So, I'm Going into Nursing...

This one is going to be a bit stream-of-conscious-y.  

It seems that I can't do things small.  When I get sick, I don't just get a cold--I get something that will knock my legs out from underneath me and linger in curious ways.  Our household has seemed to similarly stack our life transitions one on top of the other.  I know that past performance does not guarantee future results, but it is weird for, say, also buying our first house AND suddenly looking for a new car, such as the case was last year.  

So it only makes sense in the middle of a pandemic that I put in my two weeks notice for my job.

Okay, to be fair, I have been planning this for literal years.  With many things, I tend to make a decision and then proceed to focus my energy convincing myself to allow myself permission to follow through on that decision, for what sense that makes outside of my brain circuits.  

I've been contemplating going into nursing for some time, particularly to be a wound/ostomy care nurse.  To be in a place where I can so uniquely express that compassion by identification is singing a clarion call that I had been meeting at least in part through this blog and talking with individuals--this gives me a place to take it that one step further.  

And all of that is a highfalutin way of saying I'm ready to move toward a new career.  

SO MANY FEELINGS

I have been accepted to the Mennonite College of Nursing accelerated program at ISU.  It starts in the summer session.  I applied to this a year ago February and found out that I was offered a space in August, two weeks after I had signed all the paperwork for a manager position at Skyward--again, things line up in weird ways for our household.  

Truth be told, I had been offered a place the year before--I wanted to take the leap then, but Andy had just moved into different position at Skyward (once again, timing is weird in our household) and we crunched the numbers.  We ran and re-ran the math in a dozen and a half different ways:  what we found is that by my staying staying one more year and with some intentional pushing, we could be completely done with student loans prior to taking on any new ones, meaning a bit more stability within the uncertainties.  We did it.  We are Millennial Unicorns and grateful.  That we could even contemplate this situation is a privilege.  

It was a risk to turn it down that year--there was no guarantee I would be accepted the next year nor any means to defer that spot.  It would all be back to the strength of my application.  It hurt to turn it down that year, to willingly delay after all the decisions had been landed on, but in many ways we found the timing was right.  I also was able to steadily make my way through the remaining prerequisite courses one per semester rather than the alternative of forcing all four in a short time while also working full time.  So we knuckled down to a year of steadily eating the elephant of student debt one piece at a time, assessing and reassessing our budget for any places to cinch our belts in further (involving switching our student loan vendor for a lower rate and buying a house to at least lower our monthly housing cost), and otherwise squirreling away whatever we could manage to be as prepared as possible.  

My survival voices are VERY upset.  I am leaving a place of relative security so that we can go down to one income and incur more student debt in addition to opening myself to all kinds of new stress (good and bad, but unknown regardless).  The voices wail:  "How could you open up yourself to risk?  What the hell are you doing?"  The point of those voices is to protect me--they are reactive and they are LOUD--but there comes a point where they're no longer productive.  So I have to intentionally take time with those voices, to show the berating, awful din compassion or otherwise help them redirect to a more constructive vein.  It's tiring, at best.

I've played this whole transition close to the chest.  I've told individuals but hitherto made no mass announcement.  I've said before and will say again that preparation against as many plausible concerns as possible is part of how I cope with my medical anxiety and that definitely extends out into our financial situation; whether we can afford my medical needs is certainly a part of that figuring.  We've agonized and re-run the math for every different situation under the sun (unfortunately, we have some real experience with how a crisis can play out and how to safeguard as much as possible against it), and yet there comes a point where we just have to jump anyway.  My hope was just to make the jump from a lower ledge instead of the summit.  

I acknowledge that fear in the same breath I also acknowledge that I am fully confident this is the right next direction for me.  I'm sad to leave the people I work with and will miss them immensely.  I'm so grateful that there were people in my life that made this decision hard in the right ways.  I'm so grateful, too, have the support of those around me.  

And now that these parts are finally out in the open, I can even let myself begin to feel the weight of my own excitement.  There will be many hijinks ahead (and some I may need to catch you up on).  Stay tuned!

Student Loans: ACHIEVMENT UNLOCKED

Folks, I'll just come right out and say it:  Andy and I started our marriage with about 65K of student debt and we haVE MANAGED TO PAY OFF OUR STUDENT LOANS.  

WAH-HOOOOOOOOOO!

All of it.  All 65K.  DONE.

WHAT. A. RELIEF.  I still don't fully comprehend it yet!

I'm not going to turn this into a "if I could do it anyone can do it!" kind of bullshit.  There was a lot of hard work, strategizing, and tough decisions that went into this, but there was also a fair bit of luck.  We are both managers at 32 and in a position that pays a living wage that also had a healthcare plan that worked for our needs--this is not a typical scenario.  Having family and friends that demonstrated kindness and support had an impact.  Not having any children, not having a expensive pet, these have also contributed.  Having good credit helped.  Living in an area with a comparatively lower cost of living helped.  

Andy and I are not the norm--Andy and I have beaten the odds.  

