M'not ded! aka Ramblings about The Great Move
May almost killed me. But I'm back now and things should be calm. *crosses fingers like whoa* So my plan is to get back into posting like, yanno, REGULARLY. And also maybe that whole writing thing I dabble in sometimes.
On a personal note as to WHY May almost killed me...
So, my husband does web database programming.. stuff. And he was doing contract work from home, the bum. One of the companies he was working for said several months ago, "Hey, we're planning on doing some expansion and we might want a lead programmer type person and would you be interested? You'd have to move to Colorado where we're based but there would be a raise & yadda yadda."
He asked me if I would be okay with that. To which I said, "Psha, YES!" Because we'd be moving to Denver, not Bumfuck, Wyoming or (now that I've driven through it & know how middle-of-nowhere it is) Colby, Kansas or something.
So he talked to his boss & was told, "Okay, cool, we just wanted to see how you felt about it, we won't know anything for a while." Whatevs.
Then we get a call a few weeks before our vacation in early April. "So, we might be getting some funding soon and are you still interested." Us: "Yes."
Then we get a call whilst ON vacation. "So, the funding is like 98% a go, we're still good right?" Us: "Yes."
When it all started we were thinking, "Okay, this will probably happen sometime this summer. Fine." As the calls started coming closer together it became, "Alright, it might happen sooner, maybe." Finally we realized that once they were a go, they were going to want him in Colorado like... yesterday.
For those of you who know me, I am a Ravenclaw through & through. Which means I'm a planner. Give me a vacation destination, a Christmas list & budget, whatever and I'll make it happen. There will be research & spreadsheets & dammit it'll happen. Possibly with slides. XD
However, we still didn't know if the funding was going to come through SOON soon or summer soon. I didn't want to research a bunch of places to live & such only to have to wait three months before we could move on anything.
Well, near the end of April we get the call that yes, the money has come through & we want Zbra in his desk in Colorado on June 4. O___O
This means we have approximately a month to do the following:
1. Find a place to live in Denver - a city I'd never been to EVER and Zbra had been maybe twice
2. Figure out what we were going to do with the house we own in Tennessee
3. Figure out what stuff we were taking & what stuff could go into storage
4. Figure out how we were going to get our stuff & our two cats & ourselves out to Denver
5. Make whirlwind visits to as many friends & family as possible.
It was a Herculean task let me just tell you!
Some things to note:
1. All of our family is in the Tennessee / Georgia area so our plan is to return in five or so years. This made the whole "uprooting everything" concept a little easier to swallow. Plus, technology & travel being what they are, we're not exactly inaccessible out here. I told one friend, "It's not like when the West was first being settled; we're not going to burn the wagon & shoot the horses once we get there." He laughed at that comment - a lot. :D
2. My current company was AWESOME and said that I could continue to work for them after the move. We have a remote office here that I go in to twice a week & can work from home three days a week (WIN!). YAY for one less thing I have to do - job hunting!
Once we were "Go" on the move, I spent hours and HOURS researching apartments in Denver. I had, unsurprisingly, a spreadsheet with rent amounts and square footage and amenity options, etc. After I'd gotten it narrowed down to a handful of hopefuls, Zbra's company flew him out to do paperwork and for him to apartment hunt. I'd scheduled visits and he dutifully attended each, taking photos & asking questions. He also drove around several of them at night to see what the creepy factor was like. Since I was going to be working from home, I didn't want to be in a place I couldn't feel comfortable in alone during the day or at night if he had to travel.
