Where have I been? July 20, 2008
Physically? Around. Mentally? All over the place. I wish I had some good news to report but the truth of the matter is that the past month has brought me ten new pounds and my first ever white hairs. (I’m only 22. Not good at all.) So here is the recap….
I guess big things first. We’re moving. Normally, that wouldn’t be such a big deal. But, we’re leaving behind my dream. I’ve wanted to live in Tahoe since I was 4 or 5. I love the mountains, the lake, the snow. Unfortunately, Tahoe is a dead end for me. I graduated in 2003 with a BA in English, a path I had taken when I wanted to be a highschool teacher. Shortly before graduation (like, two weeks or so) I realized teaching wasn’t where I needed to be. I love working with teenagers, but the student to teacher ratio is apalling, and I would miss the personal connections that made me want to teach in the first place. That, and the lack of job openings and low pay sealed the deal. I took a year away and decided that nursing is really where I should be. So, I got back on the school wagon. The JC here doesn’t offer evening classes, and so I arranged with work to work an alternative schedule so that I could take my classes. I aced my first quarter of A&P (one of the few in the class to do so, I must say) onyl to find that my work would not continue to offer me any flexibility to finish out the class, or the other prereqs I need for nursing school. Wow, thanks. So, I spent a few months looking for another job, only to find that it would be impossible to make more than minimum wage and be able to go to school.
So, the decision has been made to move to the Reno area. They have a great nursing school, jobs pay well (that’s the other downside of Tahoe… our payscale sucks!) and a nice cost of living. Enter stress. DH and I both have to find new jobs. And while whatever jobs we get are almost guranteed to pay more than we’re making now (whee!) the job market is slow, and so we’ve both been applying for the past two months or so without much interest. (Though there’s a couple good possibilities on the horizon, keep your fingers crossed!) But, to compound the stress, Dh doesn’t really want to move. He knows that in order for me to continue my education and move into the occupation I want we have to leave. But, he loves Tahoe, and loves his job. So, he doesn’t really want to move. It’s only been in the past two weeks or so that he has actively applied for jobs on her own (I’d been doing all the legwork before that) Ugh.
On top of that, he and I have been having a pretty rough time. He works from Sunday mornings to Wednesday evenings with one or two overnights each week. (when he doesn’t have overnights he gets home at 10:30). When he gets home on Wednesday, he goes to youth band practice until youth group. We get home from youth group at 10 or later. Then he added in band practice on Saturdays as well, and he’s gone from 9:30 to 1:30ish. See a problem here? Then, he started volunteering to switch shifts at work, working on Saturday and getting a Tuesday off, that kind of thing. It got to the point where we hadn’t had an evening alone or a day off together for three weeks. I actually spent my fourth of July weekend alone. Yeah. Not so good. We’ve finally gotten things worked out in that he now understands that I need time with him, but it was a pretty rocky path for awhile.
And so, finally, to round things out in the stress department, we’re buying a house. Sort of, maybe. Reno has a much lower cost of housing than Tahoe, and we can actually buy a 4 bedroom house for what a 2 bedroom condo (and not even a nice one!) costs here. So, we’re in the loan application process. But, once again, things can’t be easy. 6 years ago, DH bought a new car that was totalled in a horrible accident before gap insurance had set in. (Yeah, tough life lessons) He continued to pay everything in full and on time, but when the bank offered to write it off for less than what he owed, he took them up on it. (more painful life lessons) That was his last credit account until a small cc he opened a few years ago. So he has a charge-off and a short credit history working against him. Because his credit wasn’t so great, all of our accounts are in my name, which naturally isn’t good. So, yeah. But, we just slide into the possible credit ranges for a mortgage. We’ve been in the manual underwriting process for the past 6 weeks. Do you have any idea what sort of toll that takes on you? A huge one. Each time we send in our documentation, they want more and our file gets pushed back to the end of the line. Yeah, fabulous. But, we’ve sent in everything they could ask for and so we should have a definitive answer within the next 2 weeks or so. And so far it looks like we’ll still be able to get a competitive rate in a fixed rate mortgage. We just have to wait and see.
So yeah, sorry for the long drawn out process. But, that’s where I’ve been. I’m now ready to start slowly crawling back to a place of wellness. I went for a short jog yesterday. Progress! I’m trying to take everything slowly, and just work back to it. My goal for the week is to take my short jog everyday, and spend 10 minutes with my punching bag. It’s going to be complicated because I’m going to Missouri to visit family half the week, but we’ll see. The good news is I’m finally back to a better level of functioning. And I’m ready to try again.