While my joy is deep and vast, I feel all the more firmly that I would wish this relief for all of my peers, the thousands upon thousands of Millennials disparing under their own student loans, as well as anyone who went back for a Master's degree after a certain point.  This kind of debt is a recent phenomena and not something that should be continuing.  The burden of student loans is staggering and crippling and crushing and debilitating and many, many people have frankly given up ever paying them off.  The Millennials I know want to live securely, not lavishly, as though I were talking to someone explaining depression-era dreams.  I don't know many that have dreams of millions or a yacht when affordable healthcare and rent is a much more pressing concern.

It is possible, my friends.  I won't say that everyone can do it, because life isn't so simple.  For those that need the hope, it is possible.  For those who have prayed and loved us through this process, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  

Time to celebrate!

Updates to our Home!

Andy and I are steadily asserting our personality into our home, making changes and venturing into decorations and the like that reflect us and who we are.  We're getting bolder as we go.  It started with a bit of painting.  Then, a couple of adventures in plumbing fixtures, minor first and then something a bit larger.  Those small changes though, definitely encourage me to keep thinking further.

Final Step:  BASK

We cut pieces out of the baseboard and trip of a room to put up a Murphy bed--we finally have a guest bed again!  This is a LOT more than a couple of picture frame nails in the wall.

Hidden bed is hidden. :)

There are two large projects that occur to Andy and I:  firstly, we want to build a closet space in our bedroom.  Originally, the master bedroom was upstairs, but we had a vision for the guest bed space they had in the basement, mainly extending it out and also granting us main access to a bathroom, instead of theoretically sharing it with the other bedrooms.  I especially needed the comfort of the latter.  Building a closet shouldn't be too bad in terms of cost and time, just the deciding and a bit of rewiring before the studs become actual walls.  I think the framing could easily be done in a day, but the rest might be over a few weeks, stretching out as time necessitates.  I have barely considered what color we should paint it.  The idea, though is sound:  we're extending out on a wall that is just dead space right now.  It should work like a dream.  It'll be annoying to do (like putting in 110 individual stencils on a wall kind of annoying) but not hard.  

But the second idea, that's a bit more ambitious.  The downstairs bathroom is a hallway that happens to have plumbing elements.  

Functional but not exactly exciting

We want to extend this out, blowing out the wall just next to that new closet and extending into that room's dead space, and give ourselves a larger, nicer bathroom.  For as much of my life as I need to spend in a bathroom, I want to enjoy this space at least a little bit.  We're thinking freestanding tub and separate shower.  And, yes, we're finding very quickly that if we wanted to sink a lot of money into this, oof, we certainly could.  This is definitely a long term project.

In addition to asking myself what I wanted in this space, I then began to think of my own personal needs in this camp--what would I like to make my life easier?  I want somewhere to keep all of my ostomy supplies and to have sufficient counter space to prep and perform bag changes easily.  Good start, sure.  But can we take it further?

Currently, when I empty out my ostomy bag, I squat or kneel in front of the toilet, balancing as I open the end closure of the bag, and empty it into the bowl, as close to the water as I can to keep splashback to a minimum.  My knees are not going to tolerate that forever.  What kind of fixture or addition could I add to make this process easier?  Springing off of the last blog post, how can I actually design this bathroom for me and my future needs?  Could I retrofit a bidet of some kind at waist height to clear these parts out?  Or maybe another hovering toilet that is elevated on platform that is open on the side?  Maybe a toilet on a pedestal where there are no steps on one side?  I honestly don't know.  We've got some time to figure it out, but I want to put a lot of thought into this.  This is a facet where I don't care about resale value.  I don't have any bathroom in the world that is designed for my ostomy needs--why not create one in my own home?

Any ideas are welcome, folks!

Peterson Family Update #69801-C

There are a number of great and wonderful things that I want to talk about, to highlight what my adventures have been for the past while, but I also can't seem to pull them together into a coherent thought stream or otherwise form a coherent blog.  Time to deploy the bulleted list!

• Things are starting to settle a bit.  I'm impatiently waiting for some idea of what our utilities might actually end up being for the month, how we're going to budget any differently that we did previously, etc.  MovingMode! has some necessary additional flexibility in the budget, recognizing that there are always a lot of little unexpected expenditures that are going to crop up, everything from a new silverware organizer to shower curtains to a patch for the wall no one noticed needed it until now.  We have also blown our fast food budget twice over, with as many times we've just decided that making food was just that one piece too many for the day.  But now that flexibility is starting to scale back within normal parameters, as we're waiting to find out what some of that "normal" is going to be.  With our birthdays landing in the middle of this chaos, trying to decide what purchases can be absorbed by that house leniency and what counts as fun money (which birthday money goes into) has been interesting.  

