Wednesday, April 21, 2010

In the Beginning

One thing has always been consistent in my life... well my life ever since it was my own anyway. I've been off on adventures. Small adventures, not nearly enough trips to foreign countries or far reaching lands, but PLENTY of moving around.
Tons of, "well...I'm not sure this is the right place for us", lots of "yes we really like it here but"....
To help you understand I'll give you a brief history of the last ten (okay maybe it's been closer to twelve) years.
I graduated from college just outside Boston, moved to Indiana for a job (worst decision I ever made), left Indiana after 6 months, moved home to Portland (OR) to recover, moved back to Boston a year later, got engaged and a year after that moved to Minneapolis, after three years there we decided a change was in order and moved to Phoenix, AZ, after nearly three years in AZ my husband's return to grad school took us to Wisconsin (turns out that was the worst decision we've ever made) after 8 months there he decided to finish school in Manhattan.
I need to interrupt this great flow to tell you, of all the places we've lived we most loved Manhattan. Once you're there it's not actually overwhelming, every area is it's own little neighborhood, you walk everywhere, you see people you know, you can shop at the market for your fresh fruit and veg every day if you want to (at least if you live near Chelsea Market like we did). It was great, we didn't really want to leave...
But then this great job came along, one we couldn't turn down, a great fit for our whole family.
We've been living in Center City Philadelphia for two years now, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you it's had it's ups and downs... we love the area, we've made amazing friends, we've begun to raise our daughter here, our jobs have been heartbreakingly hard, and our marriage has been stressed beyond all previous bounds.
Which has led us to the conclusion that yet one more change is necessary. The scary thing is that we're making a big change on a lot of levels.

For about the past seven years my husband and I have had our eye on this small town in Northern Minnesota, just before we were married his family bought a vacation home there and we fell in love with the town. We never go for short visits when we go it's for two weeks, or more if we can manage it, at a time. We hike up waterfalls, slide down waterfalls, shovel amazing amounts of snow out of the driveway, cross country ski, snow shoe, we even had to hitch hike into town once when our car broke down in the middle of winter.
We've thought and thought about moving here but it never seemed feasible, after all we just spent 10 years learning that we are city people, city is one place that works well for both of us... or maybe not...
So we're jumping in feet first. If you know us at all it's not easy to tell that I am the one the city REALLY works for, I love knowing everything is right outside my door, I love walking everywhere, I love knowing the people I pass on the sidewalk and just having people drop in because they were walking by or in the area, I've worked in corporate america, about as corporate as it can get, for 13 years. What would I possibly do in this small town?
Then I uttered the fatal last words "Sure honey, you find me a job and I'll move to Grand Marais". Sure enough the next day there was an ad for a new Retail Manager position opening up.
I got the job and the rest is history, my daughter and I leave on our new adventure this Monday and my husband will join us at the end of the summer.
I'm well aware that this will be a big, interesting, possibly scary, probably hilarious at points adventure. Definitely all the makings of a blog... so here I go.

3 comments:

  1. Can't wait to hear about it all. Be sure and not leave out the funny parts.

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  2. Looking forward to sharing the new journey with you.

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  3. Woa! I'm intrigued! I will definitely make a point to keep checking in. What an adventure!

    Reading this blog and your other one have made me wish your travels would bring you to Western MA at some point- I think Esme and Enzo would really enjoy each other's company, and of course I would be thrilled to see you again.

    But your little town in MN sounds adorable. I'm a little jealous, actually. So is it just you and Esme for a while?

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