Moving
In August 2017, Dean quit his stable, but hated job at the Sherrif's department, and got a job working in an underground mine. The pay was good, the work was hard, the responsibilities were few, and while I don't know that he would have felt fulfilled doing that long term, he enjoyed it. Four months later, right before his probationary period was up, he was fired. I'm not sure why, a few theories have been tossed around: he was too ambitious and got promoted too quickly, his boss wanted to make room on his crew for a family member, he was working too hard and made his co-workers look bad. Whatever the reasons, that plunged us into a brief period of unemployment. It was Christmas time by then, and we had a wonderful outpouring of love and generosity towards our family. I will remember that time with fondness, despite the uncertainty. I felt that the way was being opened up for us for something great. I just didn't know what.
In February 2018, Dean started working full time as a military funeral honors coordinator for southwest Wyoming. That was a blessing for us. He had done that before temporarily, and he had enjoyed it. In May, he went to a school in Arizona so that he could be promoted. That qualified him to take over the military funeral honors program in Cheyenne for all of Wyoming, so in June we put our house on the market. In July we packed our bags and what few necessary pieces of furniture we needed and we moved to a two bedroom apartment in Cheyenne. The idea was that we would stay there for a month or two, maybe three, while we waited for our house to sell, and we were able to buy a house in Cheyenne. Months passed, and Dean started to realize that staying with the military funeral honors program may not be the best option, since he would only be able to keep the position for a few years due to silly military rules.
In November, Dean interviewed and was offered a job as an airfield operations assistant in Guernsey Wyoming. It took them a while to get us a start date, but he finally started on January 7th 2019. We packed up our family and moved out of the tiny apartment in Cheyenne into a small house in Wheatland (about an hour north of Cheyenne, about half an hour from Guernsey) just before the new year.
We have now been here for one month. While the space is bigger, and I love having laundry available to me without having to walk down to a shared laundry room and paying quarters, it is Freezing here! The furnace has issues so it keeps kicking on and off, and just won't run continuously. It also doesn't help that there is hardly any insulation in these walls, so whatever heat we manage to get, doesn't stay long. We do have a wood burning stove that we keep running constantly, but we're having trouble keeping an inexpensive supply of wood. We had the option to buy this house, but we chose just to rent it for the time being, and I think that was a good choice. Buying it would have saved us some money, but I don't think we would be happy living here long term.
In Cheyenne, anticipating moving (to another house in the beginning, and then who knew were by the end) I didn't want to put my kids in public school just to move them to a different school in a few months, so I opted to home school them. It was a great few months. I loved spending that time with my kids teaching them many different things. It was definitely a struggle getting the other things done that I needed to, and the kids didn't always listen to me and get done the things that they were supposed to, but overall, I think it was a great experience for all of us.
Now that we're in Wheatland, I decided to go ahead and put them back in public school. It was a hard decision, and I'm still second guessing myself. They're struggling a little with the routine, and having to do things that they don't want to, but overall I think it's good for them to be making new friends and having new experiences.
Eager to get out of this house and find a new forever home, Dean and I went to look at houses the other day. We were hoping to get a feel for the market, and see what options were out there, not expecting to love anything, especially since we signed a six month rental agreement for the house that we're in. We found a great house though! For the price that they were asking, I wasn't expecting anything fabulous when we went to look, but I really think they're selling themselves short. For $167,500 we would get a full acre of land, including a huge front yard, a big back yard, and a gigantic space for a garden and possibly some time down the road, animals. We would also get a house with four bedrooms, and two bathrooms, including a master bathroom. 3590 square feet! Granted, half of that is in an unfinished basement, but it's usable space, and eventually we can finish it any way we want! We've already talked about putting another bathroom and two or three more bedrooms down there, as well as a huge den area and maybe a library. When it's finally all done, it'll be a really really awesome house instead of just the awesome house it is now.
With a little bit of trepidation, we decided to go ahead and put an offer in on the house. We have renters in our house in Green River, and they are covering the mortgage there, so we can afford it. The rent that we are paying now would be more than another mortgage payment. And we can qualify for another mortgage without having to sell our other house, so we went ahead and did it. The offer was accepted, the mortgage paperwork is moving forward, and now we're just playing the waiting game. The biggest problem is that pesky renters agreement that we have here, we're stuck until the end of June. We put the closing date on the house for June 1st, which would give us time to do a little painting and cleaning of the new house, move everything over, and clean out this place by the end of the month. It seems so far away at this point though!