An excerpt of our conversation at work the other day

• Austin was a great time!  I spent Easter weekend with some family that I think prior to that trip we had only traded a paragraph or so of conversation.  As suspected, we seemed like-minded in a lot of avenues, where we could happily talk about everything and nothing and enjoy each others' company. Thank you, Wendy and Jason!
• At my onsite, there was another Skywardian that was there at the same time (hi, Norma!).  We set up to meet for dinner one night, but ended up hanging up several times over the course of our mutual time there.  We caught a movie one night at the Alamo Drafthouse, famed for kicking loud people out of their theaters without a refund.  I did not want to test this policy.  It makes the week go much faster and more pleasantly to have a friendly face nearby but making a new friend is even better.
• Coming to the end of my medical terminology class.  I know that parts of it are paying off when someone mentions a nosebleed and my brain immediately fills in "epistaxis."  On the one hand, sometimes the technical term is unnecessary, a way to sound full of yourself.  It's also the difference between a twenty-four hour clock and a twelve hour clock--knowing the medical term is specific in ways that might not be necessary but could be in certain situations.  Even if the word doesn't necessarily make the situation clearer to a layperson, it does still frame the context of the situation, to a point.  
• Andy and I are still butting heads with our own strategies in getting the house settled--he wants to take intermittent breaks and I want to keep going until the job is done, finding a more complete rest afterwards.  It is slowly occurring to me that one of the traits of being a homeowner is that the work is never really done.  We've planned a prioritization meeting, getting to making the house roadmap, product management in the home style.  Andy introduced me to a program called Trello, where I can drag around the cards and color code them--I've enjoyed making labels like "Long Term," "Elbow Grease," and "Throw Money At It" to help flag priority and what kind of resources the project might need.

• Work has officially swung into the busy season--in fact, I've been in it at least a month and a half early, with how my onsites played out April and May.  I can only think a week at a time once we hit this part of the year or risk feeling immediately overwhelmed.  It's going to be a hard sprint to October, when things might finally calm down for a stretch.  If I keep saying that, maybe it won't be as bad, but for myself I can promise that the summer will go quickly regardless.  For this week, I'm in San Antonio again, but without all of the post-Lasik stuff that was going on last time.  Every onsite has its own challenges--it's just a matter of rolling with punches, kicks, and computer gremlins.  
• We have a new member of the family, with the birth of Keaton Adam Cross.  Both baby and mom are doing fine.  The existential question of "what does it mean to be an aunt?" has not hit yet either.  We will likely not have a chance to meet him until October as it stands, so there's time to figure things out.
• We've started meeting a few of our neighbors in the easiest way--we just took a Sunday afternoon walk and allowed for those little conversations to happen.  Found a few folks that seem like our people.  We also have a neighbor that moved in a week after us that was one of my compatriots at East Bay Camp.  I'm excited to rekindle that friendship.  
• We have had the first folks over in our home for a game night--that has made our home feel more like our home than most else has so far.
• The world keeps turning.  

Holy Crow, we are Homeowners!

Oh, the mayhem.  Oh, the humanity. Things have been a flavor of hectic the last while, here, as we are now officially homeowners and all of the logistical insanity that it means (hence missing my normal post date last week--sorry about that!).

After all of the packing and all of the prep, my day started two Fridays ago at 0330, rolling out of bed at Wendy and Jason's pad in Austin, Texas.  I had a lovely time connecting with family that I hadn't had much of a chance to really get to know until that trip, and Wendy had graciously offered to cart my butt to the airport at 0400--I had returned the rental car the night before to have one less thing to do that morning.  Remembering the adage that "Travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo," I was definitely feeling it as I rolled into Bloomington airport at around 1100.  We immediately went to sign the last of the paperwork, then I went to the office to fill out the last of my work paperwork, and we went to unload the kinds of items we didn't want the movers to move (stemware, the TVs, fragile artwork, etc.) into our new place.

Does it look any different after we've signed the papers, put our car in the

garage, and set a unicorn in the window?

Andy had since that morning already moved a few boxes into the garage of our new home, but we walked through the front door together for that first "official" trip.  ...and I felt nothing except the weight of the work we needed to do that weekend.  But I can't say I'm surprised--act first, feel later is my pattern (whether "later" is ever well-defined is another story).  We made movements from our old townhouse to our new house a couple times over, stopping for an early dinner eventually:  we can walk to Destihl from our house in about ten minutes.  My request at that point was to have something that had both coffee and alcohol, because I could already feel the punchiness setting in.  I did, after all, laugh for about twenty minutes solid when I said "Vitamin D batteries" instead of "D Cell batteries."  We slept on an air mattress in our new home the first night, on principle and happily cocooned in our own blanket.

Movers started at around 0715 the next morning and made swift, cheerful work of it.  Thankfully the rain held off until the end.  My folks came up and the four of us set to cleaning up the last of the dregs and things we wanted to move ourselves while the movers were managing all of the heavy lifting.  We managed to clear EVERYTHING out of the townhouse by the beginning of the afternoon.  My folks left; Andy's folks came in and took us on a Lowe's run for all those weird things like rakes, paint samples, and other goodies to get us started.  That night, we plopped into our own bed in its new space.

Tulips out our bedroom window!

Day three, Andy and I woke up and started managing the remainder of the pieces we needed to make waffles and prep for the unpacking party.  Filling our home with friends made it feel more like home than almost anything else had to that point.  We had a lot of hardworking help, which included two dedicated bodies cleaning the entire kitchen and unpacking it, assemblers, organizers, painters, sleuths of the great cord mystery, and all-around schleppers of things.  Thank you all for helping us tackle a number of projects and speed up so much of the unpacking progress.  We appreciate all of you for being present and for those that were present in spirit.

