a year later...

If you had asked us last November how we thought the following year would go, whatever we said would have been dead wrong.

One year ago we were still in Philly waiting for our house to sell so we could move to Chapel Hill. Until it sold, we had to keep our house as clean as possible, not an easy task with 2 little ones, because at any moment a realtor could have wanted to show it. To the everyone's amazement, it sold in early mid-November after only 6 weeks on the market. We moved out on December 2. Then we moved in with Jo's parents, for what we thought would be a month or 2. Little did we know what all would happen in the months after that move.

In the last year we sold our house in a plunging housing market, spent months looking for jobs, spent months living with Jo's parents (because we couldn't find jobs), made many trips between Roanoke and Chapel Hill, got a job (me), lost a job (me again), had lots of good days as well as bad days, got discouraged and depressed, got encouraged and happy again, moved to Chapel Hill, and finally started settling in.

I think we've had almost all the major stressors except death and safety concerns. Thankfully none of us died (and we also didn't kill each other). And thankfully throughout this past year we were all safe. And most of the time we were together. But Jo and I have both said that we are here in Chapel Hill to stay. We want to put down roots here. We want to see our kids finish school here. We want to make Chapel Hill home.

from hill to shining hill

If you're a Matisyahu fan , you may have thought of him when you read this post's title. What I mean by 'from hill to hill' is that in Philly we lived in an area called Drexel Hill but now we live in Chapel Hill. Since we've lived here I've been able to compare the 2 hills and have found some differences.

Garbage Men
The garbage men, or 'sanitation engineers' (the PC term) are thoughtful in Chapel Hill. They always put our trash can back where it was and they always put it right side up. This might seem like a no brainer, unless you had lived in Drexel Hill. There we were lucky if our trash can made it back to the curb once it was emptied. They usually just threw the empty can in the direction of where they picked it up. Half the time I had to either get it out of the street or out of the driveway.

Also, the first week we put our recycling out, I broke down all of our cardboard and put it into one cardboard box. The guys took all the cardboard out of the box and left the box behind. At first I was puzzled, and a little upset that they left it. But then I realized they probably thought that was my 'special box' that I used for putting cardboard out and that I might want to keep this box for this purpose. This went on for several weeks until I finally took that box somewhere else because I actually wanted it to go away.

Waving (Southern Friendliness)
I grew up in the South (Georgia to be exact, the buckle of the Bible belt) but haven't lived in the South for a number of years. So I am not used to the friendliness of people. I am used to the 'cooler' more distant East Coast way of treating people, otherwise know as acting like they don't exist if you don't know them. In our lovely Chapel Hill neighborhood however, people wave at us (and we wave back) whenever we go down the street. Not only that, people actually talk to us. In Drexel Hill, that never happened; People pretty much leave each other alone unless they actually know each other. I kind of like the Chapel Hill way a little better. It makes me feel welcome.

Driving
First of all, thank God for Right on Red!! In Drexel Hill, and the Philly area in general, almost every traffic light had a "No Right Turn on Red" sign. This always frustrated me, especially when no one was coming. I often still made right turns on red just because I thought I should be able to. But in Chapel Hill (and most normal places in the world) you can turn right on red!

Also, in Philly, there is a phenomenon called "The Jersey Left" by some and "The Pittsburgh Left" by others. I guess it depends on where you are from. Basically this particular maneuver happens if you are the first car at a red light with no left turn signal. If the first car wants to turn left, it just turns left as soon as the light turns green, even though they don't have the right of way. I hate this and tried hard not to pick up this driving habit. Since it was something I tried not to do in Philly, if I was ever at the front and wanted to turn left, I would just wait. But then the person across the intersection would wait for me to turn because they expected me to do the quick left. If I didn't, some people would actually honk their horn and wave me through. Even though I didn't want to.

Finally, in Drexel Hill and the surrounding areas, people didn't know what to do with turn lanes. I have seen way too many cars halfway in the turn lane as they were trying to turn across traffic. I would actually look for these people blocking my lane, get right up behind them, stop and lay on the horn. Thankfully, in Chapel Hill, people understand what they are for. Except for the Philly and Jersey transplants!

Anyways, we love this Hill much better then the last Hill. We are glad to call Chapel Hill home.

its almost official

I now have 3 things in North Carolina:

1. a job
2. an NC driver's license
3. a car that is registered in NC
   

Soon we'll have a 4th - a place to live. I'm living here in Chapel Hill because I'm already working, but in 2 weeks, we'll all be living here as a family. Crazy stuff! The reason I say its crazy is because this has been a long time coming and there were times when we never thought we'd see the end. We've been planning this move for almost 9 months and 5 of those months have been spent living in Jo's parents basement.

If anybody's interested, here's a really brief sketch of the past 3/4 year:
In early-August of last year we visited Chapel Hill as a family then a couple of weeks later made the decision to move here. I also started looking for jobs then. In October we put our house in Drexel Hill, PA on the market and in early December it sold. Since I had no job, we moved to Roanoke, VA, not our destination, but a nice enough place to bide our time. I got really serious about the job hunt in early January. With some great encouragement from my wonderful wife, I decided in late January to pursue certification as a personal trainer. After much preparation, I was certified in early March. Then a week and a half ago, a friend offered to let us stay in his house for most of the summer AND I was hired as a personal trainer, all within like 2 days. And now, after having lived in my in-laws basement for almost 5 months, we are seeing our plans come to fruition.

