A (Sort Of) Triumphant Return(ish)

Well, long time no see Life and Times of Ica.

I remember when I was first blogging, I'd find other blogs that hadn't been updated in years, and the last entry would be just a normal one, and I'd wonder what happened that made the writer just stop.  And now . . . here I am 2+ years since I posted and the answer is that LIFE happens.  Honestly, it hasn't been anything crazy exciting, just life.  Some bad, some good, some amazing, some awful.  Way way way too much to put into just one blog post.  Probably way way way too much to blog about, period, but I think I'm going to try.  I actually do miss this little space, and I started it back when what I was documenting was 90% misery.  There are definitely some good times on here too, but I think there should be more of them now that I'm, y'know, happy. 

So briefly . . .

The good/amazing:
--we are still in WA and we still love it
--I'm still working for MHC and loving working from home; Jerbs works in medical billing too now and she loves her job
--we still have Max and Hollie and Irene and Ilya, and they're all healthy and happy
--we have a new cat named Nikolai, and 2 rats named Juniper and Delilah
--I joined a gym that I really really love
--I'm subbing in multiple handbell choirs
--I actually have a love life!  (or . . . really a sex life, I guess, and I love it)
--I think I've finally gotten to the very root of my mental health issues and I'm finally on a med regimen that is WORKING
--over the past couple of years Jerbs and I have seen Game Grumps Live, NSP live, the Mountain Goats, Alton Brown, Neil Gaiman, TSO, Maroon 5 . . . and we're seeing the Mountain Goats and Morrissey in September
--the Goldwomen bought a HOUSE  earlier this year! (I have yet to visit them and see it, but I'm going to someday!)
--the Flicks had another baby and she's AMAZING, and their first baby is now a toddler who is also AMAZING . . . I legit love those kids and their parents; they also bought a new house since I last blogged and it's super cute
--Jerbs' cousin had a baby and he's 2 now, and he's adorable, and hilariously fearless
--Austy is TEN and started 5th grade the other day, and I'm blown away both by the little person he's become and by how it seems like just yesterday that he was a tiny baby; he's smart and funny and an amazing baseball player and I just love him
-Austy is also a BIG BROTHER now!  my sister had a baby girl in January, her name is Logan, her birthday is close to mine and Jillian's, and she's literally the cutest baby I've ever seen
--related--my sister is married!  she met this awesome guy in 2017, they fell in love, got engaged at a Dbacks game, had a baby, and had a mini wedding in April . . . their real big wedding is next April (on their 1st anniversary) and I'm so excited!  I'm so genuinely, over the moon happy for my sister
--my new brother in law has 5 kids from a previous marriage, so I have 4 step nephews and a step niece . . . I've mt two of the nephews and they're awesome, and my step niece is just adorable and I love her

The bad/awful:
--I went through a pretty awful bout mental health wise for awhile
--Jerbs' mom passed away last year
--around the same time, a friend/sorority sister from college passed away while giving childbirth
--literally everything about the Trump administration . . . thank God next year is an election year, hopefully it'll be the end of this utter bullshit nightmare

I think that's about it.  Life is pretty good at the moment, minus constantly missing Jane.  Hopefully sometime soon I can write more in detail.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this lovely picture of our neck of the woods--Capitol Lake and the capitol building in Oly.

Twenty Eight Days

Today the countdown on my phone says 28 days until we move.  That's only 4 weeks and holy shit, that's insane.

I'm starting to hit my panic mode.  I don't know why exactly but I'm just starting to stress big time about all of this.  I feel like not enough's done, like I'm not ready, like I'm not really engaging and this is all just kind of happening too fast.  Which is stupid, because I've known this was coming for a really, really long time.  But seriously, I feel like we got back from our trip, and at that point we had 3 months until the move and that was plenty of time, and then I blinked and now it's August and we're down to 4 weeks to get everything ready to go.  It's unreal.

I'm telling myself that it'll be OK.  Everything's going to work out however it's supposed to and in the meantime all I can do is keep packing and preparing as much as I can.

But I'll be very glad when all this is over and we're moved and settled.

Moving Related Conversations

Moving to the PNW seems to be the most talked about thing between Jerbs and me right now.