Kick-ass claw-foot recliner

Monday and Tuesday, I had all kinds of ideas for what I wanted to tackle and get done--ultimately, my body gave me a firm "you need to sit down before I make you" at a couple of intervals, which led to more than one nap under protest.  At least on Monday we were able to let in Merry Maids to do the final cleaning of the townhouse for us--very glad we budgeted in that expense, for sure. It definitely helped not to have to worry about that one more step.

Feelings so far include first and foremost gratitude for all of the support we've received.  I cannot thank you all enough for your presence, your hands, and your kindness.  Other than that, I'm finding weariness from the work we've done, a bit of relief in checking things off of the list, an itchy feeling surrounding the components left to do, some excitement over a small piece here or there (those glimpses of "what will be" shining out), and an acknowledgement that a lot of this is going to hit hard later, once there has been enough time to process what the hell has happened and what it actually means.

ThunderPix says "...hi"

Check that off the List

Well, folks, in short succession, we managed to sort out one of the major stressors that was weighing on us the past two weeks, with all else that was going on.  Andy was persistent in talking to insurance, and we were both researching cars in our price range.  We liked the Volt enough and it met our needs in such a way that we decided to stick with the same.  After some narrowing down, we found one at CarMax and...

We even found one with a bow. ;)

They took great care of us, making the process straightforward and fast.  Especially compared to the fiasco with our last Volt, that took FOUR HOURS at another dealership, we were very relieved to work with some warm, helpful folk and get the paperwork quickly filed and squared away.  We already love hearing the not-roar of our electric motor again.  

And commence happy dance!  

Me celebrating a victory and temporarily ignoring the other tasks

Peterson Family Update #691-E

I don't have a clever title yet again for this one.  This is a statement of being kind of piece today, because I'm genuinely finding it difficult right now to be creative in the midst of all other things.

• We're still plugging along.  We're almost completely packed, weirdly enough.  It's getting to the odd scraggly bits, where there's not enough to comprise a full box of one particular category, so they start to blur a bit, just to get them in a box and out of the way.  By this point, too, we're tired.  That means that our discretion in what we're keeping gets fuzzier and the tetris-ing skills start to slip a bit here and there.  We've managed to purge out a LOT of stuff--if I had to put a number on it, I would say around 20 garbage bags worth of stuff that we've donated, pitched, or sold.  Effectively, that means we've also unpacked that much stuff.  Now we're set up to value more of what we have and organize things in our new house in such a way where everything will have a clear category and home to return to. 
• I am warming more to the excitement as we go--sorting out some of the details makes it more real for me.  By contrast, Andy feels that it's less tangible in some ways because we're hammering out some of the larger ideas and it's out of the dreaming state in some ways.
• We've started listing out a bit what are some of the unexpected benefits of our new place.  For example, we can actually have a dedicated silverware drawer at our new place, instead of retrofitting another space to work in that capacity.  Woo hoo!  I expect this to turn into its own blog post as we work things out.
• If all goes according to plan, we should be pretty much done with packing at the end of this week.  Just in time for Andy and I to hit the road for work.
• Onsites on this particular subject that I will be teaching are always a flavor of interesting, so while I'm looking toward the adventure with some anxiety, I'm also excited for the adventure and for spending some time with Jason and Wendy in Austin, Texas. We were spitballing a couple of ideas the other day, and I'm excited to see how things come together.   If there are any "must sees," feel free to mention them.
• At the same time I'm in Texas, Andy will be in Pennsylvania the first week and then in Wisconsin the next.  He'll at least be coming home for the weekend, but that definitely accelerated our packing agenda.  

We're getting there, though!

• So as we're already tackling many, many details of finalizing the purchase and moving into our new home, we received word that our car is officially totaled.  On the one hand, it was better we find out this way than taking the word of the first assessment only to be screwed over later.  It wasn't the news that we wanted, but at least it was an answer.  
• Now we're hunting for a new car in addition to all else.  Having lost a week with the erroneous first assessment (long story), Andy and I came to the idea that we either wanted to put something together in a week or wait until after the house--there just wouldn't be much that we could do from out of state or otherwise take many phone calls in the middle of presenting.  
• On the whole, anxiety is ebbing and flowing in some interesting ways.  I'm oscillating between feeling like I've actually got a good handle on things and then feeling completely unprepared and inadequate the next.  I trust that everything is going to work out--I really do--but in the same breath, I'm trying to ensure that anything that can be prepared in advance is tended to as best as it could be.  Any preparation that I can do beforehand is, theoretically, less that I will need to do when my energy is limited upon my return on that Friday, where we immediately turn around and start moving some of the things we don't want the movers to move into our new space (and my plane will leave at 6AM, meaning I want to be there by around 4AM).  My energy reserves are expanding, but I know better than to assume they'll still be there.  
• At some point, I'll be able to make that flip, to go from "Prepare ALL THE THINGS" to "Things are what they are now."  Soon, but not yet.  
• Also on my mind is the knowledge that Busy Season at work is coming up in short order.  I do not relish the idea of starting into that already tired.  This means that once the house is squared away, I will only be able to think about a week at a time out.  
• On the plus side, Hawaii is at the end of it in October. 

