Looking ahead...
Jan. 18th, 2008 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sillygoosegirlThis was supposed to be the tail end of my "2007 in Review" post, but I don't know if I will ever get that post written, and I definitely want to get this one written.
Obviously, 2008 is going to be a year of a lot of changes for Josh and I. It already has been. Last September when Josh got his offer from Epic, I had really mixed feelings. Work at NG was being exciting to say the least, we still had 9 month on our lease, and the idea of moving away somewhere other than the Pacific Northwest seemed a bit silly. But upon more reflection, it started to sound like a better and better idea. Really, there were only 3 things holding us to Chicago, namely our lease, my job, and our friends. Well, frankly the lease wasn't really all that money compared to the value of the work experience at Epic for Josh. Actually, even if we still owed on the lease today, we'd still be netting more here in Madison simply off the increase in Josh's salary. My job was harder to explain away, given the exciting role I had last year, but in the end I'm not sorry at all that I no longer work for a defence contracter, and we didn't even know if we'd win the contract I spent all last year working on, or if I'd just get to go back to my previous boring role... and I'm glad I didn't pass up an exciting new opportunity waiting for something that may never happen.
As for our friends, I cannot say enough how much I've enjoyed the opportunity to see the Hyde Park folks regularly, the opportunity to get to know Ed better, or my appreciation and enjoyment of the 3 friends we made Chicago. But all the same, we were feeling like our social life was a bit stunted in Chicago. My fear, upon graduation from Mudd, was that if we moved somewhere where we knew a few people but not many, we'd find ourselves only socializing with those old friends and that would get in the way of making new friends. I felt that our experience in Chicago really bore that out... worse than I expected, in fact, due to Chicago being such a huge city, and also due to the fact that after 9 months living apart, which Josh and I finally got to Chicago we didn't want to let each other out of our sight (which kind of got in the way of getting to know coworkers and classmates socially). Between our long commutes to work and school, the long travel time to visit even the closest of our Mudder friends, and the long travel time it would have taken to see coworkers or classmates socially, it felt like we had only about one day per week that we could socialize... and that one day got spent with the D&D Group unless we were traveling or had an extraordinary amount of stuff to get done at home. For all that we liked the group (and we look forward to making the trip to visit you guys at some point!), the other contributing factors kept us from having what felt like a fulfilling social life. I might have rather started my social life over including the same friends we have in Chicago, rather than starting my social life over with new friends, but that didn't really feel like an option.
So why not embark on an exciting new adventure? That's what you are supposed to do when you are young andsingle childless, right? Okay, so it's not exactly flying off to Paris on a moment's notice, and even here we have a cold hard kitchen floor... but we haven't got much to lose right now, and a lot to gain. And so far I feel really really good about our move, like we're gaining so much more than I hoped for.
Here in Madison, we live less than 2 miles from work and it takes about 5 minutes to drive there. We started with 60-something other New Hires, most of whom are right around our age. We can leave for work at 8am, take a leasurely lunch together and/or socializing with coworkers, work an 8.5-hour-day, and still be home and done with dinner and clean up by 6pm, leaving ourselves an evening long enough to actually do stuff, as in lots of stuff. We're making friends with our coworkers and neighbors, and can get together with people midweek. It's, like, really cool.
Another cool thing about work is the cafeteria. It's really cheap (generally $2.50/pp--compared to $5 or $6/pp/day in groceries, with breakfasts being practically free), and it's also really good. As a result, we've hardly been cooking because we're eating half as many cooked meals at/from home, and we can eat leftovers for dinner all week without really getting all that bored, as we're getting variety for lunch. This is reducing the household chores a ton... way more than I'd really expected. We're headed into next week looking like we don't have to go to the grocery store this weekend, and probably wont need to cook at all next week unless we want to. The idea of being able to go two weeks between trips to the grocery store is a bit novel... and appealing. And being able to eat a leasurely lunch in the cafeteria without it taking away from our precious little daily time together is wonderful.
So far I'm really enjoying work too. Of course, we're in training, so who knows how similar real work will be? But I'm enjoying learning "M", and playing with the cool things it lends itself to. I know I've studied trees in programming classes, even coded some simple ones up for class I think, but never actually played with one to really enjoy what it can do.
We're getting nicely settled in to our apartment by now. Last weekend we made a major push to get the downstairs done so we could have Chris and Mandy over for dinner on Monday night, and I'm really pleased with our living space. There's a lot left to do to get it "just so", but I'm eagerly looking forward to it. This weekend we are going to go shopping for some furniture we still need, and we may mount some hooks in the garage to help with organization out there. The place is a little old and funky, but that really just makes me feel more at home here. Being a town house, with an upstairs and a downstairs, it feels like a real "grown up" people space too, and I really do love that.
Upcoming home projects include:
- Going through the spices, organizing them, and making or buying something to store them in.
