Moving, Staying, Fixing

Aw, look at us. Proud first-time homebuyers on the day we closed on our first home! That was 5 years ago this month, believe it or not. Crazy! 

This post is about a few things. I will just number them as I go.

#1. We seriously, seriously considered moving to Utah a few months ago. Collin got offered a job at a brand-new high school that is opening this fall in Draper, and we really thought and prayed hard about it. I am just now realizing that I never really told anyone besides my family about this! ooops. Well, as you can see he didn't take it. We are still here. But to fill you in.... He got contacted about the job through connections he has down there, and they wanted him as their #1 guy. The process went quick and before we knew it, they were offering him the job. The only problem was, it was the exact same job he has here. Spanish teacher, and head wrestling coach. Same pay too. That is not bad, and really if things looked ideal for us to move down there it probably would have worked out. But at this point, Collin has put so many years of work into building his wrestling program here that he is finally able to enjoy some of the fruits of his labors. And he wants to do that a little longer. If he had taken the new job, he would have been starting over, again, completely from scratch. So that didn't seem like something to move for. Then there's the whole issue of my job--which brings in about 1/3 of our monthly income. Too much to just up and leave and move down there for what would essentially be a 1/3 pay CUT for our family until I could build up a studio again--which is not easy being the new person in town. Then there is the factor of our house--which is still currently appraised at a good $40k below what we bought it for, meaning there is not a good chance at us being able to sell it right now. So we'd have to work out renters, from a distance, which wouldn't be ideal either. The big possibility we were considering was moving in with Collin's mom (sort of--she has a huge garage/apartment she just completed right behind her house. So we'd not be completely living with her, just basically behind her), and having that be the way to cut the loss of my income, living mortgage-free for a year until we could find a place of our own down there. And really that wasn't hair-raising to me like I may have once considered it to be, at all! In fact, a lot of the details seemed to be working out so well that we thought this move might be what we needed to do.

You see, we want to end up closer to our families. We've already decided that. We love the Boise area so much, and we have so many friends here that feel like family. But the fact is, we are nowhere near any family, on either of our sides. Not even a distant cousin or aunt. It's a 4-hour drive to my family, and 5 hours to Collin's. We're pretty accustomed to making the trek and we do it all the time, but I think that having a kid has changed how we feel about some of this too. We want Ashlyn to get to spend time with her cousins and grandparents a lot--more than she gets to with us living this far away. And also, I would really love to have someone--anyone--that's family a little closer that we could lean on in times of need. And another big factor is simply the fact that Collin is so busy with his job during the season that I really, really have a hard time being on my own so much. Don't get me wrong, I really try to keep my big-girl panties on the whole season, but it is just lonesome sometimes. I love my friends and they are seriously the best--but they have their own lives too and most of their lives don't revolve around wrestling season! :)

 So for a while we had  already been thinking that we want to make our way east at some point, but we knew it would all depend on Collin finding a job. And this job really just fell into his lap. He was very interested--because at the time that they first contacted him, he was VERY unhappy with his employer. This is not a time I want to get into my neverending frustrations with the Idaho educational system, but let's just say Collin is a fair, hard-working guy and if he is fed up you know something isn't being treated fairly. At the time he was initially interviewing, he was pretty much set on taking this job because he wanted to leave his job here ASAP. BUT, in the weeks following before they finally offered him the job, his school district came out with an announcement that was the deal-breaker for him, which made this a harder decision.

And in the end.... he turned the job down. We fasted and prayed about it a lot, and felt like this wasn't the right time. And I was happy to be decided to be staying here! It will be really sad when (/if) we move away. Boise has been all we have ever known as a couple, and it has now been my home for 1/3 of my life! So, we're happy to still be here, and I am happy to see Collin continue to get some more success out of all the work he's put into building up the Centennial wrestling program as well. 

So there was the first item for you. 

#2. We had a lot of heated "discussions" if you will (heh) about our home and home repairs this spring. I guess I felt like, 5 years is really sort of a milestone. 5 YEARS! That's a good amount of time! Long enough, anyway, to really not have any excuses for not making some much-needed home repairs. I'm sure everyone I know has already guessed the #1 home repair I am referring to... because I have been complaining about it for years, ha ha! That is... our carpet! This carpet was old and brown and gross when we moved in. We cleaned it, and planned on replacing it, first thing. But something always came up. First it was the expense of our infertility treatments. Then it was the expense of adoption. Then it was medical expenses. There has always been something that has come up and kept us from forking out the money. Goes to show that we are not the dedicated "fixer-upper" homeowners we may have once assumed ourselves to be! But anyway, finally this spring we kind of "put our feet down" as far as getting our house fixed up a little. Or a lot. At this point, now that we know we'll be living here at least another year or two, it seems like a good time to really get some projects done so we can actually enjoy them for a little while before we move out of here! So we have bit the bullet, forked out some money, and decided to dedicate a lot of time!

This is the only "before" picture of the carpet I took..... it doesn't do complete justice for how old and yucky it was. I never played with Ashlyn in her room because I hated sitting on that carpet. 

The new carpet was technically my Mother's Day present. Truthfully, that is just because we needed an excuse to really do it, I think! We lucked out and Home Depot was having a sale on installation, which was good because we had 3 bedrooms we needed it in and they usually charge by the room. We picked out our carpet and I set up the installation..... stupidly, the last week of school! Why was I possessed to do that? who knows?!? It was crazy. If we had just waited  a few more days until Collin was home during the day, it would have been a piece of cake! But instead he was super busy finishing up his classes and having to get all his tests graded and grades in! Duh! So I did the majority of the packing stuff up and moving it out. And just to let you know.... I am VERY space-sufficient in our bedrooms! We have pretty much no storage in this house, therefore I make use of pretty much every spare inch. The closets are where all the food storage, blankets, office supplies, clothes, and whatever else, you name it, are kept. And under the beds are chock full as well. So, it was a lot of work hauling all that stuff out to our garage, furniture included, then ripping up the carpet and cleaning in prep for the installation. But it is done now and we love it! It makes our house seem like a nice place! :) And I'm happy to roll around on the floor with Ashlyn now.

Before: Bare floors the night before the new carpet installed, and After: with the new carpet!

An after-shot of the piano studio.... in bad light though. The carpet is lighter than it appears.

#3. Another project going on has been the doors. We were originally going to replace them all and reframe them, but that turned out to be way more work and money than we want to put in so we are just repainting them and replacing the hardware. This picture is of the paint but ignore the hardware--that hasn't been replaced yet. It got put on hold for the carpet project.

#4. And this final project is something that got started before either of the previous two--but it has also been put on hold now until the others get done! In other words... we are really getting in over our heads, ha ha! We have the fence half-stained and it looks so great. Can't wait for the other half to get done. I'll post pics of that... hopefully before the summer is over! :)