I'm tired of moving. I'm tired of uncertainty. I'm tired of all the change. I'm ready to settle down and live in one place for the next decade or two. I know things rarely go according to plan, but things just seem to be falling into place.
In February 2018, Dean started working full time as a military funeral honors coordinator for southwest Wyoming. That was a blessing for us. He had done that before temporarily, and he had enjoyed it. In May, he went to a school in Arizona so that he could be promoted. That qualified him to take over the military funeral honors program in Cheyenne for all of Wyoming, so in June we put our house on the market. In July we packed our bags and what few necessary pieces of furniture we needed and we moved to a two bedroom apartment in Cheyenne. The idea was that we would stay there for a month or two, maybe three, while we waited for our house to sell, and we were able to buy a house in Cheyenne. Months passed, and Dean started to realize that staying with the military funeral honors program may not be the best option, since he would only be able to keep the position for a few years due to silly military rules.
In November, Dean interviewed and was offered a job as an airfield operations assistant in Guernsey Wyoming. It took them a while to get us a start date, but he finally started on January 7th 2019. We packed up our family and moved out of the tiny apartment in Cheyenne into a small house in Wheatland (about an hour north of Cheyenne, about half an hour from Guernsey) just before the new year.
We have now been here for one month. While the space is bigger, and I love having laundry available to me without having to walk down to a shared laundry room and paying quarters, it is Freezing here! The furnace has issues so it keeps kicking on and off, and just won't run continuously. It also doesn't help that there is hardly any insulation in these walls, so whatever heat we manage to get, doesn't stay long. We do have a wood burning stove that we keep running constantly, but we're having trouble keeping an inexpensive supply of wood. We had the option to buy this house, but we chose just to rent it for the time being, and I think that was a good choice. Buying it would have saved us some money, but I don't think we would be happy living here long term.
In Cheyenne, anticipating moving (to another house in the beginning, and then who knew were by the end) I didn't want to put my kids in public school just to move them to a different school in a few months, so I opted to home school them. It was a great few months. I loved spending that time with my kids teaching them many different things. It was definitely a struggle getting the other things done that I needed to, and the kids didn't always listen to me and get done the things that they were supposed to, but overall, I think it was a great experience for all of us.
Now that we're in Wheatland, I decided to go ahead and put them back in public school. It was a hard decision, and I'm still second guessing myself. They're struggling a little with the routine, and having to do things that they don't want to, but overall I think it's good for them to be making new friends and having new experiences.
Eager to get out of this house and find a new forever home, Dean and I went to look at houses the other day. We were hoping to get a feel for the market, and see what options were out there, not expecting to love anything, especially since we signed a six month rental agreement for the house that we're in. We found a great house though! For the price that they were asking, I wasn't expecting anything fabulous when we went to look, but I really think they're selling themselves short. For $167,500 we would get a full acre of land, including a huge front yard, a big back yard, and a gigantic space for a garden and possibly some time down the road, animals. We would also get a house with four bedrooms, and two bathrooms, including a master bathroom. 3590 square feet! Granted, half of that is in an unfinished basement, but it's usable space, and eventually we can finish it any way we want! We've already talked about putting another bathroom and two or three more bedrooms down there, as well as a huge den area and maybe a library. When it's finally all done, it'll be a really really awesome house instead of just the awesome house it is now.
With a little bit of trepidation, we decided to go ahead and put an offer in on the house. We have renters in our house in Green River, and they are covering the mortgage there, so we can afford it. The rent that we are paying now would be more than another mortgage payment. And we can qualify for another mortgage without having to sell our other house, so we went ahead and did it. The offer was accepted, the mortgage paperwork is moving forward, and now we're just playing the waiting game. The biggest problem is that pesky renters agreement that we have here, we're stuck until the end of June. We put the closing date on the house for June 1st, which would give us time to do a little painting and cleaning of the new house, move everything over, and clean out this place by the end of the month. It seems so far away at this point though!
I'm tired of moving. I'm tired of uncertainty. I'm tired of all the change. I'm ready to settle down and live in one place for the next decade or two. I know things rarely go according to plan, but things just seem to be falling into place.
That's awesome!
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