The Beginning

We were in Virginia for nearly a decade together, my husband and I. I'm originally from Iowa and never really felt at home in Virginia. I lived in a few of the suburbs of Washington, DC through the time I was there, originally I had gone to Virginia with intentions of only staying for 3 months to nanny and raise money for a mission trip. But 3 weeks short of me leaving for the trip a friend I made at a church asked if I felt I'd be good at ministering to people in a third world country, to which I replied, "No." It seemed like the next step in my life but after realizing this, I sent all the money I'd raised back to those who had sent funding and continued to nanny in Virginia. I later met my husband a few years later and while he'd been in the area for years, NoVa was not his pace either. If you've ever visited DC you might have enjoyed the monuments and the Mall. If you enjoyed the metro... well then bless you. ;) (I'm not one for public transportation :)). In any case, my husband and I worked on our career paths to enable us to springboard from Virginia to God only knows where when the timing was right. About this time last year I was starting to accept that we might never leave the DC area and we'd be there til retirement. It seems about the time I have accepted something God moves me onto the next chapter I'd been anticipating for a while... February of this year we visited Texas. It'd been on our short list of places we thought we might want to live...and if my husband had to travel for work he'd always keep an eye out... did the area look like it was thriving or decomposing? We'd been on a few road trips as well and stayed mindful of the people we came in contact with while visiting.

San Antonio was awesome to visit. The people we came in contact with were friendly. Granted, yes, San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the US but it didn't really feel that way. It didn't seem crowded. It breathed so much different than NoVa.

While visiting a buddy of ours took us out for breakfast. They sat all four of us at a square table and once the drinks had been ordered and brought out, I realized our table was too small for food. I had ordered coffee and they brought out a thermos with my mug. I thought to myself I should put it on the floor to be out of the way, but thought I don't want to get anyone in trouble in case that was a sanitary issue. A few minutes later our food came out, and what did the waitress do with the thermos?! She put it on the floor next to me! This woman was my hero! That was practical! That made sense! So of course I had my sister take a picture of this awesomeness with my thumbs up approval..

We later walked an outdoor mall and you better believe I talked up some of the staff at the stores just to see how they interacted. They weren't snobby or short with me like I was used to from the hurried people of NoVA. I was really beginning to like this place! 

The views were lovely... everywhere we drove I could not get over how beautiful the sky was! It reminded me of Iowa somehow, maybe it was the blue hue, I really don't know. But for a change I could see the sky. NoVa has so many trees and shrubs always lining the roads. Give me some open spaces! :D

Fast forward to our trip being over and we were back with our luggage at NoVA. My husband asked me if I was glad to be back. This puzzled and slightly annoyed me. When you don't know if you have a choice to leave or not, you kind of don't want to dislike the reality you're in. I told him as much. He explained that was a litmus test to see how sold I was on Texas. Makes sense. :) (He usually does. ;)) The following week was pretty telling, my sister was given a two week notice, budgets had been cut on her project. We told her not to look for opportunities in VA unless she loved it there because we were moving to Texas. My husband asked for approval to work remotely in Texas that same week as well, and was granted this approval. Now to sell the house!

UP next will most likely be me sharing about our road trip to Texas, the house selling went relatively quickly once it was on the market and that being a very stressful time I'm opting out of sharing in detail the remodeling that was done before putting it on the market too. We were busy... some nights I'd be up till 3 or 4 am working on cleaning or painting and then up for work again the next day. No way was I taking any time off. We needed the PTO payout to help out later on :)