I can't believe I've only written two blog posts this year 😶
My last post was in March and so much has happened since then! If anyone is still reading this, I'll catch you up!
In June, we sold our house in Baltimore and bought a new house in the DC suburbs. We were in Baltimore exactly 18 months...not exactly prime time to sell the house that we had barely moved in to. The move was brought on by a few things. First, while my new job was only a 45 minutes drive without traffic, I never made it home in less than 90 minutes and, more often than not, it would take me two hours to get home. I had just gone back to work from maternity leave and was spending 11 hours away from my baby. It wasn't sustainable.
Commute aside, Baltimore was increasingly becoming a place we didn't want to live in. While it's less than an hour from DC, that hour made the drive seem really far. In the immediate weeks and months after Aurora was born, we barely had any visitors. When The Pilot went back to work after his parental leave, I was completely alone.The few friends we had in Baltimore didn't really make themselves available on those long weekends and I started dreading those weekends. We've been in the DC area for almost 7 years. DC is home and the friends we've made are family and Baltimore was just too far away to feel like we were still at home.
We never planned to be in Baltimore long-term. We always felt like three years would probably be it for us before we moved out of the area all together. The reality is that we were both unable and unwilling to buy a house in DC given the home prices there but wanted to invest in property. While we weren't in Baltimore long, selling that house gave us what we needed to be able to afford being closer to DC, while still giving us the ability to afford our home on one income in case one of us were ever to be out of work.
Our new house is perfect. I love everything about it. It's a brick, four-level split house on a cul-de-sac with an enormous yard and plenty of space for entertaining. We pretty much unpacked the essentials, painted the entire house, and haven't done anything else since. I have never felt so unsettled this long after a move but I come home every day so happy to be home. DC is a quick metro ride away and we see friends several nights a week. We're home and it feels so good.
This week, Aurora will be 10 months old and she's so much fun. She's been crawling for about two months now, has her two bottom teeth, says Mama and Dada, and is so curious about the world. This past week, she started laughing when she finds something funny and I love it. I absolutely love watching her grow, watching her mind work while she's figuring out a new toy, or trying to do something new.
I'm really loving my new job. I work with an amazing team of talented, fun people and I love being back on a college campus. It's weird to be thinking in terms of semesters again but I'll get used to it soon enough. While I've always been someone who strongly maintains that summer ends in late September, this new role is forcing me to think about summer being almost over as I'm gearing up for a busy fall semester. I'll also be taking a class this semester - just one to really get my feet back in academia but I'm so excited for it!
I'm also training for the Marine Corps Marathon. I'm technically in my 4th week of training but Aurora's first daycare cold sidelined me for two weeks and I'm just now getting back into running. I was following a 16-week marathon training plan that I wasn't really loving so I found a new, 12-week plan that I'm now following that I think will work a lot better for me while also catching me up after missing two weeks of training. It'll be three years since I've run a marathon and I'm excited to get back out there and tackle the distance! Finding time and space to run around The Pilot's schedule has been tricky but it's also held me accountable. I know I need to run on the days he's home or I'll derail my training for the week so that's been a big shift in my training.
The last 10 months have brought on more change in one year than I ever thought possible. Having a baby, leaving my job for a new one that, while is technically in the same field, feels like a major career move, selling our house, buying a house, and moving...it's been a lot! But I don't think I've ever been happy. These changes have all been good and wonderful things and I love where we are right now as a family. This new move also has us talking about staying in DC much more long-term, which is what we've always wanted but weren't sure would be possible so things are really, really good right now.
If I had to pick a downside it's that we haven't been on a vacation since January. I live by a motto of taking quarterly vacations...whether it's a weekend getaway or a big trip. Our two vacations that we had planned this year were derailed by the delay in the sale of our home (a process that - no kidding - was extremely traumatic) and our air conditioning breaking during the biggest heat wave to hit DC in something like half a century. We have a big vacation planned next month but I'm really hoping we can get away before that!
Until next time...
My last post was in March and so much has happened since then! If anyone is still reading this, I'll catch you up!
Commute aside, Baltimore was increasingly becoming a place we didn't want to live in. While it's less than an hour from DC, that hour made the drive seem really far. In the immediate weeks and months after Aurora was born, we barely had any visitors. When The Pilot went back to work after his parental leave, I was completely alone.The few friends we had in Baltimore didn't really make themselves available on those long weekends and I started dreading those weekends. We've been in the DC area for almost 7 years. DC is home and the friends we've made are family and Baltimore was just too far away to feel like we were still at home.
We never planned to be in Baltimore long-term. We always felt like three years would probably be it for us before we moved out of the area all together. The reality is that we were both unable and unwilling to buy a house in DC given the home prices there but wanted to invest in property. While we weren't in Baltimore long, selling that house gave us what we needed to be able to afford being closer to DC, while still giving us the ability to afford our home on one income in case one of us were ever to be out of work.
Our new house is perfect. I love everything about it. It's a brick, four-level split house on a cul-de-sac with an enormous yard and plenty of space for entertaining. We pretty much unpacked the essentials, painted the entire house, and haven't done anything else since. I have never felt so unsettled this long after a move but I come home every day so happy to be home. DC is a quick metro ride away and we see friends several nights a week. We're home and it feels so good.
This week, Aurora will be 10 months old and she's so much fun. She's been crawling for about two months now, has her two bottom teeth, says Mama and Dada, and is so curious about the world. This past week, she started laughing when she finds something funny and I love it. I absolutely love watching her grow, watching her mind work while she's figuring out a new toy, or trying to do something new.
I'm really loving my new job. I work with an amazing team of talented, fun people and I love being back on a college campus. It's weird to be thinking in terms of semesters again but I'll get used to it soon enough. While I've always been someone who strongly maintains that summer ends in late September, this new role is forcing me to think about summer being almost over as I'm gearing up for a busy fall semester. I'll also be taking a class this semester - just one to really get my feet back in academia but I'm so excited for it!
I'm also training for the Marine Corps Marathon. I'm technically in my 4th week of training but Aurora's first daycare cold sidelined me for two weeks and I'm just now getting back into running. I was following a 16-week marathon training plan that I wasn't really loving so I found a new, 12-week plan that I'm now following that I think will work a lot better for me while also catching me up after missing two weeks of training. It'll be three years since I've run a marathon and I'm excited to get back out there and tackle the distance! Finding time and space to run around The Pilot's schedule has been tricky but it's also held me accountable. I know I need to run on the days he's home or I'll derail my training for the week so that's been a big shift in my training.
The last 10 months have brought on more change in one year than I ever thought possible. Having a baby, leaving my job for a new one that, while is technically in the same field, feels like a major career move, selling our house, buying a house, and moving...it's been a lot! But I don't think I've ever been happy. These changes have all been good and wonderful things and I love where we are right now as a family. This new move also has us talking about staying in DC much more long-term, which is what we've always wanted but weren't sure would be possible so things are really, really good right now.
If I had to pick a downside it's that we haven't been on a vacation since January. I live by a motto of taking quarterly vacations...whether it's a weekend getaway or a big trip. Our two vacations that we had planned this year were derailed by the delay in the sale of our home (a process that - no kidding - was extremely traumatic) and our air conditioning breaking during the biggest heat wave to hit DC in something like half a century. We have a big vacation planned next month but I'm really hoping we can get away before that!
Until next time...
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