The Unintentional Novella of the Last 8 Months

So I thought about copying my friend Julie and just pretending that there hadn't been a 2 1/2 month gap since the last time I wrote. However, some pretty big things have happened since then... Like, we moved. And no, not just within town, because yes, that wouldn't be that surprising. We packed up our giant U-Haul and moved 150 miles away to Victoria.

And because I've gotten so many questions about where exactly Victoria is, I've included a picture (for the whole 2 people who are reading this blog after my hiatus)

That turned out small, but Victoria is kinda in the middle of the triangle created by Houston, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi. Also important to know, it's about 2 hours 45 minutes from College Station. :)

As for how we got here, we have to take our story all the way back to May.

On May 28th, David and I made the 16 hour drive from College Station to Iowa in 1 day. It was actually kinda fun :) We packed a bunch of food (for cheapness and quickness), got some books on CD from the library, and set the cruise. We drove up there for David's cousin's wedding.

The next day, while we were having a late lunch with David's family, David got a call from his boss at work telling him that his company had run out of money and was putting everyone on a 2 week unpaid "vacation" from work with no guarantee of a call-back.

Thus began the start of a very long 2 week period in which David searched the computer for companies and jobs. He did finally get a call to come back to work on Thursday, June 11th. And we decided to drive to Schlitterbahn on Friday to celebrate. For one thing, we'd been wanting to go there. For another, we knew it would be better to go on a weekday. And, we already anticipated that David would be using the rest of his vacation days to go on job interviews. It had been a really long 2 weeks, and we were thankful to have some fun. :)

The next few months held a few job interviews and many questions of "How much can we plan?" I don't do well not being able to plan and not knowing what would happen in the next month. Apparently I needed to learn something. And I probably still need to learn something...

One of the really funny super fast decisions occurred in July. The lease in our duplex ended July 31st but since David was actively looking for a job, we really weren't sure where we were moving. We had searched for places with 3 and 6 month leases, and let me tell you, it was one of the main times I ever really regretted living in a college town. Most places seemed to think I was crazy for asking for shorter leases, but we finally found a couple of options in Bryan.

Anyway, on Wednesday, July 8, David got a call for a really promising interview at the end of July. We realized that even if David got the job, there was no way we would find out in time to move out of our duplex. Our landlords had given us the option to move out by the 15th of July and not have to clean, so we decided Wednesday to move on Saturday. Yes, we are crazy.

We had thankfully already started collecting boxes, so the next 2 days were a frenzy of trying to box up as much stuff as possible. It definitely didn't all get boxed up before Saturday. And there were a couple of car loads at the end of random stuff just thrown in the car since we also ran out of boxes.

The apartment we moved to didn't seem ideal, but they offered a 6 month lease that wasn't too exorbitant and helped our electric bill since we were so insulated. Our study was a joke because one corner just had boxes stacked that we just decided to not unpack. I had to realize, however, that I had to be OK with one messy room in exchange for the others being neat and organized.

David interviewed at Dow Chemical for the 3rd time at the end of October. He was really interested in this position, but we didn't get an answer until the end of November. On Monday, November 30, David was called with the offer for the job. On Tuesday, he got the paperwork with all the details. On Wednesday morning, he called to accept. Then he came home for lunch early because his company laid-off the vast majority of its staff. It was one of those times I was so surprised I felt like I was going to puke (actually, I think that's the only time that's happened).

We were a little upset because it was December 2nd and David was scheduled to start work at Dow on December 28th. No income for almost a month didn't sound great, but we really were thankful that the events in those 3 days occurred in the order they did. I mean, I was surprised that he'd been laid off on Wednesday, but honestly, I probably would have panicked if he didn't already have another job lined up.

It turned out to be God's wise provision that David had the month of December off. We went to Victoria at the beginning of the next week to find a place to live and that took longer than we'd anticipated. There wasn't a huge selection of rent houses to choose from, and when we finally found one we liked, we had to apply and wait for an answer. We also had to pick out a refrigerator. Now, I feel really old admitting this, but shopping for a refrigerator was actually kinda fun. The price tag wasn't, but seeing all the gadgets they add to this machine that is simply supposed to chill or freeze food was pretty cool (pardon the pun :P).

So we came back to B/CS with a little over a week to pack up, say our goodbyes, and eat at all the places we wouldn't have in Victoria. The plan for eating out turned out rather well since hanging out with friends many times involves food, we were trying to empty out the refrigerator, and I simply didn't have time to cook. In the month of December, according to our budget, we ate out a record 24 times! Now, this included ice cream and bribing feeding our moving helpers and eating out after we moved simply because we had nothing to eat. This was also us eating separately because we were hanging out with different friends. But still, wow!

So we loaded up our giant U-Haul and made the (very slow) trek to Victoria on Friday, December 18th. On Saturday, we cleaned (so much!) and unloaded the huge orange truck. From there, we unloaded boxes, cleaned more, and worked on making this house our home.

Then David started his new job as Reliability Engineer at Dow Chemical on December 28th.

So there you have it. The last 8 months of our life. It really is amazing to look back and see how God orchestrated everything to work out so well. Our lease at the apartment ended January 31st, so we only had to pay 1 1/2 months double rent. It was also really nice to be going through such an uncertain time with friends we'd known for years who really cared for us. We had a really good fall semester with our home church. I subbed at Kingdom Kids at Grace Bible Church, and while I'd originally been sad that I couldn't commit to a classroom, I really had a great time subbing.

I loved getting to know lots of the kids (and seeing kids I already knew) and being able to fill the gap for about a month in the Movement room. Movement is a 20 minute period with each of the 3's and 4's classes that is pretty much like a preschool P.E. Organized chaos might be a better description, but it's so fun! Working as the movement teacher also required me floating in and out of the Older 2's room, where my good friend Linsay is the lead teacher. It was really great to get to work with her.

Wow. That turned out to be really long. I guess when you're trying to summarize 8 months of your life, there are a lot of details.

I'm really curious if anyone is actually going to make it to the end of this post... sheesh...