It's almost 2018 (really!) and the Eff Family has been uprooted. After 17 years of living in NC (13 in the same house), we packed up, donated, or sold all our stuff and moved to the midwest, three states away.
The main reason for the move was that I left my job of seventeen years. I moved to a new area in my field, and was able to get a job that was much less stressful. I had gotten to the point where I dreaded going to work everyday. I'd been looking since my maternity leave, so I was thrilled to be able to find an interesting job in a location we were happy to try out.
We were never good southerners. For one thing, we hate heat. The mild winters were OK but the summers were blazing humid hell. Then, there were the bugs. For all I know, there may be just as many hideous creepy-crawlies in our new state. But I can tell you one thing: since I am no longer living beneath a canopy of oak forest, not nearly as many will be marching into my house or lurking right outside my front door. Woohoo, less bugs!
Leaving was a happy-sad thing for Isadora. We had already moved schools this year from a magnet to the neighborhood elementary so she'd only been there for a month. But she's such a sociable kid, she'd already made friends and gotten to like the teacher. So she was sad about leaving the new teacher and her new friends. But she was over the moon about not having to catch the bus at 6:40 am in the dark. Now, we can walk her to school; it's only a couple blocks away and it starts at 9! NINE!
Rory doesn't seem to be phased by the move. He had fun "helping" pack all the boxes, then unpack them (there are still a few to be unpacked). He and Isa both are fascinated by the stairs in our new rental home. He turned one at the end of September and had a little family party with his grandpa, stepgrandma, and our family friend Steve. At that point he was standing up a lot but not walking. By the time we moved into our townhouse, he was starting to really walk, and he quickly learned climbing too. All the way up the stairs!
It took a lot of stress, planning, uncertainty, and work, but we love our new city so far and all the other "new" things that go along with it. We already know two families from WV nearby, and Mr. Eff's cousin moved about an hour away too, so we didn't totally move into a strange area.
The grandparents are only 3 hours away instead of 5 or 6! We took advantage of that and went to see them and a bunch of other family for Thanksgiving.
We're hoping to get a tree put up this weekend, and we are planning Isa's 7th birthday at the same time we're planning for the holidays. Isa and I took skating lessons before we left Durham and we are going to continue those in the new year. We are also going to our first college hockey game soon, a Chinese Lantern Festival, and a few other holiday events we've found.
It was a tough move and a lot happened in a short period of time, but it was all worth it!
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