I could use a little boring for a while.  I'm still not juggling all of the different pieces I feel as well as I should be, but I'm trying to remind myself to show at least a bit of the grace I would show someone else.  

At least Sprinkles is mostly packed

Peterson Family Update, #687-C

Hey, all!  It's been a busy kind of time, which means another listicle.

• Paperwork is rolling forward still with the house (see final picture of this blog post!).  Andy is a beast in the best ways getting all of these details squared away.  Barring unforeseen disasters, we should be closing at the end of April.
• A few people have reacted to our happy news of our first house purchase with a wink, suggesting that we needed the extra room for a family.  Please stop this and/or resist the urge.  It's not okay.  See this older blog post for details.
• This is the first time in my life I've had complete control over what the walls look like and the freedom to make any changes we want--I'm honestly paralyzed by the number of options, which is honestly better for our wallets at this point.
• I'm so excited for Andy to have a dedicated music space.  It does my heart a happy (and his, for that matter).
• Work has me slated for several onsites coming up already, including a couple of sites in Texas, San Antonio and Austin areas, specifically.  As per usual, there'll be a couple in Chicagoland at some point, too.  These are before the summer busy season even kicks off.  I have a feeling summer is going to FLY.
• The Roys went on an adventure in Florida last weekend, going to Universal Studios.  It's been a long while since we've had a family vacation.  
  
  
  

  

  Epic Superhero-Landing is Epic

  
  
• Physically, the trip was definitely a triumph--I could not have been able to keep up with anyone just a year or two ago.  That's some lovely validation.
• We had some good laughs, formed some fun memories, and were plenty sore by the time we made it back home.  There were moments of hangry and tired, but definitely glad we could spend some time together.  
• Andy managed to acquire two more unicorns, winning them in a crane game at Universal, no less.  Our "collection" is getting out of hand in some adorable ways. 
  
• Andy's job still suits him very well, naturally with its own joys and frustrations.  But coming up on a year in this position, he knows what he's about and can have some better perspective on the impact he's having.
• With the house hunting and a few other mitigating factors, I've been emotionally eating like woah recently.  On some elements, it's been very freeing to look at a menu and consider what I feel like eating today rather than what I'll have to fudge to fit my macros.  I can still make some choices within those confines that are better but without piling the guilt terribly high.  That freedom and grace toward myself has been a welcome break.  And that's the way I'm framing it mentally, per my brother's wording:  "you haven't fallen off the wagon; you're just taking a break."  Well, with vacation time over, it's time to get back to work.  
• I'm taking a Medical Terminology course currently.  This class has the science aspect AND the wordy-nerdy aspect.  I'm enjoying it immensely and affirm again how nice it is to have a structured academic activity as part of my routine again.  Eyeing taking a nutrition class in the fall and seeing my habits through a new lens.  
• Found out what happens if I don't cycle out my ostomy supplies in the car often enough--one of my bags basically melted together.  On the one hand, better to find out through the way I did, which was trying to cycle it out at home.  On the other, I'm a bit anxious to think back on how unprepared I was if there had been a real emergency.  Official emergency supply refresh schedule will now be implemented in earnest.
• Andy and I are taking the opportunity of buying our house to more closely scrutinize our budget--if we want to pay off my student loans faster, what can we decrease or eliminate?  Our mortgage will be less than our rent, once all the moving in parts are complete (and any post-move in "first house purchases" are resolved).  We want to leave room, too, for saving for those inevitable expenses that come up.  It's nice to discuss these components--while I appreciate that Andy trusts me with most of these decisions, this renewed interest and teamwork in that process certainly feels good.  
• Andy and I both got our hair colored to something a bit more red.  I have some purple streaks as well, just as something fun to peak out every now and again.  I'm thinking next time I might go all purple with some red streaks, but we'll see.  With my onsites, my company is okay with me having colored hair and it is more widely accepted as a whole, but I don't want it to be a distraction when I'm trying to come into a site as an authority.  
• Went back in for a check-up on my eyes, post-Lasik.  Seems that we'll need to go in for another swing.  Naturally, I'm part of a very small percentage that needs this, because I can't help but be special, it seems.  I'm not upset by this at all--I would have been furious if they insisted that what I'm at now is "meh, good enough."  Significant improvement, for sure, but there's just a bit more to do yet.  Looking forward to that in another couple months.  A stroke of luck, though, is that my brother's old glasses were in the right ballpark (startlingly so, according to my optometrist), and he has graciously lent them to me for a month or two.

And the world keeps rolling on, folks.

Adventures in House Hunting

Through a lot of discussions, arguments, and spreadsheets, Andy and I have come around to the decision that we could start looking for our first house.

This started with a literal bombardment of Zillow pages from Andy, with "What do you think about this?" and "Look at the kitchen on this one!" and a number of other things.  I felt overwhelmed almost immediately, to say the least and we had a discussion about the right way to approach the process that would meet both of our needs.  Eventually, we came around to a thorough conversation of identifying what features we really wanted in a house, what were our dealbreakers and what were our "it'd be nice if it had X, but it's not necessary" features.  This was all compiled into a mean spreadsheet that gave each possible house a point value.  Then another round of math came, sorting out what our budget might be to best meet our goals.

