Good Bye Florida

Well I don't even know where to start with this one. Nearly three years ago Natalie and I bought a nice big home with a big yard in the "the best city to live in Florida" with the intentions of staying here for the rest of our lives. We even looked into the schools and moved right next to a high school that is top 1% in the country with plans that our kids would go there.

In March my mom was diagnosed with a rare form of dementia. After her diagnoses my sister was trying to convince me that this is reason enough for me to pack it up and come on back to SoCal. I of course wasn't having it. I had plans to stay here and didn't want to start over just to get there once my mom doesn't remember me. I'm not too optimistic that she will remember me in a year or two. There are a lot of things that I miss about SoCal but a lot of things I can't stand. Anti gun laws and an unstable economy in a bankrupt state aren't exactly my idea of paradise.

Well in late June my sister's family came out to visit for a couple weeks. I got to see Adriana running around with her cousins having a good time and I actually got a break from her and got to be an adult for a while. Normally I'm either babysitting or entertaining the kid all day. We never get a break. With cousins around we got to let her go play and we could sit back and relax and have some time to ourselves for once. It was a nice break from our busy lives. Since then I just haven't really been the same. I've felt like even though there's so many good things going on in my life it's kinda empty sometimes. I've felt like I don't want to be here anymore. We have this nice house and a pool and it never gets used. It just seems kind of pointless. I feel like the only thing keeping me here is my awesome yard and all my tropical fruit trees. That's going to be the hardest thing for me to let go of, really hard.

Well about two months ago I heard about a federal opening, not going to discuss the job online. I've been waiting for four years now to get a federal job, specifically in this line of work. The only problem was that there were no openings in Florida. There were some openings in the Southeast but in every state except Florida. And where do you think they have a lot of openings? The Southwest. So I applied, I went up to Orlando, conquered the test, and I'm in the process now.

Getting this job could take a while and it's not 100% guarantee that I've got it, although the odds are highly in my favor with my experience. So I decided to apply for a second job at our Network Operations Center. I decided that even if I don't get the federal job I'm getting out of here. And I decided that if I have to go private sector I want to go to Arizona. Today is my third interview. They moved from Denver to Chandler, Arizona and no one wanted to move so they need new people and they need them fast. Things are looking good for me getting this job as well. So now I'm at the point where it's pretty much a guarantee I won't be living here next year. To top things off I learned today that the federal job is pushing fast and I should have an offer within a month, in which case I won't want to go to Arizona. I mean if they're going to take more than a year to hire I'll go to Arizona, but I don't think that is going to happen now. So I'm having a hard time deciding how to do this.

But either way we have decided we're leaving. I talked to my realtor and I can get a pretty hefty rent check for my house.  On top of that she gave me the warm and fuzzy talk telling me don't worry about my house being empty. She told me in this area, in this market, the house will be rented out in a month. Then I can keep the house until I can sell it for a half million and in the meantime I can rape my fruit trees in the summer.

So right now I got some friends doing research for me and they are going to get me an answer by next week. But it's looking like one of two things are going to happen. 1. We move to Phoenix within the next 60 days 2. Within a year we move to Georgia for four months while I do my training and then move to the Southwest. I'm hoping for the #2 option.

So right now I'm not sure where I'll be in the next year, but I'm excited that we have some good changes coming our way.