It ain't much, but it's home

This move...my gosh, how long have I wanted to move out of Florida? If you don't count college...I started looking toward Atlanta when I was working for AMC (because the opportunity was there), which was 1995ish...then in 2007, we sold off our first chunks of stock and tried to get a place in Columbia, SC. Thankfully, they turned us down, because we lost Dad only a month later.

It's ridiculous how little we've done to repair our credit since then. We do have a long way to go still. This is a gigantic first step, as moves go, but Hubs and I now will be concentrating on getting those scores up, so that home ownership isn't such a pipe dream. We're too dang old to have credit that lousy. The irony is I'll be increasing my score just so it will open doors; what I really want is to perform financial transactions via the "save and cash" method...it's so much more safe and frugal.

This intro is my long way of saying that IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING! There's a security deposit in the mail for an apartment in Weaverville, a little town about 15 minutes north of Asheville. I've booked a Budget truck rental and local movers to load and unload it for us. His mom is cosigning with us, and we liquidated the rest of my vested stock options.

This is a rather gigantic leap of faith. The only secure income I'll have at first is contract work with my current employer, which has the potential to net a whopping $26K a year (we won't go into the douchebaggery that is their contract rates). I need to find a real job and fast. I have every confidence that at the least, I'll be able to snag temp to perm with an agency, and that should get us some benefits. I pray this is the case. Hubs in particular, needs a pain mgmt. doc secured as soon as possible after we move. I have some places in mind, but it'll sting a helluva lot less with insurance, of course.

More soon.

Image from here.

Update

Wow...almost October. Feels like we're no closer to moving, but several good things have occurred.

1. I've visited Asheville twice and it's warming on me. Definitely.

2. I may have procured a freelance gig with a publishing house in town.

I've also been trying to pack and purge, but it's been pretty slap-dash. Between traveling, tiny bits of OT, my neuralgia flare-up, and other excuses, it's definitely time to kick it into gear.

The most recent Asheville trip, weekend before last, was wonderful...Hubs came with, we hit town on a Saturday evening and got to see the locals in their native environment (seriously...that city is one big comfy party on Saturday nights), and we emptied the free publication bins for intel gathering. Les found a great moving list from a Relocation mag, that we taped to the bedroom door as a guide and reminder.

I sent my resume and cover letter on a whim to a place I didn't think was hiring, and it became a meet-for-coffee while we were up there, which turned into her offering me freelance work for now, because they're not planning to hire another editor until January. Oh darn, right when we're hoping to move! I'm praying she gets back to me this week, just sent her another follow-up email, and I'm eager to show her my editing chops. Meanwhile, my regular job could be a source of OT this week, but after that I need to start planning the rest of my PTO, because it's use it or lose it and I have almost 100 hours to burn between now and the end of the year. Oh darn, more trips to Asheville! ;)

Facing Fear

So two wonderfuls happened yesterday:

I got turned down for the supervisor position at my work.

The Asheville Relocation package arrived in the mail.

Talk about making things real.
I realized I have some fear to work through. I find it interesting that I can hate a place as much as I hate Florida, and still be afraid to move from it, because it's all I've known for frickin' 26 years. But that's definitely a bit of what I'm feeling, because in addition to the excitement of receiving all that material from Asheville, I experienced avoidance and random spurts of attentiveness. My evening was spent reading one thing, doing something, reading another thing, bugging Husby, reading another thing, playing on the Kindle...because I was avoiding the emotions that were coming up with all this new knowledge. What if I can't find a decent job? What if I have to work 2 jobs initially to get us on our feet? What if I can't find work anywhere? What if we can't find a house? Dear gods, the packing that needs to occur....and on and on and on...

It's good I'm recognizing this for what it is, just apprehension designed to lull me into inactivity. And that shit ain't gonna happen, so this weekend will be spent educating myself and getting the frick past it. I want to move close to that city. It speaks to me, and I can tell it'll speak to Husby too. We can make a life there. Let it start now.

Living Simpler for the Move

Too funny...last post was about getting back to college. Only took me a week to get over that nonsense. Such a flutterbudget.

I am definitely schooling myself, just shifted the subject matter. Invested in several books related to homesteading, both for the present and future, and am making strides lately at living smarter. My shifts in eating, getting away from processed food and cooking more from scratch, having me researching how to stock the pantry, finally get canning, making my own dairy. There's definitely more books to be had, but I'm easing off the purchasing for now...I have plenty to study, and one of my attempts at debt relief backfired, so before I start saving for the move, I need to get us out of tangential debt first. It sucks, but it's useless to buck the system.

I'm operating under the delusion that we can find affordable housing up there with our credit, so I'm thinking that I need to start sniffing out potential realtors before we even get up there to look around. I can't stand the idea of getting to December and realizing we can't move again, so I'm hoping there are resources that can show us what we need to accomplish to be able to rent up there.

One problem I'm finding is that gas prices being what they are, I don't have a clear idea of when we can get up there to look around. Whether we camp, grab a hotel, or shuttle between families, the money spent on that sort of venture would probably be a three-way push. Hard to imagine when you live paycheck to paycheck like we do.

Meantime, just gotta keep purging the apartment, bit by bit and keep planning and praying.

Self-Improvement

Too funny....just noticed how I'd changed this back to NC Moving when I was looking at Charlotte, and now we're back to SC again.....screw it. Asheville's still the ultimate goal, just 5 years down the road.