He uploaded pictures & called me each night with updates. We discussed pros & cons and finally settled on the one that sounded the best. We opted for a newer place near his work so his commute wouldn't be too bad. It is near a bypass so my commute is equally tolerable. (There was a second contender that was a more historic building. It was built with the intent of being a hotel but was later converted into apartments. It also has a boiler system for the heat. Between those two things & the fact that it is in Colorado, I told him I would have had a hard time not writing "REDRUM" on the mirrors and making 'The Shining' jokes - OFTEN. -- I do intend to visit the hotel that 'The Shining' hotel as based on. *big ol' hearts for Uncle Stevie*)
An amusing side note about the apartments we ended up in - the address of the place I sent him to was 6515. When he signed the lease he said "there are two buildings & we're in 6715". I thought nothing of it since several places I spoke to were multi-building complexes. It wasn't until I got here & saw the place that I realized, there are actually two complexes side by side, owned by the same parent company but called different names with slightly different floor plans amenities, etc. The place we live in is NOT one I researched. *headdesk a billionty*
So, we had a place to live in Denver. One item checked off the list! Now, what to do with our house in Tennessee? Since the market stinks right now, and since we intend to return, we decided to rent. We found a good rental company who will handle virtually everything and we've left it in their capable hands. As of today it hasn't been rented but it sounds like it is showing well so that's good. It was kind of sad though, we went through & completed several projects we just never got around to before - so when we left the house looked pretty awesome. We hated to be leaving it!
The sorting & packing was the worst. Naturally. We rented a storage building in Tennessee and proceeded to play the "will we really need this in the next few years" game. We were moving from a pretty large house to a one bedroom apartment - thankfully Zbra & I are pretty fond of each other & spent most nights on the couch with the cats draped across us even in a larger place so we weren't too worried about being cramped. We trashed & donated more things than we even realized were in the house. It was crazy!
(Also, in going through notebooks & papers spanning back to elementary school I realized - I've been a writer my entire life. I had story ideas from waaaaay back. That actually made me feel better about my writing. It has been in my blood this whole time. It is not a passing fad and I WILL get back to it.)
Thankfully we had one friend who was between jobs at the time so he basically moved in with us to help pack, shuffle, donate, etc. He and another friend (who took his vacation to help us - bless him) also came out to Denver with us. I can't tell you how awesome it was to (a) have the additional help and (b) have familiar faces around for the first week we were here.
By the time we reached MOVING DAY tensions were pretty high. We'd looked into moving companies but I kept finding horror stories about places that would hold your things hostage (basically) until you paid them additional fees. We weren't willing to risk it so we ended up renting a Budget truck & doing it all ourselves. Which means I drove 1200 miles across the US looking at the back of a Budget rental truck. Blergh.
We left Tennessee on Sunday, May 27th. Zbra was driving the moving truck with one friend as a passenger. Our other friend was driving Zbra's car. And I was driving my car with two drugged kitties in carriers in the back seat.
For those of you who don't know, the drive from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Denver, Colorado is about 21 hours. Yeah.
The problem with the situation was - we had all of our worldly possessions in a big-assed truck and two cats in the car. So we couldn't really stop & sight-see anywhere. It was just pedal to the metal, get there as quickly as possible driving. This kind of driving basically stinks.
We made it to just outside of Kansas City, Missouri the first day. St. Louis looks very pretty at night but that's about all I can tell you about it. Kansas City looks alright in the daytime but that's about all I can tell you about it.
We passed through Lawrence, Kansas *insert Supernatural fangirling here* but it was on a toll-road so we couldn't really stop. Boo!
Let me just tell you - the stretch of I-70 between Kansas City and Denver -- SUUUUUUXORS. Seriously. There are... four trees. Total. For hundreds of miles. I know this because it is so flat you can see for miles & miles in every direction. Coming from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the type of utterly flat you see in western Kansas is just... bizarre.
Plus the exits are few & far between. If you even think you might need gas, stop as soon as possible because who knows when you'll get another chance!
And, if the desolation and fields aren't enough to make you feel like you're about two miles away from being part of a Stephen King novella, there is the Creepy Wheat Jesus billboard in Colby, Kansas. I am not kidding. Google that shit. It is a foursquare check-in spot & everything. I can't even...
Back to the move - so we made it to Denver late Monday night. We stayed in a hotel just down from our apartments and got our keys first thing on Tuesday.
Tuesday we spent moving crap in & trying to figure out such vital things as - where did we pack the toilet paper and shouldn't we have a shower curtain in here somewhere?
Wednesday the four of us, Zbra, myself, & our two friends, drove up to Mount Evans. That was pretty cool except for the fact that I hate, hate, HAAAAATE roads with sharp drop offs and no side rails. So I kept my eyes closed for most of the trip up & down.
