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These words are my diary screaming out loud

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

When life hands you lemons, or something

So, I know, its been a little quiet in these parts. Sorry for that! 2014 has been a bit busy already.

With the New Year, I started looking for jobs in Florida. Husband and I have been talking about getting back down south basically since we moved up here 4 years ago - this was never meant to be a permanent solution. I was ready to start hunting after Christmas last year, but my boss resigned, and I was not going to leave the client in a lurch like that. So we figured after Christmas would give us enough time to start the search, and we'd just stay in the house we're renting month to month until something works out. Well, the best laid plans... in late January, when I emailed the landlord about something else entirely, she told us that she wanted to sell the house, and would not be extending our lease. I replied with the situation we were in, and asked if she'd be willing to let us stay and put off putting the house on the market until jobs were sorted out. She declined, saying she had some work to do on the house and wanted it on the market by 1 May.

Well, crap.

That throws a wrench in things, doesn't it. I upped my searching, even got a couple of hits on my resume, but so far, nothing. Our lease is up on March 31st, so we signed a lease on an apartment down the street. Not ideal - it's going to cost us a pretty penny to break that lease if a job comes up. So starting today, we move our stuff from the townhouse to a two bedroom apartment and my parents' basement. I'm taking a temporary break from job hunting, because frankly, right now I have enough stress to deal with, and I'll pick it back up again soon. We're still hoping to get to Florida - all of his family (which is a generation older than mine) is down there. That and cost of living is so much lower than here, and we'd like to have kids in the near future, which will be hard up here.

I will say, though, living in this house and dealing with this landlord, who is self-managing, has really made me more conscious of decisions that I make for my own house. I understand the need to get rid of a house - I want nothing more in the world than to be able to sell mine. But I will pick compassion for my renters and a guaranteed income to offset the mortgage every time, at least for now. Oh well - we'll deal with it and keep on trucking. What else can you do?

But at least we had The Rock Boat to offset some of the stress! I'm pretty sure that of the seven I've done, this year was the best yet. And considering how awesome the one that topped my list before, that's a pretty big deal. It was also our honeymoon, which was didn't hurt. But the lineup was amazing, the weather was pretty much perfect, everything about it was just fantastic. I think I'll save the recap for another post - gives me a reason to write again!

How's your 2014 going so far?

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