I had two main rules--the move must lower our monthly bills by a reasonable amount and we had to purge the house before moving.  I absolutely refused to unpack something and have us both question why we even brought it with.

Well, with so far six bags of items donated and a lot of paper recycled, we're working through that purging goal, and with a couple of meetings with some loan officers we had an idea of what our budget should tap out at to meet our monthly goals.

And then a fresh bombardment of Zillow links, but this time the search could be more focused, changing the question from "what do you think of this one?" to "should we include this on our list of things to see?"

Our realtor had taken care of other members of our family before, and it was good to have that trust pre-established, meeting her on a wintery day to start off with five houses up for contention, including three that we had sent her and two that she had found.  We've seen a few more since then with her.  Here are some of those stories.  Names have been omitted to protect the innocent.

• House 9.812, aka "The one with the murder closet," two story home that had a nice fenced in porch and a couple of bathrooms.  Main area upon entry and kitchen had been recently updated and seemed true to the photographs.  We began to realize immediately, though, that all photographs are set in such a way to make the room seem larger than it is.  Upstairs was comparatively tiny.  Then we went to the basement.  A radon pipe was placed in front of a cabinet, so that it would only open a couple of inches.  There were nails visible from the floorboards when you looked up.  To the right, there was an oddly shaped door.  A door with questionable stains and age.  A door that would not open.  This door was promptly dubbed "The Murder Closet."  I do not want to live in a house with a Murder Closet, where surely something would crawl out of it and possess us in our sleep.

  

  Walking around with my internal Vincent Price monologuing...

• House 10.432, aka "They tried their best" two story, connects to a busy street, which could be less than fun at certain times of day.  There was a lovely skylight in the kitchen and cool bar piece with stonework in the basement.  The rest was done in earnestness but no expertise.  They tried.  By golly, they tried to update things.  But, well, there were a lot of obvious flaws, such as windows that didn't actually fit, sloppily cut holes around ducts, carpet that wasn't fit properly, the list goes on.  Even the closets were consistently put on backwards.

  

  Not a picture from the exact house, but this kind of stuff, yo

• House 3.666, aka "Doom basement" was a ranch style with a good size backyard.  Definitely a "grandparent" home, in the sense that it needed some updating in a few places, as though someone had lived here for years and years and changed nothing in that time.  It was billed as having two bathrooms, but the one in the basement, well, it was not what I would have called a full bath--it was a cinderblock shower, like what you'd see at camp, with a single light bulb and a sad, isolated toilet in the corner, and a giant washtub sink.  The rest of the basement had a rocking chair with--I shit you not--a framed 8x10 of a clown just outside of a basement door that had a chain lock on the inside, like a front door chain lock.  The only think in that room was a rusty pole.  Vincent Price started setting the stage again in my head, that someone was tied to that pole and then the attacker went out to clean off in the cinderblock shower while evil grandma rocked in front of the room while holding the clown picture, and I was ready to leave very quickly.

  

  Something like this, but my memory might be exaggerating a bit

  Maybe.

• House 7.219 aka "House of the sun worshipers" was a split level with a beautiful backyard, with a screened in porch that had skylights and a fan, a brick patio, lights, and a pool.  The previous owners must have loved their backyard and probably practically lived in their backyard.  The inside of the house, though, had been...neglected.  It was a weird floor plan, particularly in the basement where the ceiling took an awkward angle near one of the walls and the tiny hallway to go through to the bathroom, and just a solid meh from us.  The garage had a side door attached to it where there was an unfinished but heated and airconditioned side room.  We could not figure out the purpose of this room at all.
• House 9.230, aka "It's a relief to see something plausible" was a ranch with charming white brickwork at the fireplace.  The cabinets were older, but painted a very fun green that matched the right level of quirky for me.  A LOT of built in shelving.  Basement was vast but finished.  Wish it had one more half-bath or an ensuite bathroom, given my particular needs.
• House 4.320 aka "Andy's first love" was a two story that had a wide, open communal space, spanning both levels.  Andy made the mistake of falling in love with this one, since it apparently went the day after we came to see it.  The basement was awkward as hell, with a random, wide bar making the space feel tiny.  It did have an ensuite bathroom at least but I had a hard time seeing what we would place where.  Was I secretly relieved that it was off the market?  Yeah, a little.  We also invoked a new rule--don't fall in love with anything.
• House 8.723 "Scentsory overload" was an L split level.  The siding was new and a fun color so it looked very sharp outside.  Going into the garage, it was clear they were smokers.  Upstairs was not so bad, but entering the basement, the air freshener was completely overwhelming.  I'm not sure if they were trying to cover something or if the smoking had dulled their sense of smell where they couldn't tell how much they were using.  Either way, a quick scan of the basement later, Andy and I knew it would need some serious updating and popping our head into the furnace room smelled like gas, and I was feeling lightheaded and wanted to leave immediately because my body was certain it was being poisoned.  That basement invoked a fight-or-flight response for me, and it took about twenty minutes to calm down.  Hard pass.