On the way we saw what we first though were prairie dogs (sue us, we've never seen the damned things before) and later thought were ground hogs -- only to discover they are marmots. IDEK. I'm just going to call them mountain squirrels, thank you very much. :)
Wednesday evening Zbra & I went to grab some groceries and came home to find our bed covered in moving plastic (saran wrap basically). This is what happens when you leave your friends unsupervised in your home.
Thursday I had to work & Zbra flew to Seattle for Lock & Load (Warmachine convention). He got to see dysonrules which makes me INCREDIBLY jealous. (THANK YOU, BEBE, FOR TAKING CARE OF HIM & MAKING HIM EAT!!!)
Saturday saw the first of our two friends on a plane back to Georgia. It hit me when he walked away that it might be quite some time before I see him again. There was some sniveling on the way home. Sunday saw our other friend off and heralded Zbra's return.
Last week was still a "getting settled" week and now this weekend is our first real weekend to BREATHE in a month & a half. I slept for a MILLION hours!! FINALLY! XD XD XD
It has been fun exploring so far & I look forward to more exploring & things in the future. It is pretty hard for me on the friend front because I know Zbra, his boss & boss's wife (SORT OF), annnnd that's about it. I'm a pretty solitary person so that's not as hard for me as it would be for some people but if any of our fandom peeps are in the area, lemme know, yeah? Fangirling alone is just no fun!
Things to note for any future transplants:
1. There is virtually no humidity here. I can't begin to tell you how strange that is for me. I'm used to walking outside & feeling like you're wearing the heat. This whole non-oppressive heat is strange. Plus, glasses leave no sweat rings, what is this even??
2. Because it is so dry, you need chapstick & lotion like a mofo. Trust me.
3. If you are fair skinned, you need SPF x 1,000,000,000 because you will burn easily.
4. Sunglasses are required, not optional.
5. Holy shit there is a lot of SKY! You have never seen so much SKY. At least if you come from my neck of the country. I know that sounds like a weird thing to notice but in my TN back yard, you could only see the sky if you looked straight up. The trees were so tall everything else was blocked. I'm sure it's the same if you live in some place like NYC where the buildings tower over you.
Soooo.... this post got way way way way way longer than I intended. But there you have it. Esby's Great Move!
On a personal note as to WHY May almost killed me...
So, my husband does web database programming.. stuff. And he was doing contract work from home, the bum. One of the companies he was working for said several months ago, "Hey, we're planning on doing some expansion and we might want a lead programmer type person and would you be interested? You'd have to move to Colorado where we're based but there would be a raise & yadda yadda."
He asked me if I would be okay with that. To which I said, "Psha, YES!" Because we'd be moving to Denver, not Bumfuck, Wyoming or (now that I've driven through it & know how middle-of-nowhere it is) Colby, Kansas or something.
So he talked to his boss & was told, "Okay, cool, we just wanted to see how you felt about it, we won't know anything for a while." Whatevs.
Then we get a call a few weeks before our vacation in early April. "So, we might be getting some funding soon and are you still interested." Us: "Yes."
Then we get a call whilst ON vacation. "So, the funding is like 98% a go, we're still good right?" Us: "Yes."
When it all started we were thinking, "Okay, this will probably happen sometime this summer. Fine." As the calls started coming closer together it became, "Alright, it might happen sooner, maybe." Finally we realized that once they were a go, they were going to want him in Colorado like... yesterday.
For those of you who know me, I am a Ravenclaw through & through. Which means I'm a planner. Give me a vacation destination, a Christmas list & budget, whatever and I'll make it happen. There will be research & spreadsheets & dammit it'll happen. Possibly with slides. XD
However, we still didn't know if the funding was going to come through SOON soon or summer soon. I didn't want to research a bunch of places to live & such only to have to wait three months before we could move on anything.
Well, near the end of April we get the call that yes, the money has come through & we want Zbra in his desk in Colorado on June 4. O___O
This means we have approximately a month to do the following:
1. Find a place to live in Denver - a city I'd never been to EVER and Zbra had been maybe twice
2. Figure out what we were going to do with the house we own in Tennessee
3. Figure out what stuff we were taking & what stuff could go into storage
4. Figure out how we were going to get our stuff & our two cats & ourselves out to Denver
5. Make whirlwind visits to as many friends & family as possible.
It was a Herculean task let me just tell you!
