Well, it looks like after 6 years of living in a quiet, sleepy farm town in rural Iowa, we might actually be uprooting our nest and moving east. Not too far east, mind you. We’re currently looking at a cozy 3-bedroom brownstone in Waukee.
Most of the details are in place: we’ve gotten pre-approved for our loan. We’ve gone over the budget several times, and it looks like it can work better than we had expected. We’ve started cleaning up the house (garage sale in two weeks!). The wife is looking for a new job. I’m getting the house listed for sale. It’s all about time, too. This tiny 900 sq ft house is getting far too cramped for our four-member family. It will be difficult to leave the wonderful community, but it’s really only 20+ miles, so it isn’t like trekking cross-country.
A couple of financial windfalls have helped us decide that this is the right thing for us to do. First off, Amanda received a letter from her former company saying that she had a substantial sum of money in uncollected corporate stock value sitting in a portfolio, and she needed to claim it or lose it. Gee, I wonder if we should go ahead and claim that?
Also, Amanda won a gift certificate for a week’s worth of daycare from the Des Moines Register. I’m still sketchy on the details of how exactly that occurred, but since we were just discussing having to put the boys back into daycare, it seemed fairly coincidental that this particular windfall would hit at this particular time.
The most telling detail that says that we’re finally ready to do this: I’m actually excited about it. All these years, I’ve been so strangely hesitant about leaving this community that I think I’ve been subconsciously cutting off opportunities for us to move. Now, I’m eager for a change. I like the idea of cutting my commute to work in half. I like the idea of living closer to civilization (if you can consider Des Moines, Iowa a semblance of “civilization”). I like the idea of our kids going to a school like Waukee. It’s all starting to fit together, and I’m anticipating the change in our lifestyle.
Expect more from me on this in the coming weeks. And, at some point in mid-June, likely a bit of a blackout on this blog. I suspect you will know why.