There were a couple in there that were unremarkable, in the sense of "it's a nice little home, but not for us" or we weren't willing to do the necessary work of updating that particular space.  Yet for all that adventure, we did end last weekend with this:

Assuming all goes according to plan, we're home owners, ya'll.  :)

Mandatory New Year's Reflection, 2019

Looking back on previous years (beginning 2016, pre-2017, starting 2017, and pre-2018), I can see a trend in thinking about the future with a guarded optimism.  2016 saw us looking forward to our Norway trip and moving to our current residence.  2017 ended with some significant health changes, going into the permanent colostomy.  2018 focused a lot on dealing with the fallout and reasserting health.  So, 2016 was The Year of Adventure and Exploration.  2017 was The Year of Self-Advocacy in health decisions.  2018 was The Year of Recovering. 

 2019 I have dubbed "The Year of the Precipice." 

I feel like we are on the edge of things.  I feel like we are climbing to the top ready to make some plunges. Andy and I are looking at where our goals and our finances are, trying to find where they can overlap or at least can be started toward something. There are lots of hypothetical situations, points were where talk about best case scenarios, and elements of how do we leave a cushion for worst case scenarios, all in the same stretch.  

The big one is that we're trying to sort out whether or when we'd like to buy a house.  Andy wants the autonomy of knowing that he can do what he wants to with his space, that he can plant a garden or paint a wall without seeking permission and otherwise carve out a spot that is uniquely his.  I want autonomy by maintaining the freedom to leave when our lease is up and in the security that someone will be coming by to fix things that eventually break, without the sudden financial shock disrupting other plans.  Same need; different strategies; lots of discussion.  

Somewhere along the way, we figured out that we could actually discuss elements of it if we sidelined some of the emotional elements temporarily.  On my part, Andy throwing Zillow links at me with "what do you think of this one?" was pushing too hard too fast and thus was shut down immediately, frustrating Andy who wanted to get an idea of what we might want to do.  This fits our respective approaches--Andy has to try things out to understand what he wants; I'm better at identifying what traits and factors I'm looking for in an item to find one that matches those parameters.  So, we shifted the house discussion from "what do you like about this option?" to "what would you want in a house?" which was a much safer conversation for me and helps Andy hone down his focus, including creating an EPIC spreadsheet to quantify and compare those elements.

But we've got my student debt to figure in.  And we're finally to a point in our snowballing where we're ready to attack this one head-on.  I don't want to add another debt in when we're actually close to being out of it.  It's tangible now:  if we knuckle down, we can be done with my student debt in a year in a half.  Eighteen months.  How much broader my world will seem for it.  So, yes, the housing argument sits against that, too, where I'm not keen to take on an albatross I don't have to, no matter how lovely its feathers are.

So here's where that leaves us, then:  we're in a state of preparing, of chipping away that debt in extra hundred dollar payments at a time, of assessing both what we want and what we need, of determining what the right balance between want and need we should land on, of obsessively checking our accounts and reconfiguring the budget anywhere we can give ourselves more space (mostly me); of feeling both close and impossibly far from our goals.

Last year left us with some very major shifts.  

• I was/am processing living with my permanent ostomy, which will be a lifelong process since it is a lifelong point of acceptance (see any post with text "Melvin and Me")
• Andy got a new position at work that has revitalized him in some good ways
• Andy began making "bad art" on his YouTube channel and hit some very important milestones for him.  I'm so very proud of how much he's learned in this process and delight in seeing the joy it brings him.
• We switched our Ford Escape for a Chevy Volt, appreciating that the Escape was what met our needs at a different time of our lives and that the Volt mets our needs and our values better with where we are now.  
• I crammed in a few more permanent changes with both a tattoo and Lasik eye surgery.
• I started taking a class through Heartland, and it's been immensely helpful to me to have a few places outside of work where I'm learning something new in a structured environment--this also includes starting voice lessons, and I'm very curious to see what I can actually do with this instrument.  

Apart from our immediate circle, there are a few other places that feel they are readying for a change.  Politically, the House is switching power and campaigning for 2020 is going to start sooner than any of us would really like.  There are a few people in our family that have had some significant changes to their health and might be experiencing their own significant life changes with that--grandparents getting older, the Little Cross Family expecting their first child.  Some friends are shifting their personal education goals around, too, which has my empathy in sorting through how to manage those components in the way best forward for them.  All four of my parents are also my friends with their own goals and worries.  My brothers are preparing for shifts in their lives.  I have a couple of cousins expecting their first child as well.  

There's just so much coming, clouds rolling ominously on the horizon.  But, I love a good thunderstorm.  I often express my anxiety by preparing to the point of preoccupation (yay for high functioning depression), and yet facing into 2019, I feel oddly reassured that I have placed safety nets where I needed to, exercised caution liberally, but still placed a lot of the pieces in the right positions.  There's a number of places that need to be shifted into the right place to initiate the chain reaction, but we're still building to a summit of some as-of-yet intangible shift.  Changes are coming.  I cannot speak to how hard or easy that will make 2020, but 2019 is building toward them.  I find myself looking toward the edge of the cliff--still a little ways off, but visible--and wondering what the view is going to look like by the end of the year.

Wishing you all the best 2019.  