Some things to note:
1. All of our family is in the Tennessee / Georgia area so our plan is to return in five or so years. This made the whole "uprooting everything" concept a little easier to swallow. Plus, technology & travel being what they are, we're not exactly inaccessible out here. I told one friend, "It's not like when the West was first being settled; we're not going to burn the wagon & shoot the horses once we get there." He laughed at that comment - a lot. :D
2. My current company was AWESOME and said that I could continue to work for them after the move. We have a remote office here that I go in to twice a week & can work from home three days a week (WIN!). YAY for one less thing I have to do - job hunting!
Once we were "Go" on the move, I spent hours and HOURS researching apartments in Denver. I had, unsurprisingly, a spreadsheet with rent amounts and square footage and amenity options, etc. After I'd gotten it narrowed down to a handful of hopefuls, Zbra's company flew him out to do paperwork and for him to apartment hunt. I'd scheduled visits and he dutifully attended each, taking photos & asking questions. He also drove around several of them at night to see what the creepy factor was like. Since I was going to be working from home, I didn't want to be in a place I couldn't feel comfortable in alone during the day or at night if he had to travel.
He uploaded pictures & called me each night with updates. We discussed pros & cons and finally settled on the one that sounded the best. We opted for a newer place near his work so his commute wouldn't be too bad. It is near a bypass so my commute is equally tolerable. (There was a second contender that was a more historic building. It was built with the intent of being a hotel but was later converted into apartments. It also has a boiler system for the heat. Between those two things & the fact that it is in Colorado, I told him I would have had a hard time not writing "REDRUM" on the mirrors and making 'The Shining' jokes - OFTEN. -- I do intend to visit the hotel that 'The Shining' hotel as based on. *big ol' hearts for Uncle Stevie*)
An amusing side note about the apartments we ended up in - the address of the place I sent him to was 6515. When he signed the lease he said "there are two buildings & we're in 6715". I thought nothing of it since several places I spoke to were multi-building complexes. It wasn't until I got here & saw the place that I realized, there are actually two complexes side by side, owned by the same parent company but called different names with slightly different floor plans amenities, etc. The place we live in is NOT one I researched. *headdesk a billionty*
So, we had a place to live in Denver. One item checked off the list! Now, what to do with our house in Tennessee? Since the market stinks right now, and since we intend to return, we decided to rent. We found a good rental company who will handle virtually everything and we've left it in their capable hands. As of today it hasn't been rented but it sounds like it is showing well so that's good. It was kind of sad though, we went through & completed several projects we just never got around to before - so when we left the house looked pretty awesome. We hated to be leaving it!
The sorting & packing was the worst. Naturally. We rented a storage building in Tennessee and proceeded to play the "will we really need this in the next few years" game. We were moving from a pretty large house to a one bedroom apartment - thankfully Zbra & I are pretty fond of each other & spent most nights on the couch with the cats draped across us even in a larger place so we weren't too worried about being cramped. We trashed & donated more things than we even realized were in the house. It was crazy!
(Also, in going through notebooks & papers spanning back to elementary school I realized - I've been a writer my entire life. I had story ideas from waaaaay back. That actually made me feel better about my writing. It has been in my blood this whole time. It is not a passing fad and I WILL get back to it.)
Thankfully we had one friend who was between jobs at the time so he basically moved in with us to help pack, shuffle, donate, etc. He and another friend (who took his vacation to help us - bless him) also came out to Denver with us. I can't tell you how awesome it was to (a) have the additional help and (b) have familiar faces around for the first week we were here.
By the time we reached MOVING DAY tensions were pretty high. We'd looked into moving companies but I kept finding horror stories about places that would hold your things hostage (basically) until you paid them additional fees. We weren't willing to risk it so we ended up renting a Budget truck & doing it all ourselves. Which means I drove 1200 miles across the US looking at the back of a Budget rental truck. Blergh.
We left Tennessee on Sunday, May 27th. Zbra was driving the moving truck with one friend as a passenger. Our other friend was driving Zbra's car. And I was driving my car with two drugged kitties in carriers in the back seat.
