If we were having coffee this morning, I would tell you that moving has been an overwhelming (but incredibly rewarding) experience.
If you're not caught up from my personal Facebook or Instagram, my husband and I moved from Denver, Colorado to Des Moines, Iowa at the end of August. Denver's cost of living was just too high, and our dream of owning a home this year (or even in the next 5 years) was going to be near impossible unless we moved to a far suburb of Denver - defeating the purpose of moving here, moving further from our jobs, and leaving us to the mercy of Denver's already-terrible traffic. J and I had a long and tearful conversation one weekend about our future plans, and we realized that we had independently both assumed we would move back to Des Moines eventually. Long story short, we decided to move home and we've been so excited to be closer to my family and so many of our friends.
During the past 2-3 months, we've felt every emotion you could think of over this move. We left jobs we loved. We left friends we love. We left a city that's been our home for the past 2.5 years - a city we fully intended to be our home for the rest of our lives when we moved after law school. I can't tell you how many times I cried leaving my boss and my team, a group of people who I love dearly and who I have loved working alongside this past year.
At the same time, we were incredibly excited to be moving back to Des Moines. It's my favorite city in the world (well, maybe London wins out, but it's a very, very close second). Not everyone supported our move, and to say that was disappointing would be an understatement. But the people who mattered did, and I left Denver with the blessings of everyone at my firm, which felt amazing. I feel so incredibly at home here in Des Moines, and thankfully, J does as well. We have so much support here. It's cheaper to live here, and we could absolutely afford a house.
If we were having coffee this morning, I would talk incessantly about being a new home owner.
When we decided that we were for sure going to move back home to Des Moines, my family planned a trip to Des Moines to help me look for a house. J had to work, so he (very bravely) relied on the pictures we took of the homes. It took a whole weekend, but we had a great realtor and decided to put an offer on this cute little brick house that was well within our price range.
As I'm sure you can figure out, we closed on our house at the end of the August - in fact, the day before we moved! It's an older home, built in 1937, and we couldn't love it more. It needs quite a bit of work, particularly in the kitchen, but we're very grateful to have the resources to be able to update it the way it deserves.
What I've realized, however, is that the downside to owning a home is that you always have a list of projects you want to do to improve your space or make it feel more like "you." We had a solid idea of what needed work right away, but to be honest, I didn't realize how much work the kitchen needed - I thought it was a, "We'll live in it for a while and then upgrade" kind of thing, when in reality, it was more of a, "Holy moly, that cabinet doesn't have a bottom," kind of thing, haha. We just replaced the upstairs carpet this week and we just finished painting our bedroom today, and we're hoping to upgrade the kitchen right away - while we're waiting to do other improvements later. My biggest hope is that I'll be able to happily live here without constantly focusing on what's to come. I'm excited for the changes, but I don't want them to overshadow what we love about the house now.
Still, we're so excited about living here. I'm over the moon about the house's age, it's character, it's style... and it just immediately felt like home when we got here, which is a bit of a miracle.
If we were having coffee this morning, I'd tell you how tired I've been.
We signed the closing paperwork on our house last Wednesday, I found out I was accepted to the Iowa Bar on Thursday, we moved across the (middle of the) country on Friday morning, moved into our house Friday night and Saturday morning, I set up my office at my new firm on Monday, and I started work on Tuesday. I worked full-time our first week here, as well as unpacking, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. It's now the following Sunday.
Every day I came home from work, I was happy and exhausted. Like, exhausted. I managed to stay up until 9-10PM each night, but that was a miracle. I think I went to bed at 9:15PM this Friday, haha. It's obviously a physical exhaustion, but a big part of it is emotional exhaustion too. Like, SO much has happened in the past week and a half. It feels like my life has totally shifted - I'm in a new state, in a new home, at a new firm, and about to be sworn into a new bar. I'm only human, haha.
Do you own a home? What did you look for (or what are you looking for) in a home?
Do you have any tips for living in the present, even when you're excited about improvements?
How do you take care of yourself when you're feeling particular exhausted (beyond, you know, sleeping, haha)?
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