Oh California. I have missed you.

The Mister and I used to live in San Diego.  For 18 glorious months, we basked in the SoCal coast, breathing in the salty crisp morning air, feeling the spray on our faces, laying on the beach getting sand in our..wha?  Not really, but sometimes.

Anytime we tell people where we've lived, their eyes just get wider and wider.  To recap - Phoenix to San Diego, to Hartford CT, to Phoenix, to Portland and on our way (albeit not soon enough) to San Francisco.  Being that the Mister is in the airline industry, we aren't long for staying in one spot.  Although, who knows how this will end up?  HQ is in Burlingame, and that may very well be his next step.

So we've set our sights on October 18th as our move day.  It's quite a relief to have a solid date.  I've given notice at work, signed a separation agreement, and started the process of cleaning out and cleaning up.  Yesterday I dropped off a large haul at Goodwill.  This week sometime I'm hoping to make a large trash run.  I want to get some things photographed and on Craigslist, clean out our chest freezer (we aren't taking that with us - it's going to have a new home with some friends of ours), and do another cleanout of the kid's wardrobes. 

While I do that here, the Mister is busy running all over the peninsula and east bay looking at housing.  It works like this: I scour craigslist, send him links, and he either calls and makes an appointment or does a drive-by.  Today he had two to go look at.  The first was a solid "NO".  I'm hoping the second won't be. 

Today also marks what is promised as a cool-down for the PNW.  It's been ridiculously hot and humid over the last couple of weeks and quite honestly, I'm over it.  As a general rule, the PNW doesn't normally get this hot for this long of a spell, so most homes do not have A/C, ours included.  It's been a lot of eating out and finding things to do outside the house and in someone else's A/C (movies, the mall, etc.).  That's not really great for the budget, so that will come to a grinding halt today.  Thank the Lord.

Wednesday marks my one-month countdown to leaving my job of three years.  In all of the moving that the Mister and I have done over the past 7 years, this is the longest job I've held.  I'm a bit sad over leaving, and I know that this is simply because I'm comfortable.  I've told a few clients about my leaving and they've expressed sadness, but encouragement.  That was nice.  My boss wrote me a very impressive reference letter, and I've applied to a few jobs in SFO, but I'm not frantic.  My main goal is to get through the next month, get my family relocated and situated, and then work on gainful employment.

One thing I have noticed is my anxiety about the change this time is not as high as it usually is.  I usually have feelings of 'we can't leave!  This is stupid!  We're making a mistake!' a lot.  This time, it's been there, but not so much at the forefront.  I found a quote today, and I posted it on my Facebook, but I will requote it here:

When we make a change,

it's so easy to interpret our unsettledness as unhappiness,

and our unhappiness as a result of having made the wrong decision.

Our mental and emotional states fluctuate madly when we make big changes in our lives,

and somedays we could tightrope across Manhattan,

and other days we are too weary to brush our teeth.

This is normal, this is natural, this is change.

~Jeanette Winterson