For those of you who don't know, the drive from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Denver, Colorado is about 21 hours. Yeah.
The problem with the situation was - we had all of our worldly possessions in a big-assed truck and two cats in the car. So we couldn't really stop & sight-see anywhere. It was just pedal to the metal, get there as quickly as possible driving. This kind of driving basically stinks.
We made it to just outside of Kansas City, Missouri the first day. St. Louis looks very pretty at night but that's about all I can tell you about it. Kansas City looks alright in the daytime but that's about all I can tell you about it.
We passed through Lawrence, Kansas *insert Supernatural fangirling here* but it was on a toll-road so we couldn't really stop. Boo!
Let me just tell you - the stretch of I-70 between Kansas City and Denver -- SUUUUUUXORS. Seriously. There are... four trees. Total. For hundreds of miles. I know this because it is so flat you can see for miles & miles in every direction. Coming from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the type of utterly flat you see in western Kansas is just... bizarre.
Plus the exits are few & far between. If you even think you might need gas, stop as soon as possible because who knows when you'll get another chance!
And, if the desolation and fields aren't enough to make you feel like you're about two miles away from being part of a Stephen King novella, there is the Creepy Wheat Jesus billboard in Colby, Kansas. I am not kidding. Google that shit. It is a foursquare check-in spot & everything. I can't even...
Back to the move - so we made it to Denver late Monday night. We stayed in a hotel just down from our apartments and got our keys first thing on Tuesday.
Tuesday we spent moving crap in & trying to figure out such vital things as - where did we pack the toilet paper and shouldn't we have a shower curtain in here somewhere?
Wednesday the four of us, Zbra, myself, & our two friends, drove up to Mount Evans. That was pretty cool except for the fact that I hate, hate, HAAAAATE roads with sharp drop offs and no side rails. So I kept my eyes closed for most of the trip up & down.
On the way we saw what we first though were prairie dogs (sue us, we've never seen the damned things before) and later thought were ground hogs -- only to discover they are marmots. IDEK. I'm just going to call them mountain squirrels, thank you very much. :)
Wednesday evening Zbra & I went to grab some groceries and came home to find our bed covered in moving plastic (saran wrap basically). This is what happens when you leave your friends unsupervised in your home.
Thursday I had to work & Zbra flew to Seattle for Lock & Load (Warmachine convention). He got to see dysonrules which makes me INCREDIBLY jealous. (THANK YOU, BEBE, FOR TAKING CARE OF HIM & MAKING HIM EAT!!!)
Saturday saw the first of our two friends on a plane back to Georgia. It hit me when he walked away that it might be quite some time before I see him again. There was some sniveling on the way home. Sunday saw our other friend off and heralded Zbra's return.
Last week was still a "getting settled" week and now this weekend is our first real weekend to BREATHE in a month & a half. I slept for a MILLION hours!! FINALLY! XD XD XD
It has been fun exploring so far & I look forward to more exploring & things in the future. It is pretty hard for me on the friend front because I know Zbra, his boss & boss's wife (SORT OF), annnnd that's about it. I'm a pretty solitary person so that's not as hard for me as it would be for some people but if any of our fandom peeps are in the area, lemme know, yeah? Fangirling alone is just no fun!
Things to note for any future transplants:
1. There is virtually no humidity here. I can't begin to tell you how strange that is for me. I'm used to walking outside & feeling like you're wearing the heat. This whole non-oppressive heat is strange. Plus, glasses leave no sweat rings, what is this even??
2. Because it is so dry, you need chapstick & lotion like a mofo. Trust me.
3. If you are fair skinned, you need SPF x 1,000,000,000 because you will burn easily.
4. Sunglasses are required, not optional.
5. Holy shit there is a lot of SKY! You have never seen so much SKY. At least if you come from my neck of the country. I know that sounds like a weird thing to notice but in my TN back yard, you could only see the sky if you looked straight up. The trees were so tall everything else was blocked. I'm sure it's the same if you live in some place like NYC where the buildings tower over you.
Soooo.... this post got way way way way way longer than I intended. But there you have it. Esby's Great Move!