Lasers and Such (Upcoming Lasik Surgery)

So, I've decided in the wake of celebrating a year with Melvin, a permanent change to my body, to make two other permanent changes to my body.  One of which was my kickass tattoo.  The second, I'm gearing up for.

Old Memes FTW!

I've been cleared to get Lasik.

Andy and I have been working hard to build up our HSA, since we know that my life circumstances will always require this situation.  We will ALWAYS hit our high deductible.  We will continue to put the max amount into the HSA every year that we can.  With healthcare as it is currently in our country (additional opinions on that here), we will need it.  We've been able to pay for some additional dental work and glasses out of this account as well.  Through some small miracle and a lot of good planning, we have enough in this account to pay for Lasik as well as cover the full deductible for next year.  I'm so pleased and so saddened by this, that I'm grateful we're so prepared and sad that we have to be.

I've had glasses since second grade.  They would get bent and broken from time to time growing up, once lost to a lake, and always something that had to be maintained and worried about.  With my various medical experiences, giving my glasses over to a nurse or tech was that final part where I felt worried and truly vulnerable--the events were really real as soon as I couldn't see anymore.  Similarly, after they flew off in a car accident, I felt much more able to process what I needed to do once we found them again.  Going to a waterpark with my family always meant that we had to register a home base where we might leave our glasses, requiring a lot of walking back and forth.  I tried to get around this sometimes with goggles that had some prescription in them, but even that felt awkward and annoying to have to work around.  Showering with various medical appliances has been tricky at various points, where I couldn't really verify their condition with my glasses sitting by the bathroom sink.  These days, when I have a bag change day and Melvin is exposed in the shower, I can't see whether there's any...activity until it's a little too late to contain it.

Yeah, I think I might miss the look that I've come accustomed to think of as "my face" but there are many things to look forward to.

And of course I'm going to give you my perspective on the process of things.  :)

I started off with a consultation appointment a few months ago, to discuss the generalities, where I voiced my specific concerns with my medical conditions as they were, ensuring that there were no counterindications with my Crohn's history.  Flash-forward to last Friday, where I had a couple hours worth of testing.

First, we measured some components of both eyes in the Lasik center, measuring how light hits my eye and the general topography therein.  We were mapping out how light was processed in my eye.  This was a lot of "We're going to flash a light that I need to you stare at and not blink" for ten seconds at a time.  In fact, most of the day was in that camp.  They did a full eye exam, checking for overall health and verifying my prescription--I still can't see the big E without my glasses, but it's been years since I could.  Checked my eye pressure, checked in three different machines where I held my eye open as lights moved or stayed the same.

And, of course, in order to see elements of my eyes better, they had to dilate them.  When I was informed that this was a particular strong version that they needed to use, that might still show dilation into the next morning, I was even less excited and immediately had to question the wisdom of my original plan to go grocery shopping after the appointment.  I ended up calling Andy and having him read the list to me.  Thank goodness it was so foggy and grey out that day.

Something about those dilated eyes seemed familiar...

As a unique element to this appointment, they also stuck these tiny pieces of paper in the corners of my eyes to measure my tear production.  This was probably the worst five minutes, since I had the corner of these pieces of paper tucked under my eyelid in the outside corner of both eyes, waiting to see how the irritation and general tear production continued down the strip via capillary action.  I was very relieved to have those out.

In considering Lasik, we also needed to measure the thickness of my cornea.  This was nearly identical to the eye pressure test (no puffs of air here, just a pressure outside the eye after some numbing drops) but with a different tool.  This is important to the Lasik process, since based on how thick the cornea is, they might recommend a different way to go about it.  The Lasik process, as I understand it, does not involve a blade anymore, instead using a laser to cut some holes along the cornea, like the perforation on a tear-off part of a document.  This flap, then, is flipped back (by the machine) and the laser goes to work.  I'm told that part takes all of twenty minutes or so per eye.  If the cornea is too thin, then a method called PRK (photoreactive keratectomy) is used to move parts of the cornea so that the laser can do its thing--basically, a solution eats away at the top layer of cells.  On the plus side, definitely no blade and less touching involved, though the recovery is a bit slower, since the body has to regrow that layer afterwards.  I was told it felt like an eyelash stuck in your eye that you cannot get out.

I'm less wigged out by things touching my eye than others I've talked to, so the shorter healing time and less inflammatory response (compared to the body reacting to the dissolved epithelial cells in PRK, particularly with my Crohn's) from the Lasik sounds dandy to me, and my doctor as it happens.

Risk factors include the potential in 0.1% of patients for a corneal scar (which I've done some new reading on and found some [what I think are] cool YouTube videos) and dry eyes.   Dry eyes definitely seems to be the most common negative side effect.  I've looked at some worst case scenarios, too, and we discussed how about 95% of people get 20/20, but it's possible I may need a "touch-up" (my words, not his) in a couple months.  Hell, I'd be fine with readers even if it would just be better than Velma from Scooby-Doo.  

Day is set for Friday the 21st, mid afternoon.  Recovery period, not too bad, but I will be expected to put in eyedrops every fifteen minutes the first three days and then every thirty for the rest of the first month.  And we'll see where things go from there.  I'm hoping for "better," which seems like a feasible goal.  Updates as I have them!  Wish me luck.