on 3-4 leashed walks a day; they had nowhere to run freely (except circles in our first floor, and you can imagine, if you know them, how that worked out).
For years, the location of our old house just frustrated and suffocated us. As our one neighbor said, “It’s not even the suburbs anymore; it’s just an extension of Philly.” Stops signs sit on every single corner and are ignored by every other driver. Everyone just tosses trash out their car windows. Most of the big beautiful trees that had been there when we moved in have been removed and not replaced with anything. It’s just hot concrete and rude people on top of one another. And traffic. SO much traffic with nowhere to go at all times of the day or night.
We started to really daydream about moving at the end of last year, looking at Zillow at least weekly. Most things that seemed at all interesting would disappear after a single weekend. In May, this house popped up. We thought it’d be the same as everything else we liked. Instead, a week later, it was still there. While Justin was driving home from visiting his dad in the hospital, he called and asked if we should just go see it. We never intended to buy it. Interest rates are ridiculous, and everything is just so expensive. We did really like it though, everything except the busy road it sits just about 6 feet back from.
It was still there a week later, so we visited again. During the week, we had each driven by at different times of the day to assess the traffic and felt it was less than the road we lived two doors away from at the time. For some reason we can’t identify, no one had made any offers. We decided to put one out there and just see what happened. After a little bit of negotiating, we had an agreement, and we were about to buy a house. They wanted to close quickly, in under a month.
We still own the old place. We hadn’t really planned to move, after all, and still had some projects that needed to be finished before we could put it on the market. Those projects are now almost complete. The house is scheduled for staging in a week and hopefully going up for sale the second weekend in September.
I’m sad to see it go. As much as I hate it’s location, I love that house. We put so much of ourselves into it, and it’s been home for the past 15 years. I love it’s arches and stone walls and uneven wood floors. I love the trees and shrubs and flowers in that teeny, tiny yard. I spent plenty of time sitting on that front porch in the last few years and enjoyed all of the light through the big bow window in the living room. We never got to enjoy the finished three season room, and I hope the new owners appreciate it. I really just hope they plain appreciate all we have done to improve it and take care of the house. She’s an old lady with a lot of character, and she deserves TLC for decades, even centuries, to come.
My biggest fear is that she won’t be loved. Once we sell her, I can’t ever go by there again because my heart couldn’t take it if I found out that she was in disrepair, or worse, demolished. I’d cry my eyes out if someone cut down the maples, the pear and the spruce, if they ripped out the cypress or lilac or hydrangea or forsythia. I just have to believe that she’s continuing on it glory because I have no control over what happens there once we pass on the keys to the new owner(s).
And the job. My current job has been through a lot of change in the last couple of years. I don’t hate it; don’t get me wrong. It’s not the same though. Morale has been down for a while now. I really thought that I was going to leave it a year and a half ago, but I didn’t find a place that seemed right. For four months last year, I mostly did surgery and dental procedures, and I loved that. I could’ve done those things 2-3 days a week indefinitely, but eventually, we did find some new permanent doctors who also wanted a chance to do those things. I really missed all of my procedure days initially, but I’ve readjusted to a more appointment-focused scheduled again.
I wasn’t necessarily intending to leave my job right now. I always thought that when I left this one, I’d be going to work for myself. I’m just not prepared for that right now though. I don’t know what that looks like or where or how to do that just yet. As I said previously, I couldn’t find anywhere that seemed like a better place for me, even when I was really quite unhappy at my current job.
An opportunity popped up at a place I used to work during vet school, and, in the end, I didn’t feel that I could pass it up. Obviously, you can’t know how something will go, but I feel good about the decision. I think it’s a real chance to grow. Although change always terrifies me, I’m excited to see where this one takes me. Conveniently, my commute will be better from the new house, which is always nice.
All summer, I have been missing my sense of order to my life. I feel better after giving my official notice at my current job though because knowing with 90%+ certainty that I was going to be leaving but not being able to really share that was hard. Once the old house sells, we’ll have more time to spend at and focus on the new one. (Everyone keeps asking if we love it, and we keep saying, “We sleep there…”) I’m going to have the month of September off, which was unexpected but much needed. I hope that, by the end of it, I’ll feel more settled in the new house. Maybe it’ll even start to feel a little like home and not a really nice Airbnb, coincidentally, containing most of my belongings. Then, on October 1st, I can walk into my new job clear-headed and refreshed from time off and the vacation we hope to get in there.
More to come on my life changes and how everything comes together, assuming I can re-find wherever this link is to write new blog posts in the future. I hope this works- both posting this blog entry and my new job and our new house/home. (For what it’s worth, the dogs seem to really like the house and property. They’ve spent the most time here, watching deer t.v., stealing sticks out of the creek and consuming more goose poop than can possibly be healthy. I don’t get the impression that Ferne has any complaints either.)
“Every twist and turn in life is an opportunity to learn something new about yourself, your interests, your talents, and how to set and then achieve goals” ~Jameela Jamil
