moving

i am never moving again. amber's mom and dad may not be too excited about the news, but i think it's in my best interest. :)
long story short, i have not taken the traditional path to finish college. i began nearly 8 years ago with no idea what i was doing or what i wanted to be. in those 8 years there have been many, many detours, obstacles, and a couple breaks along the way. so, while i have been attending school for what seems like forever, i still find myself forever away from finishing. and with my weird work schedule, i can only manage to go to school part-time at the moment. this is a problem.

i'm no longer on my own. i now have a pair of beautiful women in my life who deserve the world. i can't give that to them right now. i need to get graduated and get a grown-up job. to do this, full-time work and part-time school need to switch places, but this would leave us in a financial bind. so we weighed our options. one option that presented itself was moving in with amber's parents who live just 10 minutes away. we definitely had our reservations.

but it definitely made the most sense. so we talked with amber's parents and they welcomed us with open arms, as we knew our loving parents would (but i fear they have no idea what they're getting into - claire is going to ruin their peaceful retirement years. :) ) so the fun began.

we gave our month notice to our landlords and tried to make it a nice and slow, stressless move, taking the occasional box over in our free time. but that month flew by much quicker than expected, and we found ourselves with far too much to do with not enough time to do it. but thanks to friends and family, we got it done with a few days to get some mad cleaning in. i like to think amber and i are pretty clean people in general, but it's scary to see how much you miss and don't notice over the years. i just hope we get SOME of our deposit back. :)

so our game plan was to get everything from our old apartment into the new place, throw it all in the corner, and organize it once we were done cleaning the old place. i don't know if that was the most logical method, but i find myself loving it. it's like Christmas to me. yeah, opening presents is fun and all, but one of my favorite parts is figuring out where everything goes. i'm kind of an ocd nerd that way. but as much fun as it is, it's a lot of work, and we still have a lot to do.

a part of me feels like a failure. 30 years old and living in my in-laws basement - every man's dream. but this seems like the wisest choice at the moment. and it'll only be for a few years - amber's parents are going on a mission, so we'll be house-sitting for them and i should be done with school by the time they get back. and it really is a nice set-up. a private entrance, two bedrooms, a nice big front room, a ping-pong/pool table, and a way nice whirlpool tub. :) plus amber's parents are right upstairs, which means we can play games with mom, we get family sunday dinners, and we get the occasional babysitter (which i worry we'll abuse too much - sorry mom. :) ) we will definitely miss our first place together as a family, but we are excited for this new phase of our life. wish us luck.