Saturday, February 9, 2008

Ch... Ch... Ch... Changes

I am not a person who likes change. In fact, I DISlike it and typically avoid it. I like the rut that I tend to live in. But change is not always a bad thing... and the past week has certainly been a week full of changes.

Last Friday I got a job offer that I had been hoping for in a town about an hour away. It's all been a blur since then. Last weekend I made pro and con lists for both jobs and both cities and eventually decided to take the new job.

Monday was definitely the worst day. I thought I was going to throw up on my bosses desk when I walked in to turn in my notice. I did not throw up and I felt about 1,000 times better after I finished telling him. Then I was able to call and formally accept the new job. I spent most of the day on Monday telling people what I was doing. None of them were easy to tell but I felt a lot better when it was over. There was nothing anyone could say that was going to change my mind at that point, so it was just a matter of getting it over with. By Monday afternoon, I had called a real estate agent to get my house on the market. We made an appointment for Tuesday afternoon so I spent hours and hours Monday night trying to get my house cleaned up, straightened up and de-personalized.

On Tuesday afternoon, I met with the real estate agent and talked things over. We made another appointment for Thursday afternoon for him to take pictures and get it on the market. By Thursday night, there was a sign in my front yard and my house was officially "For Sale." It makes me kind of sad. I love my house. I have lived here for four and a half years and I have a lot of great memories here. But it is time to move on. And so we are.

I have started looking for new houses and while I am not sure if I have found the perfect house quite yet, only time will tell. I hope to go look at several next weekend. While I need to sell mine first, I am hopeful that that will happen quickly.

So it has been a busy week, with almost every spare moment spent cleaning something or straightening something or hiding things in the closet or under the bed that you don't want a potential buyer to see. :-) The next few weeks are going to be filled with more changes and more decisions, but hopefully they will all be for the best. I am excited about this move (both professionally and geographically) and I think it is going to be great. There are sure to be bumps along the way, but hopefully there won't be anything that cannot be overcome.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Wrapping Up Last Week

Just wanted to take a second to catch everyone up on the events of last week. It wasn't a particularly busy week but it was a great one.

On Monday I headed up the road an hour or so to a neighboring city to meet up with some folks and see a concert. I haven't been to a concert in quite a while so it was a nice change. The show was Tim Reynolds and it was a fun time.

I don't remember anything particularly note worthy on Tuesday through Thursday. I taught training classes for work on Tuesday and Thursday... but nothing else terribly exciting went on.

Then came Friday. I hope by tomorrow or the next day I can tell you all about the events of Friday... but for now you will all just have to wait with bated breath. :-) Let's just say it started out well and only got better.

After I got off of work on Friday afternoon, I headed back up the road to that same neighboring town and went to a singing at the church where Amberly and her family attend. The singing was wonderful and very uplifting. It was an amazing event and I was glad that I got to be a part of it. I can't remember why but I missed out on it last year, so I was glad to be back this year.

After the singing, Amberly and her husband opened up their home to what they call the "Young Professional" group from their church. And while I am not very good at meeting new people, I was glad to be invited and get to meet some folks from this group. They seem like a great group and I hope to spend more time with them in the future. It was a late night and I got back to my house about 1 AM.

Then Saturday it was once again back to that same town to see a traveling Broadway show. My parents and I have season tickets and this weekend we had tickets to see "The Rat Pack." It wasn't my favorite show but I love that era of music and so I enjoyed the show.

While I was leaving the Civic Center I was stopped at a traffic light. I looked to my right and low and behold there was John King (one of the CNN reporters) standing outside. So me, being me, grabbed my camera out of my purse and took this quick shot. It is not the greatest shot but I was actually pulling away from the red light when I took it.

Alabama is one of the "Super Tuesday" states and so they were doing some broadcast related to candidates showing up all over the state yesterday. Now if it had been Anderson Cooper I might have pulled over (or stopped right there in the middle of traffic) and gotten out of the car... but fortunately for him, he was probably off in Afghanistan or something.

I guess that about wraps up my week. I hope you all had a great one.