Too Much & Not Enough!

So much has happened that it's hard to believe it's all gone on while I've largely been sitting in my dining room in NY working the phone and computers.  My dad and I had a discussion about how I couldn't just buy a house I'd never been in before and that I needed to go to South Dakota in person and really get down to looking at places.  Well, that's the new way of things, because the big news is, we've had an offer accepted on a house!

Our lovely new home

 We are presently putting in the finishing paperwork and getting our inspection done (happening today!), but it's looking pretty darned good that we're going to own a sweet little yellow house in a nice neighborhood in Pierre--just a few short blocks from the Governor's mansion, even!  

This is a video tour our realtor made for us of the house--one of four houses we 'toured' this way.  We had put in an offer on an old Victorian style fixer upper early last week, but the issues in the house made us leery, and ultimately we rescinded our offer on that place and decided on this sweet place instead.  Leah and I seem to be moving to progressively smaller homes--our place in Virginia was 2400 square feet, our place in NY is 1800 square feet, and our new place is 1400 square feet.  But I think the layout of this home is really excellent and compliments our lifestyle well and I might be able to get a good night's sleep if we lock the cats up every night!!!  We have a few improvements to make on the place--most notably, Greg and I don't want to share a shower/bathroom with Leah, so we'll be adding an extra full bath.  But these things don't have to be done immediately and I'm just so excited we won't be homeless.

Of course, knowing that means a new set of issues to sort out.  But we now have a place to tell our movers to take our gear to, and we know which items we can take and what we think will fit well with the decor of our new home.  

Greg also did an exceptional job of finding places for us to stay along the way that would allow us to bring all four of our cats in from the cars.  We've got lovely little AirBnB's plotted along the way and one woman even waived her $30/pet fee and is allowing us to stay for only an extra $30 instead of an extra $120.  I don't know what the cats will make of this entire situation, but I guess we'll find out!  Additionally one of my dear friends from college has offered us his place as a pit stop along the way to freshen up and say hello--as I haven't seen him in nearly 10 years, I'm excited to be able to do so now that we're all vaccinated and feeling a tiny bit safer!  My tag line is becoming "Four cats, three humans, two cars, one epic road trip."

Downsizing also means sorting and getting rid of things and our moving sale pile is growing substantially!  I thought I got rid of everything when we left Virginia, but either I didn't get rid of as much as I thought I did, or Greg had more than he thought he did, or Leah has shopped more than we thought she did!  (OK, I confess--my quarantine hobbies of baking and gardening did NOT help with the load!).  Our moving sale will be on Saturday, May 8th.  Greg's mom has graciously agreed to come help organize everything for it, and it will be a great time to come and say goodbye to us if you are so inclined!  The movers arrive May 16th and we roll out on May 17th, arriving in Pierre on May 19th and closing on the house May 20th.  Our gear arrives on May 21st, and I start work on May 24th.  How's that for a timeline?!

Moving sale pile o' stuff

My friend Mary has been keeping everyone at the library apprised of our progress and whenever I ask her to run a secret mission or check something out or give me a report on things, she's been so full of information.  One thing I really wanted was a picture of my cubicle as I've been watching such videos as "35 Cheap Ways to Decorate your Cubicle for Maximum Productivity!" She sent me some great pictures and one of the view.  I'll get to look out at the state capitol building every day, which I think is pretty neat.

The view from my cube with the Capitol in the distance

And we can't forget that we are still getting married in October and still have a wedding to plan!  Leah and I went and met with the florist two weeks ago, and tomorrow I'm meeting with the new wedding coordinator at the reception site.  Owing to Covid restrictions, the wedding has been downsized considerably, and so we've made big changes along the way that require coordination, and as such have hired a wedding coordinator for the day of, separate from the resort's event coordinator.

Meanwhile little tidbits of SD are popping up unexpectedly... My neighbor phoned yesterday to tell me about the latest episode of American Experience, which was about author L Frank Baum.  He wrote The Wizard of Oz (the school production of which Leah has been cast as the lead), and lived in Central New York, where they still have a festival yearly (or at least did pre-Covid) in honor of the books.  Well, it turns out he also moved to the Dakotas, where he started a newspaper.  I don't think I'll rename the blog "The New Baums" though. ;-)  You can check it out at https://www.pbs.org/video/american-oz-cvqd3p/ if you want to watch the program yourself.

So saying, I'm still so anxious to get out there and get going.  I know it will be painful to actually leave, and will come with no shortage of tears, as leaving behind my family and friends on the East Coast is not something I am looking forward to.  Thankfully unlike the pioneers of old, we have it much easier for keeping in touch.  And I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to make more friends in SD and be more social as HOPEFULLY the pandemic wanes.  

That's all for now!  Keep checking back for updates.  We love your comments here and on Facebook.

Moving Out and Fitting In

This weekend we started getting serious and getting organized for moving.  We finalized squaring away our finances to pay for our future party pad, as well as working out how we were going to pay to physically move three humans and four feisty felines halfway across the country.  The timing is also going to be challenging, as Greg doesn't finish school till May 15, and I start work May 24.

