One Year in Massachusetts

One Year in Massachusetts

We are "celebrating" our first anniversary for our move to Massachusetts. One year ago this week-end, we closed on and moved into our house. Some things are much better now, some things are much worse. Maybe we'll do a little top 10 for the good and the bad...

Top 10 great things about our move and the last year (in no particular order):

1- David got his first "REAL" job and Michelle quit all her real jobs.
2- we bought a house that is big enough to raise a small family
3- we bought a very cute house that needed little work done to it and which we love calling home
4- we live in the country and love our surroundings and neighbors
5- we met Rita McConnon and Michelle now has her dream job and a new best friend
6- Michelle got pregnant with our second child (owing to the fact she was able to quit working full time and we have real health insurance again) which will mean a baby sister for Grace this spring
7- we are able to skip some of those pesky family functions that we really didn't want to go to without making up a fake excuse
8- we have made tons of new friends and have learned to rely on them in times of crisis
9- David has seen the Boston Red Sox play at Fenway park
10-Massachusetts is a hotbed for cycling activity and David is in heaven

Top 10 worst things about our move (aka what we miss about living in Utah)
1- the humidity here stinks
2- the bugs, in-particular the ticks and mosquitos, are horrible here
3- the dogs require much more maintenance and are much more expensive to care for here
4- we live much too far away from our family and miss them terribly and worry constantly that our kids will not have close relationships with their grandparents at such a distance
5- we have to think up something for dinner for 7 nights a week because we can't go to dinner at the Chapman's or the Mitchell's anymore (and still can't afford to eat out much)
6- driving and shopping here are a real chore
7- there are no mountains here and way too many trees
8- we spend a lot at the post office (and so does everyone we left in Utah)
9- we spend a lot of money on plane tickets to "exotic" places, like Utah
10-curb and gutter-what's that???

At the very least, we are grateful to be much better off at this time this year than at this time last year. We aren't finishing mountains of paper-work to buy a house, we aren't in the middle making big life-changing decisions, we aren't living with our parents anymore, we finally have everything put away from the move (at least everything important) and have finished furnishing the house and making it our own, we aren't wondering how it is all going to work out and wondering if we made the right decision. Now, even though it is sometimes hard, we know we made the right move and we know we've been extremely blessed this past year. We finally have a little bit of security to our lives and can enjoy what we have without so much worry about what is going to happen next year. Of course, every time you say something like that, you are given something to worry about, so scratch that last part...