Catching up, Part I
Thursday, October 23, AD 2008 - 1:26 PM CDT - Journal - (
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Well it has certainly been a while since I've had a chance to write here. I've really missed this weblog, but the past year has been just about the busiest year I've ever had.
I guess it all started after Todd was born when, as I mentioned in my previous post, Rose and I started to realize that our plans of moving to San Antonio in five to ten years were a little off. Instead, we felt called to move right away. Once that decision had been made, the whirlwind began.
Looking back on it now, it really is amazing how much God's grace was at work. The first step was for me to find a new job. As the sole wage earner for our family, this was of course of the utmost importance. One day I stumbled upon a "programmer wanted" ad for ICx Technologies. It seemed that their Transportation division was opening a software development office in San Antonio. When I read about the company it sounded like a great opportunity and I was very enthusiastic about the chance. Within a month or so I found myself flying to San Antonio for the day to have a job interview with the two guys I'd be working for. I was offered the job that day and a formal offer letter came shortly thereafter.
And the job was just what I was looking for – something where I could do less system maintenance, repair, and monitoring than I was doing in my Rockford job and instead take on a role where my primary duties were in software development. So I'm now a software developer with ICx Transportation Group. This group does all sorts of transportation-related projects – digital highway signage, reversible lane systems, and all sorts of other things I'm still just learning about. I'm in the software and systems division where we work primarily on traffic-related websites. It is a ton of fun and I love my job.
The best part? I get to work from home most days. This setup won't last forever, for as our division grows I'll have to be at the office helping train and supervise our junior programmers, but while it lasts it is an absolute blessing. It is so great to be able to simply roll out of bed in the morning, go to my home office and do some work, and then get up with Rose and Todd when they awake and join them for breakfast before returning to work. I have lunch with my family every day. If Rose needs help with a dirty diaper, I'm right upstairs. When Todd needs to see his daddy and play for a few minutes, I'm there. And when I'm working, I'm "in the zone" so-to-speak at my own desk with my home PC playing music via Zune or a DVD or TV show via Windows Media Center while I work on my company laptop. It's great!
But I digress a bit. I responded to the want ad I saw on Saturday, September 29, 2007 and started communicating with Kent (the software architect I now work with in San Antonio) on October 1 – one day before my birthday. My offer letter was dated November 6 and I accepted the offer on November 7. See what I mean about a whirlwind? But keep in mind that at the same time all that was happening, several other things were also going on:
- We had to work on selling our house in Rockford. We feared that would be tough, since the housing market in Rockford is not at all great. It ended up that one of my step-brothers was looking to buy a house and so we were able to come to a mutually beneficial deal with him. Once again – God's grace in action!
- Just about every night after I got home from work was spent packing and/or throwing out old junk.
- We were also working on getting my mother down to San Antonio with us. She desperately wanted to come; she's said time and time again that it would have broken her heart to have us so far away from her (1200 miles). But her move was complicated – to put things mildly – by her medical situation. She is on permanent, total disability from a 2001 work injury. You would not believe the hassles that are involved in moving from one state to another when your medical care comes from worker's compensation. This topic could be another entire weblog entry, but I'm not sure my blood pressure could take writing it.
- And of course, we were also trying to raise an infant boy through all of this.
So where did I leave off – acceptance of new job offer on Wednesday, November 7, 2007, right? Well that was also the day I put in my two weeks' notice at my Rockford job. My last day at that job was then Wednesday, November 21 – the day before Thanksgiving. What an interesting Thanksgiving that was. We probably could have eaten turkey sitting on boxes as they were all over the house at that point.
It was Tuesday, November 27 then that the moving truck arrived at our house. It was a huge semi that took up the width of our driveway, the neighbors' driveway, our front yard, and a bit of the other neighbor's yard. The truck driver labeled and numbered every box that went into his truck. Four guys loaded, while a fifth guy, the truck driver's brother, disassembled our bed, Todd's crib, and other furniture that required disassembly for travel. When the house was empty, the truck went to the house where my mother had been living and loaded up all of her belongings. Finally, the truck driver drove my mom's car right onto the back of the truck. He packed up and told us he'd see us on Saturday in San Antonio. We spent the night at my father's house that night and woke bright and early on Wednesday, November 28 to drive to O'Hare International in Chicago.
Just moments after saying good-bye to Rose, Todd, and my mother – I could still see them in the security line – I met up with Rose's brother Thomas who had just flown up to Chicago from San Antonio. He and I drove back to Rockford together where we got my car and my cat. I said a final good-bye to the house I grew up and spent nearly 30 years in. Then after a quick lunch at one of my favorite Rockford eateries, we hit the road, Thomas driving Rose's car and me driving my Toyota Yaris.
The next evening, Thursday, November 29, 2007 – my wife's birthday – we arrived in San Antonio. So while Rose and Todd and my mother got there one day prior, I guess you could say the entire family officially moved on my wife's birthday. Yet again, it was God's grace at work.
We lived with Rose's parents for a while. We had to wait for the sale of our Rockford house to close, and then of course we had to find a new house in San Antonio. I knew that living in someone else's house for two to three months was going to be the hardest part of the entire move for me. Don't get me wrong – I love my in-laws dearly, and they welcomed us with open arms. But it just wasn't my house. And I've been a "home body" (some might say borderline agoraphobic) my entire life. The situation would have been the same if we were staying with my dad, or with any other relative or friend. I can't begin to describe how hard it was for me to not be in a place all my own for what ended up being just over three months.
Adding to my misery was the fact that the movers brought all of our stuff to the storage facility we had rented in San Antonio, unloaded it off the truck, and packed it all in. For three months, most of my earthly possessions were locked away in what amounted to two indoor garages. Every time we would drive by that place it would nearly bring me to tears. I know I shouldn't be attached to earthly possessions, and we did have a few important items with us at my in-laws' house, such as our bed and my computer. But my office desk, our bikes, my action figures and office knick-knacks, our kitchen table, our bedroom furniture... all of these things were packed as tightly as possible into two indoor U-Store-It storage compartments. It was really tough to live for three months without all the stuff that made a place home.
And of course while all this was going on I/we was/were also trying to:
- Get settled into my new job
- Do our Christmas shopping
- Raise a toddler
So once we got past the holidays we found a house we liked and bought it, but we weren't able to move in for an extra month because the Air Force wasn't quite ready to ship the previous owners' off to their new assignment just yet. But in early March we finally moved in and all of my stuff finally came out of storage. Since this entry is now on its third page, I'll have to write about the house and why we love it at a later time. But suffice it to say March until just recently was all about unpacking, settling in, and making the new house our home. I have visited my local Home Depot many a time during that time.
I've mentioned it twice already but it really can't be stated enough that through all of this, we also raised a toddler baby boy. As much as I dearly love Todd and as much as I dearly love spending time with him, this has also been a big adjustment for me. Rose and I used to spend some of our evenings reading; now, Todd would like you to read to him. We used to spend some of our evenings playing a board game; now, Todd would throw the pieces all over the floor and/or eat them. I used to sneak off and write emails to friends, or write in this weblog; now I have a little boy who needs me to be available to him, especially after being busy all day with work. I hope that this doesn't sound like I'm complaining because I most certainly am not. But Todd has definitely made my life much different, and for a guy like me who loves and lives by his daily routines, that has been a big adjustment, no doubt about it.
But things are finally settling down and getting to normal. I don't say "back" to normal because it's a whole new normal. The bottom line is that I just love it here in San Antonio. I absolutely love it.
I'll have more "catching up" entries coming soon – and by coming soon, I hopefully do not mean in ten months.
Friday, January 11, AD 2008