- Installing a rail and hooks in the garage, general garage clean up
- Actually getting started with that composting thing
- Buying the furniture we still need
- Finishing the bookcase
- Buying a bunch of firewood so we can start using the fireplace (waiting on having space for it in the garage)
- Going through the townhouse with the heat up, feeling for drafts... then doing what I can to reduce them
Obviously, 2008 is going to be a year of a lot of changes for Josh and I. It already has been. Last September when Josh got his offer from Epic, I had really mixed feelings. Work at NG was being exciting to say the least, we still had 9 month on our lease, and the idea of moving away somewhere other than the Pacific Northwest seemed a bit silly. But upon more reflection, it started to sound like a better and better idea. Really, there were only 3 things holding us to Chicago, namely our lease, my job, and our friends. Well, frankly the lease wasn't really all that money compared to the value of the work experience at Epic for Josh. Actually, even if we still owed on the lease today, we'd still be netting more here in Madison simply off the increase in Josh's salary. My job was harder to explain away, given the exciting role I had last year, but in the end I'm not sorry at all that I no longer work for a defence contracter, and we didn't even know if we'd win the contract I spent all last year working on, or if I'd just get to go back to my previous boring role... and I'm glad I didn't pass up an exciting new opportunity waiting for something that may never happen.
As for our friends, I cannot say enough how much I've enjoyed the opportunity to see the Hyde Park folks regularly, the opportunity to get to know Ed better, or my appreciation and enjoyment of the 3 friends we made Chicago. But all the same, we were feeling like our social life was a bit stunted in Chicago. My fear, upon graduation from Mudd, was that if we moved somewhere where we knew a few people but not many, we'd find ourselves only socializing with those old friends and that would get in the way of making new friends. I felt that our experience in Chicago really bore that out... worse than I expected, in fact, due to Chicago being such a huge city, and also due to the fact that after 9 months living apart, which Josh and I finally got to Chicago we didn't want to let each other out of our sight (which kind of got in the way of getting to know coworkers and classmates socially). Between our long commutes to work and school, the long travel time to visit even the closest of our Mudder friends, and the long travel time it would have taken to see coworkers or classmates socially, it felt like we had only about one day per week that we could socialize... and that one day got spent with the D&D Group unless we were traveling or had an extraordinary amount of stuff to get done at home. For all that we liked the group (and we look forward to making the trip to visit you guys at some point!), the other contributing factors kept us from having what felt like a fulfilling social life. I might have rather started my social life over including the same friends we have in Chicago, rather than starting my social life over with new friends, but that didn't really feel like an option.
So why not embark on an exciting new adventure? That's what you are supposed to do when you are young and
Here in Madison, we live less than 2 miles from work and it takes about 5 minutes to drive there. We started with 60-something other New Hires, most of whom are right around our age. We can leave for work at 8am, take a leasurely lunch together and/or socializing with coworkers, work an 8.5-hour-day, and still be home and done with dinner and clean up by 6pm, leaving ourselves an evening long enough to actually do stuff, as in lots of stuff. We're making friends with our coworkers and neighbors, and can get together with people midweek. It's, like, really cool.
Another cool thing about work is the cafeteria. It's really cheap (generally $2.50/pp--compared to $5 or $6/pp/day in groceries, with breakfasts being practically free), and it's also really good. As a result, we've hardly been cooking because we're eating half as many cooked meals at/from home, and we can eat leftovers for dinner all week without really getting all that bored, as we're getting variety for lunch. This is reducing the household chores a ton... way more than I'd really expected. We're headed into next week looking like we don't have to go to the grocery store this weekend, and probably wont need to cook at all next week unless we want to. The idea of being able to go two weeks between trips to the grocery store is a bit novel... and appealing. And being able to eat a leasurely lunch in the cafeteria without it taking away from our precious little daily time together is wonderful.
So far I'm really enjoying work too. Of course, we're in training, so who knows how similar real work will be? But I'm enjoying learning "M", and playing with the cool things it lends itself to. I know I've studied trees in programming classes, even coded some simple ones up for class I think, but never actually played with one to really enjoy what it can do.
We're getting nicely settled in to our apartment by now. Last weekend we made a major push to get the downstairs done so we could have Chris and Mandy over for dinner on Monday night, and I'm really pleased with our living space. There's a lot left to do to get it "just so", but I'm eagerly looking forward to it. This weekend we are going to go shopping for some furniture we still need, and we may mount some hooks in the garage to help with organization out there. The place is a little old and funky, but that really just makes me feel more at home here. Being a town house, with an upstairs and a downstairs, it feels like a real "grown up" people space too, and I really do love that.
Upcoming home projects include:
- Going through the spices, organizing them, and making or buying something to store them in.
- Installing a rail and hooks in the garage, general garage clean up
- Actually getting started with that composting thing
- Buying the furniture we still need
- Finishing the bookcase
- Buying a bunch of firewood so we can start using the fireplace (waiting on having space for it in the garage)
- Going through the townhouse with the heat up, feeling for drafts... then doing what I can to reduce them