In retrospect, things certainly didn't happen like we thought they would. They didn't happen according to our timetable either. But they happened just the same. What I mean is that regardless of what has happened since August of last year, we have almost achieved our goal of moving to Chapel Hill. And seeing the way things have happened, the scenario is definitely better than what I could have come up with. As cliche as it may sound, God is good and He is in control. I've learned over the last 9 months how true these things are and that I really believe them. Now its time to settle in and start yet another new phase of life.

James Bond, Greenleaf, and Hancock

First I'll get Hancock out of the way. We watched it on DVD with Jo's parents tonight. My one word review - okay. Not great, not the worst film I've ever seen, but it really didn't hold my attention too well. If you've got something more productive or more important to do, don't bother with Hancock.

Second, James Bond. Since Jo and I are living with her parents for awhile, we have free babysitting. So this past Friday we went out on a date. We actually did dinner AND a movie, something we haven't done in a long time. Dinner was Zaxby's and the movie was the new James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace. 2 thumbs up, 5 stars out of 5, etc. I thoroughly loved it and think Daniel Craig is by far the best Bond. One complaint I heard about this film was there weren't a lot of gadgets, but who cares when you've got such great action. Loved it!

Lastly, Greenleaf Vineyard Church in Chapel Hill, our new church family. We're in the process of moving to CH to help Greenleaf Vineyard Church anyway we can. But we had yet to actually meet the people there or go to one of their services, mainly because we were in Philly. But now, since we're in VA and only 3 hours away, this past weekend we drove down to CH be a part of Greenleaf's Sunday service for the first time. It was weird because there were all these people there who know us because Rodger and Angela have been telling them about us. But we don't know them, at least we didn't until we met them. They still probably know more about us than we do about them. Jo and I were both a little nervous about meeting all these new folks that have been hearing about us for a few months. But meeting them made things better because they are an awesome group. Now we absoultely can't wait to move to CH and be a regular part of that body.

PHL to ROA

In a nutshell, we moved. We're not in Chapel Hill yet, but are several large steps closer to being there.

Here is a brief synopsis of the past few days. On Wednesday some great friends helped me move us out of our house. Then Thursday we had the settlement on our house then drove from Philly to Roanoke, VA. Yesterday we unloaded the truck. Today, we're relaxing.

Now here are some details:
Our house sold in an extremely sluggish housing market. It only took 45 days to sell, and considering the market, that's amazing. At the settelment on Thursday, we ended up making a little money on our house. And by 'a little', I really mean a little. I was handed a check for $6.14. Yes, you read that correctly. We'll end up getting some money back from escrow, which will be about $300, but the profit was only $6.14. The fantastic thing is that we didn't lose any money.

After the settlement on Thursday, we left Philly to come to Roanoke. As soon as we hit the expressway, I realized that the rental truck was painfully slow. I called Jo and said, "This is going to be a long trip." On the whole way down, it never got above 61 or 62 MPH (going downhill) and usually stayed at about 55 MPH, and that was with the pedal floored. We left Philly around 1:40 pm and arrived here at 11pm. So a 6.5 - 7 hour drive took 9 1/4 hours. Hurt me! I was getting passed by everyone, and I mean everyone because the speed limit the whole way was either 65 or 70. So I was 'that driver' - the one going so painfully slow that other drivers zip by like they're standing still.

Since we're staying here in Roanoke with Jo's parents until I can find a job and we can find a place to live in Chapel Hill, we brought all of our stuff here to store. Unloading the truck yesterday was so much easier than loading it. They have a huge garage and a huge walk in basement, so the unloading was rather painless. No stairs to climb or descend. No moving stuff out of attics or up basement stairs. Just right into the garage or right into the walk-in basement.

Last night, after the truck was unloaded, I was going to move the truck from the driveway to the street and it wouldn't stay cranked. I tried several times, but it would not keep running. I did manage to get it down to the street and kind of park it before it died. It didn't need to be back until this morning, so I didn't worry about it too much. I just planned to get up this morning and try to crank it again. And this morning, it wouldn't crank at all. So I called Budget and to explain the situation (they were very helpful). About 2 hours or so later, a mechanic came out to try to fix it. He was a real country boy and it took my ears a minute to get used to his drawl (I'm from the South, but my ears are used to hearing East Coast speak). Long story short, he couldn't get it to run either. He told me, in his mountain man/ mouth full of chewing tobacco speak - "You ain't gotta worry 'bout this truck no more." And about an hour after he left, a tow truck came and got it.

On the trip down I had these terrifying visions of a breakdown or a crash where all of our stuff would either have to be unloaded from a broke down truck onto another, or strewn all over the interstate because of an accident. But neither of those happened. How awesome though that the truck didn't break down on the drive from Philly! And as a bonus, I didn't even have to return the truck, a sweet deal if I ever heard of one.

Now we're just relaxing, trying to rest up and enjoy a few days break. I don't have a job right now and that's okay. Being here in VA will be like an extended holiday. So we're here, about 4 big steps closer to being in Chapel Hill. The great thing is that CH is only 3 hours away from Roanoke, which makes job hunting and apartment/ house hunting much easier.

change of scenery

If you don't understand the significance of the postcard, its this: we're moving to Chapel Hill, NC. So I thought a little pre-greeting would be in order. In short, our house is selling (we close on it Dec 4) and then we're off! I don't have a job yet, but its possible I could keep my AWM job and work remotely. So we'll see what happens.

Read Jo's blog for more details.