We've decided to have a moving sale in early May, as well as starting to clear out things to go to charity that we don't think people will buy (people don't tend to buy adult clothing at yard sales in my experience).  

To that end, tonight Gregory and I went through our shirt drawers.  Each partner was allowed to vote to toss a shirt or keep it, and it was based on how it looks on the person, what condition it was in, and our personal sense of style, as well as how we feel we might fit in while we're there.  (For instance, while I'm not getting rid of them or hiding my liberalness, I maybe don't always need to poke the bear with my extensive collection of political tee shirts, so the rattiest ones went adios!).  Our pile was pretty impressive (I can now shut my drawers!),  and we did the Marie Kondo method of honoring the items and thanking them for their service in our lives, which made me feel a bit better about tossing so many things that a month ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about.

This led to a conversation about how my experience in the Pierre WalMart indicates that there does not seem to be a reusable bag/paper only policy.  We are running low on plastic bags here and were trying to decide how to bag up these shirts.  So I told Greg that when we move, we'll have all the plastic bags we can possibly handle.  He said, "Well, I think I'll still want to use my reusable bags."  To which I replied, "Greg!  Do you want them to think we're a bunch of hippies!?"  Apparently yes.  Yes he does.

So I said, "Ok, but can you at least do it wearing a cowboy hat?"  And he said he would if I got him a cowboy hat.  So look out, Pierre, because this tough customer is going to be strolling through a grocery store near you sometime soon.

Then he decided I should try out this look...  So being the excellent sport I am, I did.  

George is dubious.

Of course, this is all very stereotypical, both of South Dakota and of the East Coast.  I find myself wondering a lot about what it will really be like to live there and if we'll fit in.  I liked all the people I met there at first blush, so I'm hopeful that we'll find our squad eventually.

The New Wilders

Almanzo Wilder was born and raised near Malone NY, 75 miles from where I sit today. In 1879, he moved with his brother and sister to what was then called the Dakota Territories and took up residence in what is today De Smet SD. It was there that he met one Laura Ingalls (ten years his junior), and in August 1885 (just two days shy of 90 years before I entered planet Earth), the two were married. For her part, Laura moved to De Smet in 1880 with her family, who left Wisconsin in 1869 and moved through Minnesota, Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas before eventually landing in South Dakota. Both families were looking for good places to raise crops and families in the Dakotas.

In 2021, I received an email from a friend, Mary, in South Dakota, telling me of a couple of jobs I might be interested in, in the same office where she worked. I had left my previous job in December, and had been foundering a bit, applying willy nilly to jobs around the country without a great deal of success beyond the initial interviews. But one of these jobs Mary sent me, well… It is impossible to state how much I wanted this job. It was a job I’d been looking for since earning my degree in the field, and now I finally had enough experience under my belt to at least feel I had a shot at it. I applied, even though I had absolutely no intention of moving to South Dakota.

And then a funny thing happened. I got a call for an interview. I did a Zoom meeting with the hiring team and was told they’d ‘be in touch’. Well, been there, done that. I didn’t expect I’d hear much. Until they called and asked me if I’d come to South Dakota for an in person interview, at their expense. I agreed. I mean, I’d never been to South Dakota before. It’d be state 36 checked off the list if nothing else. We got the travel arrangements set up, and I was set to go. Arrival at 9PM Thursday, departure at 6AM Saturday. Quick in and out. If I hated it, I didn’t have to stay.

By now, Mary and I were plotting and cackling about how far this had come and the fact that after being Facebook friends for 10 years, we were actually going to meet in person. This seemed like an elaborate plan to get to meet for free, but sometimes, the best plans go that way.

I got to Pierre, got through the interview process, ran around with Mary, and got home. To be honest, when I was heading home, I was in absolute mental anguish about what to do. I was exhausted, which wasn’t helping clear thinking. But could I REALLY leave my family and friends to move halfway across the country, start somewhere new, and partake in a new culture and new way of living? Could I, the very definition of East Coast liberal elite, make my way in deep red conservative territory?

Maybe it wouldn’t happen. Maybe I’d blown the interview. Maybe they didn’t like me.

But they did.

And five days later, I got the call. Please come to Pierre and work for us.

And what I discovered is, I liked them. And I wanted that job. And I wanted that lifestyle. Sensible. Down to earth. Convenient yet quiet.

But I’m not an island anymore. I have a daughter who has opinions and has a right to having a say in matters. I have a fiance who would be giving up as much as I would be. I gave them travel brochures, showed them pictures, we looked at real estate websites. We took a virtual tour of the school.

We had a family meeting, took a vote. By a vote of 3-0, we agreed. We want the adventure. We want to carve out our own identity as a family, away from anyone who knows our story. We want to create our story, together, one wild day at a time. Are we the new Wilders? I think so. I hope we have their resilience and find happiness where we land.

And so it begins… I’ll share it here.