SQUEEEEE
So the other week I got some really exciting news that is now official. My sister and her husband are moving to Austin next year!
My sister took a new job with her company that has her working the southwestern region of the US building relationships with area colleges and working with students and study abroad offices to promote her company's study abroad programs. She'll be living in Austin and working from home most of the year, but traveling a lot around the start of semesters-- including to Dallas (where she can visit with me!) and Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arizona.
She'll be moving down some time next spring, probably, and her husband will be joining her once their lease is up in Virginia and he graduates in May.
This means my sister is going to be three hours away by car/bus! And bus tickets are only $25. Do you realize how much cheaper and less time consuming that is than flying from Dallas to DC? SO MUCH.
So I am really excited. I miss my sister like crazy and love her to bits, and her husband is a great guy, too. The move would also bring them closer to some of his family, so that's pretty great (his oldest sister, who's really nice, lives in the Austin area).
My sister is excited because it means that:
1. She won't have to deal with the parents of students as much as she does now (if you've worked in education/administration and had to deal with the parents a lot you know why this is a bonus -- now imagine you were shipping their precious 17-24 year olds off to China for a couple of months. That's my sister's actual job).
2. She gets to work from home so her commute will cost nothing and take her no time. She lives outside of DC right now and uses METRO to get to work--- it's expensive and crowded and takes forever and has ridiculous numbers of delays and other issues (I'm really not a fan of DC's public transit system and I only have to use it when I visit).
3. Even though her salary isn't getting much of a bump, her cost of living is going to cut almost in half from what it is now in the DC area (even though Austin has the highest COL in TX, as I understand it). She'll be able to pay off her loans completely, ad she and her husband will be able to save more and travel more, and going to grad school for any of the art/textiles/museum studies programs she's been looking into would be more attainable after a few years working there than it would be if she kept on where she is.
So yeah. I can't believe we're both going to be living in Texas. If you'd told me that four years ago I would have laughed in your face. Life is weird. I'm just glad my sister isn't going to be half the country away from me anymore. Woohoo.
Really the only downside to this is that it might make the decision to move to Portland, ME after I graduate more difficult. Having my sister in Austin would definitely be incentive to go there instead (and it would certainly be a much less difficult move) but I miss New England a lot and my Mom would certainly not be happy about both of us sticking around so far away from her.
Oh well. No point in worrying over it now, in any case. I'll figure it out when the time comes.
I just wish they were coming out here sooner. Spring is too far away!