We talked about the possibility of leaving Flagstaff earlier than September.  The point of staying until then was to reduce the amount I'd owe MHC for my coding class when I quit, and now that I'm not quitting, I don't have to worry about that.  We talked about leaving at the end of June, which is when our lease is actually up and would make the most sense.  But our trip to WA is at the end of May, and I feel like getting back and only having 30 days before we leave would just be a little too much stress.  Plus it wouldn't be great financially, we need more time to save up.  Then we talked about leaving at the end of July, and we had pretty much agreed that we were going to do that.  Then Jerbs remembered that she's going to ComicCon at the end of July so we nixed that idea.  I didn't want to have to do all the cleaning and packing mostly alone, and the turn around time of her getting back and us leaving like 3 days later felt like it would be too stressful.  So the plan is still to leave at the end of August/beginning of September.  I'm actually glad for that, just because it gives us plenty of time to save and get our ducks in a row, and I like the idea of leaving at the end of summer.  I'm just weird like that.

I've also been banned, mostly by myself but also by Jerbs, from looking at apartments online for the month of March.  I've been getting a little . . . carried away looking at apartments, trying to find somewhere we can live, and having massive anxiety attacks about not being able to find a nice place etc. etc. etc.  It's getting to a bad point so I'm forcing myself to just stop for a month and take a step back from it.  Jerbs has (rightfully) pointed out that the move is still far enough away that looking at apartment right now is pretty pointless, and that I'm not going to pick anywhere until I see places when we go to WA in May anyway.  So that's that.  (Full disclosure, I've already failed at my ban twice since I imposed it--yesterday and the day before.  I've been good today, though!).

Plane Tickets!!

Today I bought plane tickets to SEATTLE!!!

Jerbs and I are officially going there in May to explore and apartment hunt and I am so freaking excited I can't stand it!!

We've been kicking around a visit for a couple months now.  We knew we needed to go, obviously, because we don't want to move somewhere we've actually never been, and I'm absolutely not willing to move into an apartment without seeing it first, but we'd had trouble choosing dates.  Plus every time I'd find decently priced plane tickets I'd end up chickening out and not buying them.

I was getting frustrated with myself but I think it was all for the best, because today, just for the heck of it, I looked for plane tickets, and found some that were only around $85 each, roundtrip from Las Vegas to Seattle (this particular airline is launching its service between those cities in March, so if I hadn't waited I'd have never known about the cheap tickets).  So I texted Jerbs to make sure the dates we'd pretty much decided on would really work, and I booked the flights!  We fly out on May 24th and fly back on May 29th!  I'm still in shock that I finally bit the bullet but oh my God I'm excited!!

In 129 days I'll be on a plane to Seattle.  It feels so freaking amazing to finally be moving forward with this!  I'm just . . . overwhelmed.  And hoping that the next 4 months don't drag too terribly much.

Moving: The Plan

We're starting to talk about the moving to Washington thing seriously now, and we've hashed out a little bit of a plan.

At some point in the near-ish future we're going to visit WA to explore and look at apartments.  This should be sometime in the early summer, like April or May.

Our lease is up at the end of June, but we're going to stay in Flagstaff until September.  This mostly has to do with my job: when MHC paid for my coding class, I signed a contract that's basically tiered as far as how much I'll have to repay if I leave the company.  If I had stayed at MHC 6 months or less after I enrolled, I'd have to pay back the full cost of the course.  If I stayed 6 months to a year, I'd pay back 75%.  At the year mark I have to pay back half, at a year and half I have to pay back a quarter, and if I stay 2 years I don't have to pay back anything.

I enrolled in February of 2015, so August of 2016 puts me at the 1.5 year mark.  So I want to stay thru that, because paying back a quarter of the class won't bee too terrible--I think around $400?  I can just kind of figure that into the moving budget.

We also decided that to save money for the move, Jerbs is going to pay the rent on our apartment herself for the next few months, and I'm going to put my half of the rent into savings every month.  It sounds (and feels, to be honest) a little unfair, but we really think it's going to be the best way to get the money together.  (As of this second, I don't know exactly how much it'll cost to do this).

I also realized that, since Jerbs doesn't drive, I'm going to have to rent a UHaul and a trailer thing to haul my car on.  This, honestly, is the worst thing I've realized so far, because the thought of driving a giant moving truck towing my SUV 1,300 miles sounds truly fucking terrible.  I like the idea of not putting those miles on my car but at the same time . . . gah.  I'm kind of hoping I can convince someone to drive my car up with me and then I'll fly them home.  So we'll see.