Not getting the promotion allows me to get back on track...and get a handle on my complacency. There was a point there, while I was waiting to hear about the promotion, where I was thinking about how I want us out of that nasty-assed apartment so IF it turned out that I got the job and it became more prudent to STAY IN FLORIDA, that we'd look at renting a house in town after December.

Seriously?! When I claim to hate Florida with the fiery passion of 1,000 suns, I'm thinking of staying?! WTF?!

I'm tired of playing it safe. It has its purposes, being careful, recognizing limitations, but you do it too much and you close yourself off to opportunities. Granted, our credit still blows and that could limit us, but not trying ain't an option.

This may seem like a tangent, but it's in line with my dreams....what do you do when you want to go back to school and get your Masters, but a) it's completely financially unfeasible, and b) if anyone's going to go back to school, it should be Husby first, because he doesn't have a degree...?

You educate yourself. So I'm looking online at undergrad and master's programs that fit my interests, plowing through my bookshelves and the local library, and creating myself a curriculum. Breaking it down into 9-week segments, I think, and seeing where it leads. I'm operating under the illusion (or delusion) that my studies now will make the actual degree-getting easier, when the time comes.

Ultimately, I'd like to get an MFA in Creative Writing...and I'm crazy enough to look at Ph.D. too. I want to teach at the college level and publish. I may be in my 70s by the time the doctorate happens, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let my fears and finances stop me.

What does this have to do with the move? It gives me focus. I'm recognizing that I may have to make a career adjustment when we move. I'm still looking at the Spartanburg/Greenville, SC, area and they ain't exactly metropolises. I'm betting I crap out trying to find a web design company to even work at, which could mean looking in other related and unrelated fields, and dealing with a pay cut. I'm open to that, though it's definitely scary to think about living on less than we already do. So while I'm figuring out what fields my next job may be in, it's important to me that I have work going on, on the side that in however small a way, pushes me closer to my future goals. About time I stop disappointing myself where that's concerned. I used to say I wanted to publish before I hit 30. Now here I am at 42, and if my novel weren't trapped on a 3½" floppy, I wonder what my excuse would be instead. Enough already.

Thinkingthinkingthinking......

When you reshape a dream, how do you keep from berating yourself? It feels like settling, like you're compromising a chunk of that dream...even if the reshape of said dream totally makes sense.

I think I'd like us to eventually live in or around the Asheville, NC, area...its location high in the hills, seriously temperate climate, and slightly heathen bent to the local culture definitely appeal to me.

But I look at our families and I look at us. I recognize what an uphill battle an out-of-state move will be. I recognize that even if the cancer doesn't kill my father-in-law, it could significantly shorten his life. I recognize how important it is that we live closer to them.

I also recognize how tired I am of living in a city, how even though the cities have the jobs, they don't have all the jobs, and I'm just not a big city person. Not sure I ever was; more likely a convenience thing, us staying here as long as we have. Plenty of towns have convenience items without the crush of big city life.

Don't have a clue why the idea of Spartanburg came into my head. We haven't passed through there yet, I don't think. Actually, I came to the town by accident...I was half jokingly thinking that in my next career, I wouldn't mind running a Chipotle restaurant. But since Asheville doesn't have a Chipotle yet (sacrilege!!), I went looking for the surrounding towns in NC and SC that do have it....Greensboro, Winston-Salem...too far away, even though the artyness of W-S appeals to me too....the Triangle has a bunch, but we won't live there, because Husby lived there before and doesn't want to go back.....but Spartanburg.....hmm.....

• 2.25 hours from Aiken, 1.5 hours from Charlotte
• Not as small as Aiken, not as big as Columbia
• Still not cold enough, but an improvement
• Close enough for lots of mountain day trips

Then I got down to brass tacks. I have several things I look for in a town...like I used to joke that if we moved to Charlotte, I'd have to escape to Spartanburg occasionally for a Publix sub. So...
• Publix—check!
• Barnes & Noble—check!
• Chipotle—check!
• Starbucks—only 1?! good enough—check!
• Yarn shops.....gasp! Their sole yarn store ditched the yarn about a year ago. However there are yarn shops in Greenville and an alpaca farm with corresponding store up the road in Inman. Close enough.
• UU church—check!

You can take the city out of the girl, but let's not go crazy here. I've lived in metropolitan areas since I was 16. There are certain comfort items I require.

So now the lists can really start. I want to get us up there in the next 6 months for a look-around. I sent away for the area's relocation guides and I'm trolling the web. I don't think we can realistically move before end of next year, so that gives us plenty of time to really do it right. I'm chipping away at our credit issues, and budgeting to save, maybe even before the holidays.

I may not be crazy about SC summers, but something about this feels right. Now to make it happen.

Accountability

Today's To-Do List

1. Clear off dining area desk.
2. Set aside LSJ medical file for fresh disability filing.
3. Set aside material for investigating the individual issues on credit report.
    a. Start organizing and drafting any necessary letters.
4. Make Snickerdoodles and Ginger Snaps for tomorrow.
5. Create budget and project for rest of year.

This may not all get done today. It's a 3-day weekend, thank the gods. But I'll spend tomorrow afternoon hanging with friends, and there are things that need to occur before and after that this weekend. I may be relaxing about staying another year, but I refuse to submit or give up. The only thing keeping us from Asheville is responsible financing. Finally, I get that.